A Memoir on the Battle to Bring the Latin Mass to the Military

David Sonnier, a 1981 West Point graduate, loved the Army and worked to be a model soldier. A bend in his career path brought him into contact for the first time with the traditional Mass. His life, with that of his family, was changed forever—something quite a few Catholics can relate to!

Naturally, he wanted to share this great good with fellow soldiers, many of whom, as he discovered, were already longing for something more reverent and traditional than they were getting in their chapels.

Sonnier began respectfully petitioning for a traditional Latin Mass to be offered on the bases where he served, in accordance with the policy of John Paul II's letter Ecclesia Dei. He watched in disbelief as chaplains at every level and several bishops, over the course of six years, made every effort to thwart his efforts, stopping at nothing and stooping to any ruse.

In his gripping memoir Rites and Wrongs: One Man's Struggle for the Latin Mass in the U.S. Army, just released by Os Justi Press, Lt. Col. Sonnier relates—documentary evidence in hand—the tangled web of lies, backstabbing, slander, double-crossing, bureaucratic manipulation, letters intercepted and undelivered, veiled threats, and secret meetings, all to ensure that no Latin Mass would ever be celebrated on a military installation, even when willing priests were available. 

The 97-percent-Christian chaplaincy at the time allowed chapels to be used for Protestant praise & worship services and even Wiccan pagan ceremonies (!), but the TLM was subjected to a perpetual ban. When an exasperated Sonnier finally took his story to the press, it was taken up in major newspapers and eventually reached the floor of Congress in Washington, DC.

A true story from a dark period (those who do not know how bad things were before Summorum Pontificum can use this as a crash course), Sonnier's first-person account ranges through the world of the Colombian Army, Special Operations, Fort Bragg, NATO, and the Vatican. A cast of colorful characters enters the drama: Michael Davies, Bishop Timlin, Msgr. Calkins, Msgr. Perl, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, and clergy from the Institute of Christ the King and the Society of St. Pius X, together with a whole roomful of multi-star generals and their entourages—plus authoritarian chaplains who launch into spittle-flecked nutties at the slightest mention of Latin, chant, or anything reminiscent of Catholicism before the 1960s. also play a role.

Though active or retired servicemembers and lovers of military history will especially appreciate this memoir, Rites and Wrongs is a captivating read for any Catholic who relishes a story full of life-changing realizations, backroom intrigues, surprising reversals, and hard-earned wisdom. Lt. Col. Sonnier's candor and courage shine through these pages, full of valuable lessons for life, faith, and freedom.

For a brief video introduction to the book:

To look inside, see the endorsements, or order a copy in paperback, hardcover, or ebook, visit this page.

Rites and Wrongs is also available from any Amazon site around the world (e.g., in the USA here).

A Documentary on the 1998 Ecclesia Dei Roman Pilgrimage

In October of 1998, for the tenth anniversary of Pope St John Paul II’s motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, a great pilgrimage to Rome was organized by the Fraternity of St Peter, which also celebrated its tenth anniversary that year, in cooperation with several other groups, lay, religious, and clerical, dedicated to the celebration of the traditional Roman Rite. Just today, Peter has posted to his YouTube channel this documentary about it, which has hitherto been available only to those who managed to keep their old VHS players functioning.

Cardinal Ratzinger features very prominently here, since he spoke at one of the conferences held during the pilgrimage, and we can see clearly how Summorum Pontificum was the fruit of his long meditation on the problem of continuity and rupture (not just liturgical continuity and rupture), and what they mean for the life of the Church. He contends that the essential problem in finding a way for the traditional rite to continue to exist in the Church lies in the education of the bishops, and it is very heartening to see that his prediction that it would be resolved in the better education of a new generation of bishops has largely come true.

Among the other notable speakers are Fr Joseph Bisig, the founder of the FSSP, and his successor Fr Arnaud Devillers, who I believe was at the time superior of their American district; the late Michael Davies, one of the great defenders of the traditional liturgy in the mad early post-Conciliar years; His Eminence Alphonse Cardinal Stickler, who during the pilgrimage celebrated a Pontifical High Mass for the feast of Christ the King (back when such Masses were extremely rare); and His Excellency James Timlin, bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, another staunch supporter of the traditional Mass. At 30:00, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, founder of then-very-new Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, makes a brief appearance.

I was present for most of the major events of this pilgrimage, including the Mass celebrated by Bishop Timlin at the North American College, and Cardinal Stickler’s Pontifical Mass; this was also the occasion on which I first met our Ambrosian expert Nicola de’ Grandi. It was an exciting time, one which I look back on with joy and gratitude, and confidence that the great pastoral wisdom and charity of the bishops who participated in it will most assuredly prevail again someday in the Church.

Minutes from the Commission of Cardinals That Advised John Paul II to Lift Restrictions on the Old Missal

Most people who have read about the liturgical reform and the revival of the traditional Roman Rite have stumbled across references to the commission of cardinals set up by Pope John Paul II in 1986 to evaluate several questions—among them whether Paul VI had abrogated the preconciliar Missale Romanum in promulgating his own missal in 1969.

Since there is a lot of misinformation circulating nowadays about the old and new missals, some of it sadly disseminated from the Vatican, I consider it important to publish here at NLM a translation of an Italian text by Cardinal Dario Castrillón-Hoyos and retrieved from the “clerus.org” website, that is, the Congregation for the Clergy’s site before it transitioned to “clerus.va.” This Italian text is still there, albeit only discoverable if you have the URL (here), dated to October 2008. Below is a screenshot to show where I found it, in case it is taken down after the appearance of the present article. (I have also copied into a file the complete Italian text for the same reason. We would not want to lose this precious historical evidence.)

His Eminence discusses not only Summorum Pontificum but also the work of the 1986 commission that prepared the way for Summorum Pontificum; he quotes at length from the minutes of this commission. It is truly remarkable just how much of that momentous motu proprio of 2007 was already present in nuce as far back as 1986. As far as I can tell, very few know about this text, which is not only a precious historical document but a witness to principles that will someday be vindicated anew under better leadership.
 

Responses of the Cardinal President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to Certain Questions

Since the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has received frequent questions on the reasons for the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, some of which are based on the prescriptions of the Document Quattuor Abhinc Annos sent by the Congregation for Divine Worship to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences on October 3, 1984, the President of the same Commission, His Eminence Card. Dario Castrillon Hoyos, saw fit to give the following answers:

Question: Is it licit to refer to the Letter Quattuor Abhinc Annos to regulate matters pertaining to the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, that is, according to the 1962 Roman Missal?

Answer: Evidently not. For, with the publication of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the prescriptions for the use of the 1962 Missal, previously issued by the Quattuor Abhinc Annos and, subsequently, by the Motu Proprio of the Servant of God John Paul II Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, come to an end. In fact, the same Summorum Pontificum, from Article 1, explicitly states that “the conditions for the use of this Missal established by the earlier documents Quattuor Abhinc Annos and Ecclesia Dei are replaced.” The Motu Proprio enumerates the new conditions. Therefore, one can no longer refer to the restrictions established by those two documents, for the celebration according to the 1962 Missal.

Question: What are the substantial differences between the latest Motu Proprio and the two previous documents pertaining to this matter?

Answer: The first substantial difference is certainly that it is now licit to celebrate Mass according to the Extraordinary Rite without the need for a special permission, called an “indult.” The Holy Father Benedict XVI established, once and for all, that the Roman Rite consists of two Forms, to which he wished to give the names “Ordinary Form” (the celebration of the Novus Ordo, according to the Missal of Paul VI of 1970) and “Extraordinary Form” (the celebration of the Gregorian Rite, according to the Missal of B. John XXIII of 1962), and confirmed that this Missal of 1962 has never been abrogated. Another difference is that in Masses celebrated without the people, any Catholic priest of the Latin Rite, whether secular or religious, may use either Missal (Art. 2). Furthermore, in Masses without the people or with the people, it is upon the pastor or rector of the church, where it is intended to celebrate, to give permission to all those priests who present the “Celebret” given by their Ordinary. If they deny permission, the Bishop, according to the Motu Proprio, must see to it that permission is granted (see Article 7).

It is important to know that already an ad hoc Cardinal’s Commission of December 12, 1986, formed by the Eminent Cardinals Paul Augustin Mayer, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Agostino Casaroli, Bernardin Gantin, Joseph Ratzinger, William W. Baum, Edouard Gagnon, Alfons Stickler, and Antonio Innocenti, had been created by the Holy Father’s will, for the purpose of examining the possible measures to be taken to remedy the established ineffectiveness of the pontifical indult Quattuor Abhinc Annos about the restoration of the so-called Tridentine Mass in the Latin Church with the Roman Missal of the Typical Edition of 1962, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship with Prot. No. 686/84 of October 3, 1984. This Commission had proposed to the Holy Father John Paul II, even then, for this purpose, some substantial elements that were [only] taken up in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

Allow me to make a summary of the minutes presenting the interventions of the Eminent Cardinals in order to understand how the later documents substantially reflect the vision achieved by such an important Commission of Cardinals shortly after Quattuor Abhinc Annos. Indeed, in the minutes it was stated that:

“The concern, desire and mind of the Holy Father [John Paul II] is the promotion of internal concord in the Church and the edification of the brethren within it.

“This is to be accomplished also through the primary rebuilding of communion in the practice of the lex orandi, such as the sound implementation of the liturgical reform, while dutifully respecting the legitimate needs of minority groups that are often distinguished not only for full theoretical orthodoxy but also for authentic exemplarity in the practice of intensely lived Christian life and of sincere and devoted attachment to the Apostolic See.

“Therefore, there must be a commitment of conscience on the part of all—bishops, priests, and faithful—to remove the scandalous arbitrariness that a misunderstood ‘creativity’ has produced, giving rise to the so-called ‘wild Masses’ and other desecrations that have wounded many of the aforementioned faithful by alienating them from the easy acceptance of the liturgical reform and the new ritual books, including the Missal, which erroneously appeared, unfortunately and precisely because of such unedifying desacralization, almost as the cause of it.”

In the same Commission it was proposed that:

“It shall be reiterated, on the part of the competent Dicastery, that the Pope desires internal pacification among all the faithful of the local Churches through the concrete implementation of the concession he made with the indult.

“The bishops shall carry out the will of the Supreme Pontiff by placing themselves spiritually in harmony with His intentions [for granting the indult generously].

“An adequate response is to be given, from the bishops, to those who wanted to discourage the implementation of the indult by presenting it as a reason for division instead of rebuilding. The response was to be not polemical but pastoral, explaining, with delicacy and patience, the letter and spirit of the indult.”

Furthermore, it was stated with authority that:

“The real problem at issue does not seem to be so much the artificial conflict that the indult is intended to resolve, but rather the one that lies upstream of it and was its real cause—that is, the conflict between the rightful implementation of the liturgical reform and the tolerated abuses produced by uncontrolled fantasy. Therefore, in addition to the indult, a far more general level of intervention is required on the part of the Holy See to eliminate the aforementioned habitual abuse that deforms the conciliar liturgical reform.

“The indult, as it stands, on the one hand, gives the impression that the Latin Mass, so-called ‘Tridentine,’ was an inferior and second-rate reality, which was restored only out of tolerant commiseration with those who requested it, and, on the other hand, gives the impression, precisely with all the heavy conditions it contains, that the Holy See itself considers it as such and would not have granted it unless it was forced to do so.

“It is necessary to reiterate and clarify to the bishops the true will of the Holy Father, which consists, not negatively in a concession of tolerance, but positively in a real pastoral initiative taken not to quiet the reaction to the abuses but to recompose the disagreement into reconciliation.

“It is necessary to remove all the conditions contained in the Indult, in order to eliminate the impression bishops have that the Holy See does not want it and the impression on the part of the faithful that they are asking for something almost barely tolerated by the Holy See.”

In the interventions of the assembled Eminences, it emerged that:

“One was in favor of granting the indult to all the faithful and priests who wished to make use of it in aedificationem [for edification] and without anti-Conciliar instrumentalization.

“It is necessary to make it clear to the Bishops that the indult corresponds to a will of the Pope meant to be observed, and it is necessary to make it clear to the faithful that they should respectfully request the implementation of the Pope’s will, so that the Bishops, when faced with respectful requests, will no longer have reason to refuse.

“It should be asked whether, in order to foster reconciliation, it is really necessary to ask the bishop’s consent at all to celebrate Holy Mass in Latin.

“As a general mentality, it would be opportune to tone down the strictness of the limiting conditions of the indult and to eliminate the additional conditions on the Bishops.

“As far as any restriction to particular groups is concerned, since the indult was conceived for them, it should be maintained—but iuxta modum, that is, on the one hand, not meaning by ‘groups’ just three or four persons and, on the other hand, not prohibiting that other persons [not part of the original group] may join the groups that took the initiative in the practice of the concession obtained.”

In the same Commission it was pointed out that:

“There is no difficulty in allowing readings in the vernacular.

“As to the optional use of the [new] Lectionary, there were reservations, fearing some confusion may arise because of the imperfect correspondence between the calendars of the two Missals, while no difficulty was seen in allowing the use of the Prefaces of the new Missal.

“The conditions added by the Bishops and also conditions regarding [the use of] non-parish churches and groups contained in the Indult would have to be removed.

“Under the premise that Latin, as an expression of unity, cannot and must not disappear from the Church, and desiring the Bishops to be ‘helped’ more than to be too ‘respected’ in their prerogatives, it is necessary to come to their aid by reducing the complex conditioning casuistry of the indult to criteria of greater simplicity; it could also thus eliminate the impression that, with those conditions, the Holy See wanted to make it clear that it had granted the indult only obtorto collo [having been seized by the neck]. Moreover, in doing so, the evolutionary coherence of the corrective pontifical measures could be highlighted by obviating their contradictory contrasts.

Citing then No. 23 of Sacrosanctum Concilium “concerning the criteria to be observed in reconciling tradition and progress in liturgical reform, and No. 26 of the same conciliar document, on the subject of the norms that must preside over such reform, as deriving from the hierarchical and communal nature of the liturgy, it was proposed (a) to insist, in the eventual document revising the indult, on the objectivity and not the arbitrariness of the implementation of liturgical reform; (b) to make it equally clear how both the use of the Latin language and the use of one or another edition of the Roman Missal should be considered within the framework of that logic; (c) to grant, at least in large cities, that on feast days there be a Holy Mass in Latin with free choice of one or the other typical edition (1962 or 1980) of the Roman Missal.

“It was proposed, likewise, to extend the granting of the Indult also to Ordinaries, religious Superiors General, Provincials, and others.

“About the necessity or otherwise of the Bishop’s assent for the celebration of the Holy Mass in Latin, it was recalled that Paul VI had said that, per se, the Priest, privately, should celebrate in Latin, since the concession made for the use of vernacular languages is only of a pastoral order, to enable the faithful to understand the contents of the rite and, thus, to participate better.

“The need to leave free the option of the use of either Missal for the celebration of the Holy Mass in Latin was reiterated.

“About the type of intervention [to be desired—i.e., what eventually became Summorum Pontificum], one would opt for a new papal document in which, taking stock of the current real situation of liturgical reform, the aforementioned freedom of choice between the two Missals in Latin would be clearly established, presenting one as a development and not as a juxtaposition of the other and eliminating the impression that each Missal is the temporary product of each historical epoch.

“Referring to the previous concerns expressed, the need was reiterated to ensure the [presentation of] evidence of the logical developmental linearity of the documents of the Church and the free option between the two Missals for the celebration of the Holy Mass, and it was proposed to emphasize that they cannot be considered except insofar as one is a development of the other, since liturgical norms, not being true ‘laws,’ cannot be abrogated but only surrogated—the preceding in the following.”

A report of all this was made to the Holy Father [John Paul II].

No Specific “Spirituality” and No “Charism” of Its Own — Guest Article by Clemens Victor Oldendorf

Part 3 of the detailed analysis of the Responsa ad dubia of the Congregation for Divine Worship: Various restrictions on the celebration of Mass in the “former” Roman Rite and a compelling consequence of this. (For the German original, see here. For a translation of parts 1 & 2, see here.)

After some interruption, we return to the Responsa ad dubia, with which the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments seeks to clarify details regarding the understanding and implementation of the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes. In the analysis today, the focus is on a basic duct of the answers that pervades almost the entire document—and on a resulting inconsistency.

It is already known in principle that Traditionis Custodes refers only to the celebration of Mass celebrated by a simple priest [1] using the 1962 Missale Romanum. Our further considerations are based on the recommendation in the Responsa that the permission to celebrate such Holy Masses be limited in time, then evaluated, as it were, and only thereafter extended or withdrawn, as the case may be.

It is clear from the text as a whole that it is assumed as the usual situation that all priests celebrate predominantly according to the postconciliar Rite of Paul VI, at most inter alia (and to a certain extent incidentally) also in the earlier Roman Rite. Since neither Traditionis Custodes itself nor the responses of the Congregation for Divine Worship addresses the special case of priests who previously had permission to celebrate exclusively in the Tridentine manner, it must be assumed that these priests, whether or not they are members of a previously exclusively Old Rite community, must, like all others, again seek and receive permission to use the Tridentine Missale Romanum in its latest edition under the new legal situation according to Traditionis Custodes. This is especially clear because of the additional stricter provisions regarding new priests who were ordained chronologically after Traditionis Custodes and will be ordained in the future.

On the one hand, it is questionable whether someone who wants to continue to celebrate exclusively Tridentine is still considered suitable to receive permission to use the 1962 Missale Romanum (or whether such a man should be ordained a priest now at all). On the other hand, however, it follows from this that in principle there can be no comprehensive and exclusive attachment to, or a fortiori a complete and permanent commitment to, the traditional Roman liturgy at all. Neither the attachment nor the commitment can be comprehensive, because there is a restriction to the celebration of the Holy Mass [2]; neither of them can be exclusive, because this would imply a refusal to recognize the post-conciliar “reformed” Roman Rite as the “sole expression of the lex orandi.”

Also in the sense of non-exclusivity must be understood the clarification that a permission is only valid within one’s own diocese, for religious or institute priests probably in the diocese where they have their permanent residence. [3] (As with the faculty of confession, it would make sense here if a priest who has permission within his diocese could at least also invoke it within the territory of the respective bishops’ conference. Moreover, anyone who has lawfully received permission to celebrate the Tridentine liturgy somewhere should be able to make use of it wherever he is merely temporarily outside his diocese. [4])

Liturgical tradition-rootedness as an amiable feature?

Considering all this, it was tactically unwise in the past for members of the former Ecclesia Dei communities to represent their personal or corporate rootedness in the traditional liturgy as a specific “spirituality” or as a concrete, particular “charism,” distinct from others, to which a special vocation corresponded. Traditionis Custodes actually puts beyond doubt that, at least in the future and to the extent that it remains in force and is enforced, such a vocation cannot exist at all, since no vocation exists or is experienced only on an individual, personal level, but must be “objectified,” in that a competent ecclesiastical authority examines, recognizes, and accepts the vocation. If the assumptions of Traditionis Custodes were factually correct, one would have to conclude, strictly speaking, that an exclusively Tridentine spirituality and a corresponding vocation to it could never have existed after the post-Vatican liturgical reform.

By assuming a specific spirituality and a charism of one’s own, one (indirectly or somehow tactically) calculatedly retracted the claim that a tradition-oriented liturgical and spiritual sensibility was decisive for the whole Church and thus hoped—in many cases perhaps even unconsciously—for greater tolerance of one’s own liturgical preferences and needs. Now, however, the tables seem to have been turned.

Affirmation of the daily one-time celebration in principle welcome

The Responsa further exclude, within the specific limitations of the Tridentine rite of Mass, bination with the 1962 Missale Romanum, that is, the possibility of allowing a priest to celebrate twice on the same day. In principle, this is expressly to be welcomed, because the Church does not consider the multiple celebration of Holy Mass on one day by one and the same celebrant to be optimal, regardless of the rite, and only permits it in exceptional cases. Nor is this changed by the fact that, owing to a general shortage of priests, the vast majority of priests in parish pastoral care have to regularly binate or say even more than two Masses on Sundays and holy days as well as sometimes the prior evenings in the new rite. (Only in parenthesis is it critically noted here that in many cases this state of affairs would have to consistently put the appropriateness and justification of the post-conciliar practice of concelebration to the test.)

Furthermore, the Responsa are to be unambiguously agreed with when they prohibit, so to speak, a devotional combination. By this, I mean the case of a priest in pastoral care who, because of his official duties, had already celebrated with the current missal of Paul VI, but who on the same day wanted to celebrate again privately in the Tridentine manner. The corresponding regulation is also understandable and to be affirmed when it concerns celebrations for two different groups on a day without Sunday obligation or also on a day with Sunday obligation, if the distance to the place where a Tridentine Mass is celebrated for one group is not so great that it would be unreasonable or impossible for the second group (or individuals from it) to go to the place where the priest celebrates a TLM. If, however, the distance is too great, bination should be possible quite normally, provided that there is an obligation to attend Mass on the day on which bination occurs. The recurring argument in the Responsa of December 18, 2021 that the faithful are, after all, at liberty to join in celebrating Mass in the new rite may well correspond to the stated aim of the Motu Proprio of July 16, 2021, [5] but above all shows a complete lack of understanding for the faithful who are actually at home in the traditional liturgy.

Therefore, on Sundays and obligatory feasts, priests who have already celebrated in the new rite should also be allowed to celebrate a second time a TLM for a group, if necessary.

In all these and in various other details, the bishops’ competence is curtailed by Traditionis Custodes, which in no way strengthens them in their responsibility and authority, but which is a new, hitherto unknown example of the otherwise much-maligned Roman centralism and makes the alleged will for synodality completely implausible.

Tridentine exclusivity not ideal or desired goal already in Summorum Pontificum

It is true that already in Summorum Pontificum the existence of stable groups was presupposed, and as a rule it was also presupposed that priests celebrate predominantly in the then so-defined “ordinary form” and that the faithful, in the sense of mutual enrichment, should naturally attend both forms, but it was practically speaking not excluded that someone may decide to attend exclusively Masses in the usus antiquior. This cannot be prevented even now, but it is made clearer by these documents that the TLMs, which are still permitted at present on the basis of Traditionis Custodes, do not serve the purpose of giving such persons institutional-internal Church “living space” [Lebensraum] or even of offering them ecclesiastical structures and providing suitable places for divine worship.

The inconsistency or contradiction that arises in the responses and explanatory notes of the Congregation for Divine Worship in connection with the notion of a group is that TLMs are understood exclusively as a provisional, temporary concession to such a group. Therefore, they are not to be published in the bulletin, are not to be held in parish churches (or only as an exception), and are not to be held at the same time as other parish activities. All of this obviously serves the purpose of ensuring that, if possible, no one will encounter such a Mass involuntarily, by accident or by chance. It almost seems like an intra-ecclesial quarantine for the infected. Since Corona, this attitude seems very familiar. The only difference is that the virus, which in the eyes of Pope Francis specifically infects Catholics, is apparently called Tridentina-62, along with all its variants going back further.

How is a legitimate membership in the group defined and determined?

Thus the question arises how, or on the basis of which characteristic, someone can at all rightfully belong to such a “group” for which the Tridentine Mass is currently still celebrated. The exclusive or even predominant attachment to the Tridentine rite of Mass can hardly be the criterion, because such an attachment is openly held to be undesirable and thus cannot be the prerequisite by which someone proves his suitability to be able to enjoy or be allowed to enjoy a permission or “concession” on the basis of Traditionis Custodes. Rather, too clear a preference for the Tridentine liturgy would disqualify both priests and faithful in that case.

NOTES

[1] Significantly, Traditionis Custodes does not deal explicitly with bishops or other higher prelates who use the 1962 Missale Romanum. Another part of the present series of articles on the Responsa ad dubia will be devoted to this problem.

[2] That, analogous to the possibility (!) of allowing the use of the pre-conciliar Rituale Romanum in existing, canonically established personal parishes, such a concession could be made internally (!) to the former Ecclesia Dei communities is possible, but in the general climate since Traditionis Custodes seems nevertheless somewhat unlikely.

[3] Also for certain secular priests who were not ordained for their actual home diocese, but are incardinated in certain dioceses that are considered to be particularly tradition-friendly, the question of permission arises anew, especially if they do not live and work within the diocese to which they belong by incardination.

[4] For example, when traveling or during pilgrimages. That this would happen at least for members of the former Ecclesia Dei communities would normally be obvious, but one can by no means assume it with certainty in this case either.

[5] And ultimately also to the earlier logic of a rite in two forms.

Ending Seventy Years of Liturgical Exile: The Return of the Pre-55 Holy Week

“Quis dabit ex Sion salutare Israel? Cum averterit Dominus captivitatem plebis suae, exsultabit Jacob, et laetabitur Israel. Who shall give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? When the Lord shall have turned away the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.” (Psalm 13:7)

In 586 BC, the Jews of old were violently removed from the Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial cultus, and led off to exile where they had only memories of their traditional divine worship. Seventy years later, in 516 BC, they began to return to the land of their fathers — those who, listening to Ezra, longed for true worship and were willing to make a new life in the old land.

In 1951, on February 9th, Pius XII’s “new and improved” Easter Vigil was first launched “ad experimentum” — a simple Latin phrase that would become ever more commonplace as the Vatican more and more treated the sacred liturgy as a laboratory specimen. Although the way was paved for this drastic innovation by Pius X’s unprecedented manhandling of the venerable Roman psalter, it is accurate to say that 1951 marked the beginning of that overturning of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Roman Rite that culminated eighteen years later in the modern papal rite of 1969, which, only by a certain legal stretch of the imagination, can be called the Roman rite as it had been known in history.

The year 2021, however, appears to be the year in which Rome (taken here to mean those who are quietly in charge of affairs concerning the usus antiquior) has given a global wink to those wanting to use the pre-55 Holy Week, and, indeed, to reclaim pre-55 practices more generally. No express permission is being given, because none is needed for that which is immemorially sacred and great. Catholics of the Roman rite, in small groups, here and there, are returning to the liturgical temple after seventy years of exile.

In his sermon on Passion Sunday (March 21, 2021), Canon Francis Xavier Altiere, ICRSS, said the following:

You will recall on Septuagesima Sunday that we spoke about the Babylonian exile and the symbolism of the number 70. We heard how the Jews suffered greatly from the suspension of their traditional worship when they could no longer frequent the Temple. We can borrow this analogy to speak about our own Catholic worship, because this year marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the gradual demolition of the Roman rite [of Mass]. You know that the New Mass was introduced in 1969, and you probably know that in 1955 a new version of the Holy Week ceremonies was introduced, but the first trial balloon actually came in 1951, with the introduction of an experimental new Easter Vigil. In fact, for the architects of the reform this new rite clearly was seen as the first step in a longer process because years later, when he promulgated a totally new missal, Pope Paul VI looked back on this and said, “the beginning of this renewal was the work of Our predecessor Pius XII, in the restoration of the Paschal Vigil and of the Holy Week Rite, which formed the first stage of updating the Roman Missal for the present-day mentality” (Missale Romanum, April 3, 1969). My purpose this morning is not to give a detailed critique of these reforms, but simply to take it for granted that, rather than “updating” the sacred liturgy to the limited horizons of the present-day mentality — whatever that may mean — we should rather cherish the treasures we have received from tradition and try to adapt our thoughts to them instead. Modern man is shaped by technocracy and so if we want to derive more fruit from the liturgy, we need to try to let our minds move on another plane that is somewhat foreign to us: the world of symbolism.

Sometimes people still ask why we think there is freedom to celebrate the pre-55 ceremonies. The answer, to put it succinctly, is that one has to know how to interpret the “signs of the times,” as, most famously, the last Council bid us do. For example, for three years the PCED/CDF “gave permission” to the ICKSP and the FSSP to do the pre-55. This year, no permission was granted — not because it was denied, but because the CDF doesn’t want to micromanage this stuff anymore. One can tell from the printed 2021 Ordo (written in Latin, of course: today’s ultimate code language), which includes many pre-55isms, albeit with no explanation of why they are there; one can see it from the trend of responses that have been made to individual queries in recent years; one can see it from the fact that Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini in Rome, a stone’s throw from the Vatican, is doing and has been doing pre-55 ceremonies for a long time now, celebrated by bishops and cardinals. The Vatican is well aware that all this is going on, and lets it happen — for some officials, presumably, on account of agreement and sympathy; for others, because they don’t want the bad publicity of a fight or the inconvenience of an intervention.

Priests and faithful all over the world enjoyed the richness and splendor of the pre-55 Holy Week ceremonies in larger numbers than ever, and we can certainly expect that those who have experienced it will never wish to turn back. Those who are hesitating because of scruples about “permission” should reflect on the sad fortunes of the liturgy for the past several decades. One bad decision after another has been handed down, to the great detriment of the faithful, and often in the teeth of unbroken tradition (e.g., Paul VI’s attempt to dismantle minor orders and the subdiaconate, or John Paul II’s permission for altar girls, or the permission for Communion in the hand, which was extorted by disobedience and tolerated by cowardice and lukewarm faith). One could give too many examples of where permission for abuse has been granted, while that which is “sacred and great” was forbidden. The admission of Benedict XVI that the usus antiquior had never been abrogated, contrary to the modus operandi of all of its opponents for decades, should be enough to make us genial skeptics about the “official” line.

Conversely, no Catholic may rightly believe that immemorial and venerable tradition has to “justify itself” in a court of law. It bears within itself its own justification for existing, because it is given to us by the generosity of Providence and has been received and celebrated by countless Catholics for centuries, even millennia. Could anyone take seriously the proposition that a remodeled Holy Week that lasted for not even 14 years has a greater right to exist or to be used than ceremonies that enjoyed continuous use for 500 or 1,000 years or even longer? Yes, the hierarchy of the Church has a responsibility for regulating these things, but the whole point of regulating the liturgy is to ensure that it reaches us intact in its splendor, not to strangle it or butcher it. Authority is given for the common good, not for the private good of its wielders, or for the promotion of strange philosophies.

In short: one who thinks explicit permission is required for the pre-55 Holy Week has not yet grasped the nature of tradition and the inherent rights of immemorial custom or the limits of papal and curial authority.

On Good Friday: incensing the veiled chalice containing the Host

In my lecture “The Once and Future Roman Rite: What We Lost from 1948 to 1962 and Why We Should Recover It Today,” I devote the final section to explaining why no permission is necessary for reclaiming elements such as Holy Week, the true Vigil of Pentecost, the octave of Corpus Christi, the octave of the Holy Innocents, folded chasubles and broad stoles, multiple orations, doubling of readings by the priest, the recitation of the Creed on various feastdays, and the use of Benedicamus Domino at Masses without Glorias. (This link will take you directly to that section.) As I point out, almost no one at present, including the SSPX, follows all of the rubrics of 1960 when celebrating with the 1962 missal, so a “perfect conformity to legislation” is not and has never been achieved, nor would there be any compelling reason to attempt it, especially now, with hindsight into the nature of the changes and the rationale (not to mention personnel) behind them.

Those who object that “we are taking things into our own hands and that makes us no better than perpetrators of other liturgical abuses” are making a false parallel. It is one thing to reclaim a heritage that was already fixed, specified, reverent, and holy (as with the pre-55 Holy Week); it is quite another to dismantle it or experiment with it or subject it to political agendas, as occurs all the time with the Novus Ordo’s plethora of abuses. In general, arguments based on a “one size fits all” model usually fail. One might think, in a different sphere, of the argument of John Courtney Murray and others that the Church must have one consistent policy for religious freedom rather than asking for freedom of operation when her members are in the minority but wielding her authority over society when her members are in the majority. That’s perfect nonsense. Of course she should wield her authority when she can, and demand freedom when she cannot. False religions will be similarly inconsistent to the extent that they too believe in absolute truth claims (think of Islam, which is “peaceful” when in the minority and militant when in the majority), and should be resisted in any case as purveyors of error and causes of spiritual shipwreck.

On a practical note, it’s never too early to start thinking ahead to next year’s Holy Week, so that you can have a timeline for taking the steps needed to celebrate solemn pre-55 ceremonies. For example, you may wish to source your tricereo or triple candle, and ensure that you will have the right chasubles and stoles. There is, happily, an ever-burgeoning number of high-quality videos of the pre-55 ceremonies (with more being added all the time — one can hardly keep up!), so that clergy and their M.C.s can study them ahead of time, which is often far more helpful than bleary-eyed late-night sessions with rubrical manuals. Some examples of these videos:

St. Joan of Arc: Palm Sunday  |  Good Friday 
St. Mary’s on Broadway: Palm Sunday  |  Holy Thursday  |  Good Friday  |  Easter Vigil
Our Lady of Mt Carmel: Holy Thursday  |  Good Friday  |  Easter Vigil

I’m sure readers can point us to other videos they would recommend for this or that special reason (the camera angles, the audio quality, the architecture or vestments, etc.).

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest has released a video called “The Pre-1955 Holy Week: A Liturgical, Spiritual & Cultural Treasure.” Taylor Marshall and Timothy Flanders discussed the topic in a long and wide-ranging conversation here, although I should note that we ought to be careful not to exaggerate Bugnini’s role in the Pacellian reforms; it seems, alas, that these reforms were endorsed by a number of like-minded individuals and that the young Bugnini at the time was more of a fanboy and water-carrier for them than a sinister schemer (see Dom Alcuin Reid’s “Holy Week Reforms Revisited — Some New Materials and Paths for Further Study,” in Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives [London/New York: Bloomsbury, 2016], 234–59). Which is not to say that he was not a sinister schemer later on....

Readers should also become familiar with two excellent websites, which, while overlapping to some extent, are not redundant in their resources: “Restore the 54” and “Pre-1955 Holy Week Resources.”

Thinking back over my life in the traditionalist movement, I find it a great cause of joy to think of the burning questions that occupied most people at any given time. Way back in the 1990s, the question was simply: “Where am I going to find a Mass according to the 1962 missal?” — any Mass, low, high, legal, sketchy, or whatever! Then in the 2000s, one started hearing more often about pontifical Masses here and there, about ordinations and other sacramental rites. After July 2007, the dominant theme became diocesan clergy learning the TLM and even taking up the preconciliar breviary. In the past decade or so, it seems to me that the movement is broadening to include the pre-55 Holy Week and other riches lost under Pius XII. I predict that in years to come, the recovery of the “Breviary of the Ages” (as Bishop Athanasius Schneider calls it) will be a matter of increasing importance.

In any case, right now the hot topic is no longer “should we celebrate the pre-55 Holy Week” — this is a matter of obviousness to those who have taken the time to study the question — but “What time of day should they be celebrated?” And on that question, which is full of interest, I intend to publish a separate article later on.

Looking ahead in Paschal time, what are some steps that could be taken to restore pre-55 practice? Perhaps the first and most important would be to celebrate the Paschal feast of St. Joseph in its more appropriate place, namely, on the Wednesday before the Third Sunday after Easter (this year, Wednesday, April 21, adding a commemoration of St Anselm), in place of the highly artificial St Joseph the Worker on May 1st. The start of the month of May — a trainwreck oft lamented by Fr Hunwicke (1, 2, 3) — should be put to rights by celebrating Saints Philip and James on May 1st, the Finding of the Holy Cross on May 3rd, St John before the Latin Gate on May 6th, and the Apparition of St Michael on May 8th. (N.B.: I commend once more to NLM readers the “Octave of Liturgical Restoration” from May 1–8: see here for more information.) Parishioners may be encouraged to acquire either the St Andrew or the Fr Lasance daily missals, because they will match up perfectly.

The triple candle at the Easter Vigil & the chanting of the Exsultet

Further Reading:

“My First Experience of a Pre-1955 Holy Triduum”
“Why Restoring the Roman Rite to Its Fullness is Not ‘Traddy Antiquarianism’”
“The Truthfulness of the Pre-1955 Good Friday Prayer for the Jews” 
“The Centenary of the Last Integral Editio Typica of the Missale Romanum”

“An Invitation to Join in the ‘Octave of Liturgical Restoration’ from May 1–8”

New Prefaces and Feasts for the EF Missal

Today, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, exercizing the authority that came to it with the absorption of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, has issued two decrees updating the Missal of the Extraordinary Form. This been done in accordance with what Pope Benedict XVI said in his letter to the bishops of the world regarding  the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum: “new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal.”

The first decree pertains to a new group of seven prefaces that may now be used ad libitum. Four of these are taken from the Missal of the Ordinary Form: of the Angels, of St John the Baptist, of the Martyrs, and for the Nuptial Mass. The Congregation’s note presenting the decree states that “their central section(s), known as the ‘embolism’, appear in ancient liturgical sources. In order to guarantee consistency with the rest of the Corpus Praefationum of the old Missal, in three cases, the standard forms of Preface conclusion of the forma extraordinaria have been used.” Three others, the Prefaces of All Saints and Patron Saints, of the Blessed Sacrament, and of the Dedication of a Church, are among the group originally promulgated in the neo-Gallican Missals (especially that of Paris) and later approved for use with the Roman Missal in France and Belgium. “From now on, these may be used wherever Mass is celebrated in the forma extraordinaria.” (The decree does not mention the neo-Gallican Preface for Advent, which is generally found in any Missal that includes the others, and is probably one of the best composed among them.)

The second decree, regarding the calendar of Saints, contains the following provisions (my translation):

1. Festive Masses in the broader sense, as specified by the General Rubrics of the 1960 Missal (302) can be celebrated for a good reason (justa de causa) on all festal days of the third class, except those which are listed below (no. 8), and also on 3rd vigils of the Saints.

2. Furthermore, as far as GRMR 302c is concerned, Mass is permitted of any Saint canonized after July 26 1960, on the day on which it has been established that the liturgical memorial of said Saint be kept by he universal Church. A votive Mass of the same is also permitted, in accordance with GRMR 311, in keeping with the other rubrics about Votive Masses.

3. Whenever the festive Mass in the broader sense is said, the whole Divine Office can (my emphasis) be done together with the Mass, as the ordinary Office.

4. The ordinary commemoration of the feast or vigil omitted according to these three provisions is always made, together with other commemorations that occur according to the rubrics. (An example of this would be St Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast is on August 14th, the vigil of the Assumption. This provision specifies that if his Mass is celebrated, the vigil is not therefore to be omitted.)

5. In order to choose the formula of the Mass and Office in accordance with these provisions, if there is no (such formula) in the Supplement for certain places in the Missal of 1962, or the new supplement approved by the Holy See, (said formula) is taken from the Common of the Missal or Breviary. Whenever there are several formulae in said Common, the choice is left to the celebrant. ...

6. Furthermore, an ordinary commemoration can be admitted at the will of celebrant of a Saint or mystery on that day on which it is listed in the Proper of the Saints for certain places, or in the new supplement, both in the Mass and Office, on liturgical days of the 3rd and 4th class. (Again, as an example, one could now add a commemoration of St Maximilian Kolbe to the Mass of the vigil of the Assumption.)

7. In the houses of religious institutes or societies of apostolic life, it is the duty of the superior of the house, not of the celebrant, to determine the manner of putting these provisions into practice in the conventual Mass and in the choral or communal celebration of the Office.

8. Feast days of the third class which cannot be impeded or omitted by these provisions (i.e., which cannot have a new Saint dropped on top of them) are listed in the following table. These feasts can also be celebrated on the third class ferias of Lent and Passiontide, with a commemoration of the feria, according to the rubrics.

(editor’s note: This provision corrects one of the worst mistakes of the 1960 Missal, by which a number of Saints whose feasts always or almost always fall in Lent were to all intents and purposes abolished from the General Calendar, among them Ss Thomas Aquinas, Pope Gregory the Great, Benedict, the Archangel Gabriel, and Pope Leo the Great. The full list is given below.)

The CDF has also issued an note of presentation for this decree.

“Specifically, the Decree broadens the scope of missæ festivæ latiore sensu referred to in n. 302-c of the Rubricæ Generales Missalis Romani (which hitherto only applied to IV class days), to a number of III class feasts and to III class vigils (cf. Decree, n. 1). It is therefore clear that the new provisions will not in any way affect other celebrations, and in particular those of the I or II classes. (my emphasis) In addition, the Decree specifies that missæ festivæ latiore sensu may be celebrated in honour of Saints canonized after 26 July 1960 (which is the date of the last amendment to the Martyrology of the forma extraordinaria), on their respective liturgical feast day (n. 2).

With this principle in mind, the other provisions of the Decree give the necessary indications that derive therefrom, such as the applicability to the Divine Office, which in such a case is to be celebrated in full in honour of the Saint (n. 3), the requirement to make a commemoration of potentially occurring III class feasts, as the case may be (n. 4), and the rules relating to the selection of the liturgical texts to be used (n. 5). Regarding this particular point, one should note the three successive sources from which texts are to be drawn, namely in the first place the Proprium Sanctorum pro aliquibus locis which already exists in the Missal of the forma extraordinaria, secondly a special Supplement to be published by the Holy See in the future, and finally, should the two former sources be lacking, the existing Commune Sanctorum.

It is noteworthy that the celebration of more recent Saints pursuant to the new provisions is a mere possibility, and therefore it remains optional. (my emphasis) Accordingly, those who wish to continue to celebrate the Saints according to the existing calendar of the forma extraordinaria as it appears in the liturgical books, remain free to do so. In relation to this, one should be reminded that the existence of optional feasts in honour of the Saints is not a complete novelty in the Roman Rite, given that throughout the post-tridentine period, and up till the rubrical reform carried out by Pope St. Pius X, the calendar included no less that twenty-five such so-called ad libitum feasts.

The new Decree also opens a further possibility for cases in which whilst following the existing calendar, one wishes at the same time to honour eventual other occurring Saints. Specifically, according to n. 6 of the Decree, an ad libitum commemoration of an occurring Saint may be made, if said Saint appears in the Proprium pro aliquibus locis or in the future special Supplement.

In choosing whether or not to make use of the provisions of the Decree in liturgical celebrations in honour of the Saints, the celebrant is expected to make use of good pastoral common sense. As regards the particular case of celebrations in Religious Institutes and Societies of Apostolic Life, n. 7 of the Decree provides some useful clarification.

The Decree concludes (n. 8) with reference to a list of seventy III class feasts that may never be impeded by its provisions. This list, which is provided as an annex, reflects the particular importance of the feasts in question, on the basis of precise criteria, e.g. the importance of these respective Saints in the Plan of Salvation or in the history of the Church, their importance in terms of either the devotion they have generated or their writings, or the antiquity of their worship in Rome.”

Photopost Request: Latin Mass Permission Slips

After seeing our recent posts about “permission slips” to attend the Latin Mass from the pre-Ecclesia Dei era (here and here), a reader sent another one in to Peter, this time from the Diocese of Austin, Texas, from October of 1988. The broader indult had only just been issued, and it is nice to see that the bishop, John McCarthy, wrote that he was “happy to oblige” requests for the celebration of the traditional Mass. Permission was given for a regular Sunday celebration. He also notes that if the appointed celebrant should be unavailable, the diocese will endeavor to provide a substitute, and while he warns that this might not always be possible, he “hope(s) that those times will be few and far between.” By the standards of the era, this was actually quite generous; I am sure some of our readers remember indult Masses that were highly restrictive or inconvenient as to both time and location. (In the later 1990s, I heard of one Sunday indult Mass that foundered because it was celebrated in a terrible neighborhood at 2:30pm.) Bishop McCarthy passed away in August of last year at the age of 88, 17 years after retiring. Requiescat in pace. (Click photo to enlarge.)

It occurs to me that some of you may have had similar experiences, and may still have letters in re in a similar vein, either positive or negative. If you would like to share them with your fellow readers (many of whom are too young to have any first-hand knowledge of what went into the defense and promotion of the traditional rite) please feel free to send photos of them to the regular photopost email address: photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org. The higher the resolution the better; be sure to include along with the photo any other information you think pertinent. We will of course be happy to credit you by name, or to leave your name off, as you deem best. Thanks in advance!

The Need for Mutual Humility and Support Between the SSPX and the FSSP

We all know about the recent decision to suppress the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. In reaction, the SSPX issued this snubbing statement:

One conclusion is evident: as the so-called Ecclesia Dei communities have preserved “their spiritual and liturgical traditions,” they clearly do not count in this discussion. If they remain attached to a section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is incidental. They can have the Mass, the “spiritual and liturgical traditions,” but not the whole doctrine that goes along with them. That has always been the Society of St. Pius X’s great reproach against Dom Gérard [Calvet] and all those who thought they should break the unity of Tradition in order to negotiate a purely practical agreement. The crisis of the Church cannot be reduced to a spiritual or liturgical question alone. It is deeper, for it touches the very heart of the Faith and the doctrine of Revelation, Christ the King’s right to reign here below over men and over societies.

This statement is curious, to say the least. If the liturgy really is the primary theology of the Church and we truly believe the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, then maintaining the usus antiquior and the ascetical-mystical spirituality that sustain it is, in practice, already to maintain “the very heart of the Faith and the doctrine of Revelation,” which, incidentally, includes a primacy of honor and jurisdiction on the part of the supreme pontiff. In fact, everything Catholics believe — including “Christ the King’s right to reign here below over men and over societies,” which is not at all clear in the reformed liturgy [1] — can be directly deduced from the preconciliar Roman liturgy that all “Ecclesia Dei communities” treasure.

We might, in fact, turn the tables by noting that it is the “so-called Ecclesia Dei communities” that are recovering the ancient liturgical tradition found in the pre-1955 Holy Week ceremonies and other aspects of the Roman Rite’s earlier traditional practice (e.g., octaves, additional collects, doubling the readings, folded chasubles, proper last Gospels), while the SSPX, as far as I know, continues merrily on with the suppressions and distortions of Pius XII and John XXIII. Whatever his other magnificent qualities, Archbishop Lefebvre was somewhat naïve about the extent of the damage that had already been done to the liturgy prior to 1962. If he held on to this “last missal” in order to stem the tide of incipient sedevacantism, it sounds a lot to me like a different version of “breaking the unity of Tradition in order to negotiate a purely practical agreement.” [2 and Addendum]

On the other hand, members of the FSSP have not hesitated to fire shots over the years at the wayward parents from whom the children have departed. One of its founders stated rather bluntly: “I pray very much for my old, good friends [in the SSPX] to join the Church” (!) and to “come in without any conditions,” but to “accept the authority of the living magisterium.”

I do not and would not criticize the judgments of conscience that led to the founding of the FSSP in July 1988; good-willed Catholics have disagreed and will continue to disagree in their interpretations of Archbishop Lefebvre’s dramatic step, but there is no question that he freely acted against the provisions of canon law and a solemn papal injunction to desist. If one is given the option, one should attend an usus antiquior Mass offered by a priest in “good standing” with the Church — while recognizing that, in the current crisis, “good standing” often doesn’t mean very much in practice.

It is disturbing to see the one priestly Fraternity attacking, or speaking dismissively of, the other. I understand why this happens, as there are serious issues at stake; but it still leaves me wondering if they realize the direness of an ecclesial situation in which “all hands on deck” should be the prevailing motto. Laity, in my experience, have a stronger sense of the importance of being flexible and “tradumenical” in this cancer phase of the postconciliar disease.

We might ponder a divine irony in the Fraternities’ very names, which suggest two faces, like that of the ancient Roman god Janus.

First, the Priestly Society named after St. Pius X. Every Catholic admires Pius X for his authoritative condemnation of Modernism, that “synthesis of all heresies,” and his vigorous (although unfortunately unsuccessful) efforts to suppress the Modernists; for his unequivocal condemnation of the principle of the separation of Church and State in his encyclical Vehementer Nos; for his promotion of Gregorian chant in Tra le Sollecitudini and his condemnation of the use of pianos in church, which is still in effect, although often ignored; for his encouragement of a lower age for first communion and of the practice of frequent communion for the well-disposed.

However, there is one blotch on his papal escutcheon: the violence he did to the Roman Breviary with his radical reforms of 1911. Many popes have added this or that small feature to the liturgy — a new feast, a new preface, a new octave, the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Last Gospel; many have modified the rubrics; very occasionally they have pruned elements deemed overgrowths, such as Pius V’s removal of certain obviously legendary saints from the calendar of the 1570 Missale Romanum.[3] But never had a pope dared to alter in such a radical and thoroughgoing way any of the Latin Church’s ancient liturgical offices. When Pius X had the Breviarium Romanum dismantled and reconfigured in the early 20th century, he was not merely setting aside something that had been constructed in the 16th century, as liturgists can be found to assert; he was altering a rule of prayer so old its origins cannot be discerned. Indeed, there is strong reason to think that the daily recitation of the Laudate psalms (148–150), from which the very hour of Lauds derives its name, is traceable to the Jews of the time of Christ and therefore, with great likelihood, was practiced by Our Lord Himself in His prayers on earth.

There were problems with the breviary at the turn of the 20th century; no one disputes this point. But Pius X’s solution was not to retain the office as it stood while modifying its rubrics so that (e.g.) the weekly cursus of 150 psalms would be prioritized over the festal psalms, or perhaps some hours, such as Matins, would become optional for secular clergy, in order to conserve the integrity and harmony of the breviary as a whole. Instead, Pius X became the first pope in the history of the Latin Church who, freely spending the abundant capital of ultramontanism, threw the weight of his office behind the construction of a new Divine Office. [4] In this way he provided the very premise of papal contructivism that offered Pius XII the precedent for revamping Holy Week in similar fashion from 1948 to 1955, and Paul VI for transmogrifying everything from 1963 to the mid-1970s. Paradoxically, the pope who fought valiantly against doctrinal modernism exemplified liturgical modernism by rupturing the principle of the inviolability of longstanding tradition in the name of easing up pastoral burdens. If this sounds eerily familiar, it should. [5]

Thus, the very saint to whom the SSPX is dedicated shows us two sides in tension: the zealous promoter of Catholic dogma, and the larger-than-life pontiff who treated part of the liturgy as if it were a mechanism to be rebuilt rather than a living organism to be nurtured or an inheritance of the saints to be treasured.

An icon of ultramontanism: Batoni's painting of Benedict XIV
handing down a bull inspired by the Holy Spirit and SS. Peter & Paul

The heavenly patron of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter also offers us two sides in tension: the Peter who confessed Christ as the Son of God and received the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and the Peter who tried to remonstrate with Christ’s folly and received His rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan.” We see in the New Testament the Peter who preached the first homily on the first Pentecost and won over thousands of souls to the Church; we also see the Peter who, from human respect, denied his Master in the Passion, and later declined to associate with Gentile converts, for which he merited the sharp rebuke of his fellow apostle Paul. As Joseph Ratzinger pointed out in his book Called to Communion, the long course of Church history has displayed both faces of Peter, when his successors have acted as a stable rock of doctrinal orthodoxy and sure-handed governance, or as men acting on their own fallible initiative, ambitious, worldly, profligate, compromising.

Leaving aside this pervasive duality between office and incumbent, we may say that the patronage of St. Peter is likely to take one of two forms in the Catholic Church of the Tridentine and especially post-Vatican I period. The saint can symbolize either adherence to authentic apostolic tradition, which will pit him against Protestantism and its offspring in matters of dogma, ethics, and worship; or he can symbolize the spirit of ultramontanism — a false exaltation of the pope, a papal personality cult, which some have named hyperpapalism or papolatry.

Manifestations of contemporary ultramontanism can be obvious or subtle. For obvious manifestations we need only look to the circle of sycophants who applaud a pope’s every word and gesture. For a subtle manifestation, consider the defeaning silence on the part of many traditionalists to the pope’s most appalling statements and actions; the desire to project an image of “toeing the line” in public, while rejecting it in private. One understands why, in a time of persecution, members of traditional religious communities would keep their lips sealed, for fear of reprisal; but one would think that, out of self-respect, members of such communities would then refrain from speaking against Catholics who do raise their voices to protest open deviations from dominical, apostolic, and ecclesiastical tradition.

The irony, then, is that one community, which has fallen out of favor with the popes on account of its outspoken battle against modernism, is dedicated to a pope who was himself both an anti-modernist and, in a way, a proto-modernist; while another community, which has always retained papal favor on account of their willingness to refrain from explicit criticism of any pope, is dedicated to the first pope, who was himself a rock of faith and a stumbling block, and has become, in our times, a symbol claimed for the permanent charism of truth as well as for the pseudo-charism of fiat voluntas mea.

These sobering reflections, it seems to me, should prompt in everyone — whether persevering quietly under the patronage of the Church and the tiara of Peter, or fighting manfully on the open field while bleeding from the wounds of irregularity — a deep humility in thanking God for any and all of the gifts He has given to tradition-loving Catholics in this time of ever-intensifying spiritual warfare. It is a time for making alliances on behalf of perennial doctrine, sound morals, and authentic liturgy, not for waging battle on two fronts.

NOTES

[1] See this article and this article for a further explanation of how the new (post-Paul VI) version of the feast of Christ the King differs notably from the preconciliar one of Pius XI.

[2] Thus, we are not surprised in the least to find certain original members of the FSSP, who were once under the wing of Archbishop Lefebvre, praising him for his “pastoral approach” to liturgy. They use this to justify aberrations like reciting the readings in the vernacular facing the people instead of chanting them in Latin facing eastwards or northwards at a Missa cantata or even a Missa solemnis. “Pastoral,” indeed — so reminiscent of the aspirations of Jungmann, Parsch, Bouyer, Bugnini, and countless others whose cumulative “pastoral wisdom” birthed the Novus Ordo Missae in all its celebrated pastorality. See Addendum below, added February 5, 2019.

[3] The claim that Pope Pius V “removed lots of sequences” is something of an urban legend. With classically Roman conservatism, the Missal of the Roman Curia, the medieval predecessor of the Missal of St Pius V, simply had not received many sequences to begin with. After 1570, as churches passed over from their own local uses to that of Rome, they dropped the sequences because they were not in the Roman book. The same thing happened with some who, though retaining their proper uses, like the Premonstratensians, recast them in imitation of the Roman Missal.

[4] By “papal constructivism” I mean a Cartesian attitude of technē whereby the pope sees himself as the “master and possessor” of the liturgical rites, losing the attitude of profound piety towards the family inheritance.

[5] Bishop Athanasius Schneider had the courage to address this issue in an interview, which is worth quoting from at length for readers who have not yet seen it:

The reform of the breviary under Pius X, in 1911, was unfortunately also a revolutionary reform. It is for me an enigma how he could do this, Pope Pius X, because he changed completely the entire structure of the psalm distribution, which the Roman Church kept almost inviolably since the times—even before—of Pope Gregory I. So, already from the 6th century, maybe even earlier, the Roman Church had from this time, substantially, through at least 1,300 years, always kept the order of the distribution of psalms in the breviary during the week. The order of psalms was called the cursus romanus—cursus, meaning the course or sequence: the psalms are running through the week, from Sunday to Saturday. It was very harmonious, very logical, when you observe it. And Pius X completely, radically, changed the entire distribution of psalms. It never happened thus in the Roman Church. This is for me an enigma. How could he make such a revolution?
          Of course, he had some pastoral motives about unburdening the secular priests, to lighten their burden. But this could be done in a way not touching, substantially, the order of psalms, which the Roman Church always kept. The problem was Matins, because it had 12 psalms in the weekly office, and for some diocesan priests it was too much. The pope could have avoided touching the cursus romanus psalmorum and allowed the diocesan priests to pray maybe only half of them, six for example. So Matins would already be lightened. But the religious priests and the nuns who have to pray as their first duty, they would pray all of it. Unfortunately, the pope changed everything, even for the nuns and for all religious, maybe with the Benedictines as the only exception, who were allowed to keep their traditional psalmody. So I repeat: it would be sufficient to make a provision specifically for the clergy who are in pastoral work to lighten the burden of praying the amount of psalms, without changing substantially the order or structure of the millennium-old Roman liturgy of the Divine Office.
          I hope that in the future, the Church will return to the traditional Holy Week, pre-‘55, substantially, maybe with some slight modifications that will not touch the substance. And the same with the breviary—to return to the pre-Pius X breviary, which I call “The Breviary of All Ages,” with maybe some modifications that would be reasonable. But I repeat: not touching the substance of it. I shall repeat: the Church has to do all these things very carefully, and she had always done this wisely in the past. The popes have to be conscious that they are not the owners of the liturgy and the rites, but the keepers and the guardians of them.

ADDENDUM

Several have written to me to say that +Lefebvre decided to make the 1962 books binding simply because they were the last editio typica promulgated by lawful authority, prior to the devastations unleashed by the Council. The Instructions of 1964 and 1967 were not to be followed because they expressly referred to Sacrosanctum Concilium, of which Lefebvre had become skeptical (although a signatory in 1963), and especially because they implemented the program of the Consilium. It is possible that +Lefebvre -- like Pope John XXXIII himself, who still celebrated the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts even after his predecessor had abolished it -- would have preferred the pre-1962 rites, but he saw that he, as bishop or superior, would not have the right make such a momentous choice on his own, and that it would have obscured his position on the papacy.

Again there is a certain irony here: the very proximity of the “Ecclesia Dei” communities to their Roman contacts (which is considered “selling out” by their critics) has permitted them to acquire the right to use the older (pre-Pius XII) form of Holy Week, whereas the SSPX, standing at a greater distance, is canonically helpless in this regard. They could at some point formally request the right to revert to an earlier edition of the missal, but given the sensitive nature of the doctrinal dialogue, this issue would naturally tend to be lower down on the list.

As Fr Hunwicke recently pointed out, our liturgical hindsight is 20/20. In the 1950s and even through the 1960s, the trajectory from Pius X’s breviary to Pius XII’s Holy Week to Paul VI’s Novus Ordo was not clear to most observers. At the time, +Lefebvre and others may have considered all of Pius X’s actions mantled in his sanctity, and all of Pius XII’s reforms to have been moderate and worthy of acceptance. It was only subsequently, when the full horror of the constructivism, presentism, utilitarianism, rationalism, and papal voluntarism of Paul VI’s “reform” became apparent, that a more comprehensive critique of the 20th-century reformist program began to emerge. Today, this critique is increasingly widespread, but in 1965, 1970, or 1975 one would have looked for it largely in vain.