Earlier today, I appeared on A Catholic Take, with the host Joe McClane, to discuss my recent article Historical Falsehoods about the Liturgy from George Weigel. This goes a little bit deeper into some of the issues discussed in the original article, so if you enjoyed the first one, you might find this interesting. My part begins at 37:55; many thanks to Mr McClane for having me on the program. (The video is not embeddable, but there is a link by which you can reach it below.) Here is the direct link to the website for Mr McClane’s program: https://thestationofthecross.com/act.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Historical Falsehoods about the Liturgy from George Weigel
In our conversations, Dr Kwasniewski has occasionally referred to liturgical discourse within the Church as something like a game of whack-a-mole. Every time a falsehood or series of falsehoods about the liturgy is refuted, more spring up to take its place. Case in point: no sooner does a book replying to the absurd claims of Drs Cavadini, Healy and Weinandy come out, than someone brings to my attention this video, in which George Weigel repeats several of the common falsehoods about the liturgy, which are no less false for being common.
Unfortunately, this is merely an excerpt of a much longer video in which a great deal more that is false but commonly believed about the liturgy is repeated, and I simply do not have time to write a refutation of all of it. There is more than enough to deal with in this span of less than six minutes.– He begins by taking issue with the term “Mass of the Ages” used to describe the Traditional Latin Mass, and of course made especially popular of late by the on-going documentary series of that name. (In the longer video, Mr Weigel says that he hasn’t seen the documentary, which is hardly surprising.) He then makes the false claim that the Roman Rite was always “constantly evolving.” While it is true that many small adjustments were made to the liturgy, by far the largest portion of the material found in the Missal of St Pius V, (the order of the audible parts of the Mass, i.e. Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, etc., the chants, prayers and readings of the temporal cycle and the oldest Saints’ feasts, the Canon) are already fixed in their places in the earliest liturgical books of the Roman Rite.
– He goes on to say that the Missal of 1962 is not “the Missal that was used in the 12th century.” This ignores the fact that a very considerable amount of that same material found in the oldest books of the Roman Rite would in fact also be found in any Missal from either 1162, 1562, or 1962. (But of course, in defiance of the explicit commands of the Second Vatican Council, much of it is NOT found in the Missals of 1969 or 2002.)
Taking these two points together, no serious (or even casual) historian of the liturgy denies that changes and additions have been made to the liturgy, but to say that the Roman Rite was “constantly” evolving is a grotesque exaggeration.
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| The end of the Preface, the Sanctus (written in Greek letters), and the beginning of the Canon, in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD, one of the oldest surviving books of its kind. |
– 0:28 “The changes in the Roman Rite began with Pope Pius XII, and specifically with the restoration of Holy Week to its proper form.” Almost nothing about the Holy Week reform of Pope Pius XII is a restoration, least of all the one aspect of it which he specifically mentions, the moving of the Easter vigil from one wrong time to another. (He later says that Pius XII “restored the more ancient liturgy of Holy Week”; assuming this to mean something more than the completely superficial adjustment of the timetable, namely, the revision of texts and rites, this is completely false. No aspect of these changes is a restoration of anything.)
– 1:00 “The Easter vigil used to be celebrated on Saturday morning.” While it is true that this was done for a very long time, it was not always done. There are plenty of ancient sources that clearly state that the Easter vigil was begun in the evening, as sunset approached, but Pius XII’s reform specifically moved it to the middle of the night, a custom which has no historical precedent, and which also makes “no sense whatsoever.” Fire- and lamp-lighting rituals are a thing one does when the sun is going down, not when it has been down for hours.
– Beginning at 1:20, he gives a completely erroneous account of the Tridentine liturgical reform. He repeatedly attributes to the Council of Trent actions which the Council itself did not take, and which it explicitly left to the Holy See. And he repeats the false idea, repeatedly debunked in primis by Fr Hunwicke, that Trent suppressed all of other Uses of the Roman Rite with a few exceptions. (He names the Ambrosian Rite and the Dominican Use.)
– At 2:20, he claims that “several years before Vatican II”, John XXIII “signaled” that the Roman Rite was not “fixed in concrete” by adding St Joseph’s name to the Canon of the Mass. In point of fact, the decree ordering this was issued on November 13, 1962, more than a month after Vatican II was opened, and became legally active on the following December 8. (AAS 1962, p. 873) This is a minor point, but highly indicative of how so much of our liturgical discourse is done these days, without even a cursory examination of the most basic sources, or command of the most basic historical facts.
(I cannot pretend to have read everything that John XXIII ever said or wrote, so I may be wrong about this, but I can find nothing in which he ever said that such was his intention in changing the Canon, and I think this interpretation of his action is highly tendentious. Angelo Roncalli was born and raised in a small town within the Roman Rite diocese of Bergamo, for which he was ordained a priest, but within walking distance of Ambrosian territory. He surely knew that the Ambrosian Canon varies both lists of Saints; in his time, the Ambrosian Rite was commonly (though wrongly) thought to be an archaic form of the Roman Rite, and this change may not have seemed like a particularly earthshaking thing to him.)
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| (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons) |
From these statements, Mr Weigel somehow concludes that the idea of a “Mass of the Ages” is a fiction. He thus ignores the most basic fact about the Roman Rite, namely, that there is a very high degree of very obvious continuity which runs directly from its most ancient sources all the way through to the editions published in the reigns of Pius XII and John XXIII. And again, this continuity was savagely ruptured by the post-Conciliar reform, in countless ways that the signatories of Sacrosanctum Concilium did not even remotely dream of.
– At 3:20, Mr Weigel make a very interesting statement indeed, that he once asked a friend of his “what are these kids looking for in the Latin Mass celebrated according to the Extraordinary Form.” (Interesting that he didn’t ask, um, the kids themselves.) She said that “they are looking for the awe and wonder”, and he “think(s) that’s exactly right.” He goes on to say that “you can experience awe and wonder in a properly celebrated Novus Ordo Mass.”
But this begs the question by assuming that a “properly celebrated Novus Ordo Mass” is one that inspires awe and wonder. This is simply not true. There are plenty of options that any celebrant of the Novus Ordo can select at any time for any or no reason, options which have a long proven track record of more than 50 years of obliterating all sense that one is in the presence of something awesome and wonderful, and which are nonetheless perfectly licit, and therefore not improper by any objective standard. And of course, the post-Conciliar rite, unlike any other historical rite, was deliberately designed to be subject in this fashion to the will and whim and bright ideas of the celebrant and his chosen collaborators. This in turn, de facto if not de jure, strongly and unavoidably encourages any number of other practices which do not inspire awe and wonder.
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| For example |
I readily confess my agreement with Mr Weigel on a point which he makes, and which almost no one is concerned to deny, that a worthy celebration of the Novus Ordo is possible. But sadly, he follows this up (4:15) with a repetition of the hoariest and most exhausted point that can be made on this topic, that the liturgy was often celebrated hurriedly and with bad music before Vatican II.
I do not expect him, or anyone else, to explain plausibly why, because the Roman Rite was badly celebrated in one or more particular places and times, so much of it needed to be destroyed, not sparing even its most ancient features (and this, again, in flat defiance of Sacrosanctum Concilium). Much less do I expect him to say whether the Novus Ordo, which is celebrated very badly in a great many places, and which has never been celebrated very well in more than a tiny minority of places, needs to be similarly destroyed.
However, I will say this: if this point is raised without reference to the massive destruction of Catholic institutions in Europe and Latin America in the age of the great revolutions, from which the Church was still recovering in 1962; if it is raised without reference to the specific conditions of Catholic immigrant populations in places like the United States and Australia; if it is raised without reference to the failure of the post-Conciliar Rite to produce any of what the first paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium said it wanted to come out of the reform, then it is being raised polemically, not seriously, and were better left not raised at all.
Monday, December 09, 2019
Round-up of Articles on the 50th Anniversary of the Mass of Paul VI
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| Adriaen Ysenbrandt (active 1510-1551), Mass of St Gregory |
In Book IV of his Dialogues, Pope St. Gregory the Great, to whom the final redaction of the Roman Canon is attributed — after which it remained virtually unchanged until 1962, when Pope John XXIII had the name of St Joseph inserted into it — stirringly says:
For, who of the faithful can have any doubt that at the moment of the immolation, at the sound of the priest’s voice, the heavens stand open and choirs of angels are present at the mystery of Jesus Christ? There at the altar the lowliest is united with the most sublime, earth is joined to heaven, the visible and invisible somehow merge into one. [1]
He asks if any of the faithful can have any doubt that an immolation is occurring; that, at the sound of the priest uttering the words of consecration, the heavens are opened and angels are present at a mystery; that the altar unites earth to heaven in the supreme atoning sacrifice. This is language redolent of the Roman Canon and the traditional Roman rite in its totality; it is language that equally describes all the authentic liturgies of East and West, in both theory and praxis.
Sadly, as poll after poll has shown, it would seem that today, fifty years after the mandatory implementation of the reformed liturgy, one would have to rephrase this question: Who among the faithful any longer believes or experiences that any of this is happening? Who among them has ever heard of it? Who can see it or hear it in the manner in which divine worship takes place? Ironically, though not at all surprisingly, it is the faithful attached to the traditional Latin Mass who encounter the mystery he describes.
On October 28, I published at NLM an article entitled “Why Is the Liturgical Establishment Not Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Novus Ordo?,” which inquired into possible reasons for the deafening silence about this golden anniversary from the quarters and parties who would be most expected to blow the trumpet in the new moon. Admittedly, though, it was late October, and the actual anniversary would not be until a month later — November 30th, to be precise. There was yet time.
That day has come and gone. Ardent partisans of the post-Conciliar reform, represented in the United States by PrayTell, have remained stone silent. I think they know better than to expose themselves to ridicule and refutation. Defenders of the Catholic liturgical tradition, meanwhile, have been boisterous and ebullient.
Most interestingly, there have been a few attempts to defend a via media, reminiscent of Newman’s prior to 1845; one has the impression that they, like him, are fighting a rearguard action, firing off a few stray shots as they run for cover.
Why do traditional Catholics reject the Novus Ordo? This was the question I attempted to answer in my recent (November 13) Minneapolis lecture, the full text of which was published on November 29 at Rorate Caeli: “Beyond ‘Smells and Bells’: Why We Need the Objective Content of the Usus Antiquior.” Here is a synopsis:
Sadly, as poll after poll has shown, it would seem that today, fifty years after the mandatory implementation of the reformed liturgy, one would have to rephrase this question: Who among the faithful any longer believes or experiences that any of this is happening? Who among them has ever heard of it? Who can see it or hear it in the manner in which divine worship takes place? Ironically, though not at all surprisingly, it is the faithful attached to the traditional Latin Mass who encounter the mystery he describes.
On October 28, I published at NLM an article entitled “Why Is the Liturgical Establishment Not Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Novus Ordo?,” which inquired into possible reasons for the deafening silence about this golden anniversary from the quarters and parties who would be most expected to blow the trumpet in the new moon. Admittedly, though, it was late October, and the actual anniversary would not be until a month later — November 30th, to be precise. There was yet time.
That day has come and gone. Ardent partisans of the post-Conciliar reform, represented in the United States by PrayTell, have remained stone silent. I think they know better than to expose themselves to ridicule and refutation. Defenders of the Catholic liturgical tradition, meanwhile, have been boisterous and ebullient.
Most interestingly, there have been a few attempts to defend a via media, reminiscent of Newman’s prior to 1845; one has the impression that they, like him, are fighting a rearguard action, firing off a few stray shots as they run for cover.
There were, so far as I could tell, three major conservative pieces in English to mark the anniversary. Two were published back-to-back by the National Catholic Register: Fr Roger Landry’s “Celebrating the Novus Ordo as It Ought to Be” and Joseph O’Brien’s “The Mass of Paul VI at 50: Marking the Golden Jubilee of the New Order.” George Weigel’s “The Reformed Liturgy, 50 Years Later” appeared at First Things online. [2]
Fr Landry’s article is a remarkable study in innocence. The very title of his article contains an insoluble conundrum, since there is no single way that the Novus Ordo ought to be celebrated; it is open to literally thousands of realizations based on the local choices of different combinations of its modules, musical options, and inculturated adaptations. Moreover, the author apparently does not realize that Pope Paul VI from 1965 to 1969 and beyond expressly excluded a traditional style of Novus Ordo Mass (in Latin, with chant, ad orientem, etc.) as foreign to the entire project and purpose of the reform, even as the Consilium had ignored the vote of no confidence in the Missa Normativa at the 1967 Synod of Bishops. There never was any intention whatsoever to keep continuity with liturgical tradition in the actual content of the new liturgical books or in their roll-out and subsequent curial administration; yet even when so-called traditional options are chosen, they remain neither more nor less than the particular realization chosen by this priest or this worshiping community.
Those who study the records closely can readily see the incoherence in attempting to defend an amorphous and voluntaristic missal as the basis of a stable, dignified, and truly unifying liturgical life, but we are up against a triple obstacle in 2019: a profound ignorance compounded by five decades of distance; a tremendous atmosphere of indifference; and a well-intentioned but harmful indulgence in wishful thinking on the part of those who would reconnect severed limbs with adhesive bandages. Further rebuttal of Landry is hardly necessary, since, if one has the courage to open the Register comments section, one finds there a bloodbath of Napoleonic magnitude.
O’Brien’s article is more even-handed, citing in good journalistic fashion various opinions about the motives and outcomes of the reform. It still suffers from an attempt to put a good face on a revolution in Catholic worship that remains profoundly troubling and troublesome. The very title of this article is to me more revealing than anything else in it: The Mass of Paul VI. Never before 1969 had it been possible to say The Mass of (so-and-so). Not even Pius V contributed so much to the Missale Romanum that his 1570 edition could reasonably be called The Mass of Pius V. It was the Mass of the Roman Curia, the Mass of St. Damasus, St. Gelasius, St. Gregory I, Hadrian, St. Gregory VII, Innocent III, Gregory IX, and on and on — the Mass of all of them, and of none of them. [3]
Weigel’s article is . . . classic recent Weigel: brief, insubstantial, and inconsequential, with an obligatory memorial of his latest book, and an optional memorial of his favorite Ordinary Form parish, where, thanks to the wonders of the internet, one can view, from thousands of miles away in the comfort of one’s own home, one of the few places on planet Earth where the Novus Ordo is “done well,” i.e., mostly not according to the wishes of Paul VI, but with a house blend of Tridentinisms and novelties.
What is perhaps most telling is that none of these authors is capable of yielding to unqualified praise for the Novus Ordo. Positive statements are hedged about with qualifications, if-onlys, regrets, and desiderata. One is left with the impression that we are celebrating an anniversary not so much of something that exists as of something that failed to exist, or exists only in embryonic form, stalled in its gestation by hostile environmental forces. Meanwhile, the classical Roman Rite lives on, in its fully-matured form, offered according to ironclad rubrics that protect it from diminution, arbitrariness, and groupthink. [4]
Fr Landry’s article is a remarkable study in innocence. The very title of his article contains an insoluble conundrum, since there is no single way that the Novus Ordo ought to be celebrated; it is open to literally thousands of realizations based on the local choices of different combinations of its modules, musical options, and inculturated adaptations. Moreover, the author apparently does not realize that Pope Paul VI from 1965 to 1969 and beyond expressly excluded a traditional style of Novus Ordo Mass (in Latin, with chant, ad orientem, etc.) as foreign to the entire project and purpose of the reform, even as the Consilium had ignored the vote of no confidence in the Missa Normativa at the 1967 Synod of Bishops. There never was any intention whatsoever to keep continuity with liturgical tradition in the actual content of the new liturgical books or in their roll-out and subsequent curial administration; yet even when so-called traditional options are chosen, they remain neither more nor less than the particular realization chosen by this priest or this worshiping community.
Those who study the records closely can readily see the incoherence in attempting to defend an amorphous and voluntaristic missal as the basis of a stable, dignified, and truly unifying liturgical life, but we are up against a triple obstacle in 2019: a profound ignorance compounded by five decades of distance; a tremendous atmosphere of indifference; and a well-intentioned but harmful indulgence in wishful thinking on the part of those who would reconnect severed limbs with adhesive bandages. Further rebuttal of Landry is hardly necessary, since, if one has the courage to open the Register comments section, one finds there a bloodbath of Napoleonic magnitude.
O’Brien’s article is more even-handed, citing in good journalistic fashion various opinions about the motives and outcomes of the reform. It still suffers from an attempt to put a good face on a revolution in Catholic worship that remains profoundly troubling and troublesome. The very title of this article is to me more revealing than anything else in it: The Mass of Paul VI. Never before 1969 had it been possible to say The Mass of (so-and-so). Not even Pius V contributed so much to the Missale Romanum that his 1570 edition could reasonably be called The Mass of Pius V. It was the Mass of the Roman Curia, the Mass of St. Damasus, St. Gelasius, St. Gregory I, Hadrian, St. Gregory VII, Innocent III, Gregory IX, and on and on — the Mass of all of them, and of none of them. [3]
Weigel’s article is . . . classic recent Weigel: brief, insubstantial, and inconsequential, with an obligatory memorial of his latest book, and an optional memorial of his favorite Ordinary Form parish, where, thanks to the wonders of the internet, one can view, from thousands of miles away in the comfort of one’s own home, one of the few places on planet Earth where the Novus Ordo is “done well,” i.e., mostly not according to the wishes of Paul VI, but with a house blend of Tridentinisms and novelties.
What is perhaps most telling is that none of these authors is capable of yielding to unqualified praise for the Novus Ordo. Positive statements are hedged about with qualifications, if-onlys, regrets, and desiderata. One is left with the impression that we are celebrating an anniversary not so much of something that exists as of something that failed to exist, or exists only in embryonic form, stalled in its gestation by hostile environmental forces. Meanwhile, the classical Roman Rite lives on, in its fully-matured form, offered according to ironclad rubrics that protect it from diminution, arbitrariness, and groupthink. [4]
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| New priests ordained for the old Mass: a sign of things to come |
I argue that the Novus Ordo Missae constitutes a rupture with fundamental elements of all liturgies of apostolic derivation, and that, as a consequence, it violates the Church’s solemn obligation to receive, cherish, guard, and pass on the fruits of liturgical development. Since this development is, in fact, a major way in which the Holy Spirit leads the Church “into the fullness of truth” over the ages, as Christ promised, so great a “sin against the Holy Spirit” cannot fail to have enormous negative consequences, as the past five decades have verified. Nor is it possible to bridge the abyss between old and new by applying cosmetics or the drapery of elegant clothing, because the problem is on the order of a genetic mutation, or damage to internal organs. The profound and permanent solution is to maintain continuity with the living liturgical tradition found in the usus antiquior.
(The audio of the lecture may be found either at YouTube or at SoundCloud.)
I consider this lecture my best effort to date in identifying the exact nature of the rupture between the preceding liturgical tradition (Eastern and Western) and the modern papal rite of Paul VI, as well as the magnitude of theological and spiritual loss inflicted on the Church by it.
Rorate contributor Ken Wolfe published a short and sweet Op Ed in the New York Daily News, also posted at Rorate. At his blog, Fr. Z shares a number of podcasts anent the anniversary.
One wonders where we will be in another 50 years’ time, at the platinum jubilee. The first golden anniversary already hints at a probable outcome. There will be even fewer articles from the ardent supporters of the reform, since, according to the cutting-edge Vatican mathematics that gave us 2 + 2 = 5, zero is less than zero; and there may not even be any ROTR-style articles, after the virtual schism between the neo-modernism of the conciliar epoch and the traditionalism of the preconciliar epoch will have become an outright parting of the ways, as it is bound to do — as, indeed, we see already happening.
NOTES
[1] Gregory I, Dialogi 4,60,3 (SC 265, 202); Dialogues, trans. by O.J. Zimmerman (New York, NY: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959), 273.
[2] We might consider Rusty Reno’s eloquent explanation of his preference for the TLM in his December 2019 editorial as a kind of commemoration, though he doesn’t bill it as such: see the section entitled “Et Cum Spiritu Tuo.” Dr. Joseph Shaw has already gently refuted Reno’s characterization of the strengths and weaknesses of the two “forms” in a pair of articles at Rorate: part 1 and part 2.
[3] In point of fact, the Roman Rite, although sometimes called “the rite of St. Gregory the Great,” is almost unique among major historical liturgies in that it did not traditionally circulate under the name of one of its creators, unlike the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, St Basil, St James, etc., but solely on the authority of the Roman Church. Even terms like “Gelasian” and “Gregorian” sacramentary are from modern scholars.
[4] NOTE ADDED ON DEC. 12: I agree with a commentator below that my claim in this sentence is somewhat exaggerated. Certainly, in comparison with the amorphousness of the Novus Ordo, which no one seems to be able to control, even the Roman rite as of 1962 looks mature, ironclad, and well-protected by its own rubrics. But it is true that the fully-matured form of the Roman rite is that which we find before the major tinkeritis of the 20th century begins (Pius X in regard to the psalm cursus, Pius XII in regard to Holy Week, vigils, octaves, and vestments), and that in order to recover it in its undiminished form, untouched by groupthink, we will need to settle in the future on the 1920 missal in its ca. 1948 status. I have discussed this point more here and intend to return to this important question in future.
Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Newman, Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen, Roguet, Croegaert), his SoundCloud for lectures and interviews, and his YouTube channel for talks and sacred music.
I consider this lecture my best effort to date in identifying the exact nature of the rupture between the preceding liturgical tradition (Eastern and Western) and the modern papal rite of Paul VI, as well as the magnitude of theological and spiritual loss inflicted on the Church by it.
Rorate contributor Ken Wolfe published a short and sweet Op Ed in the New York Daily News, also posted at Rorate. At his blog, Fr. Z shares a number of podcasts anent the anniversary.
One wonders where we will be in another 50 years’ time, at the platinum jubilee. The first golden anniversary already hints at a probable outcome. There will be even fewer articles from the ardent supporters of the reform, since, according to the cutting-edge Vatican mathematics that gave us 2 + 2 = 5, zero is less than zero; and there may not even be any ROTR-style articles, after the virtual schism between the neo-modernism of the conciliar epoch and the traditionalism of the preconciliar epoch will have become an outright parting of the ways, as it is bound to do — as, indeed, we see already happening.
NOTES
[1] Gregory I, Dialogi 4,60,3 (SC 265, 202); Dialogues, trans. by O.J. Zimmerman (New York, NY: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959), 273.
[2] We might consider Rusty Reno’s eloquent explanation of his preference for the TLM in his December 2019 editorial as a kind of commemoration, though he doesn’t bill it as such: see the section entitled “Et Cum Spiritu Tuo.” Dr. Joseph Shaw has already gently refuted Reno’s characterization of the strengths and weaknesses of the two “forms” in a pair of articles at Rorate: part 1 and part 2.
[3] In point of fact, the Roman Rite, although sometimes called “the rite of St. Gregory the Great,” is almost unique among major historical liturgies in that it did not traditionally circulate under the name of one of its creators, unlike the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, St Basil, St James, etc., but solely on the authority of the Roman Church. Even terms like “Gelasian” and “Gregorian” sacramentary are from modern scholars.
[4] NOTE ADDED ON DEC. 12: I agree with a commentator below that my claim in this sentence is somewhat exaggerated. Certainly, in comparison with the amorphousness of the Novus Ordo, which no one seems to be able to control, even the Roman rite as of 1962 looks mature, ironclad, and well-protected by its own rubrics. But it is true that the fully-matured form of the Roman rite is that which we find before the major tinkeritis of the 20th century begins (Pius X in regard to the psalm cursus, Pius XII in regard to Holy Week, vigils, octaves, and vestments), and that in order to recover it in its undiminished form, untouched by groupthink, we will need to settle in the future on the 1920 missal in its ca. 1948 status. I have discussed this point more here and intend to return to this important question in future.
Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Newman, Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen, Roguet, Croegaert), his SoundCloud for lectures and interviews, and his YouTube channel for talks and sacred music.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
George Weigel Vs. Liturgical Improvisation
In an article published yesterday on the website of First Things, George Weigel takes the clergy to task for the less-than-happy results of the widespread habit of liturgical improvisation. The tone of the article is such that I am sure that Fr Zuhlsdorf is correct when he says about it, “He must have had an experience recently which set him off.”
Citing the words of Sacrosanctum Concilium that “no . . . person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority,” Prof. Weigel writes,
De jure, the post-Conciliar liturgical reform gave the clergy a degree of liberty to decide what shall be said or sung, how it shall be said or sung, whether it shall be said or sung, and with what rituals accompanying, that was far broader than anything known within the Church before 1969. (Yes, St Justin Martyr says in the mid-2nd century that the celebrant of the Eucharist “offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability.” There is a very good reason why this passage of the First Apology, chapter 67, is always cited by those who favor liturgical improvisation; it is the only such passage available to cite.)
Just to give an example or two: prior to the reform, every sung Mass of the Roman Rite on the First Sunday of Advent began, as it had begun for centuries, with the Gregorian Introit Ad te levavi, and every low Mass began with the prayers before the altar, after which the priest read Ad te levavi. Since 1969, the ubiquitous and fatal rubric “or another suitable song” has given him (or the persons to whom he has delegated responsibility) permission to sing more or less anything, since inevitably, everyone has their own ideas about what sort of song is really suitable.
There are also plenty of places where the priest is permitted to make up what he will say, like the supposedly “very brief” (brevissimis) words by which he, or a deacon, or a lay minister (as options multiply) may introduce the day’s Mass to the faithful, and the exhortations which begin rites such as the prophecies of the Easter vigil or the processions on Candlemas and Palm Sunday. One formulation of this permission, “vel similibus verbis – or with similar words,” occurs eight times in the rubrics of the 2002 Latin edition of the Missal. The Prayers of the Faithful have a fixed form, but no fixed content at all.
Even discounting these permissions, it is impossible for a Catholic priest to celebrate the modern Rite without having to continually choose among options. Examples could be given almost without end, but I am sure they are well known to our readers. Suffice it to say that the multiplication of options is not even excluded from the very heart of the Rite, the Eucharistic Prayer. Here, Father is compelled, whether he will so or not, to make a choice among at least four options, often many more, guided by almost nothing.
When the novelty of multiple Eucharistic Prayers was introduced into the Roman Rite, it was often justified by appealing to the practice of the other ancient rites of Christianity, especially the Eastern rites, which all have more than one anaphora. Very rarely did anybody bother to point out that although the Byzantine Rite, for example, does indeed have two anaphoras, each is appointed for certain days; that of St Basil the Great is said on ten days of the year, and that of St John Chrysostom on every other day. A Byzantine priest is not at liberty to say, “It may be the First Sunday of Lent, but I’m in a Chrysostom mood today,” and decide to use the latter. But when a priest uses the modern Roman Rite, he is never required to choose any particular Eucharistic Prayer, not even the venerable Roman Canon. The rubrics of the Missal offer no more than suggestions as to when they may be “suitably” chosen.
Now there is, of course, a significant difference in theory between choosing among licit options, or making up things to say where this is permitted by law, and the improvisations which Prof. Weigel rightly decries. But in practice, once the clergy were given such a broad degree of liberty to fashion and refashion so much of the liturgy as they saw fit, it was completely unrealistic to imagine that they would NOT apply this liberty to the rest of the liturgy as well. Basic experience of human nature should have made it obvious that in almost any climate, but especially in the revolutionary atmosphere which prevailed in the Church in the later 1960s, the bounds set by liturgical law would be effectively ignored.
And now we come to the de facto part. The abuses of this new-found liberty were for a long time encouraged by an almost complete absence of will to restrain them. In many parts of the world, this is still very much the case to this day. Prof. Weigel is certainly correct, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, to say that the problem is now greatly lessened among the younger clergy. But his appeal to Pray the Black and Do the Red will almost certainly fall on deaf ears among those priests “who attended seminary in the late Sixties, Seventies, or early Eighties.” It is completely unrealistic to imagine that they will suddenly agree to obey the law if their bishops did nothing to restrain their breaking of it in a matter of such importance for so many years. Truth to tell, many of those bishops were in fact the very same men who put their signatures to Sacrosanctum Concilium in the first place, almost none of whom could later be found to say to their priests, “Thus far shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.”
Where I write above “encouraged by the current liturgical discipline of the Church”, I wish to emphasize the word “current.” Taking St Justin’s description of the “improvised” Eucharist as a starting point, experience must surely have taught the Church in antiquity the same thing which it is teaching Her now – that giving people broad liberty to fashion and refashion the liturgy is a terrible idea. There is absolutely no reason why this lesson cannot be applied to the post-Conciliar liturgical reform. There is no reason why the Church cannot say to Her priests, “You will say this Eucharistic Prayer on this day, and no other, that one on that day, and no other. These are the words that are said before the Candlemas procession, these and no others. This is the only vernacular hymn in this language that may substitute Ad te levavi on First Advent.” And so on.
Of course, the Church must also be willing to train Her priests to be obedient sons, to recognize themselves as the servants of the liturgy, not its masters, as men called to be formed by the liturgy, not to form it. But She must also be willing to give them a liturgy that truly forms them, and does not need to be formed by them, one that spiritually rewards its faithful servants, and needs no master other than Herself. Until this lesson is relearned, She has sown the wind, and must now continue to reap the whirlwind.
Citing the words of Sacrosanctum Concilium that “no . . . person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority,” Prof. Weigel writes,
… Auto-editing or flat-out rewriting the prescribed text of the Mass is virtually epidemic among priests who attended seminary in the late Sixties, Seventies, or early Eighties; it’s less obvious among the younger clergy. But whether indulged by old, middle-aged, or young, it’s obnoxious and it’s an obstacle to prayer. …Of course, priests should Say (or “Pray”, if one prefers) the Black and Do the Red, as Fr Z has been very rightly exhorting them to do for years. But I cannot help but think that Dr. Weigel has diagnosed a symptom, while referring only obliquely to the disease which has caused it. He is right to say that “… in metaphorically thumbing his nose at the Council’s clear injunction (not to mention the rubrics in the Missal), Father Freelance is … asserting his own superiority over the liturgy.” But the simple fact of the matter is that where such a sense of superiority exists, it is both de jure and de facto very much encouraged by the current liturgical discipline of the Church.
… after more than four decades of priest-celebrants trying to be Johnny Carson, Bob Barker, Alex Trebek, or whomever, this act is getting very old. Father, you’re just not very good at it. …
So please, fathers in Christ, spare us these attempts at creativity, or user-friendliness, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. They just don’t work. Please just pray the black and do the red. And the worship Vatican II intended will be much enhanced thereby.
De jure, the post-Conciliar liturgical reform gave the clergy a degree of liberty to decide what shall be said or sung, how it shall be said or sung, whether it shall be said or sung, and with what rituals accompanying, that was far broader than anything known within the Church before 1969. (Yes, St Justin Martyr says in the mid-2nd century that the celebrant of the Eucharist “offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability.” There is a very good reason why this passage of the First Apology, chapter 67, is always cited by those who favor liturgical improvisation; it is the only such passage available to cite.)
Just to give an example or two: prior to the reform, every sung Mass of the Roman Rite on the First Sunday of Advent began, as it had begun for centuries, with the Gregorian Introit Ad te levavi, and every low Mass began with the prayers before the altar, after which the priest read Ad te levavi. Since 1969, the ubiquitous and fatal rubric “or another suitable song” has given him (or the persons to whom he has delegated responsibility) permission to sing more or less anything, since inevitably, everyone has their own ideas about what sort of song is really suitable.
There are also plenty of places where the priest is permitted to make up what he will say, like the supposedly “very brief” (brevissimis) words by which he, or a deacon, or a lay minister (as options multiply) may introduce the day’s Mass to the faithful, and the exhortations which begin rites such as the prophecies of the Easter vigil or the processions on Candlemas and Palm Sunday. One formulation of this permission, “vel similibus verbis – or with similar words,” occurs eight times in the rubrics of the 2002 Latin edition of the Missal. The Prayers of the Faithful have a fixed form, but no fixed content at all.
Even discounting these permissions, it is impossible for a Catholic priest to celebrate the modern Rite without having to continually choose among options. Examples could be given almost without end, but I am sure they are well known to our readers. Suffice it to say that the multiplication of options is not even excluded from the very heart of the Rite, the Eucharistic Prayer. Here, Father is compelled, whether he will so or not, to make a choice among at least four options, often many more, guided by almost nothing.
When the novelty of multiple Eucharistic Prayers was introduced into the Roman Rite, it was often justified by appealing to the practice of the other ancient rites of Christianity, especially the Eastern rites, which all have more than one anaphora. Very rarely did anybody bother to point out that although the Byzantine Rite, for example, does indeed have two anaphoras, each is appointed for certain days; that of St Basil the Great is said on ten days of the year, and that of St John Chrysostom on every other day. A Byzantine priest is not at liberty to say, “It may be the First Sunday of Lent, but I’m in a Chrysostom mood today,” and decide to use the latter. But when a priest uses the modern Roman Rite, he is never required to choose any particular Eucharistic Prayer, not even the venerable Roman Canon. The rubrics of the Missal offer no more than suggestions as to when they may be “suitably” chosen.
Now there is, of course, a significant difference in theory between choosing among licit options, or making up things to say where this is permitted by law, and the improvisations which Prof. Weigel rightly decries. But in practice, once the clergy were given such a broad degree of liberty to fashion and refashion so much of the liturgy as they saw fit, it was completely unrealistic to imagine that they would NOT apply this liberty to the rest of the liturgy as well. Basic experience of human nature should have made it obvious that in almost any climate, but especially in the revolutionary atmosphere which prevailed in the Church in the later 1960s, the bounds set by liturgical law would be effectively ignored.
And now we come to the de facto part. The abuses of this new-found liberty were for a long time encouraged by an almost complete absence of will to restrain them. In many parts of the world, this is still very much the case to this day. Prof. Weigel is certainly correct, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, to say that the problem is now greatly lessened among the younger clergy. But his appeal to Pray the Black and Do the Red will almost certainly fall on deaf ears among those priests “who attended seminary in the late Sixties, Seventies, or early Eighties.” It is completely unrealistic to imagine that they will suddenly agree to obey the law if their bishops did nothing to restrain their breaking of it in a matter of such importance for so many years. Truth to tell, many of those bishops were in fact the very same men who put their signatures to Sacrosanctum Concilium in the first place, almost none of whom could later be found to say to their priests, “Thus far shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.”
Where I write above “encouraged by the current liturgical discipline of the Church”, I wish to emphasize the word “current.” Taking St Justin’s description of the “improvised” Eucharist as a starting point, experience must surely have taught the Church in antiquity the same thing which it is teaching Her now – that giving people broad liberty to fashion and refashion the liturgy is a terrible idea. There is absolutely no reason why this lesson cannot be applied to the post-Conciliar liturgical reform. There is no reason why the Church cannot say to Her priests, “You will say this Eucharistic Prayer on this day, and no other, that one on that day, and no other. These are the words that are said before the Candlemas procession, these and no others. This is the only vernacular hymn in this language that may substitute Ad te levavi on First Advent.” And so on.
Of course, the Church must also be willing to train Her priests to be obedient sons, to recognize themselves as the servants of the liturgy, not its masters, as men called to be formed by the liturgy, not to form it. But She must also be willing to give them a liturgy that truly forms them, and does not need to be formed by them, one that spiritually rewards its faithful servants, and needs no master other than Herself. Until this lesson is relearned, She has sown the wind, and must now continue to reap the whirlwind.
