From the Complete Psalter to the Easier Psalter: An Insight into the Dynamics of Liturgical Reform in the 20th Century (Part 2)

Today we publish the second and concluding part of Dr. Paweł Milcarek’s study of the history of the psalter in the Roman divine office. Part 1 may be found here. —PAK 

A commemorative medallion for the second session of Vatican II (source), at the end of which, the document on the liturgy was promulgated.

The Psalter according to the Second Vatican Council: less is better

On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, the planned reform of the breviary – and hence also the introduction of a new arrangement of the Psalter – was one of the most widely discussed issues. In 1957, Pius XII had appointed a commission that surveyed a number of bishops on this matter. The Roman liturgical congregation had already had some concrete projects in its closets, waiting to make use of them.

The Council’s constitution Sacrosanctum concilium, promulgated on 4th December 1963, in its fourth chapter, devoted to the Roman Breviary, states that the restoration of this liturgical book, “so happily begun by the Apostolic See”, is introduced “in order that the Divine Office may be better and more perfectly prayed in existing circumstances, whether by priests or by other members of the Church”, which – in turn – is meant “to sanctify the day”. The Council Fathers were clearly motivated by the wish formulated by the commission appointed by Pius XII: “the traditional sequence of the hours is to be restored so that once again they may be genuinely related to the time of the day when they are prayed”, taking the pastoral conditions into account.

As far as the above mentioned “traditional sequence of the hours” is concerned, the Council decided to accept a compromise: the emphasis was put on Lauds and Vespers, while Compline and Matins were preserved, the latter losing its nocturnal character, with the exception of cases when celebrated in choir. In the case of daytime prayers, double standards were accepted - one for for celebration in choir, and another for celebration outside choir - and the hour of Prime was suppressed. 

Having defined the Hours, the constitution moves on to the directives meant to enable the faithful to celebrate the Office “better and more perfectly”, though afterwards it happened out that the Council described this celebration also with two other adjectives: “more extensively and easily”.

Here we come to the regulation that is directly related to the issue analyzed in this lecture. Article 91 of Sacrosanctum concilium says:

Ut cursus Horarum, in art. 89 propositus, reapse observari possit, psalmi non amplius per unam hebdomadam, sed per longius temporis spatium distribuantur.
     Opus recognitionis Psalterii, feliciter inchoatum, quamprimum perducatur ad finem, respectu habito latinitatis christianae, usus liturgici etiam in cantu, necnon totius traditionis latinae Ecclesiae.
     [So that it may really be possible in practice to observe the course of the hours proposed in Art. 89, the psalms are no longer to be distributed throughout one week, but through some longer period of time.
     The work of revising the psalter, already happily begun, is to be finished as soon as possible, and is to take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of psalms, also when sung, and the entire tradition of the Latin Church.]

Those two statements – concerning the change of distribution of Psalms and the revision of the text – further defined the frame of reference for the reform of the breviary Psalter.

Ordo ex machina: the Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours of 1971

Although during the 20th century, the reform of the breviary had been the engine for the reform of other liturgical books, the post-Vatican reform of this very book took rather long, and was completed only after the reform of the Missal and many rites from the Pontifical and Ritual. The decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship, promulgating the typical edition of the Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman Rite [1], was issued on 11th April 1971. Together with Liturgy of the Hours, which was the new book of the Office, also newly arranged Psalter was introduced.

It is worth noting that already before, in 1969, the Pontifical Commission for the New Vulgate, headed by Card. Augustin Bea S.J., had published a revised Latin translation of the Book of Psalms, destined for the new Office book. Without here going into the comparative analysis of the three Latin versions of Psalms (that of Vulgate, that of the Pian Commission, and that of Neo-Vulgate), we can simply say that the Neo-Vulgate translation turned out to be in a way conciliatory toward the ancient tradition – much more so than the translation issued by the Pian Commission.

Let us now move on to discuss the new order of the Psalter.

Due to changes in the arrangement of the Hours [2], it was a specific wish of the Council to distribute Psalms not “throughout one week, but through some longer period of time” [3]. Behind this statement there was a recurring thought of the Psalter distributed over two weeks, as, for example, in the Ambrosian rite. But in the end the Psalter, was arranged into a four-week cycle, [4] on the model of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer [5], which means that in practice, that the majority of the Psalms is used in prayer once a month – while previously, each of them had recurred once a week.

The Liturgy of the Hours retained the custom of dividing some of the longer Psalms introduced by the Roman Breviary of 1911, and to a similar extent, but in many cases the Psalms have been divided differently.

The New Psalter, however, not complete. A few Psalms were eliminated entirely (57, 82 and 108), along with parts of nineteen other Psalms that due to their “imprecatory nature” could have created a “certain psychological difficulty” [6]. Such a move had had no precedent in the history of the Roman Breviary, though it is known among the reformed communities.

Each Psalm in the Liturgy of the Hours has been given a caption, explaining “its meaning and its import for the personal life of the believer”, accompanied also by a quotation from the New Testament or the Fathers of the Church, “to foster prayer in the light of Christ’s new revelation” [7]. Though the latter addition was some novelty, it had been deeply rooted in Christian tradition of understanding the Psalms [8].

The number of the canticles from the Old Testament has been significantly increased, from 17 to 26. Many of those already used at Lauds have been modified – their texts have been shortened or elaborately cut up. As a novelty, canticles from the New Testament have been introduced to Vespers.

Of course, the fundamentally new arrangement of the Psalter has caused new distribution of Psalms among particular offices.

As in case of the Roman Breviary of 1911, Matins – renamed now to the Office of Readings – underwent the biggest changes. The number of Psalms within each celebration has been reduced from 9 to 3. The arrangement of Psalms has been completely changed. The same may be said of Lauds, that from now have comprised not 5, but 3 Psalms, selected on a completely different basis.

The structure of the Minor Hours has remained the same, consisting of three Psalms. But the selection of Psalms is brand new.

While the reform of 1911 changed an earlier arrangement of the Vespers Psalms only to a very limited extent, in the Liturgy of the Hours of 1971, a true revolution has been made. The number of Psalms in each Vespers has been diminished from 5 to 2 (or to 3, if we count also the canticle from the New Testament). They have been distributed among the days of the week in a way that was unfamiliar both to the earlier tradition, and to the reform of 1911.

In short, the Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours has little in common with earlier tradition of the prayer of the Church, both in terms of distribution of Psalms over the time, in relation to the number of Psalms within particular offices, and in regards to its completeness.
 

Attempted summary: Modifications of psalmody throughout the centuries

Let us now attempt to summarize briefly the historical evolution of the Psalter used in the Office of the Roman rite[9].

From the earliest times, the Roman rite preserved the principle of reciting the entire Psalter within one week – meaning that each Psalm was to be recited principally once a week, with many exceptiond for those recited more often, even daily (4, 50, 53, 62, 66, 90, 94, 118, 133, 148, 149, 150). A one-week cycle of the Psalter was retained in the RB 1911, though in such a way that actually excluded the possibility of saying some Psalms more often than once a week. Meanwhile, in case of the LH 1971, due to the distribution of the Psalter over the course of four weeks, the majority of the Psalms is recited once a month, with the exception of a few that recur weekly in Compline.

From the earliest times there were 8 Canonical Hours within the Psalter of the Office of the Roman rite: Matin, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. This was changed only in LH 1971, when Prime has been suppressed and the rest of the Minor Hours can be – if recited outside choir – substituted with one prayer, so called Middle Hour. Hence, in practice, the Office may be narrowed down to five Canonical Hours.

From the earliest times each and every Psalm had had its place within the Office, including those texts that had been the most likely to raise some reluctance or evoke questions.

From the earliest times there was no practice of dividing the Psalms in the Roman rite, with the exception of Psalm 118 – in all other cases they were recited in their entirety. Meanwhile, since RB 1911 division of Psalms has become a frequent solution, leading to situations where one Psalm, divided into three parts, may fill out the whole Hour.

Psalmody of Matins

From the earliest times, the number of Psalms on weekdays was never lower than 12, while on Sundays it was even higher: in the beginning it was twice as much (24), while from the 6th century to 1911 there were 18 Psalms in this office. Only RB 1911 equalized the number of Psalms on Sundays and ferias, , diminishing it to 9. Such an equality has been sustained in LH 1971, however the number of Psalms in Matins was further lowered to 3 Psalms (or to 3 units).

From the earliest times, up to RB 1911, nothing had changed in selection of Psalms assigned to particular days of the week. But in the 20th century this selection was changed practically completely twice (in RB 1911 and LH 1971). (Click on any image to enlarge.)

Psalmody of Lauds

From the earliest times the psalmody of Lauds always comprised 5 Psalms, but in practice there were 7 Psalms and canticles, divided into five groups: 1, 1, 2, C, 3). BR 1911 lowers this number to the actual 5, while LH 1971 to .

From the earliest times the psalmody of Lauds was daily concluded with the three last Psalms from the Book of Psalms – but this custom was abolished in BR 1911. It was also then that the earlier way of distributing the Psalms among particular days of the week was severely changed – though it was not until LH 1971 when it was completely shattered.

One can note that the exceptional significance of Psalm 50 (acquired by it in the 6th century) has been preserved also in the 20th century, though the frequency of its use is constantly changing.
 

Psalmody of Prime

The long tradition standing behind Prime does not change the fact that its psalmody was subjected to numerous modifications throughout the centuries. Nevertheless, some of its characteristic features (concerning the selection of Psalms) had been generally preserved either until BR 1911, or even until the reform of 1971. But elimination of Prime, ordered by the Second Vatican Council, has ended its career within Liturgia Horarum.
 

Psalmody of the Minor Hours

Up until 1911, Terce, Sext and None consisted in daily recitation of subsequent parts of Psalm 118. In BR 1911 this particular Psalm was preserved only in case of Sunday office, while on weekdays other Psalms (previously used in Matins) were introduced. Meanwhile, in LH 1971 both so called “additional psalmody” and the current psalmody for particular hora media are based on such a selection of Psalms that was utterly unfamiliar to the tradition of the Roman rite[10].
 

Psalmody of Vespers

Throughout the centuries – from the oldest sources to BR 1568 – there was some kind of admirable changelessness in the structure and selection of the psalmody of Vespers. Also BR 1911 to a larger extent preserved this tradition. But LH 1971 has introduced a sudden and multidimensional change: number of the elements of the psalmody has been lowered down from 5 to 3; one of Psalms has been substituted with a canticle from the New Testament; selection of Psalms has ceased to show any continuity with previous, outstandingly long tradition – exceptional is the case of Sunday, where – among others – the primacy of Messianic Psalm 109 has been preserved.
 

Psalmody of Compline

The structure and selection of psalmody of Compline remained the same for a good many centuries and was interrupted only in the 20th century; but while in BR 1911 traditional selection of Psalms was preserved at least for Sunday, it has been finally disintegrated in LH 1971, and only traces of it can be traced in the offices after the First and Second Vespers of Sundays and Feasts.
  

NOTES

[1] Officium divinum ex decreto Ss. Oecumenici Concilii Vatricani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli Pp. VI promulgatum: Liturgia horarum iuxta ritum romanum

[2] Cf. SC, 89.

[3] Cf. SC, 91: „psalmi non amplius per unam hebdomadam, sed per longius temporis spatium distribuantur”.

[4] Cf. Institutio generalis de Liturgia Horarum (IGLH), 126.

[5] Cf. Bugnini, 1990, p. 499.

[6] Cf. IGLH, 131: „Tres vero psalmi 57, 82 et 108, in quibus præponderat indoles imprecatoria, omittuntur in Psalterio currente. Item aliqui versus nonnullorum psalmorum prætermissi sunt… Quorum textuum omissio fit ob quandam difficultatem psychologicam, etsi psalmi ipsi imprecatorii in pietate Novi Testamenti occurrunt, exempli gratia Ap 6, 10, nulloque modo intendunt ad maledicendum inducere”.

[7] Cf. IGLH, 111.

[8] Cf. IGLH, 109.

[9] In relation to the Psalmody of the Roman rite of the 5th and the 6th centuries, I refer here to the works by Joseph Pascher, as cited in: Robert F. Taft SJ, Liturgy of the hours in East and West, Collegeville 1993, p. 136.

[10] However, so called additional psalmody is almost completely consistent with so called Gradual Psalms.

From the Complete Psalter to the Easier Psalter: An Insight into the Dynamics of Liturgical Reform in the 20th Century (Part 1)

We are grateful to Polish philosopher Paweł Milcarek, founder and editor-in-chief of the important Polish journal Christianitas, for submitting this article to NLM for publication. It will appear in two parts. – PAK

The Psalms are an indispensable part of the prayer of the Church and the basic substance of everyday non-Eucharistic liturgical prayer, the core of the Hours of the Divine Office. They constitute the oldest layer of the liturgy – also because only in their case we can state with certainty that they were part of Jesus’ personal prayer in His earthly life. Their composition in the Book of Psalms is a reminder of the order of liturgy of the First Covenant – which in precisely this respect was treated as own heritage by the first Christians and the ancient Church.

From very early times, the Church regarded the Psalms as privileged and irreplaceable way of fulfilling the command to “pray ceaselessly”, obeyed either almost literally e.g. by the Desert Fathers, or at least through appointment of fixed, recurring times of day and night prayer. For many centuries the Psalms – ordered in the books of the Divine Service and recited in times that determined the daily rhythm of the whole Christian world – constituted the main point of reference for prayer of all the faithful, both the clergy and the laymen. In the popular piety, however, they were obscured in the course of time by the “equivalents” of saying the Ave Maria and Pater Noster, or substituted with a variety of private devotions and spiritual exercises, remaining – as the breviary – the daily bread only of clergy and monks.

Hence in the modern age, the breviary became “the priests’ prayer” and the picture of a clergyman saying his breviary – in Latin, of course, but more and more often privately, somewhere in the outside, e.g. in the garden – entered the collective imagination of Christian societies as one of the attributes of this specific vocation. Moreover, though the laymen were rather reluctant to make use of the breviary, they were nevertheless aware of the fact that in a way it provided the clergymen with spiritual vigour.  No wonder that the misbehaving priests were mockingly described as those “who deny themselves neither the cognac, nor the breviary”. Hence, the breviary was regarded both as the clergymen’s privilege and as their duty.

If we are to trace out here the modern reforms of the Roman Breviary – or, strictly speaking, of its core, that is the Psalter – let us begin by posing the question: what kind of breviary was used by the Catholic priests of the Roman rite at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries? This question is easy to answer: it must have been the Roman Breviary, codified in 1568 by St. Pius V, compatible with the last typical edition issued in 1631 by Urban VIII and renewed by Leo XIII. [i]

In fact, this “Tridentine” breviary was much older than this general description seems to suggest. For as in the case of the Roman Missal of 1570, the post-Tridentine reform extended on the whole Roman Rite the rules of the prayer that for centuries had been established within the local Church of the papal Rome. The backbone of the breviary of St. Pius V – that is, its psalmody – was hardly any different from the oldest forms of the Roman Office we know from the 5th and the 6th centuries.
 

In accordance with a long tradition, having no alternative within the Roman rite, the Psalter was distributed over one week, though some Psalms recurred daily. St. Pius V wished this basic scheme of the weekly psalmody to constitute the main content of the Divine Service, therefore reduced the number of higher ranked feasts of the saints, which impeded most of the daily Psalter.

The priest reciting the Roman Breviary in the end of the 19th or in the very beginning of the 20th century used precisely such a “Tridentine” liturgical book, based on the Psalter of two saint popes: Gregory the Great and Pius V. However, paradoxically, it is not so easy to determine how his breviary prayer actually looked like. For in the course of the centuries that elapsed from 1568 to the end of the belle époque a number of factors appeared which made the practice of saying the breviary highly complicated.

In the first place, these was the considerable increase in the number of feasts of saints on the liturgical calendar, which impeded most of the Office of the various seasons. For the psalmody, this meant substituting the complete Psalter with much narrower choice of festive Psalms.

By the end of the 19th century, this uncontrolled domination of the Sanctoral cycle – related to the constant accumulation of new feasts – was accompanied by yet another move which deeply changed the very logic of the Office. To avoid overburdening the clergy with the recitation of breviary prayer, in 1883  Leo XIII granted a general indult, according to which throughout the whole liturgical year, it was allowed to substitute the Office of almost any feria or feast of the lowest rank with votive offices appointed to the various ferias (Monday: of the Holy Angels, Tuesday: of the Holy Apostles, Wednesday: of St. Joseph, Thursday: of the Blessed Sacrament, Friday: of the Lord’s Passion, Saturday: of the Immaculate Conception) [ii].

Taking into consideration the complexity of the system of feasts of that time, it is understandable that the possibility of saying throughout the week simply subsequent votive offices, characterized by clear devotional “motives”, was a tempting solution due to its simplicity or rememberable ordering. But in the same time both these factors (i.e. domination of the Sanctorale and substitution of the current office with the votive offices) led to continuous repetition of the Sunday psalmody in Lauds and to very frequent repetition of various Sunday Psalms in Vespers. Hence, only a little portion of the Psalter was actually used and, most of the Psalms appeared very rarely.

And yet the breviary Psalter as such had not been so far narrowed down – in theory it still comprised 150 Psalms, distributed over the course of one week.

Most unusual reorganization: “a new arrangement of the Psalter” of 1911

Such were the challenges faced by St. Pius X, who became pope in 1903. Convinced of the necessity to arouse and shape piety through the liturgy of the Church, he attempted to bring out basic structures of the liturgical heritage, sometimes completely obscured by later additions. Two motives were closely intertwined in this work: a desire to restore the primacy of the liturgical seasons and Sundays within the liturgical year, and and to restore the practice of saying the complete Psalter within a week. Here we will discuss this second issue.

In the apostolic constitution Divino afflatu [iii] of 1st November 1911, St. Pius X remind us of the ancient law that obliges the clergy to recite the whole Psalter within a week. The pope states that it is his intention to restore this practice in such a way that, on the one hand, the change would not cause any diminution of the cultus of saints, and on the other hand, would make the burden of the Office not more oppressive, but actually lighter for the clergy. Having both these issues in mind, the pope had appointed the commission consisting “of learned and active men”, who prepared “a new arrangement of the Psalter”.

As a consequence, the Holy Father decided to “abolish the order of the Psalter as it is at present in the Roman Breviary” and to “absolutely forbid the use of it” after 1st January 1913. Commanding the use the “new arrangement of the Psalter” from now on, the Pope proclaims that those who disobey this order will be punished. He concludes:

all such are to know that they will not be satisfying this grave duty [of reciting the canonical hours everyday] unless they use this our disposition of the psalmody.

In practice the severity of this regulation was eased by the indults, which allowed to use “the old arrangement of the Psalter” in private recitation.

Obviously, this “new arrangement of the Psalter” radically broke off with the ordering of the psalmody as it had been within the Roman Breviary of St. Pius V. Although continuity was preserved, for example, in case of Sunday Vespers, the order of this breviary Psalter was actually new. Moreover, it was a novelty also in comparison to the older, pre-Tridentine offices of the Roman rite. Nowhere in the history of the Roman psalmody – even reaching to its oldest versions we know, coming from the 5th and the 6th centuries – can we find the basis and the antecedents for the Psalter of 1911; in the same time, there exists a clear continuity between those ancient forms and the Breviary of 1568.

Hence we are safe to say that the number of Psalms in Matins of Sundays or ferial days had never been lower than 12; that usually the morning office had comprised 8 Psalms, including three Laudate Psalms [iv] and Psalm 50 (the latter from the 6th century had been recited almost daily); that parts of Psalm 118 had dominated Prime and other Minor Hours throughout the whole week; that from the very beginning Compline had included three defined Psalms (4, 90 and 133), used throughout the whole week. All these points have been truly modified by the Psalter of 1911 – the solutions it proposed more or less radically abandoned own tradition of the Roman office.

This fairly controversial move was made because the clergy of that time felt  somewhat “overburdened” by the Office. The attempt was therefore made to reduce this burden by proposing a well-balanced Psalter, based on the principle that each Psalm should be recited no more than once a week. [v] Hence, the reform of the breviary introduced by St. Pius X can be regarded as an adjustment of the Office to the longing for change, a result of the struggle with the weariness.

It is worth to recall the words by a distinguished expert in history of the Divine Service, Fr. Robert Taft S.J., who summarized these changes in a following way: “For anyone with a sense of the history of the Office, this was a shocking departure from almost universal Christian Tradition.” [vi]

Image courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed

The Psalter of the professors: “a new Latin translation of the Psalms” of 1945

Over thirty years after the introduction of “a new arrangement of the Psalter” by St. Pius X, another pope, Pius XII, introduced a new Latin translation of Psalms into liturgical usage.

In his motu proprio In cotidianis precibus of 25th March 1945 [vii], the pope firstly speaks (rather guardedly) of inaccuracies and deficiencies in the Vulgate translations of the Psalms. Reading between the lines of the document, we may say that the pope considers them increasingly annoying, especially when compared to the new translations which are based on original texts, and take advantage of progress in the knowledge of ancient languages, as well as of modern methods of textual criticism. The pope is aware that the Vulgate Psalter is deeply rooted within Christian tradition and that it had affected the way the Holy Fathers and Doctors had commented the Psalms. Nevertheless, expectations of the priests (“a good many” of them), as well as demands of the learned men, bishops and cardinals convinced the Holy Father to give an order that “a new Latin translation of the Psalms” is prepared. On the one hand, it was to follow the original text precisely and faithfully; on the other, as far as it was possible, it had to take into account “the venerable Vulgate”, as well as other ancient translations, referring to “sound critical norms” whenever there would be differences between them.

The document then states that the new version has already been completed “with the diligence befitting such a task” by the professors of the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Hence the pope offers it “to all who have the obligation to recite the canonical Hours daily” and permits them “to use it, should they wish to do so, in either private or public recitation”.

As it is indicated a few times in the document, the main aim of the whole undertaking was to enable those praying with the new Psalter to grasp more fully what is said in the Holy Book. The pope emphasizes that he is driven by pastoral concerns: he wishes the Psalms to be recited “not only with sincere devotion but with fuller understanding as well”.

Still, in the document itself there is a supposition that “there are times when, even after every help that text criticism and a knowledge of languages can offer has been exhausted, the meaning of the words is still not perfectly clear”. In such cases “their more definite clarification will have to be left to future study.”

This papal regulation led to an unheard-of situation: from now on, the translation recommended by Pius XII was to coexist in the liturgy of the Church together with the Vulgate version – unless everybody “should wish to” accept this new translation.
 

Thus, pursuant to the pope’s decision, the daily prayer of the Church comprised henceforth the monuments of two very much different mentalities: firstly, Psalterium Gallicanum, a witness to the patristic tradition and an object of centuries-old reflection; secondly, a suddenly developed product of academic research, evaluated only on the basis of its fidelity to the Hebrew original and its classicism of style. Regardless of the impracticality of such a dualism, this solution created an impression – for the second time within a few decades – that the true reform is not about revision, but about creation.

For the question arises whether it was really impossible to correct the Vulgate version instead of creating a brand new translation. Since the times of St. Pius X, the Benedictines from the Roman abbey of St. Jerome had been preparing a revision of Vulgate. Despite this, Pius XII decided to promote for liturgical usage a new translation, prepared at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

However, the Jesuits from this Institute did not restrict themselves to capturing correctly “the Hebrew truth”; in preparing this new version, they shaped its language after a distinctly classical style, distancing themselves from the specific qualities of Christian Latin. Their Psalter sounded like the works by Cicero, whose Latin was certainly more classical than that of St. Jerome. Moreover, their translation did not take into account the requirements of singing the Psalms in choir and in accordance with the principles of Gregorian chant. [viii]

Immediately after the release of In cotidianis precibus and in later Church publications ,there appeared, of course, loud voices of gratitude to the pope for his approval of the new version of the Psalter, deemed as “the sovereign gesture” made “when supreme good of Christian life demands it”. However, it is hard to prove that prior to this reform a conviction that the Vulgate posed a major threat to Christian life had really been widespread. [ix]

Regardless of the opinion one may have in the debate whether the version prepared at the Biblical Institute was indeed such a progress in translation, there is also another problematic issue: in the light of the principle of the organic development, the will to improve some aspect of the liturgy is not a sufficient reason to question the existing tradition – what is needed is the moral certainty that such an undertaking is indispensable for the benefit of spiritual life.  

Part 2 will continue with “The Psalter according to the Second Vatican Council.”

The author

NOTES 

[i] Breviarium Romanum ex decreti S.sancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, s. Pii V P.M. iussu editum, Clementis VIII, Urbani VIII et Leonis XIII auctoritate recognitum.

[ii] See ASS 16 (1883-1884), pp. 47-48 (for the decree) and pp. 145-180 (for the texts of the offices).

[iii] Hereinafter cited as in: AAS 3 (1911), pp. 633-650.

[iv] Anton Baumstark remarked: “Down to the year 1911 there was nothing in the Christian Liturgy of such absolute universality as this practice in the morning office [i.e. daily recitation of Laudate Psalms], and no doubt its universality was inherited from the worship of the Synagogue... Hence to the reformers of the Psalterium Romanum belongs the distinction of having brought to an end the universal observance of a liturgical practice which was followed, one can say, by the Divine Redeemer Himself during His life on earth” (as cited in: Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy, San Francisco 2005, pp. 75n; hereinafter referred to as: Reid, 2005).

[v] In practice it was often considered necessary to divide particular Psalms – hence, instead of a few Psalms, subsequent “parts” of even one and the same Psalm were to be recited within one office.

[vi] As cited in Reid, 2005, p. 76

[vii] AAS 37 (1945), pp. 65-67.

[viii] Cf. Carlo Braga, La Liturgia delle Ore al Vaticano II, Rome 2008, p. 38; hereinafter referred to as: Braga, 2008.

[ix] Cf. Reid, 2005, p. 157.

“Balance Instead of Harmony” : A Guest Article by Paweł Milcarek on the History of the Liturgical Reform (Part 2)

We continue with the second part of Dr Paweł Milcarek’s paper on the history of the Liturgical Reform in the pre-Conciliar period, “Balance instead of Harmony.” Click here to read the first part, which was published early last week. Once again, we are grateful to Dr Milcarek for sharing this important work with our readers.

Four personages, four contradictory ideas.

There were plenty of opposing tendencies in what we call the Liturgical Movement in its full bloom, some of them very positive, some which merely seemed so at the time, because their extremism had not as yet had any chance to be exposed.

To examine the existence of those contradictions (which sometimes remain concealed), it is sufficient to compare two leading personages of the Movement: Dom Bernard Capelle on the one hand, and Fr. Josef Jungmann on the other. They can be seen as the symbols of two different guiding ideas, together with two different atmospheres of reform that result from them.

Dom Bernard Capelle (1884-1961), a Benedictine abbot of Mont-César, “an exquisite scholar and monk”, can be rightly considered a patron of the principle of the organic development of the liturgy. He presented it – in an outstandingly clear manner – in 1949 in his annotations to the project of the reform, prepared for the Pian Commission. The whole of this excerpt is worth citing, especially because the text, due to its original confidentiality, is not very well known today. As Dom Capelle stated:

... nothing is to be changed unless it is a case of indispensable necessity. This rule is most wise: for the Liturgy is truly a sacred testament and monument – not so much written but living – of Tradition, which is to be reckoned with as a locus of theology and is a most pure font of piety and of the Christian spirit. Therefore:
1.  That which serves [well] at the present time is sufficient unless it is gravely deficient.
2.  Only new things that are necessary are to be introduced, and in a way that is consonant with Tradition.
3.  Nothing is to be changed unless there is comparatively great gain to be had.
4.  Practices that have fallen into disuse are to be restored if their reintroduction would truly render the rites more pure and more intelligible to the minds of the faithful. (Memoria sulla reforma liturgica: Supplemento II – Annotazioni alla “Memoria”, no. 76, Vatican 1950, p. 9 – as cited in Reid, pp. 162ff.)

The reservations emphasized by Dom Capelle should not be regarded as a conservative obstacle set up against any possibility of reform. The Belgian monk was able to see clearly the connection between the Tradition – hence also the liturgy – and the life, hence also the change. His care was to avoid both “a dead rigidity and an evolutionism which is nothing but another name for decomposition”.

In the same period, Fr. Josef A. Jungmann (1889-1975), a Jesuit and a professor of pastoral theology from Innsbruck, had just published his monumental, two-volume work Missarum Sollemnia (1948), which almost immediately made him an authority on liturgical matters and allowed him to have an increasing influence over liturgical reforms later in the 1950s. Erudite in historical issues, Fr. Jungmann expressed in his publication the conviction that the greatness of the Roman rite consists in that which is ancient in it. However, this assessment may also have its negative and disquieting aspect; it is easy to conclude that which more recent necessarily diminished the Roman Rite. Fr. Jungmann did indeed accept this as a logic conclusion, as he distinguished the noble core of the primitive rite from the “secondary” additions, especially those of the medieval period or later. In one of his main works, first published in 1958, Fr. Jungmann was gentle, but at the same time explicit on the matter:

The Liturgy of the Catholic Church is an edifice in which we are still living today, and in essentials it is the same building in which Christians were already living ten or fifteen or even eighteen and more centuries ago. In the course of all these centuries, the structure has become more and more complicated, with constant remodellings and additions, and so the plan of the building has been obscured – so much so that we may no longer feel quite at home in it because we no longer understand it. (The Early Liturgy to the Time of Gregory the Great, London 1960, p. 1, as cited in Reid, pp. 167ff.)

Fr. Jungmann added, that “if we should have the opportunity to make changes in the structure or to adapt it to the needs of our own people, we will then do so in such a way that, where possible, nothing of the precious heritage of the past is lost...” . We should not be deceived by the promise to act with delicacy, given in this latter sentence: a few years earlier, in 1951, the very same author stated, at a closed conference held in Maria Laach, that those prayers from the Missal which are no older than the Carolingian era “would really all have to vanish”, unless utterly convincing “justifying reasons” for preserving some of them would be given . What Jungmann-as-historian first gave as a simple examination of the “Tridentine” liturgy, distinguishing “the golden age” from later layers of corruption, now becomes a recommendation by Jungmann-the-expert for a ruthless archaelogism, extirpating anything deemed “too recent”. At the same time, he is quite ready to succumb to arguments relating to “the needs of the modern man”.

Fr. Jungmann was certainly too a competent historian not to see and not to admire the phenomenon we called the organic development of the liturgy. The difference between him and Dom Capelle was that he did not consider this natural law of development to be also a principle of the reform – on the contrary, one could say that he regarded the reform as a remedy for this too unconstrained mechanism of growth. Hence on the eve of the Council he openly stated that what we need instead of an “imperceptible growth” is “a jerk – more than a jerk”.

Both Capelle and Jungmann desired the reform of the liturgy, but – as we can see – their opinions even on its principles were simply contradictory. Their concepts of refrom differed not in terms of radicalism, but on a much deeper level, in their very essence. Once we realize this, we are able to foresee real tensions – or even hidden contradictions – which later emerge in the Second Vatican Council’s later constitution on the liturgy of the, since both of them had significant impact on its content.

From personages who were above all the spokesmen for particular ideas, we must now move to those who also held some “political” authority while working on the reform’s documents, as members of ecclesiastical bodies appointed to prepare the liturgical reform, both in times of Pius XII and during the Second Vatican Council. Without any hesitation I would indicate two such personages: Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli O.F.M. and Fr. Annibale Bugnini C.M.

Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli (1896-1993) was a historian and an expert in Christian archeology, as well as a trusted member of the Historical Section of the Congregation of Rites. It was he who – together with Fr. Josef Löwe – edited the above-mentioned Memoria sulla Riforma Liturgica. Fr. Antonelli brings before us as a guiding idea of the reform a firm option for the liturgical reeducation of the faithful. As someone deeply involved in such modifications of the rite as the reform of the Holy Week services, he of course appreciated such retouchings of the liturgy, and considered them necessary. His main care, however, was to make deep changes within the mentality of the faithful, rather than to transform the structures of the rites. At the Assisi Congress in 1956, he clearly stated, while referring to the recent reform of the Holy Week services:

The liturgical reform does not consist only, or even principally, in a revision of texts and rubrics, the search for worthier and more expressive aesthetic forms. Nor does the reform end with simplifications, abbreviations or emendations. The true aim of the liturgical reform looks much farther, beyond any outward expression, and wants to reach the soul, in order to work in its depths and incite a spiritual renewal in Christ, the High Priest, from whom every liturgical action acquires its value and efficacy. (The Liturgical Reform of the Holy Week: Importance, Realisations, Perspectives, in The Assisi Papers: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy; Assisi-Rome, September 18-22 1956, p. 162; as cited in Reid, p. 246)

The emphasis on the necessity of such reeducation presupposed also critical evaluation of the preceding centuries, but Antonelli’s critque – unlike that of Jungmann – concerned not the liturgy’s line of development, but the separation of devotion from liturgy, and the loss of “liturgical compass” within Christian piety. In the very same speech he stated:

The people have been separated, unfortunately, from the true liturgical life. A patient work of re-education, spiritual and technical, is needed to bring them back to an active, enlightened, personal, communitarian participation. This is a work that is not done in a year. It may require generations. But it must begin. (ibid.)

The pastoral dimension of the reform was a matter of huge importance also for Fr. Annibale Bugnini C.M. (1912-1982), the first editor-in-chief of the acclaimed “Ephemerides Liturgicae”. But unlike Antonelli, Bugnini was much more deeply convinced that far-reaching changes in the structure of the rite were needed – a conviction he discreetly signaled already from 1948, when in the “Ephemerides”, he called for further revision of the liturgical books, which had been started in 1911 by St. Pius X, but was later interrupted in 1914 due to the lack of necessary critical studies.

As far as the direction of those revisions is concerned, Bugnini was clear in his support for the rule of so-called pastoral expediencies. In his statements from the 1950s we can easily trace a pragmatic admiration for successful “adaptations to life” – even if some of those movements had the fault of breaking with Tradition, he regarded them as an “indication” that showed some “necessity”. Hence, it is crucial to grasp the idea of adaptation to life in order to understand Bugnini’s attitude. Moreover, according to him there is no need to prove that such a necessity exists; “mere pastoral benefit” is enough to justify brave creations, cuts, and shifts within the ritual.

The reform as acrobatics

Even this brief account clearly shows that under the umbrella of “the movement for fruitful liturgical participation of the faithful” we can find ideas which are in fact contradictory. It was possible for them to coexist within a multifaceted movement – but using them as inspirations for a particular reform required either a balance between those various forces, or a false compromise, imposed by some absolute authority.

The course of the liturgical reform – both during the Second Vatican Council and, especially, after its closure – shows that it was shaped in practice rather more by Bugnini’s energy and Jungmann’s ideas. Meanwhile, the deep sense of tradition –represented by Capelle – remained rather quiet, warning against possible abuses; Antonelli’s sober enthusiasm found expression in polishing the outcomes of the others’ efforts.

The testimonies found in the texts and confirmed by the behaviour of the reformers seem to suggest that on the eve of Vatican II, it was more or less consciously agreed that the liturgical reform required balance between various opposing forces to keep the liturgy in the right position. At that time, various pairs of counteracting forces could seen: not only the ideological opposition of the “archaelogists” and the “innovators”, but also the tensions between papal absolutism and the increasing power of the experts, the advocates of worship and the advocates of “pastoral reasons”; the supporters of Roman centralism and the supporters the collegiality; and finally, between the conservatives and the progressives. The balance between them was possible as long as each of these forces played its assigned role, inevitably one-sided and therefore exaggerated. But as soon as one of these major forces ceased to be unambiguously “conservative” or “innovative”, the balance of the whole entity was inescapably threatened, if not destroyed.

However, it is worth mentioning that the concept of balance – usually fragile, changeable, negotiable, reminiscent of constant tug-of-war – may have an alternative, namely the concept of harmony. And harmony is an convergence of factors that may differ in their significance, but together constitute an entity in its whole. Of course, the search for harmony – also in liturgical matters and ministry – does not in itself remove the existence of opposing tendencies and does not exempt us from facing them in debate and in “politics”. But it does offer a different and more reliable measure the naive conviction that the truth is always “somewhere in the middle”. “The ultimate human values (beauty, goodness, love etc.) depend on harmony, rather than on balance”. (Gustave Thibon, L’équilibre et l’harmonie, p. 88.)

“Balance Instead of Harmony” : A Guest Article by Paweł Milcarek on the History of the Liturgical Reform (Part 1)

We are very pleased to offer to our readers this excellent article by Paweł Milcarek, an account of some important aspects of the Liturgical Reform before Vatican II. Dr. Milcarek is a Polish philosopher and historian, founder and director of the journal “Christianitas”, (published thrice annually; see also christianitas.org), the author of several studies about the liturgical reforms in the 20th-century, and the critical editions of Vatican II documents. He lives in Brwinów near Warsaw, with his wife and six children. This article will be published in two parts.

Balance instead of Harmony: Conditioning and Ideas of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council

One hundred years have passed since the “Liturgical Movement” appeared in the Church: within some milieus – not very numerous, but fairly active – the desire arose to make the piety of the faithful as a whole more grounded within the communal prayer of the Church. This movement has always shown a certain longing for the Middle Ages, the period when liturgy was indeed a model for all prayer, and the liturgical year constituted the main calendar for Catholics. But the real motive behind the creation of this movement was not nostalgia, but an anxiety based on a rather sobering diagnosis: the divorce between the inherited liturgical forms and the piety of the masses of the faithful, a process characteristic of the late modern period, had caused this piety first to break away from its objective model within the Church, and then to break up into numerous particular services, and sometimes simply to degenerate or burn out.

The fact that personal piety was in practice narrowed down to private prayers and spiritual exercises made it easy to regard the social dimension of life as in a way neutral, no longer under the influence of religion, opening it to increasing “colonization” by secular ideologies of both the left and right.

Striving towards “liturgical participation”

Therefore, since the days of Dom Guéranger, the aim of the whole Liturgical Movement was to shape piety with the liturgy, the communal prayer of the Church, in order to make the traditional lex orandi, (rather than services secondary to it) a permanent source of and model for Catholic spirituality. At the beginning of the 20th century, this idea was explained as the desire to help the masses of the faithful actually take part in the liturgy, both the crowds that still attended church services, and those that had ceased to do so. This intention was expressed in the notion of participatio actuosa, which soon became the watchwords of the whole renewal. The idea was sanctioned and promoted in the documents by the three popes: St. Pius X , Pius XI and Pius XII. (cf. the motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, 22 Nov. 1903; the Apostolic Constitution Divini cultus, 20 Dec. 1928; and the motu proprio Mediator Dei, 20 Nov. 1947)

The aim was not to create yet another elite with a specific spirituality, comparable to social activists, zealots for particular services, or clubs of people interested in theology. Promoters of the Liturgical Movement strongly felt themselves to be acting for the common good. One of its chief representatives, the Belgian monk Dom Lambert Beauduin, wrote in 1924:

Let’s be practical. Millions of Belgians (to mention only this small country) gather each Sunday only to attend a liturgical assembly headed by the priest, who can celebrate the liturgy due to the authority given to him by God and the people; the faithful gather in spacious buildings – located in the centers of human settlements, designed and consecrated for worship – willing to fulfill the work that according to Pius X... is the first and irreplaceable source of Christian life... May this fact – which we still take too little advantage of – become a life-giving act... Everything is in place, now all we need is to enrich the life of this organism. Can we even for a moment question the practical nature of such an undertaking? (Liturgy; the Life of the Church; transl. Virgil Michel, Farnborough, 2002)

In this statement – taken from a booklet that expands upon the theses of his famous paper given at the Malines Congress in 1909 – there is of course a tension between the announcement that “substantially nothing will change” and the call to “enrich the life of this organism.” This tension was the starting point for various proposals that oscillate between the desire to transform the liturgy fundamentally (in its human aspects), and a determination to transform the pastoral care of the faithful, so that it could adjust itself to liturgical tradition.

Tridentine order of the liturgy

The real context of the modern liturgical movement’s formation was of course the Church’s liturgical life, which for centuries had been determined by the Tridentine order of the liturgy.

However, when we speak of the Tridentine order of the liturgy, we are using a mental shortcut. The resolutions accepted at the Council of Trent did not lead to the creation of a new order of worship within the Catholic Church. The Popes who implemented the post-Tridentine liturgical reform, first among them St. Pius V, simply brought into general use an already-existing standard of Roman liturgy, with fairly small modifications. The Tridentine order of the liturgy is almost identical with the pre-Tridentine Roman liturgy, and preserved an incontestable and clearly visible continuity with its medieval and Gregorian form, and through them, with the very beginnings of the Roman Rite.

Among the elements of the Tridentine reform, one must note the far-reaching Romanization – or rather papalization – of the Latin liturgy, which permitting the whole Church of the Roman rite to use the Roman books, with exceptions in respect for acknowledged particular traditions; the centralization of power, which made the management of liturgical issues an exclusive prerogative of the Papal administration (1); and the precise legal codification of liturgical texts in typical editions.

We must also note the proclamation that this codified form of the Roman liturgy represents its “pristine” shape (2); an inaccuracy which, deriving from the Renaissance’s fascination with the “sources” of all things, can now be seen as the time-bomb that would explode into “archaeologism”, as the rationalistic cult of “the sources” intensified. Furthermore, alongside the inclination to “regulate” the development of liturgy exclusively through rubrics, propers and calendar, we see the growth of paraliturgical devotions that were supposed to make up for this “stiffening” of the liturgy.

Papal absolutism

As mentioned above, an important aspect of this Tridentine reform of the much older liturgical tradition was exclusive Papal authority in the field of liturgy. (3) This factor – introduced at the request of the Ecumenical Council – successfully protected the Roman rite from deformations that could have resulted from its adaptation to new and various “modern” trends.

However, has this protective factor itself not been subjected to some deformations, precisely under the influence of modern ideologies? Already at the time of St. Pius X, the Popes’ sovereign authority started to show a tendency towards liturgical absolutism, a tendency in contrast with the principle that authority consists in guardianship of what has been entrusted to it. This absolutist tendency prevailed in some cases of primary importance, such as the major reorganization of the Breviary by St. Pius X, or, to an even greater extent, the reforms of Pius XII to the text of the Psalter and the Holy Week services.

In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Card. Ratzinger states: “After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the Pope really could do anything in liturgical matters.” However, this idea is clearly much older than Vatican II, rooted in an absolutist interpretation of both the Popes’ supreme authority in liturgical matters, as articulated after Trent, and in the understanding of Papal supremacy in general. “In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the Pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The Pope’s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not ‘manufactured’ by the authorities. Even the Pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. . . . The authority of the Pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition.” (transl. John Saward, pp. 165-66)

The principle of the Popes’ liturgical sovereignty was openly expressed in Pius XII’s 1947 encyclical on the liturgy Mediator Dei. This principle constitutes a “strong refrain” (4) of the encyclical, as the author repeatedly speaks of the absolute authority of the Holy See, and explicitly states that the Pope has the right to “recognize and establish”, “to introduce and approve new rites”, which can be modified by him if “he judges... [that they] require modification.” (5)

The paucity of references to liturgical tradition as such in Mediator Dei underlines the emphasis on the prerogatives of “authority” even more strongly, granting it the status of the first principle of the liturgical order. Of course, we must also bear in mind that this emphasis derived from a desire to tame some of the unrestrained experimentation of the liturgical movement.

Still, if we describe this as a kind of absolutism, we must also note that it strove to be an enlightened absolutism, exercised in consideration of the researchers’ achievements and the experts’ opinions; provided, of course, that the latter respect the Popes’ supreme authority.

A perfect illustration of these concepts is found in the speech by Card. Gaetano Cicognani, Prefect of the Congregation of Rites, given at the famous liturgical congress of Assisi:

The essential end of this congress is to pass in review the admirable initiatives of Pope Pius XII in the field of pastoral Liturgy, and to pass them in review with the spirit of loyalty and reverence which every one of the faithful ought to nourish toward the Supreme Shepherd who guides us. The Liturgy demands precisely the direction of the Supreme Shepherd... We have come together not to study problems or to propose reforms, but to put into relief ... the laws and ordinances emanating from Pope Pius XII in his untiring activity as father and master...
Looking over the documents which integrate this liturgical period, we have been able to notice that His Holiness welcomes with delicate courtesy what the students of the Liturgy present or indicate; but in virtue of the supreme power which belong only to him, it is the Pope who fixes the principles; giving secure and firm orientations to minds and spirits, he puts them on guard against opinions not in conformity with the aim of the spiritual life. (The Assisi Papers: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy, p. 6-7, as cited in Alcuin Reid’s The Organic Development of the Liturgy, pp. 248-49)

Long before the Second Vatican Council, the promise of a general reform of the liturgy began to blossom in the encounter between the highest authority that “fixes the principles”, and the researchers who “present or indicate” the issues. To some extent, this was happening without regard for the context of Tradition, or the principles of the organic development of liturgy.

In search of a new balance

A document of special importance for the analysis of the reformers’ intentions is the Memoria sulla riforma liturgica, a text drawn up in 1948 by the Historical Section of the Congregation of Rites, then reviewed by the consultors, and further discussed by a special commission appointed by Pius XII to prepare a general reform of the liturgy (the so called Pian Commission). (6) The document was confidential, and indeed became a point of departure for the reforms undertaken by Pius XII. Later on, the members of the commission on the liturgy of the Second Vatican Council had access to it.

Giving a reason for the reform of the liturgy, the Memoria begins with a statement that the liturgy suffers from a number of problems, such as an overcrowded calendar, too many octaves, the complexity of the rubrics; and all this is said to diminish the love of the priests for the Liturgy. Hence there arises “a desire for a reform that would bring about a sensible simplification and a greater stabilization of the liturgy”. Fortunately, the development of liturgical studies allows “a solid revision of the Liturgy on a broad and secure basis in [liturgical] science”. Therefore, it is possible to fulfill the desire, reinforced by the Liturgical Movement, to free the liturgy “from certain accretions that obscure its beauty and diminish in a certain sense its efficacy”.

After briefly summarizing earlier projects to modify the liturgy, fundamental principles of future reform are presented in no. 15 of the Memoria. The first of these says, “The opposed claims of the conservative tendency and the innovative tendency must be balanced.” This first principle is later developed in no. 16, where so called archaelogism, (7) on the one hand, and innovativeness, (8) on the other, are indicated as two unacceptable extremes.

Then the document states:

Now, a wise reform of the Liturgy must balance the two tendencies: that is, conserve good and healthy traditions, verified on historico-critical bases, and take account of new elements, already opportunely introduced and needing to be introduced. Since the Liturgy is a living organism ... so the Liturgy, which is a continuous manifestation of ... religious vitality [of the Church], cannot be something set in stone; rather, it must develop, as in fact it has developed, in parallel line with all the other vital manifestations of the Church.
Hence, it is the task ... of the liturgical reform to balance ... the just demands of the opposed tendencies, in such a way as not to change through sheer itching for novelty and not to mummify through exaggerated archeological valuation. To renew therefore, courageously what is truly necessary and indispensable to renew and to conserve jealously what one can and must conserve.

It is easy to sense the appeal for some restraint and prudence behind these words – but it is the balance that seems to be a central notion here. And balance is always about allowing the opposing forces to act, in order to sustain some object, which would otherwise literally loose its balance. The authors of the Memoria are aware of the fact that there exist “opposing tendencies,” and their counsel is to balance them through a “wise reform”. Interestingly, the things to be balanced are the notions of change and of preservation – while pastoral care for “liturgical participation”, so significant within the Liturgical Movement, is not even mentioned here. The balance of “forces” seems to prevail over the harmony of the whole entity.

footnotes: 1) This principle derives from authorization delegated by the Council of Trent in the Decree on the Index of Books, on the Catechism, Breviary, and Missal, 4th December 1563.
    2) In the bull Quo primum issued on 14th July 1570, which promulgated the Roman Missal and was part of each edition of this Missal until the reform of 1969, St. Pius V spoke of restoring the Missal “to the pristine form and rite of the Holy Fathers” (ad pristinam sanctorum Patrum normam ac ritum)
    3) The principle itself was briefly and clearly described in the 1917 Code of the Canon Law, can. 1257. “Unius Apostolicae Sedis est tum sacram ordinare liturgiam, tum liturgicos approbare libros.”
    4) Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy, p. 140
    5) “It follows from this that the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, and also to modify those he judges to require modification. Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship.” (Pius XII, Mediator Dei 58, emphases added).
    6) Cf. Congregatio Sacrorum Rituum, Sectio Historica, Memoria sulla riforma liturgica, no. 71, Vatican 1948. Parts of the Memoria analyzed here are cited and commented in Reid, pp. 150-161
    7) “There are some liturgists and promoters of the Liturgical Movement who sin by archaelogism; for them the most archaic forms are always and of themselves the best; those later ones, even if of the High Middle Ages, are always to be set after those more ancient. They would like to take the entire Liturgy back to a state closest to its origins, excluding all successive developments, regarded as deteriorations and degenerations. In short, listening to them, the Liturgy would be reduced to a species of a precious mummy, to preserve jealously as in a museum.” (Memoria no. 16. s 15)
    8) “There are others, instead, of precisely the opposite tendency, who would actually like to create a new and modern Liturgy; we no longer understand, they say, the forms, gestures, chants, created in now distant ages; the Liturgy must be a manifestation of current religious life; hence, the language, pictorial and sculptured art, music, dramatic action, and so on, ought to be completely new, in conformity with modern culture and sentiments.” (ibid.)