Potent New Work Defends Intuition Behind Summorum Pontificum and Critiques Violence of Traditionis Custodes

As Kevin Tierney has pointed out more than once, there are many indications that Traditionis Custodes has been a tremendous failure in its overt mission of ridding the Church once for all of the dreaded Tridentine rite.

For sure, its implementation (like that of Sacrosanctum Concilium) has led to damages, divisions, and dismay in far too many places, but worldwide there has been little attempt to suppress the old rite altogether, which continues to flourish in or adjacent to parishes and in certain fortunate dioceses. Pope Leo XIV himself has signaled that this policy is no longer a priority and has urged making room for diverse “sensibilities.” Whether he will dismantle or modify his predecessor’s legislation on this point is difficult to say.

All the same, Traditionis Custodes looks like an act of violence in comparison with the pacific intentions of Summorum Pontificum, and it is well for us to reflect on the deeper theological and pastoral issues at stake, in order (ideally) to move away from the violence towards peaceful coexistence and even, dare one say, mutual enrichment – at least of communities, if not of rites.

Fortunately a new book has been published that serves exactly this purpose, and does so with brilliant insightfulness. I cannot recommend it too highly. The title is Liturgical Peace, Liturgical War: Benedict XVI’s “Summorum Pontificum” and Its Critics (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2026; also available at Amazon), and its author is Tomasz Dekert, a professor at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow, Poland, who has written it in English.

The book advances the thesis that the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of Benedict XVI initiated a genuine – though long-term and demanding – process of leading the Catholic Church out of the postwar “liturgical conflict,” whereas the subsequent Traditionis Custodes interrupted this process and intensified existing tensions.

The author argues that the roots of the conflict lie not merely in opposing preferences (tradition vs. reform), but in a deeper problem: a flawed understanding of the nature of liturgy as ritual, structured by abstract and functionalist assumptions, which came to dominate approaches to liturgy in the context of postwar liturgical reforms. In particular, he criticizes approaches that subordinate ritual form to theological or cultural constructs, rather than recognizing its primary, “self-evident” character – that is, its sensibly apprehensible, performative, and socially constitutive nature.

An important component of the book is its polemic with critics of Summorum Pontificum, who view it as a threat to the unity of the Church, an expression of nostalgia, or an ideological project. The author argues that such criticism rests on the same reductionist understanding of liturgy that underpinned the postwar reform, treating it as an instrument for expressing or shaping doctrine and identity, rather than as a constitutive practice that is prior to them.

Drawing on the ritual theory of Roy A. Rappaport, the author demonstrates that the stability and repetitiveness of ritual form are conditions for the functioning of a religious community. Consequently, the radical and top-down liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council – intervening in the entirety of the ritual’s “canonical” layer – necessarily led to a profound crisis within the Church, affecting not only liturgy, but also its structure of meaning and its unity.

Against this background, Summorum Pontificum appears as an attempt to restore ritual continuity by permitting the coexistence of liturgical forms and creating the conditions for their organic interaction, as well as for a gradual and patient healing of the situation. By contrast, Traditionis Custodes, grounded in the same problematic vision of liturgy as that of the critics of Summorum Pontificum, abandons this path and seeks an administrative resolution to the conflict, which – according to the author – leads to its escalation and entrenchment.

Ultimately, the book argues that overcoming the “liturgical war” cannot be achieved at the level of legal decisions or theoretical disputes, but requires a fundamental revision of the theological understanding of liturgy: namely, the recognition of its ontological and social role as a constitutive practice, and the restoration of its continuity as a condition for the unity of the Church.

With regard to the Novus Ordo, Dekert’s book makes essentially one claim – but a fundamental one with extensive ramifications, namely, that its introduction was a mistake because of the sheer scale of the change it brought about, a change which, precisely for that reason, could not help but act in a profoundly destructive way upon the Catholic system.

One wonders to what extent this kind of approach – far more anthropological than theological – can or will be taken seriously by contemporary theologians, that is, by those who operate primarily in the world of words, concepts, and ideas. This is a world in which, and with which, a mind sufficiently skilled in dialectics and interpretation can do almost anything. One can, for example, “prove” that although adding two apples to another two gives us four apples, “in reality” recognizing that there are seven will make us richer! When reading today’s mainstream liturgical writers, one often feels as if their defense of the post-conciliar liturgical reform amounts to something along these lines. The argument takes place at the level of ideas, not at the level of actual practice and its impact on real people.

This cuts both ways: if you want to understand why the traditional rite is so powerful and attractive, you must not stop at the level of ideas, but pay close attention to the way in which living it, participating in it according to its own rhythm and symbology, profoundly shapes consciousness and worldview.

One other tremendous strength in Dekert’s book is his thrilling treatment of the involvement and significance of papal authority in the process of reform and the implications this carried, both for Catholics within the Church and for ecumenical relations, especially with the East.

The price tag of the book is very high, as is the strange custom of academic publishers, but we may hope that it will eventually go down, as occurred with U. Michael Lang’s book on the Roman Rite, which eventually came out in a paperback edition as well. But if you or an institution you work for can afford Dekert’s book now, take my word for it: the book is worth every penny. It is one of the most insightful critiques of the liturgical reform I’ve ever read.

The Question of the Traditional Mass in Pope Leo XIV’s Pontificate

A guest article by the Canon of Shaftesbury, who serves as a canonist in a major archdiocese.

We find ourselves in the early days of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, and there are reasons for cautious optimism. Several signs suggest that the Holy Father wishes to address some of the more pressing challenges inherited from his predecessor.

Among these is the thorny question of access to the Traditional Latin Mass (what was once called the Extraordinary Form or Tridentine Mass) and the restrictions imposed by Traditiones Custodes.

I approach this question with the disposition we ought to have toward any successor of Peter: giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming good faith, and trusting in his pastoral intentions. Thus far, I do not detect in Pope Leo XIV any ill will toward those attached to the Traditional Mass. Yet good intentions alone do not guarantee wise policy, and two proposals currently being discussed as potential ‘solutions’ to the current impasse give me serious pause. Both, I would argue, fail to address the underlying problems and may even compound them.

The Ordinariate Proposal: A Gilded Cage

The first proposal involves creating some form of personal ordinariate to oversee communities attached to the Traditional Mass. This has a certain administrative logic to it: provide a dedicated structure, remove these communities from the direct oversight of potentially hostile diocesan bishops, and create a stable canonical framework for their existence.

But this apparent solution conceals a fundamental problem: it would create a liturgical ghetto. The genius of Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum was precisely that it refused this ghettoization. Pope Benedict recognized the Traditional Mass not as some exotic rite requiring special permissions and separate hierarchical structures, but as part of the Roman Rite itself: never abrogated, always legitimate, and available as a right to the faithful and to priests. The ordinary-extraordinary form distinction was meant to emphasize continuity, not division. It acknowledged that the Church prays in two forms of the same rite, both equally Roman, both equally Catholic.

An ordinariate structure, by contrast, would effectively declare: ‘This Mass is so problematic, so divisive, so other, that it cannot exist within normal diocesan structures.’ It would enshrine in canon law the very separation that Pope Benedict sought to overcome. Worse still, it would do nothing to address the problem of hostile bishops. In fact, it might embolden them. A bishop who has shown himself ungenerous—or outright antagonistic—toward the faithful attached to the Traditional Mass would simply have his prejudices validated: ‘See, these people and their liturgy are so different they need their own separate structure. They don’t really belong here.’

The faithful would be protected, perhaps, but at the cost of being formally marginalized. This is not a solution; it is an institutionalized retreat.

The “Reform of the Reform”: Necessary but Insufficient

The second proposal focuses on improving celebrations of the Novus Ordo; what is often called the ‘reform of the reform.’ Proponents argue that if the Ordinary Form were celebrated with greater reverence, solemnity, and attention to the sacred, many of the concerns driving people toward the Traditional Mass would dissipate.

This is not entirely wrong. Much of what ails Catholic liturgy today stems not from the Novus Ordo itself in its official form, but from the liberties, innovations, and abuses that have become routine in its celebration. A more reverent Novus Ordo: celebrated ad orientem, with Gregorian chant, in Latin where appropriate, with careful attention to rubrics, etc. This would undoubtedly be a vast improvement over what many Catholics experience on a typical Sunday.

But this approach, while laudable, does not go far enough. It treats the problem as primarily one of implementation when there are also questions of structure and theology embedded in the rite itself.

The Novus Ordo was not the product of organic liturgical development but of committee design. This is not a polemical claim but a historical fact. The post-Vatican II liturgical reform, whatever its intentions, created a rite that was substantially different from what preceded it; not through the gradual, Spirit-guided evolution that characterized liturgical development for centuries, but through deliberate committee construction in a remarkably short period of time.

Pope Benedict XVI himself was deeply aware of this problem. In his writings both as Cardinal Ratzinger and as Pope, he expressed concerns about the rupture in liturgical continuity and the dangers of treating the liturgy as something we construct rather than something we receive. His whole project in Summorum Pontificum was, in part, to restore that sense of organic continuity.

More troubling still is the way the Novus Ordo, in its typical celebration, places the priest at the center of the liturgical action. The structure of the rite, particularly when celebrated versus populum, tends to make the priest’s personality, choices, and even charisma central to the experience. The priest becomes, whether he wishes it or not, a kind of performer. The liturgy becomes, to a troubling degree, his creation.

This is not to say that priests celebrating the Novus Ordo are acting in bad faith or that Christ cannot be encountered there; of course He can and is. But the structure of the rite makes the centrality of Christ dependent on the priest’s willingness and ability to efface himself, to suppress his own personality, to resist the temptation to innovate or ‘personalize’ the liturgy.

In the Traditional Mass, by contrast, the priest’s personality is structurally suppressed. Facing the same direction as the people, following a more fixed and detailed rubrical structure, praying large portions of the Mass quietly, the priest becomes almost anonymous; a mediator rather than a protagonist. Christ is at the center not because the priest is particularly holy or particularly skilled, but because the structure of the rite itself directs all attention away from the priest and toward the altar, toward the sacrifice, toward the Lord.

It is no accident that so many churches built or renovated in the Novus Ordo era look like stadiums or auditoriums rather than sacred spaces. If the liturgy is fundamentally about what the priest does, about the community’s celebration, about active participation understood primarily as external activity, then the architectural logic follows: create a space where everyone can see the action, where the priest is visible and audible to all, where the focus is on the human gathering rather than on the divine presence.

A more reverent celebration of the Novus Ordo can mitigate some of these problems, but it cannot fully overcome them without structural changes so substantial that we would be, in effect, creating a different rite.

The Pastoral Ends

The real solution is not complicated, though it requires courage and perhaps a willingness to disappoint certain constituencies who have grown attached to the restrictions of Traditiones Custodes. The solution is to return to the dispensation of Summorum Pontificum. Pope Benedict’s motu proprio was wise precisely because it addressed all the problems that the current proposals fail to solve:

1. It dealt with hostile bishops. By establishing that priests have a right to celebrate the Traditional Mass without needing episcopal permission, and that faithful have a right to request it, Pope Benedict removed the question from the realm of episcopal whim and placed it on firmer canonical ground. A bishop could not simply forbid what the universal law of the Church permitted.

2. It refused ghettoization. By insisting on the ordinary-extraordinary form distinction, Pope Benedict kept the Traditional Mass within the normal life of dioceses and parishes. It was not an exotic import requiring special structures, but part of the Church’s living tradition.

3. It respected the freedom of the faithful. Pope Benedict understood that the faithful have a right (not merely a privilege) to access the Church’s liturgical heritage. The liturgy is not the property of bishops or popes to manipulate at will, but a sacred trust handed down through generations.

4. It created space for mutual enrichment. Pope Benedict hoped that the two forms of the Roman Rite would enrich each other: that the reverence and sacral character of the old would influence the new, while the new rite would encourage Catholics to engage actively with the liturgy, to better understand the texts, and to participate vocally in their appointed parts. These devotional habits, once cultivated, naturally enhance one’s experience of the traditional rite as well. But for this enrichment to work, it requires proximity, not separation.

Conclusion

Pope Leo XIV faces a difficult situation, and I do not envy him the task of navigating these troubled liturgical waters. But the path forward should not require novel structures or half-measures. Pope Benedict XVI, in his wisdom, already showed us the way. Summorum Pontificum was not perfect (no merely human legislation ever is) but it was fundamentally sound in its principles and generous in its pastoral vision.

What is needed now is not innovation but restoration: restoration of the freedom Pope Benedict granted, restoration of trust in the faithful, restoration of confidence that the Church is big enough to hold both forms of her Roman liturgical tradition without one threatening the other.

The Traditional Mass is not a problem to be managed or a crisis to be solved. It is a gift to be received, a treasure to be preserved, and a heritage to be passed on. The sooner we return to treating it as such, the sooner we can move past these exhausting controversies and return to the real work of the Church: the sanctification of souls and the worship of Almighty God.

Happy Birthday to Pope Leo!

Today our Holy Father Pope Leo celebrates his 70th birthday, his first birthday as Pope, on this feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. We know that our readers join us in offering prayers that God may bless and keep him, and strengthen him to lead the Church wisely and well. We also note than in three days’ time, he will celebrate his baptismal name-day on the post-Conciliar calendar, the feast of St Robert Bellarmine. Ad multos annos, sancte Pater!

The traditional prayers for the Pope said at Benediction and other occasions, from Pax inter Spinas, the printing house of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignole, France.

Today is also the day on which the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum became legally active in 2007, a bit more than two months after it was promulgated. (This period, known as the vacatio legis, is a normal feature of wise acts of governance.) We hope and pray that Pope Leo will restore this most wise piece of legislation, (and perhaps put the traditional Roman Rite on an even more solid legal footing), and thereby restore to the Church some of the much-needed peace which Benedict XVI gave it. In the last several weeks and months, many prelates have expressed their sympathy for this idea; the latest, as reported by Diane Montagna, is His Eminence Angelo Cardinal Bagnasco, archbishop emeritus of Genoa, and a former president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Roma, he said, “I have never seen, and still do not see, how the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite … could cause problems. There are no risks or dangers if everything is approached calmly and with goodwill by all.” Indeed.

The headline of this article is “The Pope works to unite the Church”, and in connection with this, we note the following item from Vatican News. On Thursday, the Pope attended a meeting in the Vatican with several newly appointed bishops, during which, as the headline notes, he urged them to be “builders of bridges.” (This is, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word “pontifex”, which is used of all bishops, not just of the Pontifex Maximus.) And we note the following in particular:

If indeed the bishops are called to be builders of bridges, and if indeed young people are not satisfied with the typical (or, perhaps we could say “Ordinary” here) experience of our parishes, perhaps the time has come to stop expelling them from their parishes for the crime of wanting something Extraordinary. We very much hope that the welcoming back of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to St Peter’s basilica is a sign for the good in this direction. 

A Very Good Video from Brian Holdsworth on Liturgical Reform

I meant to share this video from the always-wise Brian Holdsworth yesterday, which was the 18th anniversary of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, but travel plans and an uncooperative router intervened. The title is “A Plea to Pope Leo For Reform”, and essentially, he lays out a very good case for why Summorum Pontificum needs to be restored, and likewise, some good food for thought as to what the future of liturgical reform in general should look like.

If I may be so bold as to summarize his argument, it basically runs as follows. Improvements in the human person do not happen at once; they require slow and steady work. If you are unhealthy and out of shape, you cannot simply decide to be healthy and in shape from one day to the next. You need to not just exercise and eat better, but get in the habit of exercising and eating better. Likewise, if you want to be smarter, you cannot simply decide to be smarter; you need to develop the habit of doing things that will make you smarter (read more good books, waste less time on scrolling through videos, etc.) And if you try to change your habits all at once, and go directly to he desired end-result, you will fail disastrously; he likens this to trying to get in shape by going from lifting 40 pounds in the gym one day to lifting 200 the next.

What this means (and this is the part which really made me take notice) is that even if the post-Conciliar liturgy were indeed a vast improvement on the traditional liturgy in every way, as some contend, it was nevertheless brought with it such an unprecedented amount of change, and was implemented at such an unprecedented speed, that it was never going to have the desired effect. Mr Holdsworth makes the analogy that it was like moving the pin in the weight machine from 40 to 200 from one day to the next, and the result has been a failure.

And here, by the way, he also makes a very wise cautionary note for those of us who love the traditional rite, and pray to see it restored to its rightful place in the Church, namely, that this cuts both ways. If, as we believe, it is the traditional Roman Rite that is superior, circumstances within the Church have nevertheless now changed in such a way imposing it all at once would be similarly imprudent, and lead to a similar failure.

This, in turn, is why Pope Benedict’s vision, that the liberation of the traditional Roman Rite, and his hope that it would gradually improve the general condition of the liturgy in the Church as a whole, were so wise. So I thank Mr Holdsworth for this very good observation, and urge all our readers to continue their prayers for the hastening of the day when the Summorum Pontificum regimen is restored as it should be.  

Revisiting a Dominican Theologian’s Appeal for Mutual Understanding in the Era of Summorum Pontificum

I am grateful to my colleague Gregory for pointing out to me this interesting article by a French Dominican, published by E.S.M. on December 16, 2007—thus, reacting to the initial fallout from the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum—and yet, as far as I can tell, never published online in English, a regrettable lacuna we have now sought to fill. While naturally one may not agree with all his points, the good father’s reflections indicate an amicable ‘catholic’ mentality that might have prevailed, had not Benedict’s peace given way to Francis’s war. —PAK

Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Is Significant: Planets Suddenly Meet

Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, OP

The debates surrounding the Motu Proprio seem to be symptomatic: planets that haven’t met for a long time are suddenly facing each other, astonished by each other’s existence, since the galaxy of the Church in France seems to be so full of empty spaces.

These planets are those of the “traddies” and those who are not—the majority of the French clergy and a large proportion of the parishioners. There are other planets which only partly overlap the previous configuration: young Catholics versus the so-called “Council generation” (the over-60s), or charismatics and other new communities versus Catholic Action, etc. It’s a beautiful diversity, demonstrating Christian plurality and everyone’s right to exist. How does this encounter take place?

Culture shock

We could discuss the theological differences that seem to separate these currents, usually crystallized around the reception or rejection of the Second Vatican Council. All of this is true, or rather should be, because unfortunately this formulation gives too much weight to theology. More than theologies, cultures and social milieus are suddenly colliding. For example, the mass of the clergy corresponding to the above-mentioned sexagenarian generation is rather left-wing, social and popular (or wants to be), including some of the higher clergy. The younger generations of Catholics, on the other hand, seem to belong to a more right-wing culture (albeit a pluralistic one), a more bourgeois and urban culture, not only because of the pendulum swinging back and forth, as our lazy intelligence too often lets us believe, but because of the numerical collapse of the middle classes, which should occupy the center and diversify the whole.

While remaining a minority, the traditionalist world is proving to be proportionally important for the present and, above all, for the future of the French Catholic community. In fact, it is the whole of the younger generation—from the right of the “traddies” to the left of the charismatics, including the new communities and certain dioceses—which at this time takes on a certain relief perceived as unitary, beyond their mutual yet considerable differences.

This is not without concern for the older generations. They don’t find in their younger siblings the ideals that thrilled them forty years ago. They realize the numerical and dynamic importance of these new currents, which they have nevertheless worked so hard to minimize for years. Young people want spiritual and liturgical life, fidelity to Rome, intellectual training, new reference-points, and explicit apostolic figures. It is not rare for the older generation to feel judged by the young. The latter most often aren’t giving it any thought, but the way they live [their faith] is perceived as an indictment.

The “traddy” crisis was therefore one of the occasions (like the World Youth Days, in fact) to reveal the non-marginal existence of several Catholic currents that the collective conscience had been willing to overlook.

Symptoms of cracks

The risk for all would be to defend themselves by excluding others. The Church is broad and maternal enough to contain them all. On the contrary, a propensity towards communitarianism would be a sign of the Christian community’s ill health.

The cracks in French Catholic culture have been caused by a number of ideologies, and sometimes make it difficult to amalgamate different ages and affiliations. The parish should play this role, but it is only succeeding in certain places that have taken the measure of the relevant phenomena in time. It’s the leaders of Catholic Action who are cracking—too late, unfortunately. Drifts have taken place and it will take time to reconcile generations, sensitivities, and, even more, ideas. All the more so, as we have left Christendom behind. Unity should focus more on theological substance than on pastoral options, which paradoxically combine pedagogical rigidity and doctrinal fragmentation.

The liturgical pluralism of the two states of the Roman rite may be damaging, but it is the consequence of a violent liturgical splintering [éclatement liturgique sauvage], even more damaging, on which official light is still too timidly shed.

Moving forward together

Only a spiritual, liturgical, and catechetical renewal of the whole French ecclesial community will enable the harmonious integration of the “traddies.” The latter, for their part, need to exert an effort to make themselves presentable. They also need to brush up on their theology, their pastoral care, and even their sense of liturgical dress.

A mutual effort of understanding is needed if these planets are to revolve in the same galaxy. Each is called to seek the truth rather than to be right. We need to find a common language, based on the Church’s present and perennial teaching, which is the point of reference for all debates.

A minimum of dialogue needs to be cultivated, through friendly encounters and an attempt to understand other people’s value systems, far from any jealously cultivated paranoia. No single Christian current holds the ideal cultural determinations of the Gospel message. Mutual approaches are gradually taking shape, and we must not delay in establishing them.

In the final analysis, the necessities of dogma, morality, liturgy, and the spiritual life of the Christian people, on the one hand, and the cultural conditioning of groups and individuals, on the other, are intertwined, sometimes in a disturbing way. Not everything is equally important.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

My Interview with Dr Jan Bentz of The European Conservative

Earlier this year, on the feast of the Assumption, I had the great pleasure of giving an interview to an old friend, Dr Jan Bentz, who studied in Rome for many years. He is now teaching at Oxford University, and hosting an interview series called Reality Check on the YouTube channel of The European Conservative magazine. Our conversation ranged over a wide variety of topics related to the liturgy: a little bit about the station Masses; the current status of the traditional Roman Rite; the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, and how it applies to the whole life of the Church; the non-reception of Vatican II; the lectionary; continuity and rupture in the post-Conciliar reform; prospects for future liturgical reform, etc. I hope you find it interesting.

The Father of the Romans and Joseph Ratzinger, His German Son

Virgil’s Aeneid is one of the modern world’s many illustrious victims. The gradual abandonment of Latin has turned this epic masterpiece, one of the literary cornerstones of Western Civilization, into something that only a minuscule group of inveterate Latinists can truly enjoy in the original language. I’m sad to say that I’m not in that group—Virgil’s Latin is so rich and dense, so intricate and elegant, that reading quickly becomes laborious to the point of exhaustion, and the translations on my bookshelf appear as an oasis in the desert of my own incompetence. I take comfort in the fact that John Dryden, a Latinist of the old stripe and one of the Aeneid’s most famous English-language translators, also strained under the weight of Virgil’s genius:

Virgil called upon me in every line for some new word, and I paid so long, that I was almost bankrupt, so that the latter end must needs be more burdensome than the beginning or the middle; and, consequently, the Twelfth Aeneid cost me double the time of the First and Second. What had become of me, if Virgil had taxed me with another book?

Aeneas builds a fleet after escaping Troy. Sixteenth century, painted enamel on copper.

Written in the first century BC, the Aeneid recounts the journey of Aeneas out of defeated Troy, around Greece, over to eastern Italy, down to Sicily, across the sea to Carthage, back to Sicily, and finally up to western Italy, where he founded Lavinium, a port city in Latium and an ancestor of Roman civilization. Saint Augustine knew the story well and adopted it as an allegorical framework for his own spiritual journey from pagan Rome to Christian Rome:

I was obliged to learn the wanderings of Aeneas, and yet I was forgetful of my own wanderings. I learned to weep for the death of Dido, because she killed herself for love, while in the midst of these things I was miserable and dying, separated from Thee, my God and my Life, and I shed no tears for myself. (Confessions I, 13)

The Aeneid is the story of the founding of Rome, but the poem is more about the people than the city. A central question at stake is the Roman character—what does it mean to be Roman? Virgil’s very long poem offers a very short answer: to be a Roman is to be a child, culturally speaking, of Aeneas. And what was Aeneas? He was, above all, pius.

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Aeneas is Virgil’s epic hero, and his fundamental virtue—his renowned pietas—is an epic headache for translators. The classical Latin word pius doesn’t mean “pious,” and pietas doesn’t mean “piety.” In fact, these words have no adequate English equivalent. In his 2016 translation, the eminent classicist Barry Powell gave up and included the Latin terms in square brackets whenever they appeared, so that readers could form a better idea of what Virgil was actually saying. Powell’s attempt to convey the semantic field of classical pietas requires quite the bevy of English words: “sense of duty,” “religious behavior,” “loyalty,” “devotion,” “filial piety.” From Lewis and Short’s Latin–English dictionary we can add “affection,” “gratitude,” “love” (for one’s parents, benefactors, or homeland).

Dido weeps as Aeneas departs from Carthage.

Perhaps Virgil’s pius Aeneas is more easily understood through example than through explanation. Perhaps the best way for modern Catholics to really grasp the meaning of Roman pietas is to consider how the Roman Church treated (note the past tense) its liturgical tradition. We can reflect on the days when priests and prelates felt a sense of duty toward this tradition—the duty to preserve and reverentially enrich it as a sacred inheritance from the saints, scholars, sages, and heroes that preceded them in the great and perilous odyssey of human life. We can think of the devotion and loyalty of the faithful, who built the temples of Christendom with their labors and filled them with their prayers; who practiced and defended the Faith while humbly accepting that a layman is a layman and not a priest; who taught their children to savor the mysteries and silences and candlelit symbols of a ceremony whose object is the worship of the Triune God, not the exaltation of two-faced man with his long history of betraying himself, his friends, and his heavenly Father.

We can imagine a time when the liturgical rites of our fathers were received with gratitude and love, because they bring pleasure and beauty and divinity into the gritty, messy struggle to live as good Christians in this vale of tears. I dare say that we have our fill of utilitarian efficiency, experimental aesthetics, and prosaic banality from our earthly lives—and thus Catholics once cherished and honored a liturgy that gave them, if only for an hour or two, a vision and a foretaste of heaven.

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Seventeen years ago, Joseph Ratzinger wrote that “what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.” Resolved to liberate western Christendom’s ancient Mass from humiliating shackles that it did nothing to deserve, he insisted that “the Church’s Latin liturgy in its various forms has inspired countless saints in their spiritual life, confirmed many peoples in the virtue of religion, and enriched their devotion.” Though a German by birth, this priest sat on a Roman throne, and he proved himself a man of pietas—a faithful son of Aeneas.

The funeral of Joseph Ratzinger. Photo courtesy of Quirinale.it.

In Book II of the Aeneid, Troy is conquered and burning, and Aeneas rescues his elderly father in a manner that gave Western culture one of its most enduring and emblematic scenes of filial piety:

“Come then, dear father! On my shoulders I
Will bear thee, nor will think the task severe.
Whatever lot awaits us, there shall be
One danger and one safety for us both.”

Pope Benedict XVI has, Deo volente, gone to his reward, and his successor has chosen a different path. We must be patient, then, until a new hero comes to carry our paternal liturgy out of the flames.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

What Does Opposition to the Traditional Mass Really Signify?

Editor’s note: on this day in the year 2007, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, one of the most important acts of his pontificate, the fruit of his long and thoughtful consideration of the theological and pastoral problems which arose from the post-Conciliar liturgical revolution. This column on the opposition to it was originally published ten years ago, and although the landscape has changed since then, very much for the worse, its analysis of that opposition remains just as pertinent as it was a decade ago. Let us not allow this day to pass without a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the many benefits that have accrued to the Church from Summorum Pontificum, asking Him to hasten the day of its restoration; and likewise, pray for the eternal repose of His good and faithful servant, Pope Benedict XVI.

At the ordination of priests dedicated to the
usus antiquior: Bp. Marc Aillet, June 28, 2014

In the post-Summorum world, the ancient Roman Rite can no longer be considered forbidden, dubious, marginal, or obsolete. It enjoys equal rights of citizenship with the Novus Ordo: two forms of the Roman Rite—one called Ordinary because most recently promulgated and more widely used, the other called Extraordinary, the usus antiquior, deserving respect for its venerable use—with each able to be freely celebrated by any priest of the Roman Rite, no special permission needed. One would think that, as a gesture of reconciliation at the heart of the Church, the two forms would be flourishing side by side, with Catholics everywhere privileged to experience both of them offered reverently and beautifully.

But this is still far from the reality, and, sadly, there are still far too many bishops and priests who oppose the traditional Mass, tether it with burdensome conditions, or resort to power politics to ensure that its supporters are duly warned and penalized for their rash embrace of our Catholic heritage.

As we commemorate today the seventh anniversary of the implementation of Summorum Pontificum, whose provisions went into effect on September 14, 2007, it will be both edifying and sobering to consider the meaning Joseph Ratzinger himself attached to opposition to the traditional Mass. What does it mean when someone opposes this Mass, or those who celebrate it, or those who cherish it as a form of prayer dear to them?

In the book-length interview Salt of the Earth, published in 1997, Ratzinger said:

I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It’s impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. Can it be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe tomorrow what it prescribes today?  (176-77)

Ten years prior to Summorum, he was placing his finger on the crux of the matter. If the liturgy that was the Church’s holiest and highest possession for centuries, the object of total reverence and honor, the means of sanctification for countless Catholics, is suddenly forbidden, and if the desire to worship as our forefathers did is treated as wrong, what does that say about the Church herself, about her past, her tradition, her very saints? Truly, her credibility vanishes entirely, her proclamations become arbitrary diktats. Was there something fatally flawed, all this time, with our central act of worship? Were all the popes of the past who lovingly cultivated this liturgy mistaken, were all the missionaries who brought it around the globe misguided? Could they say, in the words of Gatherer, son of Vomiter, “I have not learned wisdom, and have not known the science of saints”? (Prov 30:1, 3, Douay).

In God and the World (2002), another of those splendidly insightful and doctrinally robust interviews which now, in retrospect, make for such wistful reading, Ratzinger returned to the point:

For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way? I must say, quite openly, that I don’t understand why so many of my episcopal brethren have to a great extent submitted to this rule of intolerance, which for no apparent reason is opposed to making the necessary inner reconciliations within the Church.  (416)

Here we have language strikingly akin to what we will find five years later in Pope Benedict’s Letter to the Bishops that accompanied Summorum Pontificum. Once again, we find the telltale insistence on possessing the right attitude towards the undying and life-giving heritage of the Church. The liturgical rites that arise from apostolic seeds in the Church’s sojourn through history are the fruits of Him who is the Lord and Giver of Life, and they cannot, in themselves, either die or bring death—nor can they be legitimately prohibited.

This would explain why Pope Benedict XVI, in Summorum Pontificum, says that the traditional Latin Mass “must be given due honor for its venerable and ancient usage” and, in the Letter to the Bishops, adds:

What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

The giving of due honor, which translates into the actual celebration of the rite, is not an optional matter, and this is why we should politely refuse to allow ourselves or our fellow Catholics to be categorized as people with certain “preferences”: “Oh, you prefer the old and I prefer the new.” No, it goes beyond preferences to the very structure of the Catholic Faith: those things that are venerable and ancient must be given due honor; what earlier generations held as sacred must be sacred—and great!—for us, too; it is incumbent on us to preserve these riches and to make sure that they occupy their proper place in the life of the Church today.

Again, a sign that we are reading Pope Benedict correctly is that the clarifying instruction Universae Ecclesiae goes out of its way to emphasize these points. In fact, section 8 of this document is striking in its uncompromising simplicity, its total lack of hedging qualifications or loopholes:

The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum constitutes an important expression of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff and of his munus of regulating and ordering the Church’s Sacred Liturgy. The Motu Proprio manifests his solicitude as Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church, and has the aim of: (a) offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure to be preserved; (b) effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it, given that the use of the 1962 Roman Liturgy is a faculty generously granted for the good of the faithful and therefore is to be interpreted in a sense favorable to the faithful who are its principal addressees; (c) promoting reconciliation at the heart of the Church.

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At the ordination of priests dedicated to the usus antiquior:
Bishop James Conley, June 14, 2014

With these points established, we can readily see why any move to obstruct or diminish the presence of the usus antiquior in the Church today would only cause great harm and long-term damage.

First, it would be an act and a symptom of disobedience, which is never blessed by God and always punished by Him. More specifically, it would constitute disobedience to Pope Benedict XVI’s legal provisions in Summorum Pontificum (and their clarifications in Universae Ecclesiae), as well as to St. John Paul II’s well-known statement that “respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.” As has been demonstrated above, it is not enough to refrain from bad mouthing the traditional sacramental rites; they must be known and loved, re-introduced and promoted, studied in seminaries, offered generously to the faithful as a precious treasure.

Second, and more profoundly, divine worship goes to the heart of a person’s spiritual life, that which is most intimate and cherished. Any refusal to share the treasures of the Church, any heavy-handed restrictions on what is already available (or should be available), can only provoke anger, disappointment, and mistrust, hurting the Church’s unity, which is a fragile good of enormous value. Certain bishops, priests, and laymen may have no great love for the Extraordinary Form themselves, but they ought to recognize and respect the sizeable minority of Catholics who do, and appreciate that depriving them of it, or begrudging it to them, is pretty nearly the most offensive thing that could be done—rather like slapping a man’s wife, mother, or grandmother. To be blunt, those who sincerely want peace and mutual understanding had better act generously or they may end up with another ecclesiastical Cold War on their hands. Who wants that?

It does not require a degree in nuclear physics to see that a significant and growing number of Catholics are flocking to parishes and chapels where the traditional Mass is being celebrated, and with their (on average) very large families and strong commitment to homeschooling, the future belongs to them. In 1988 there were about 20 weekly Sunday TLMs; today there are over 500. There is no reason to fight this movement, and every reason to support it.

In spite of the anxieties of some who find it difficult to give peace and mutual coexistence a chance, the Extraordinary Form is not a problem for the Church, and, as Ratzinger/Benedict helps us to see, never could be a problem in and of itself. Instead, one may encounter unfortunate traditionalist attitudes that alienate or provoke—and, to be quite fair, this cuts both ways, since the promoters of the Novus Ordo frequently exhibit offensive attitudes of their own, such as a peculiar fusion of theoretical liberalism and practical totalitarianism. The thing to do is not jealously to limit and control the usus antiquior as if it were a dangerous addictive substance, an approach that only fuels those unfortunate attitudes, but to teach and model a right attitude, receiving with open arms, with humility and childlike simplicity, all that the Church herself gives, so that it becomes something normal and natural, not something forbidden (and thus, perhaps, more alluring?), controversial, or divisive.

Let us give the final word to Pope Benedict, from his Letter to the Bishops of July 7, 2007:

I think of a sentence in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul writes: “Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return … widen your hearts also!” (2 Cor 6:11-13). Paul was certainly speaking in another context, but his exhortation can and must touch us too, precisely on this subject. Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.

“Grillo’s Tradition resembles too much the Progress of the Marxian-Pragmatist rhetoric of yore”: Pietro de Marco Responds to Grillo, and Grillo Replies

The following article appeared first in Italian at Messa in Latino and is published here for the benefit of NLM readers. Pietro De Marco (b. Genoa, 1941) taught Sociology of Religion in the Faculty of Education at the University of Florence. He has taught Comparative Religious Systems in the Faculty of Political Science in Florence. A philosopher by training, under the guidance of Eugenio Garin, he worked on the history of the European intellectual field (Renaissance and nineteenth and twentieth centuries) and on ancient Jewish and Christian thought and medieval Islamic thought. He then conducted studies in church history and theology at the Institute for Religious Sciences in Bologna. He was editor of the Encyclopedia of Religions (Vallecchi) from 1969 to 1974 and collaborator of the Chair of Church History at the Faculty of Letters in Florence.

I have been asked to convey my opinion on the arguments with which Andrea Grillo responded to his interlocutor and somewhat mistreated readers of Messa in Latino. We have had a couple of confrontations with Andrea, over time, and that makes it easy for me, even in choosing the right tone. But it also makes clear my position, which I recall for those who have never read me: I do not intervene as a “traditionalist faithful to Rome,” as MiL legitimately expresses itself. Since I have been writing, and particularly, since I have felt it my duty to show disagreement with the communicative and governing acts of the reigning pontiff—I, who have always been pro-Roman!—I have spoken as a common christifidelis, endowed with some capacity for judgment, but first and foremost filled with concern for the Church, which since childhood, by God’s gift, I have truly felt to be my Mother.

I knew and shared, in the 1960s and 1970s, the conciliar reforming “point of view” and its radicalities. But, except perhaps for a very brief period, no one could convince me that much, if not all, of the past living human-divine history of the Catholic Church had been error or relative blindness or deviation. One failed to realize, as many still do not even now, that the possibility of thinking this way had already occurred, with all its consequences: it had been at the heart of the great Protestant crisis. The hermeneutic of rupture and restart from supposedly pure origins, proper to the Reformers, is not, cannot be, the Catholic one. Despite a certain theological greatness in the Reformed churches, which I know and recognize, the Reformation constitutes a paradigm of error already worked out in Christian history, all the more seriously in its “liberal” versions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I find it incredibly naive to retrace, with the blind tâtonnement of those seeking regenerations or rebirths, the dead-end roads already imagined or traveled by others.

I will not be kicked to the “right,” therefore, either my insignificant self or the theologians, clergy, intellectuals, and churches who in the world stand firmly in the center in opposing the destructive elites, to which unfortunately Grillo also belongs, who make use of a contradictory and disorienting pontificate, endowed with fixed personal ideas as much as an individual Christian can be in difficult decades, but not a pope. This premise was appropriate as a preliminary to all the remarks and boutades that Grillo reserves for “faithful traditionalists” but which want to hit very distant and lofty targets.

Marxian-Pragmatist Rhetoric

We see this immediately in what he argues in the first response. Having said that the “ritual parallelism” instituted by Benedict XVI’s Summorum pontificum had no theological foundation, Grillo asserts, with the drasticness of reformers who renounce all dialogical masquerade, that to be “faithful” one must acquire the ritual language communally established by Rome—in other words, the one established by the recent Traditionis custodes. Indeed, Tradition incorporates “a legitimate and unsurpassable progress, which is irreversible”; this would also be the meaning of the title of the motu proprio that seemed to many to be mocking.

But Grillo’s Tradition resembles too much the Progress of the Marxian-Pragmatist rhetoric of yore (its motion is unsurpassable, irreversible) to have anything to do with Christian traditiones, and with religious traditions in general. There is, strictly speaking, no progress in the Christian traditum (what is “dogmatic progress” I will not bother to remind Andrea), and nothing new is irreversible. It is curious that I have to remind someone of this who elsewhere would deny that Trent (and perhaps Chalcedon) were unsurpassable and irreversible moments of progress.

What does not hold up—and what I am sorry to see proposed instead as obvious—is that Traditionis custodes is deemed unsurpassable and irreversible, but not Summorum Pontificum. Yet neither document has more value than that of an act of government willed by the prudentia of the head of the Church. Instead, it will be a matter of debate which of the two prudentiae is to be recognized as more solicitous of the good of Christians.

About Summorum pontificum, Grillo and I publicly debated back in 2007, in Parma Cathedral, with Luise moderating. At that time I supported the following perspective, and I remain fully convinced of it:

The new “legitimization” of the Missale romanum [of 1962] decreed by SP brings Catholic life back to its essential nature as complexio. Catholic history “preceding” the Second Vatican Council is proposed as a vital horizon for the “spirit” of the Council itself and its realization—a “realization” that many extremisms have experienced instead as incompatible with the past. Thus the goal of “internal reconciliation within the bosom of the Church” becomes part of a broad medicinal intervention for the universal church…. The recovery of the Latin rite may, contrary to objections, act as a stabilizing paradigm for the fluctuating and impoverished modern-language liturgies. As Cardinal Lehmann said, the motu proprio is good reason to promote with new attention a worthy celebration of all Masses.

The misunderstanding of many bishops has moved politically against this stabilizing paradigm of the liturgy. I cannot help but add that the sensibilities and/or theories stated by Grillo stand against the perennial, ever-acting value of mystery-sacramentary ontology in the millennial life of the Church. I firmly think, against what Grillo derisively dismisses in his answer to the fifth question, that “what was sacred for past generations cannot but be sacred for us as well”; breaking with the Christian Sacred, with the sacramentaria, was the illusory and dramatic act of Calvinist Entzauberung. Here is not the place to argue this point, but having taught and worked in the sociology of religion for decades, I distinguish between the sensory variability (but not volatility) of the sacred and its ontological status. Grillo and I both admire Odo Casel, but we may not be reading the same author, so to speak.

Christological Void

Let us therefore not be fooled: the defense of postconciliar reforms is, for the leading liturgists, only political. Hostile to the Ratzingerian correction of 2007, they aimed and have aimed for decades to proceed (as soon as possible) much further subversively and authoritatively, toward an opposite atheological polarity: abolition of liturgical books, threshold situations, effervescence, theatricalizations, and ritual primitivisms. Grillo knows just what I am talking about. It is the desperate hope of the generative negation of the new or the authentic.

The common ecclesial life, even as it is not devoid of differences of opinion and practice, and the (mostly) wise governance of the bishops, have prevented this outcome, but liturgical celebrations in general have conflicted with common sense, have been lacking strong paradigms, and have shown frequent slips toward designification. These slippages have, moreover, a worrying de fide relevance—opening up a Christological void perceptible to anyone—that catechesis is incapable of correcting.

In this recent poverty of lived meanings, of fides quae and of fides qua, the “non-ordinary” form of worship and and its language bring back the certainty of an antiquitas of the Christian rite, of its originality in Christ, into which the present may profoundly and necessarily implant itself, maintaining continuity. Nothing nostalgic, then, about this, I would say to Grillo; rather, it’s a matter of fundamentals of the Faith.

Don’t Adopt Left-Wing Strategies

I turn to the next questions and answers. Grillo opposes to MiL’s emphases on the weight of the “traditional charism” in the church—the vitality of the families of traditionalists, their “una cum Papa” response to the famine of seminarians—a sort of disqualification, or condemnation of the theological, formative, pastoral paths of “traditionalism.” They are, he thinks, the “easy” solutions: they seek refuge in the normativity of the past, finally in “contrast to tradition” (in Grillo’s sense, of course) rather than in conformity to the present Church.

I leave to Andrea the responsibility and consequences of maintaining this certainty about the inconsistency of other fellow Catholics—especially if in his head he really does believe what he is saying, for that makes all the difference. Ridiculing one’s opponent creates illusory scenarios, soothing but incapable of diagnosis and prognosis. The world that he trivializes, even just the one that self-describes and self-limits as “traditional,” has much more reason and much more substance to it that he lets on. It is the Church; moreover, it occupies Catholic spaces abandoned by “reformers” and little frequented by the average christifidelis.

I pause on the answer to the fifth question, which I would summarize as follows: “Is it possible that a ritual form that has been normative for long centuries can no longer have a place, within the admittedly pluralistic framework of the universal Church? And why be afraid of the variety of charisms?” Indeed, this formulation has the weaknesses of a defensive tactic, as well as being imitative of the opposing reformist tactics of decades ago: it makes an argument from existing pluralism, an argument from diverse charisms, etc. Such a tactic may work with a benevolent interlocutor, who might then answer, “Sure, that’s fair, but…”

Personally, I would discourage the various “right-wing” critical constellations of today from using arguments that are already “left-wing.” First of all, arguments aimed at weakening the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome. In fact, “progressive” arguments are not neutral, they are inherently instrumental. They do not care about merit; they are technically revolutionary; they are, in short, catholically unusable. Thus, when Grillo uses rhetorical indignation, exclamation, or perhaps here, precisely apostrophé (“And you cannot use from the right the great Pauline ideas so shamelessly…to nurture a ‘top-down anarchy’...”), he perfectly evokes those decades gone by, not even too long ago, when this top-down anarchy was demanded of the pontiffs “from the left,” a “free for all” for theologians and local churches. The pontiffs rightly objected. “From the right,” nothing should be done that would lead to retracing à rébours that widespread and inauspicious strategy.

Reducing Tradition to a Dispensable “Covering”

A nod to the depositum fidei and its “coverings”: here is yet another deterrent argument in Andrea’s skillful tactics, for the history of Christian doctrines, lef to liberal historicism, shows how insidious is the criterion for differentiating between the covering and the authentic body or core. Theoretically inconsistent, I consider it; consequently, an unusable concept in serious discussion.

That Grillo then thinks that it is “nostalgia” that makes us protect the authentic body of fides quae so as not to dismiss it as a mere “variable” garment shows that we have put behind us the great and decisive dogmatic debate that has accompanied Christendom since the Tridentine age, up to and including the discussions of Vatican II. The rhetoric of “coverings” [namely, that we need to remove the useless externals] remained the preserve of the external pseudo-council, the journalists, and the battle theologians, of the intelligentia of yesterday and today.

It remains to comment on what Grillo ascribes, somewhat blindly (as in a fistfight) to Pope Benedict XVI. I have already spoken about “anarchy from above.” This involves a subversive intelligentia dictating to the ruler in order to allow him to survive. Quite otherwise was Benedict XVI’s intent, considering how much his solution was intended to reduce the structural disequilibrium of recent practices. That it may have been inadequate strategy and theology is an empirical judgment, but could we agree on the parameters to be used to judge it?

When Grillo and I worked together, each in his own trench, on Universal Church or Introverted Church: A Debate on the Motu Proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’ , the liturgical question was in the hearts of many, and in the heart of the pontiff. By the time St. Paul’s Editions published the volume in 2013, no one was interested—first and foremost in Rome. Sic transit.

But the subsistence, the bare subsistence, of the traditional liturgy—that which Andrea and other radical liturgist friends see as an unbearable stumbling block for the life of the Church (not only liturgically speaking), and which, by now, in contrast, I see as a cornerstone of a realized and lived paradigm of ancientness, placed there as an icon of the Church that cannot be renounced—is crucial as a concrete dialectic. That is, it counts as a dialectical negation of the fragile ecclesial presentism to which the Catholic Church seems reduced nowadays (and for whose gift we thank the Lord anyway), a negation that realizes a perennial ideal and reality of the Church. All in the synthesis of the Mystical Body.

Minutiae

A last thought. Concerning the “failure” of the liturgical reform, I agree with Grillo that the argument of numbers is weak. First, because correlations between church practices and numbers of practitioners are very difficult to obtain and to interpret; interpretation presupposes licit utterances of the if-then type that we lack. And then, as usual, the argument for the decline of practice has been contested by the most diverse, indeed opposing, factions for decades. Over the years I have formed my judgment rather in the experienced practice—mixed Vetus and Novus—of missalizing, listening to homilies, evaluating what is said as well as what can’t/won’t be said anymore, in observing the behaviors (within and outside the rite) of clergy and people.

I note, in closing, that Grillo’s final jab—“tradition is not past but the future”—characterizes well (I don’t know how willingly and consistently) an underlying philosophy of my liturgist friend, namely a Nietzsche-Bloch-style ontological and nihilistic utopianism, cultivated by many today, even among young philosophy undergraduates. This much can be said: it is certainly incompatible with the theology of salvation history, therefore with Christology also; and finally, with common sense.

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Prof. Andrea Grillo’s Response

Dear Pietro,

Once again we are involved in a discussion. I read your article and, as always, I admire its tone and culture and always find that, even in the harshness of definitions, you never cease from being affectionate. While with Alcuin Reid we have so many times conducted a dialogue of the deaf—with the perception that, on the other side, there was a theological and liturgical simplism, nourished only by arrogance—with you I have always perceived not only the friendship that has bound us together for decades, even when we have argued most strongly, but fairness and mutual esteem. That is why we wrote together, in 2013, a book in which we constructed a small “medieval quaestio disputata,” with “videtur quod” and “sed contra.”

Even then, it seemed to me that you had, of liturgists, a vision only political and only fixed on the ’68 revolution. This, I pointed out to you even then, is not a good way to understand liturgists. For your approach has in common, with Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the demonization of the “enemy,” which does not bear good fruit in the reconstruction of either the Liturgical Movement or the Liturgical Reform.

Those who are seriously concerned with liturgy do not instrumentalize the rites politically, but want to restore to the rites their authority, which cannot in any way be reduced to “politics,” as traditionalism and progressivism do. You are always tempted to move me to a “progressive” extreme and to confuse me with a “Marxist,” while I am simply a theologian who tries to give everything its value, and who cannot remain silent in the face of a pope’s attempt to make an ecumenical Council incidental. The fact that I take Vatican II just as seriously as I do the Council of Trent—which you know how much I appreciate for its reforming intent—cannot be read as “Marxism,” but as an opening of the Church to the future.

Connecting tradition to the future is the oldest sense of paradosis and traditio, for otherwise we make fidelity to the Lord Jesus a contradiction to the gift of the Holy Spirit. Compared to the book, today we argue in reverse: then Summorum Pontificum was in force, today Traditionis Custodes is in force. Back then, I already argued that SP had no theological foundation: the idea of two parallel “leges orandi” was and remains a true theological “monstrum.” That it was the “theologian pope” who conceived it is aggravating. In regard to the liturgy, as we know well, not only evidence, but feelings, affiliations, and attachments that are difficult to rationalize are triggered.

Today, thanks to Francis—against whom you repeatedly lash out; we have discussed this over the years—we have gained a more traditional point of view. It is curious that it was Benedict XVI who gave in to the postmodern spirit of anarchy, while it is Francis who reestablishes the conditions of an ecclesial fidelity. It would be a mistake for you to go along (not with words, but in feeling) with the idea that Benedict was a liberal pontiff, while Francis would be a Stalinist. Instead, I think that the former succumbed to the ideological reading of the Council that threatened the Council Fathers (including him), while the latter is just a “son of the Council” and enjoys this primarily biographical condition. I see more “political” conditioning in the former than in the latter and believe that an “ecclesia universa” cannot be an “ecclesia introversa.”

I am grateful for your reply and consider even this small exchange a sign of friendship.

Andrea Grillo

(source in Italian)

Cardinal Sarah on Joseph Ratzinger’s Liturgical Theology and Francis’ Departure from It

New Liturgical Movement has many times featured the name and writings of Cardinal Robert Sarah, whom Benedict XVI chose to be his close collaborator in the sacred liturgy, and who was sidelined during the early years of the present pontificate.

Cardinal Sarah has never ceased to bear clear witness to the priority of the liturgy in the life of the Church, and of the dire need for a return to sane liturgical praxis after the maelstrom of the Council. He has spoken with particular clarity since the release of Traditionis Custodes.

It is therefore of considerable interest to note that he has published a major article in the journal Communio entitled “The Inexhaustible Reality: Joseph Ratzinger and the Sacred Liturgy” (vol. 49, Winter 2022), which has been made available for free by the publication (here). Although the entire article is worth a read, I would like to draw particular attention to the following passages.

On pp. 639-40:

One of the “unnoticed” but important contributions of [Joseph Ratzinger’s] The Spirit of the Liturgy is its reflection on authority—specifically papal authority—and the sacred liturgy. Noting that the Western liturgy is something that (borrowing the words of J. A. Jungmann, SJ) “has come to be,” that is “an organic growth,” not “a specially contrived production,” “something organic that grows and whose laws of growth determine the possibilities of further development,” Cardinal Ratzinger observes that in modern times “the more vigorously the [Petrine] primacy was displayed, the more the question came up about the extent and limits of this authority, which of course had never been considered. After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an Ecumenical Council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. 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.” [1]

In this assertion of the objectivity of the sacred liturgy in its developed ritual forms, and of the duty of the highest authority in the Church to respect this reality, [2] Cardinal Ratzinger laid the theological foundations for the consideration of a reform of the liturgical reform, or even for legitimately leaving aside the reformed rites in favor of their predecessors. Uncritical obedience to papal authority—already something long since abandoned in many places, but clung to by others as the guarantee of orthodoxy in turbulent times—was dealt a blow, at least with respect to the liturgical reform, by one of the highest ranking prelates in the Church (albeit writing in a private capacity).

Again, on pp. 643-45:

Pope Benedict’s most famous act of liturgical governance was, of course, his motu proprio Summorum pontificum (2007), “On the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970,” establishing that the older liturgical rites were “never abrogated” (1) and could therefore be freely used, and indeed that the requests of groups of the faithful for their celebration must be accepted. Bishops could no longer a priori exclude their celebration. Pope Benedict’s regulation of these principles was permissive, marking a sharp change to the parsimonious approach of too many bishops up to that point.

His accompanying “Letter to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of the Apostolic Letter ‘Motu Proprio Data’ Summorum Pontificum on the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970” of the same date, dealt deftly with the loud opposition that this measure had attracted even before it appeared; he noted the pastoral reality that “young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the mystery of the most holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them” [3], and appealed to the bishops: “Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.” The pope stated clearly,

“In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

Again, for those who knew the liturgical thought of Joseph Ratzinger, this stance is no surprise. His openness to the realities concerned—historical, theological, and pastoral—is clear. But for those who shared neither his vision nor his openness, these were retrograde acts calling into question the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical reform.

The argument, such as it was, was won over time by what has come to be known as “the liturgical peace of Benedict XVI,” wherein the “liturgy wars” of previous decades which had established “old rite” and “new rite” factions subsided and, certainly thanks to many of the younger generation of bishops, gave way to a peaceful coexistence, tolerance, and even a degree of mutual enrichment between the liturgical forms that lasted well beyond the end of his pontificate, repairing the unity of the Church to some extent and enhancing it while respecting legitimate differences of expression within the Church of God.

It is profoundly to be regretted that the motu proprio Traditionis custodes (July 16, 2021) and the related Responsa ad dubia (December 4, 2021), perceived as acts of liturgical aggression by many, seem to have damaged this peace and may even pose a threat to the Church’s unity. If there is a revival of the postconciliar “liturgy wars,” or if people simply go elsewhere to find the older liturgy, these measures will have backfired badly. It is too early to make a thorough assessment of the motivations behind them, or of their ultimate impact, but it is nevertheless difficult to conclude that Pope Benedict XVI was wrong in asserting that the older liturgical forms “cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,” particularly when their unfettered celebration has manifestly brought forth good fruits.

Notes (from the original Communio article)

[1] Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 165–66. As Pope Benedict XVI, he would develop this theme with respect to the wider Petrine ministry in his homily on the occasion of taking possession of the Chair of the Bishop of Rome at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, May 7, 2005.

[2] A reality taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1124–25.

[3] Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of the Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio Data” Summorum Pontificum on the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970 (Vatican City, 7 July 2007). I also can testify to this reality from many encounters with young people―lay men and women, religious, seminarians, and priests―whose vocations in the world either to Christian marriage or to the religious or the apostolic life are grounded in and nourished by the older liturgical forms in a truly life-giving way. In this respect, I can never forget my visit to the Paris-Chartres Pentecost pilgrimage in 2018: what hope these young people give to the Church of today and of the future!
Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

What Opponents of Liturgical Peace Were Saying in 2017 about “Summorum Pontificum”

I think it would be fair to say that nearly everyone was blindsided by the sweeping rupture codified in the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, and the harsh injustice of its accompanying letter. At the same time, if we comb through the literature concerned with the liturgical situation in the Church from the period of 2013 onward, we can find many indications of the kind of thinking that would eventually prevail in the papal court.

An example recently came to my attention: a piece by Romano Libero published on July 20, 2017, in the online magazine Golias (source in French). It is translated below. I believe it is helpful to see the rancor, the seething wrath against Ratzinger and his liturgical theology, and really, against the whole history and heritage of the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II, that animates his opponents, so that we will resist the temptation of assuming good will and common principles.

This being the week of the 16th anniversary of the epoch-shifting motu proprio Summorum Pontificum going into effect NLM is pleased to share a translation of a highly revealing anti-SP article. There is a hopeful message here ultimately: the author’s conclusion has proved quite correct. SP was, indeed, only the beginning.

Mass in Latin: The Great Illusion
Romano Libero
Golias
July 20, 2017

Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s motu proprio liberalizing the Pius V Mass (it became the “extraordinary form” of the Latin rite, alongside the conciliar “ordinary” rite of Paul VI), is—ten years on—a success, if the Catholic press is to be believed.

In France, for example, before the German pope’s decision, one hundred and twenty Tridentine Masses were celebrated every week; in 2017, we’re at 221. Bravo! Thank you, Papa Ratzinger! Especially since so many young people take part, sometimes coming from afar to admire the back of the priest reciting the Institution and the Consecration in a low voice, fingers held together, with a deacon and subdeacon assisting him, not to mention the male altar boys in red cassocks. Incense serves as a reminder that we are entering the mystery; magic is not far away, the sacred is everywhere! It’s no longer a question of celebrating Mass but of attending it, as when you go to the cinema, the theater, or a concert to enjoy a fine show. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, a “divine theater” (see Ph. Martin, Le théâtre divin: Une histoire de la messe XVIe-XXe siècles, Paris: CNRS Editions, 2010).

At the time, Benedict XVI wanted to take the wind out of the sails of the integrists. The aim was to bring the Mass out of the never-ending discussions between Rome and the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, even after the schism provoked by the latter in 1988 with the ordination of four bishops without papal mandate. In this way, the now-pope-emeritus thought that theological differences (including the acceptance of Vatican II) would be refocused. Rightly so, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.

The motu proprio caused a great deal of damage: in dioceses, parishes, seminaries... It was now necessary to make room not only for the usus antiquior but also for the ideology that goes with it: that of the extreme Catholic right, which saw in this decision a validation of its theses. Summorum Pontificum accentuated the desertion of conciliar Christians, for whom it was clear that the Church had not understood anything, that it was better to take certain side-roads to free themselves from this numbed institution, terrified of a future it did not understand (this has not changed), and which had become inattentive to the signs of the times. All that the motu proprio did was to reunite hitherto isolated traditionalist Christians, who sometimes traveled dozens or even hundreds of kilometers to “attend” the Tridentine Mass. “They set out with five hundred, but by a swift reinforcement, they saw themselves with five thousand by the time they reached port…”

Today, these good people are delighted to see young seminarians and lay people taking the path of traditionalism, which has an Answer for Everything and, above all, positions itself against the world. For these young people who have no reference points (or difficulties with their own personalities), the rubricated, codified Mass, in which the priest acts “in the place of Christ” with that feeling of omnipotence, is a reassuring framework that helps to heal their suffering egos. These chosen ones are set apart, chosen to serve—hence the cassock (or even the biretta, here and there), the defense of reactionary theses, as the distinctive signs that condition encounters with others.

In fact, it’s not for nothing that the number of diocesan priests is falling while the number of priests from these communities is rising: only integrists are left to choose the presbyteral path (hardly an exaggeration). Those who have opted for the service of a diocesan territory have conditioned their commitment to the traddy agenda (just look at the various diocesan websites for the latest ordinations) and are struggling with the pastoral orientations defined by the bishops, themselves overwhelmed by this romantic surge in the Church.

But this allowed them to delude themselves. For the appeal to traddy communities—such as the Community of Saint-Martin, the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), and the Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP), to name but the most famous—enabled them to postpone the inevitable debates on the presbyteral ministry, the formation and place of lay people, the place and role of women in the Church… It’s a short-term vision that—if they don’t change their tune—runs the risk of isolating the Church even further on major issues, notably political and societal ones.

Francis would like to abolish this motu proprio, recognizing the SSPX as the only body authorized (in the more or less long term) to celebrate the ancient rite within the framework of a personal prelature. No other action would be taken; the various pronouncements of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) disconcert even the Society, and the dismissal of the intractable Cardinal Müller, replaced by the Jesuit Archbishop Ladaria Ferrer, does not reassure the Lefebvrists, for whom all this is a change in continuity.

Be that as it may, repealed or not, Summorum Pontificum will have instilled a vivid venom into the veins of the Church that never ceases to poison it. This motu proprio was not just a papal decree, it was also the legitimization of the most arcane ideas to which Vatican II had—we thought—definitively turned its back. Ten years on, Summorum Pontificum has solved nothing; on the contrary, it has exacerbated difficulties, created disorder and division; and what’s worse, it’s only the beginning!

(Join Dr. Kwasniewski at his Substack “Tradition & Sanity.” Visit his personal site and composer site, his publishing house Os Justi Press, and his YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.)