The 20th Anniversary of the Death of Michael Davies

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Michael Davies, who is, I trust, well known to our readers, and especially in the English-speaking world, as one of the great defenders of the traditional Roman liturgy in the mad years immediately after the most recent ecumenical council. It is no exaggeration to describe as heroic the efforts which he made, both by writing and frequent lecturing, to expose how the liturgical reform betrayed that council. His most thorough and effective works in this regard are the three volumes published under the umbrella title The Liturgical Revolution: Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope John’s Council and Pope Paul’s New Mass.

After 60 years of scholarly research and publication, it is now generally understood that most of the scholarly premises which underpin the reform were simply flat-out wrong. Indeed, this has become such a commonplace, at least among the more honest, that we have perhaps forgotten, (or perhaps the younger among us have never known), that in those mad years, men like Davies and Fr Bouyer who spoke against such errors were almost universally dismissed as cranks. (Fr Bouyer’s 20th anniversary, by the way, is less than a month away, on October 22.)

It may be instructive, and hopefully a worthy tribute to Mr Davies, to look back at this fascinating episode of the program Firing Line, broadcast on April 22, 1980. The occasion for this discussion between the host, William F. Buckley, Davies, and Fr (later Monsignor) Joseph Champlin, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, was Pope St John Paul II’s “disciplinary” action against Fr Hans Küng; the previous December, the Pope had decreed that the University of Tübingen, where Küng was then teaching, could no longer refer to him as a “Catholic” theologian. The conversation quickly turns to a general discussion of the state of things in the Church, with much said about the liturgical reform.

Especially noteworthy is the exchange which begins at 18:30, in which Mr Davies refutes the canard, stated by Fr Champlin, that anciently the Church celebrated Mass “facing the people,” citing Fr Bouyer among others. Faced with the evidence, Fr Champlin has no response to make at all, and none has been found in the subsequent quarter of century either.

At the time, of course, the Novus Ordo was only 11 years old; in the United States, as in many other countries, the more outlandish sorts of liturgical experimentation and abuse were still very common, and the almost total prohibition on any celebration of the traditional Mass still very much in effect. De facto, if not de jure, this unjust prohibition was very often extended to any attempt to celebrate the reformed liturgy according to something resembling the mind of the Council. Buckley’s magazine National Review republished electronically an article which he wrote about the Latin Mass in 1967; almost two-and-a-half years before the Novus Ordo was promulgated, a priest dared not celebrate in Latin the wedding Mass for a member of his family, for fear that the bishop find out. Whatever difficulties we face today in the quest to improve the Church’s liturgical life, we must never allow ourselves to forget that enormous strides have been made since those days, a fact which should be an encouragement to all, and a cause for tremendous gratitude. These labors have not been in vain.

A couple of other points of interest.

1. Buckley rightly points out in his introduction, “the practical effect (of the Pope’s actions) on Fr Küng is barely noticeable; he continues to teach theology...” Nevertheless, as Davies says later (12:27), the reaction among Küng’s supporters was ferocious, with the Anglican Church Times calling the Pope the “ayatollah of the West.” The viciousness of this language may perhaps be difficult for some of our younger readers to appreciate; at the time of this broadcast, 52 Americans were being held hostage in the American embassy in Tehran, under the Ayatollah Khomeini’s government. (Archbishop Bugnini, then in his second career as nuncio in Iran, had just celebrated Easter Mass for them in the embassy two weeks before.) In his second memoir, published in 2008, Küng himself refers to this act of defamation in an approving quote from the American novelist and sociologist Fr Andrew Greeley; his chapter is titled Roma locuta, causa non finita, in a booked called, with no sense that the irony is deliberate, Disputed Truths. I will of course not be the first to note that pleas for civility and deference to Papal authority are a relatively new phenomenon among the more (can we say?) daring voices in the Church.

2. Davies also speaks (starting at 28:10) of a specific aspect of his work which affords a perfect example of the kind of dishonesty actively present in the reform which led Fr Bouyer to call Abp Bugnini (with classic French restraint) a man “as devoid of learning as he was of honesty.” It is a well-known fact that a group of six Protestant ministers were “consulted” by the Consilium ad exsequendam in the process of reforming the Mass. Bugnini would later claim in Notitiae that they only intervened once, and were merely observers; this led Davies to write to one of the six and ask to what degree they were involved, “and he said ‘Oh no, we played a very active part, and we were given all the documents same as the Catholic observers, every morning there was a discussion, a great free-for-all in which we put forward our opinions.’ That sort of thing has happened again and again.”

The Church of the New Liturgy and the New Ecclesiology (Part 2)

This it the second part of an article which our founding editor, Mr Shawn Tribe, has graciously shared with us from his site Liturgical Arts Journal, his translation of an article originally written in French by Abbé Grégoire Celier. It forms a very illuminating collection of citations from protagonists and proponents of the post-Conciliar reform, some well-known, some less well-known, which demonstrate why they believed that the reform required old church buildings to be modified, and new ones to be built differently. The first part was published last week. The first two photographs in this part were selected by Mr Tribe, the rest by myself. – NLM editor.

The Status Quo Ante Not Feasible

As the celebration according to the new liturgical norms depended on an architectural environment suited to it, it was not possible to leave things as they were. Indeed, Father [Joseph] Gélineau notes “the all too obvious difficulty encountered in trying to inscribe post-Vatican II liturgy in spaces and volumes designed for a very different type of liturgy” (Joseph Gélineau, Demain la liturgie, Cerf, 1976, p. 29).

But these liturgists would not give up: “It should also be emphasized that priests are invited to continue fitting their churches according to the requirements of the [new] liturgy. In particular, they are advised to place the Blessed Sacrament in a chapel separate from the main vessel of the church, and to give a new place to treasures of sacred art if they need to be removed from their present location.” (“L’instruction sur le culte eucharistique montre que la mise en œuvre de la réforme est fermement poursuivie”, Informations catholiques internationales 290, June 15 1967, p. 8).

It was therefore necessary to consider modifying the layout of churches, wherever necessary and possible, to adapt them to the new liturgy. It should be noted that, from the outset, some layouts were deemed more favourable than others. “A semicircular church, where everyone can see each other and feel connected, certainly allows for better implementation of the post-conciliar reform than an elongated nave built according to other aesthetic and religious canons” (Jean-Claude Crivelli, Des assemblées qui célèbrent : une pratique des signes du salut, Commission suisse de liturgie, 1980, p. 11). 

The Necessary Changes

But since this [semi-circular arrangement] was often not the case, they needed to think about “transforming the interior layout of churches throughout the world, with a view to renewing the celebration of the Eucharist” (Pierre Jounel, “Le missel de Paul VI”, La Maison Dieu 103, 3rd quarter 1970, p. 32). The altar had to face the people, an ambo had to be set up, the tabernacle had to be relocated, and the seating had to be changed. “This spirit pushes us even further: the choice of pews rather than chairs (to avoid the turning movements and noise they entail), the elimination of kneelers (the faithful remaining standing or seated during the liturgical action)” (Thierry Maertens and Robert Gantoy, La nouvelle célébration liturgique et ses implications, Publications de Saint-André-Biblica, 1965, p. 21).

In short, the general layout of the domus ecclesiae needed to be reconsidered. “The severe prescription with regard to minor altars [i.e., their removal] applies a fortiori to the many devotional objects that still so often dot the walls and columns of our churches: the Stations of the Cross, statues, indiscreet confessionals, etc. If they have a place in the interior of churches, they must be removed. If they have their place in chapels separated from the main space of the church, they disperse the assembly when the latter, in the Eucharist, is called upon to give a sign of unity” (Thierry Maertens and Robert Gantoy, La nouvelle célébration liturgique et ses implications, Publications de Saint-André-Biblica, 1965, p. 21).

“Churches, in fact, even when listed, are only secondarily museums. First and foremost, they fulfill a specific religious function. So it’s only natural that their layout and furnishings should meet the needs of the liturgy, and particularly the liturgy of the moment. However, the latter implies new ways of gathering; it requires truly transitory furniture; it leads to the abandonment of the use of certain liturgical objects; by grouping parishes together, it leaves churches unused. All this has important practical consequences, and it has to be recognized that old churches do not always lend themselves to the desired adaptations” (Philippe Boitel, ‘Une église peut-elle être un musée?’, Informations catholiques internationales 402, February 15 1972, p. 4).

“The reform requires new creations: the layout of churches, with the altar turned towards the faithful, the place where the Word of God is celebrated, the celebrant’s seat, the Blessed Sacrament chapel, a new conception of the confessional“ (“Interview with Cardinal Knox”, La Documentation catholique 1674, April 20, 1975, p. 368).

(photograph from Wikimedia Commons by Martin Geisler)

Modifications of Churches To Express a New Ecclesiology

“In modifying the rite, will the reform also involve a new conception of the structure of our churches? Yes, and in different ways. Firstly, by insisting on the communal meaning of the Mass as an assembly of the people of God, the reform requires that everyone be able to follow the rite taking place at the altar. On the one hand, therefore, it aims to eliminate all screens (columns, pillars, etc.) that prevent a clear view of the altar, something made possible today by the evolution of architectural techniques. On the other hand, it puts the altar back to the centre, not geometrically, but ideally, and prefers it to be decisively and rightly turned towards the people. In addition, by emphasizing the role of the congregation, the reform makes it necessary to find suitable locations for the celebrant, his ministers, readers, ambo, etc. For the same reason, it reduces the space required for the altar. For the same reason, it reduces the number of minor altars, which are detrimental to the unity of the congregation, and simplifies the ornaments that used to overwhelm the altar” (Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, ‘Nouvelle étape de la réforme liturgique : le pourquoi du comment’, Informations catholiques internationales 235, March 1, 1965, p. 26).

This need for architectural redesign should come as no surprise, for if the external form influences the content, the content must in turn react to the external form. “The post-conciliar Church is undergoing profound change, and it is only natural that the church-building should suffer the effects” (Philippe Boitel, ‘Quelles églises pour demain?’, Informations catholiques internationales 388, July 15 1971, p. 22). Indeed, “the liturgical reform imposes on many a new layout for places of worship” (“Dimanche et mission pastorale dans un monde paganisé”, Notes de pastorale liturgique 57, August 1965, p. 10).

“That [the renewal of the liturgy] should have an impact on places of worship, and that these should find themselves partially unsuited as a result of the evolution undergone within the liturgy, no one should be surprised. Insofar as sacred actions have been modified, insofar as the emphasis has been placed on a more total participation of the faithful, buildings built in other times and with a different outlook will also have to be adapted to suit their new purpose” (Guy Oury, ‘L’aménagement des églises - Un aspect du renouveau liturgique’, L’Ami du clergé 6, February 10 1966, p. 89).

Recent embellishments to the church of the Holy Name, the principal Jesuit church of Rome.

This whole new ecclesiological vision naturally expresses itself in this new structuring of the sacred space. “It is clear that liturgical reform cannot be limited to a few changes in the content of the texts read by ministers, or in the gestures of the celebrants (...) It transforms the relationship between the celebrant and the faithful. It distributes the respective functions of the celebrant, the ministers, the schola and the people in a way that is new to us, yet profoundly traditional. It follows that it calls for an arrangement of the places of celebration that is quite different from what it has been until now” (Commission épiscopale de liturgie, ‘Le renouveau liturgique et la disposition des églises’, Notes de pastorale liturgique 58, October 1965, p. 41, or La liturgie, Documents conciliaires V, Centurion, 1966, p. 201).

The Resulting New Arrangements

“[The] construction and layout of churches today can be carried out in the light of a much more complete and elaborate conception of liturgical space” (Frédéric Debuyst, “Quelques réflexions au sujet de la construction d’espaces liturgiques”, Communautés et Liturgies 4, September 1981, p. 285).

Father Roguet, a shrewd judge, had discerned early on the inevitable result of this particular manifestation of the renewal. “Certain reforms, which had seemed to concern only arrangements of texts and rites, will inevitably modify certain accessories of our churches and even some of their architectural structures” (A.M. Roguet, ‘Le signe du vin’, Notes de pastorale liturgique 66, February 1967, p. 43). This is what everyone would come to understand a little later. “The liturgical reform aims with all its might at the full and active participation of all the people. For this to be possible, an appropriate architecture is needed. (...) Liturgical renewal and the way in which the Church situates itself in the world call for a new type of architecture” (F. Agnus, ‘Architecture et renouveau liturgique’, Notes de pastorale liturgique 76, October 1968, p. 46).

New Church Constructions: Transitory and Provisionary

“The monumental and definitive character of what we build does not lend itself well to the present mobility, noticeable in the Church itself: the problems, often insoluble, posed by the adaptation of old churches to current needs, if only to the new forms of liturgical celebration, are likely to arise, in five or ten years' time, for the churches we have just built (...) In the present conditions, it would seem normal to conceive this meeting place, in the image of the community’s activities, as a multifunctional place, usable for purposes other than liturgical ceremonies alone. A domus ecclesiae, for example, could be set on one or two floors of a large building, and would include, in addition to a few small rooms (one of which could be converted into an oratory for private prayer and visits to the Blessed Sacrament) and the offices of the permanent staff, a large room that could be fitted out for various uses (conferences, meetings, parties, receptions, liturgy, etc.) using truly mobile furniture” (Pierre Antoine, ‘L’église est-elle un lieu sacré?’, Études, March 1967, pp. 442-444).

For “it is clear that today we must abandon the more or less pagan and triumphalist concept of the temple, where elements of monumentality and sacred space predominate, in favour of the Christian concept of the assembly, where values of humility, interiority and personalizing relationships predominate. Churches would then once again become house-churches rather than sanctuaries of the Most High” (Dieudonné Dufrasne, ‘Contribution à une spiritualité du samedi saint’, Paroisse et Liturgie 2, March-April 1972, p. 115).

“We must sound a warning. Today’s liturgy is in a melting pot; we cannot say what the forms of worship will be in the future. For this reason, we cannot plan churches solely on the basis of today's conception of liturgy, without running the risk of seeing them outdated by the time they are completed. As the liturgical movement advances, new ideas about worship are born (...). In the final analysis, religious buildings must be modern buildings for modern man” (J. G. Davies, ‘La tendance de l’architecture moderne et l’appréciation des édifices religieux’, in Espace sacré et architecture moderne, Cerf, 1971, p. 94, 95 and 99). “This assumes that a religious building is, by vocation, unfinished: not so much perfectible as evolving, available, at least to a certain extent. (...) Should we not be prepared for unforeseeable changes and redesigns within the probable lifespan of our buildings?” (Denis Aubert, ‘De l’église à tout faire à la maison d’église - Expériences à Taizé’ in Espace sacré et architecture moderne, Cerf, 1971, p. 110 and 112).

Constant change in the cathedral of Berlin, Germany: the original interior, photographed in 1886.

The interior as remodeled after World War 2.

A proposed further wreckovation.

The Church Called to Constant Change

Indeed, “if the Constitution [on the liturgy] is observed in letter and spirit, the liturgy will no longer risk becoming fixed and immobilized. Like a tree that has strong roots and whose sap is nourishing, it will bear on branches that live and spread, new flowers and new fruits” (Msgr. H. Jenny, ‘Introduction’ in La liturgie, Centurion, 1966, p. 41).

Cardinal Lercaro, then president of the Consilium was also moving in this same direction in his message to the artists’ symposium held in Cologne on February 28, 1968. “Without a doubt,” he said, “one thing is quite clear: the architectural structures of churches must change as rapidly as people’s living conditions and homes are changing today. Even when building a place of worship, we need to bear in mind the extremely transitory nature of these material structures, whose entire function is one of service to humankind. In this way, we can prevent future generations from being conditioned by churches that we consider avant-garde today, but which they risk seeing as nothing more than outdated edifices. Today, for our part, we experience this conditioning: we feel the difficulty with which the marvellous churches of the past adapt to our religious sensibility, and the force of inertia with which they oppose the indispensable reforms of liturgical action (...). ) So let us not pretend to build churches for centuries to come, but be content to make modest, functional churches that suit our needs and before which our sons feel free to rethink new ones, abandon them or modify them as their time and religious sensibility suggest”  (Giacomo Lercaro, ‘Message to the artists’ symposium held in Cologne on February 28, 1968, La Maison Dieu 97, 1st trim. 1969, pp. 16-17, or in Espace sacré et architecture moderne, Cerf, 1971, pp. 25-26).

This reflection by its president corresponded perfectly with the aims of the Consilium and its secretary, Msgr. [Annibale] Bugnini, as evidenced by the two texts of its official review, on which we shall conclude. “The work of liturgical reform is not finished and, in the spirit of the Council, must never end. The liturgy, like the Church in its human aspect, is inevitably subject to continual reform, born of ecclesial life, so that the Church is truly adapted to the present time, to today’s culture and to the historical moment” (Anschaire J. Chupungco, “Costituzione conciliare sulla sacra liturgia. 15th anniversario”, Notitiæ 149, December 1978, p. 580): ‘Liturgical reform will continue without limit of time, space, initiative and person, modality and rite, so that the liturgy may remain alive for people of all times and generations’ (“Rinnovamento nell’ordine”, Notitiæ 61, February 1971, p. 52). ?

The Church of the New Liturgy and the New Ecclesiology (Part 1)

We are very grateful to our founding editor, Mr Shawn Tribe, for sharing with us this article from his site Liturgical Arts Journal, his translation of an article originally written in French by Abbé Grégoire Celier. It forms a very illuminating collection of citations from protagonists and proponents of the post-Conciliar reform, some well-known, some less well-known, which demonstrate why they believed that the reform required old church buildings to be modified, and new ones to be built differently. Since it is fairly lengthy, it will be presented here on NLM in two parts. The paragraphs in italics after this one are Mr Tribe’s own prefatory material. – NLM editor.

This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue of “Lettre à nos frères prêtres” under the title “L’Église de la Nouvelle Liturgie.” The article is republished in English translation here with the kind permission of the author, Abbé Grégoire Celier.

By way of preface, the purpose of Abbé Celier’s article is to investigate the operative principles of many liturgists in the immediate wake that came after the Second Vatican Council, specifically as it related to its impact on the liturgical ordering and architecture of our churches.

Since the Second Vatican Council, many have debated the Council’s actual intentions. Some have understood the Second Vatican Council to be a kind of line, a Rubicon that was crossed, seeing it as a purposeful rupture from the Catholic past and the advent of a new and different church. This is the particular perspective you will encounter here being espoused by these liturgists -- and they celebrate and embrace this idea. In a certain sense their notions will be already quite familiar, in other instances, however, you might find the extent of some of their ideas downright shocking. It must also be noted that these liturgists maintain certain interpretations (for example the idea that the Council demanded ‘versus populum’) that have long since been challenged and proven to be, at very least, highly questionable. However, what is most important here is less the question of the accuracy of their ideas than the mere fact of them.

Whether their ideas about the official intentions for the liturgical reform (and its corresponding, downstream impact on Catholic architecture) were misguided, even willful misinterpretations, or whether they were actually ‘on point’, is an important discussion to have of course, but in order to fruitfully have that conversation, we first need to understand that these interpretations did in fact exist -- and were frequently acted upon. In our own day, much has recently been made of statements made by Arthur Cardinal Roche, current Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, who came out in opposition to the continued existence of the traditional Roman rite of liturgy, celebrated for so much of the Roman rite’s history, on the premise that it represented a fundamentally different ecclesiology and, as such, there was no room for it at the inn; it is something needing to be stamped out as incompatible with the new ecclesiology. Many rightly took issue with this idea, but what you will find here in this survey is that this is precisely what is espoused by these post-conciliar liturgists. It does, in fact, represent a particular post-conciliar school of thought -- one that Cardinal Roche and some others clearly adhere to and continue to attempt to impose.

Right or wrong, these were (and are) principles held to by some in positions of power within the Church in the decades following the Second Vatican Council. It is the ‘schema’ that defines their own particular approach toward the Church, her liturgy, the liturgical reforms, and yes, even the art, architecture and ordering within our churches.

What this should also reveal is that the popular, dismissive charge of “aestheticism” that is so often bandied about when matters of liturgy and architecture are raised is misguided and should be dropped. Form and content are indeed related. Externals do indeed matter. The medium is, at least in part, the message.

Many will already be aware of this relationship of course, but we can thank Abbé Celier for performing the invaluable service of collecting together these various sources for our consideration It is certainly a topic that would benefit from further, in depth study.

[NOTE: The images accompanying this article were not a part of the original article, nor were they selected by the author. These have been selected by LAJ purely for illustrative purposes.]

-- LAJ

* * *

THE CHURCH OF THE NEW LITURGY

by Abbé Grégoire Celier

Liturgical reform was one of the most important elements of the developments following the Second Vatican Council, if not the most significant. A quote from Paul VI, on January 13, 1965, among many other possible ones, opportunely reminds us of this: “The new religious pedagogy which the present liturgical renewal seeks to establish is grafted in, and almost taking the role of a central engine, in the great movement, inscribed in the constitutional principles of the Church of God, and made easier and more urgent by the progress of human culture [...]”

It is therefore a good idea, then, to look back at this liturgical reform, to gain a better understanding of its foundations, implications and results. We propose to do so here through the lens of the church building. The question of how the liturgy resulting from the Council is incorporated into churches built before the Council is particularly timely for assessing the changes brought about by the reform.

To this end, we have drawn on the reflections and remarks of the best liturgical specialists writing in the wake of Vatican II. They will enable us to identify the problems that arose as the new liturgical forms began to be celebrated, and to grasp in turn what the post-conciliar liturgical reform intends to put before our minds. As these texts were published during the two decades (1965-1985) when the liturgical reform was being implemented, they are written in the present or future tense rather than the past.

The Relationship of Form and Content

These authors begin by pointing out that a church, or any other building for that matter, reflects through its architecture the vision of those who built it. Built for a certain liturgy, a certain ceremonial, a certain theology, it necessarily expresses these values. Through its layout, it creates a particular climate, favourable to the execution of the form of religious expression that presided over its conception. Consequently, “it would be nonsense to take an interest in liturgy without worrying about the layout of the places where it takes place. For there is a profound affinity between the space designed according to art, and the liturgy that unfolds there” (E. Vauthier, ‘L’aménagement des églises’, Esprit et Vie - L’Ami du clergé 27, July 5, 1984, p. 393).

By its very nature, a building is a stable object that stands the test of time. “A building does not change like a rite” (Guy Oury, ‘L’aménagement des églises - Un aspect du renouveau liturgique’, L’Ami du clergé 6, February 10, 1966, p. 89). It thus carries the character of a particular period of the Church’s life into a time when, perhaps, the Church’s life has changed profoundly, which can cause a dissonance between form and content. In the wake of Vatican II, precisely because of the rapid and radical ritual (and theological) evolution, a new liturgy had been deployed in architectural spaces built according to other canons and for other uses. For “most of our places of worship were conceived and built centuries ago, sometimes for needs different from our own” (“Simple dialogue à propos de l’espace liturgique”, Communautés et Liturgies 6, Nov.-Dec. 1978, p. 545). Older buildings therefore proved more or less unsuited to the new norms of Christian celebration.

From this point of view, “a two-fold question arises: how to use the places of worship as they have been left to us, and how to design new ones more adapted to our urban way of life and to the situation of the Church today” (“Simple dialogue à propos de l’espace liturgique”, Communities and Liturgies 6, Nov.-Dec. 1978, p. 546).

The Church Building Furnishes A Certain Sense of God

From the outset, the question was: “How can we ensure that today’s liturgy unfolds as well as possible in a setting designed for the liturgy of other eras?” (“Le congrès d’art sacré d’Avignon”, Notes de pastorale liturgique 137, December 1978, p. 63). For, as Father [Yves] Congar noted of St. Peter’s in Rome (though his remark applies equally to other churches), “a whole ecclesiology is already inscribed in the layout of the place” (Yves Congar, Vatican II. Le concile au jour le jour, première session, Cerf-Plon, 1963, p. 23).

Father [Jean-Yves] Quellec explains very clearly what is at stake: “The external configuration of a building, the distribution and organization of its internal spaces, the style of the objects found within it, already form a more or less clear image of the God we encounter there. (...) The way we occupy the space of our churches, the way we arrange the furniture, the way we furnish the sanctuary, and the way we choose a cross, an icon or an altar, all have the implication that we are referring, whether consciously or unconsciously, to various imageries of the divine. It has frequently been pointed out that the image of Christ in the Eucharist is quite different depending on whether the altar resembles a simple table or a monumental tomb. (...) It should be noted that, in most cases, there was no opportunity to make choices revealing a spirituality: the church was received, almost as is, from those who designed and organized it. It should also be noted that, just as frequently, there is a sort of gap between the religious sensibilities and ideas of contemporaries and those that presided over the construction of a building” (Jean-Yves Quellec, ‘Le Dieu de nos églises’, Communautés et Liturgies 4, September 1981, p. 275 and 278).

For example, “the altarpieces of the 17th century, designed, as the Council of Trent requested, for adoration, represent a certain vision of faith. Today we have a different idea of the Real Presence” (Philippe Boitel, ‘Une église peut-elle être un musée?’, Informations catholiques internationales 402, February 15, 1972, p. 5). “Since the time of the Counter-Reformation, the tabernacle has often been linked to the main altar, with which it appeared as the vital centre of the building. But the current renewal of liturgical celebration, by restoring the proper value of each moment of the celebration, has put the spotlight back on the Lord’s other modes of presence” (“Vêtements, objets, espaces liturgiques”, Notes de pastorale liturgique 105, August 1973, p. 26).

Two Models of Church, Two Different Theologies

“The first vision of the Church, that of the pre-Vatican II period, corresponds, by way of example, to a church architecture in which the sanctuary is disproportionately enormous, well separated from the laity, dominating all of the faithful, an insignificant body (in the truest sense of the word) with an exaggerated head. The theology of Vatican II, on the other hand, corresponds to an architecture in which the sanctuary and nave are integrated seamlessly into a harmonious whole” (Lucien Deiss, Les ministères et les services dans la célébration liturgique, éditions du Levain, 1981, p. 8).

Sacred architecture “must present an image of the Church that is fully consistent with that which the liturgy, for its part, strives to convey” (Roger Béraudy, “Introduction” in Espace sacré et architecture moderne, Cerf, 1971, p. 7). For this reason, “not even the layout of places of worship has not been affected by [the liturgical] renewal” (Charles Wackeinheim, Entre la routine et la magie, la messe, Centurion, 1982, p. 23).

Liturgical Reform Implies Changes to the Church Building

The only conceivable solution was to redefine the arrangement of the objects, and to reorganize the architectural space. However, this conversion was difficult, given the building’s characteristic inertia. “Since Vatican II, preaching and Eucharistic celebrations, for example, do not require quite the same movements as before” (“Le congrès d’art sacré d’Avignon”, Notes de pastorale liturgique 137, December 1978, p. 64).

“Since the liturgical reform has led to changes in the arrangement of [liturgical] space, we must realize that these changes are not without challenges, especially when they occur in buildings designed according to a different logic. For example, today we occupy places in this space where it was never intended that words be spoken. As such we do violence to the place. The violated architecture no longer resonates with the assembly. It can only do so - it can only respond - if we keep ourselves in the right place” (Paul Roland, ‘Libre propos sur l’espace liturgique’, Communautés et Liturgies 4, September 1981, p. 296).

The Changes Bring Challenges

“The problem of converting traditional churches is not a simple one, nor is it easy to solve. The shape of our old churches does not immediately lend itself to the changes desired by the Council” (Jean Huvelle, ‘Réforme liturgique et aménagement des églises’, Revue diocésaine de Tournai, 1965, p. 236). For example, “once the new altar has been installed [facing the people], it will be necessary to consider removing, moving or otherwise disposing of the old altar. Such an operation cannot be carried out without the advice of a competent architect. Church architecture has often been designed with the altar at the back of the sanctuary in mind. Changing the altar not only modifies the furnishings, but also transforms the architectural lines” (Thierry Maertens and Robert Gantoy, La nouvelle célébration liturgique et ses implications, Publications de Saint-André-Biblica, 1965, p. 57).

“Churches don’t lend themselves easily to uses other than those for which they were originally designed: in most of them, the building was designed “length-wise” for assemblies. For some time now, the layout of churches has been changing; they are designed for “width-wise” assemblies, where people can see each other, hear each other and communicate. Sometimes we can arrange an old church in this way: it’s always difficult” (“Bâtir une célébration”, Célébrer 151, April 1981, p. 14).

“It is quite certain that our beautiful, elongated churches, filled with a forest of pillars, are more conducive to solitary prayer than to the gathering of people; the new churches, on the contrary, prevent us from isolating ourselves” (Henri Denis, L’esprit de la réforme liturgique, Société nouvelle des imprimeries de la Loire Républicaine, 1965, p. 27).

An Excellent New Series in Defense of the Roman Rite, by Dr John Lamont

There are many good reasons to hope that the traditional Roman Rite will be restored to full citizenship within the Church, and with it, the liturgical peace achieved by Pope Benedict XVI. One such reason is as follows. We are told that its adherents are a tiny, indeed, statistically negligible minority, notable for their loudness, but “tragicomic, peripheral human failures”, in the exquisitely charitable bon mot of Karl Rahner. We are told that the post-Conciliar Rite has been so magnificent a pastoral success that it is “irreversible.” And yet that glorious success somehow cannot speak for itself, and must be defended by an endless succession of apologias for the suppression of both the Roman Rite and the communities that love it. If one were a Freudian (and of course, one is not), one might suspect that a bad conscience is at work here, over the catastrophic failure of the reform to produce any of the fruits that the first paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium said it wanted to come from the reform of the liturgy.  

Another is that such apologias seemingly cannot be made without resorting to the grossest errors in matters of history, anthropology, philosophy, theology, and every other subject that matters. Last year, Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal treated us to just such an apologia, in which Dom Alcuin Reid, with gentlemanly tact, rightly noted a “paucity of … liturgical history and the lack of range of sources in (the) footnotes.” The first article in the series originally included the astonishing assertion that Fr Louis Bouyer “joined the Congregation of the Oratory, founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman.” Bouyer was a member of the Congregation of the Oratory of Jesus and Mary Immaculate, founded by Card. Pierre de Bérulle in 1611, and sometimes called simply “the French Oratory.” The Oratory to which St John Henry Newman belonged was founded by St Philip Neri, 226 years before Newman was born. (This error was only corrected after I brought it to the attention of one of CHJ’s contributors.) The last mention of Bouyer in the series states that he was “not entirely happy” with the reform; this is one possible way of summarizing his ferocious criticism of the insane haste and atrocious scholarship that went into creating it, but perhaps not the best way. [note]

Screen-shot of the CLJ website made on Dec. 19, 2022.

Now it is the turn of Fr Henry Donneaud, a Dominican of the French province of Toulouse, professor of fundamental theology and sacramental theology at both his order’s studium and the Institut Catholique in that city. In an article in the Nouvelle revue théologique, and in a review of the French translation of Peter Kwasniewski’s True Obedience in the Church in the Revue Thomiste (of whose editorial board he is a member), he has offered yet another attack on the traditional rite, and another large dose of the suppressio veri and suggestio falsi on which all such attacks rely.

For those who take little interest in such matters, Fr Donneaud very kindly offers (in his review of True Obedience) a one-sentence summary of his own “paucity of … liturgical history.” “The changes to the missal introduced by Paul VI were no more than a return to earlier features of the Roman rite.” This is true of no more than a tiny number of texts imported into the liturgy from ancient sources in their original forms, and is absolutely false in regard to all of the structural and systemic changes (the use of multiple canons, the three-reading system, the epiclesis, the revamping of the liturgical year, etc.), without exception. This falsity is of course extremely well-documented, and it is simply inexcusable to pretend otherwise. And since a great deal of Fr Donneaud’s argument depends on the idea that the post-Conciliar Rite is simply a reform of the Roman Rite, most of his argument falls with that demonstrable falsehood.

But such falsehoods ought not to go unchallenged, and Dr John Lamont, a Canadian philosopher and theologian, has written a splendid and very detailed refutation of them, recently published in four parts on Rorate Caeli, and also available to download as a single pdf document.

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2023/09/dominican-theologian-attacks-catholic.html

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2023/09/dominican-theologian-attacks-catholic_15.html

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2023/09/dominican-theologian-attacks-catholic_18.html

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2023/09/dominican-theologian-attacks-catholic_20.html

The document form runs to 32 pages of 11-point type, and I can hardly pretend to do any greater justice to it than by encouraging all our readers to take the time to read and consider it carefully.

I do, however, wish to draw special attention to an argument which Dr Lamont makes in the fourth part, trusting to his indulgence as I make so brief a summary of it. Essentially, the Roman Rite is the product of centuries of Christian civilization, a civilization that stretches back in time to the Roman Empire in which Our Lord elected to be born. As such, its replacement by a new rite invented by an academic committee could not be anything other than the “savage rupture” it was rightly called by a confrere of Fr Donneaud, Fr Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht. This, Lamont argues, is why proponents of the hermeneutic of rupture, those who wish to see that civilization destroyed, and replaced by another of their own devising, or by nothing, cannot bear to see the Roman Rite continue to exist in the Church. I add for myself and many others that this is, of course, exactly why it MUST continue to exist in the Church, and I thank Dr Lamont for his superb defense of it.

Note: “Illusions of Reform”, a detailed reply to this series, was published by Os Justi Press earlier this year, featuring the articles of a five-part series by Dr Janet Smith, several articles by Peter Kwasniewski, the editor of the volume, the article by Alcuin Reid linked above, and others by Dr Joseph Shaw, Fr. Samuel Keyes, Roland Millare, an expert on Joseph Ratzinger and Fr Peter Miller. The authors and editors of the original CHJ series have either ignored this reply, or expressed their lack of an interest in engaging with it, which is not surprising, nor will it be surprising if Fr Donneaud does the same.

Five Myths Behind Traditionis Custodes and the Attack on the TLM

Several days ago, I recorded an interview with Timothy Flanders, which has just premiered on the One Peter Five YouTube channel. The title is “Five Myths Behind Traditionis Custodes and the Attack on the TLM”; we hope that people will find it a useful resource for understanding some of the Church’s current liturgical problems. My thanks once again to Mr Flanders for a most enjoyable conversation.

There is one thing which I realized just after we finished recording this that I could have said differently, and perhaps better. I compared the overwhelming amount of evidence that the post-Conciliar liturgy is not in any way what the bishops who signed Sacrosanctum Concilium wanted to the overwhelming evidence that miracles are real, and cited some words of GK Chesterton to that effect. I think a more apt comparison would have been the overwhelming amount of evidence that the sexual revolution has been a catastrophe for human society, exactly as Humanae Vitae said it would be. I think this might be a better analogy because there is, unfortunately, a large number of Catholics who want the Church to embrace the sexual revolution, despite the appalling misery it has inflicted on so many people. And likewise, there are still people who insist that the Church must cling like death to the post-Conciliar liturgy, claiming that it is exactly what the Council wanted, despite its innumerable contradictions of the ipsissima verba of Sacrosanctum Concilium, and its total failure to produce any of the results that that document’s opening paragraph says were supposed to come from the reform.

Joy and Hope, Mourning and Anguish

I imagine most of our readers have already seen at least one particular section of the interview which the actor Shia LaBoeuf gave yesterday to His Excellency Bishop Robert Barron. But if you have only seen or read the part in which he talks about the role the traditional Latin Mass played in his recent conversion, and his appreciation of it, I would very strongly urge you to listen to the whole thing, which is incredibly moving and interesting.

Mr LaBoeuf’s exposure to the Latin Mass came from playing St Padre Pio in an upcoming movie, and the preparations which he made for that role, including living for a time in a Capuchin friary. Of course, he had to learn more than a little about the Mass, and indeed, at least in part how to celebrate it, since it was the very center of the Saint’s life. The discussion of this leads to this exchange, which will deservedly be quoted rather a lot in the future.

Shia: “Latin mass affects me deeply. Deeply.”

Bishop Barron: “How come?”

Shia: “Because it feels like they’re not selling me a car. ... When somebody’s selling me on something, it kills my aptitude for it, and my suspension of disbelief, and my yearnings to root for it. There’s an immediate rebellion in me.”

This is a great observation, and he makes some others in a similar vein which are certainly worth paying attention to. But he also discusses several other experiences which he had on his journey into the Faith, from a life which he himself describes more than once as “depraved” and “on fire” (not in the good sense in which Bishop Barron uses it), experiences which are not immediately connected to the liturgy. For example, at one point, a friar told him to just go to a chapel and be silent for a while, which almost directly led him to begin repairing his difficult relationship with his mother. He also talks about some of what he learned from reading spiritual classics like St Augustine’s Confessions, and his visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, where he met some friars who knew St Pio when they were boys.

In these days of so much bad news in the Church, we should all have cause to rejoice, not just over the return of a lost sheep, although that is cause enough, for us and for the angels in heaven, but also for the reminder that despite everything, the conduits of God’s grace are still flowing. At the same time, for those of us who love the traditional liturgy, it gives us good reason to hope that God will not permit the loss of this spiritual treasure, by which He has made so very many Saints, and converted so very many sinners, and continues to do so. The eclipse which it is now suffering is, like most eclipses, partial, and like all eclipses, temporary.

I make bold to suggest to our readers that they also offer some prayers for Mr LaBoeuf, that the fruits of God’s grace continue to grow and flourish in his life, and that he continue to bear witness to that grace as eloquently and passionately as he does in the interview.

By the way, on a purely visual level, this seems like a great casting choice. (Pictures courtesy of the omnipresent Arrys Ortañez.)

This very same week, however, we have also been treated to the extremely unedifying spectacle of an Irish priest named Fr Brendan Hoban, whom I have read is very influential in the synodal muckery in Ireland, saying that he would rather there be no vocations at all (“I’d rather we had nothing”) than vocations of men who wish live as, um, priests. He laments that the few young priests that get ordained in Ireland these days are “traditional. They want to wear black... soutanes... They want to talk to people about sin. They want the Latin Mass. ... I despair of the young priests.” (Starts at 0:28)

Let me assure you that I did not write about Mr LaBoeuf and his conversion just to raise your hopes and then at once dash them. I do not, of course, deny that this is a terrible thing to hear. The vocational situation on the Island of Saints is catastrophic (Fr Z has the statistics at this post), and it is catastrophic precisely because of the prevalence of the attitudes which he evinces. Nevertheless, here we also have great cause for hope. Like Communism, an ideology this perverse simply cannot endure. By destroying a culture within the Church that fosters vocations, the ideology which these words represent has deprived itself of its own spiritual children, and has no future. What does a priest who cannot talk about sin have to say to a man who knows his own life to be “depraved” and “on fire”? Nothing.

It would be easy, and not altogether out of place, to be angry at hearing such a thing, but we should not let anger distract us from recognizing what this really represents: mourning and anguish over a failed revolution, and an ideology which knows in its heart that it holds no attraction and offers nothing of interest to anyone. And I therefore make bold to suggest, dear readers, that we should also offer some prayers for the childless children of the revolution, for their time grows short.

An Opponent of Vatican II Passes Away

I am sure that by now, our readers have all seen that Rembert Weakland, the disgraced former archbishop of Milwaukee, passed away yesterday at the age of 95. There is certainly no need to rehearse the many reasons for his disgrace, which have been discussed more than sufficiently elsewhere. I urge all of our readers to offer the following prayer for his soul, in fulfillment of the duty of charity commanded to us by the Lord Himself.

“Deus, qui inter Apostolicos sacerdotes famulum tuum Rembertum pontificali fecisti dignitate vigere: praesta quaesumus: ut eorum quoque perpetuo aggregetur consortio. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

God, who among the Apostolic priests made Thy servant Rembert flourish by priestly dignity: grant, we beseech Thee: that he may also be joined unto their perpetual society. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Today for me, tomorrow for you.” A marble engraving on the outside of the Roman church of Santa Maria di Orazione e Morte, the seat of a confraternity which offered constant prayers for the dead, and took care of the burial of indigent persons. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 4.0.

At the same time, I also urge all of our readers to read this column about him by Paul Likoudis from 2009, since unfortunately, it has of late become even more pertinent to the problem of the liturgy and liturgical reform than it was when it was first printed.

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9038

In recent months and years, it has become more and more fashionable for people, even at the highest levels of the Church hierarchy, to insistently repeat the falsehood that the post-Conciliar liturgy is the reform desired by Vatican II, as if their insisting could make it true. The career of Abp Weakland, who was a member of the Consilium ad exsequendam, is one of the innumerable things that demonstrates how false that idea is. To witness to that fact, Mr Likoudis brings in the testimony of an impeccable witness, Mons Richard Schuler, long-time pastor of the church of St Agnes in Minneapolis-St. Paul, whose good work is, I am sure, also well-known to our readers. Here are a few excerpts from the Monsignor, as quoted in the article; do click over to read the whole thing on the website of CatholicCulture.org.

“From the time Sacrosanctum concilium was released, Archabbot Weakland dissented. He especially could not give his assent to the use of Gregorian chant. As Msgr. Schuler noted: ‘A meeting was sponsored in Kansas City, Mo., November 29 to December, 1966, by the American Liturgical Conference. Opposition to the sixth chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy was voiced by Archabbot Weakland who said that ‘false liturgical orientation gave birth to what we call the treasury of sacred music, and false judgments perpetuated it.’ Those ‘false judgments’ seem to have been made by the fathers of the [Second Vatican] Council who ordered that the treasury of sacred music be preserved and fostered. . . .

This was the beginning of efforts that have continued over the past 20 years to undermine the intentions of the council fathers and the work of the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae, founded by Pope Paul VI for the express purpose of implementing the directives of the Vatican Council in matters of liturgical music. Those who were unhappy with the role given to sacred music in the sixth chapter of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy have never ceased to oppose what the Church has ordered for sacred music in its liturgy.

They have by their actions set Church music back to a state far worse than when Pope St. Pius X began the work of reform in 1903. They have promoted their own ideas of what music and liturgy should be, but these fail to correspond to the decrees of the council or the documents that followed after the close of the council. A careful analysis of the legislation given for the universal Church and the reality as it is presently promoted in the United States exposes a considerable divergence between the two . . .

Since liturgy expresses belief, the importance of using it to diffuse errors is clear. Most Catholics know their Church and their faith chiefly through the Sunday Mass. When their worship is turned about, so will their very religion follow. When liturgy becomes entertainment, secularized and profaned, then its role as the expression of Catholic dogma is weakened and even lost for those who look to it for their spiritual sustenance, the ‘primary source of Catholic life,’ as Pope Pius X called it. ...

The results of the greatly advertised ‘changes’ introduced into the postconciliar Church by the modernist camp can be seen in the catastrophe we have witnessed in the closed schools, defections from the clergy, decayed religious life, fewer converts, a substantial drop in attendance at Sunday Mass, theologians who defy the Magisterium, fewer vocations to the priesthood, and the banality, profanity, and ineptitude of what is now promoted as liturgical music.’

... Msgr. Schuler’s essay, available online at www.musicasacra.com/pdf/chron.pdf, also details how Archabbot Weakland and his co-conspirators arrogantly and consistently defied clear instructions from the Holy See with regard to liturgical music and music programs, and even explicit commands to dissolve the organizations that were destroying the legacy of sacred music that began with Pope Pius X.”

Remember this when you are falsely accused of “going against Vatican II” because you love the traditional Roman Rite, and the fullness of our Catholic liturgical patrimony. It is not we who love these things who are opposed to Vatican II. Those who opposed Vatican II then were the creators and implementers of the reform; those who oppose it now are the defenders of their legacy.

The Way We Weren’t

Thanks to our founding editor Shawn Tribe for finding these historical gems, which he first posted yesterday on the Facebook group Contra Traditionis Custodes. These three editorial cartoons from the 1960s perfectly sum up the rapid degeneration of the original naivety about the state of both the Church and the world that led to the calling of the most recent ecumenical council.

1964: At the opening of the council, St John XXIII spoke of “... people (who) see only ruin and calamity in the present conditions of human society... repeating that our times, if compared to past centuries, have been getting worse,” and stated his disagreement with the “prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster.” Two years later, before the Church discovered (among the many fascinating new ecclesiological insights of that era) that She stands as an equal to mankind, and not as its Mater et Magistra (how rapidly things change!), the Council could still paternalistically put its arm around Mankind’s shoulder and show it the dawn of A Better Tomorrow. How ironic that they are facing East, given that among the many absurd innovations introduced with no warrant from the council itself, ad orientem worship should be so suddenly and unjustifiably eclipsed!

1966: Two years later, with the Council now closed, and the pace of change rapidly accelerating in the Church, there could hardly but be misgivings about whether these changes were really going to produce the renewal which the opening paragraphs of Sacrosanctum Concilium state that the Council was hoping for. (Spoiler alert: they weren’t.) It is particularly ironic that the Pope here bears almost no resemblance to Paul VI, as if the cartoonist, perhaps unconsciously, realized that the actual Pope was about to shout “Geronimo!” and enthusiastically jump down the precipice on his left.

1967: The fact has become too obvious to ignore that the Barque of the Church is shipping in some very rough seas, but, as is so often the case with ideologies, a course correction has been deemed unthinkable. The cartoonist therefore simply declares that It’ll Make Port, as if his saying could make it so, and obviate any need to ask difficult questions like “in what condition?” or “with how many of the passengers still on board?”

What is an Ideology?

One of Plato’s most important contributions to philosophy is the doctrine of Ideas, the notion that non-material abstractions, which he called “Ideas”, are eternal, and more real than things in the material world. To give a specific example, the abstraction “horseness” is, according to this doctrine, more real than material horses, and exists eternally in a world of Ideas; actual horses in this world merely participate in that abstraction. Plato would say that if a man who had never seen a horse and knew nothing about them were to see one, and then see another later on, he would immediately know them to be the same kind of thing, not because of their physical similarity (horses can, after all, vary greatly in size, shape and color), but because they both participate in the same Idea. (The larger point of this doctrine is that things more important than horses, such as Virtue and Truth, also exist as eternal Ideas, independently of the degree to which they are practiced or known.)

Aristotle, however, rejected this doctrine of his teacher, a difference which gave rise to the proverb, “Plato was my friend, but the truth is a better friend.” (This is loosely based on a passage of the Nicomachean Ethics, 1096a, 11-15, and often cited in Latin, “Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.”) For Aristotle, ideas, that is, abstractions, are less real than the material objects from which they are abstracted; they exist only in our minds, not in an eternal world of Ideas, and if a certain kind of object were wholly unknown to man, there would be no idea of it. To return to the example given above, “horseness” is less real than horses, and exists only in the human mind. If there were no horses, or no minds to perceive them, there would be no idea of a horse.

The central section of Raphael’s School of Athens, with Plato and Aristotle highlighted by their position under the central arch. Plato, to the left, holds a copy of the Timaeus, and points up to the world of Ideas, while Aristotle on the right, holding the Ethics, gestures downward to the more real material world. (Plato is traditionally, but in all likelihood erroneously, said to be a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci; the figure writing at the desk was added later, and is believed by many scholars, with far greater probability, to be a portrait of Michelangelo. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons, cropped.)

If the second paragraph above seemed more sensible to you than the first one (“horseness”?), that would be because it was the Aristotelian meaning of “idea” that prevailed, and to a large degree, evolved to mean, “something that ONLY exists in the mind.” In the modern term “ideology”, therefore, “ideo-” comes from “idea” understood in its Aristotelian sense of something that is less real than reality. The word’s second element, “-logy”, derives from “logos” in the sense of “reasoning.” “Ideology” therefore means “to reason according to or by means of an idea”, that is to say, looking at and understanding the world by means of a concept that is not real.

To give a specific example (unrelated to horses), Communism is an ideology; it assesses the world through notions about human nature and economics that have no relationship to reality, but exist only in the mind of communists. One of these notions, which would prove to be particularly catastrophic in the Soviet Union, was that one very large collective enterprise (say, a million acre farm) is better than many small enterprises (say, 1000 thousand-acre farms), because it will bring greater equality among the members of society. This was only true to the degree that it brought all the farmers on whom it was imposed to a roughly equal degree of poverty and misery.

The worst problem with assessing the world through such non-real notions is that they can render people permanently, and in some cases incurably, blind to reality. For example, there was no degree of failure of the Soviet economy, however catastrophic, and no degree of ensuing human misery, that could convince diehard members of the Communist Party that their ideology was a failure.

Religious liberty in the workers’ paradise: agents of the Soviet state steal one of the bells of the cathedral of St Volodomyr in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 5, 1930, the day before Christmas Eve on the Julian Calendar. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

There is probably no area of the Church’s life today that is unaffected by ideologies in a similarly destructive way, but there is certainly none in which this is more the case than in the field of the liturgy. Many people insist on looking at the post-Conciliar reform only through certain ideological lenses. Through these lenses, it is declared to be the product and fulfillment of the original Liturgical Movement inspired by men like Dom Guéranger and Fr Romano Guardini, whose ideals it betrayed, whose principles it largely rejected, and whose goals it did not fulfill. It is declared to be the product and fulfillment of the will of Vatican II as expressed in Sacrosanctum Concilium, whose ideals it also betrayed, whose principles it also largely rejected, and whose goals it also did not fulfill. Concerns that the scholarly premises of the reform were erroneous at best, and its methods fraudulent, are ignored or dismissed. It is declared to be a spectacular pastoral success, as churches and religious houses and schools empty and close, and membership in the Church collapses precipitously. And because it is in the very nature of an ideology to blind those who believe in it to its failures, those who point out its failures are either insulted or silenced, but never answered.

The great renewal of the liturgy proceeds apace in the land of the Synodal Way...

Reality, however, inexorably forces itself on the ideologue, or breaks the system he builds for himself out of his ideology. There came a point when nobody believed in Communism enough to order the troops to shoot those who protested against its failures, longing for a better world, and the deep shadow of evil and oppression that loomed over the world through most of my childhood vanished with an unimaginable suddenness. “Let God arise”, our Byzantine friends sing at Easter, “and let his enemies be scattered...” And so He did, and so they were.

Likewise, there will come a day when the ideological conviction that the post-Conciliar reforms have been a spectacular success no longer holds the unreasonable fascination that it does on so many minds, especially among those who lived through them and remain unduly attached to the naïve optimism of their youth. Then the insults and forced resignations and suppressions will come to an end, and there will begin the difficult process of honestly assessing what went wrong, and why it went wrong, and determining what needs to be done to put it right.

It can be tiresome to wait for that to happen, but happen it always does, and in the meantime, as St Paul reminds us, “love beareth all things.” In Poland, it took ten years, and they were ten undeniably difficult years. But in Czechoslovakia, it took ten months, in East Germany, ten weeks, and in Romania, ten days.

Peace-Builder or Pacifier? Some Considerations of Traditionis Custodes and Pope Francis

The following essay by Prof. Ruben Peretó Rivas was published on his blog Caminante Wanderer on July 31st, and is here given in a translation from the original Spanish which he has reviewed. Dr. Peretó Rivas is a member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina. We are very grateful to him for his kind permission to share this with our readers.

Political theory in the Anglo-Saxon world makes an interesting distinction between the concepts of “peace-building” and “pacification”. The first, “the building of peace”, refers to a process by which peace is sought through dialog between the parties in a conflict. In the second, on the other hand, peace is achieved by coercive military action which forces the parties to keep silent about their complaints under pain of violent reprisals.

This schema can also be applied to the reading of what has happened in the Church in the last several years in regard to the traditional Mass. The conflict which dragged on from the very moment of the promulgation of the new Missal by Paul VI was previously almost resolved with Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, who in this way became a “builder of peace.” With the sudden appearance a few weeks ago of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis has not only dynamited the dialog and peace reached in liturgical matters, but has also established himself as a “pacifier” in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the term: one who imposes peace by force, while threatening the punishment of those who do not accept his designs.

The trial-by-fire of the liturgical books of the Mozarabic Rite. “Both books were thrown into the fire.The Roman one leapt out of the fire. The Gothic one was unharmed in the flames.” (From an NLM quiz in 2011.)

This is the reading which the majority of analysts of the ecclesiastical and liturgy situation have made, such as Cardinal Mueller, Cardinal Burke, Mons. Rob Mutsaerts and Fr Guillaume de Tanoüarn, reaching the conclusion that Traditionis Custodes (TC) is, fundamentally, a profoundly anti-pastoral document, one which generates division and reopens a painful conflict, causing enormous damage to many of the faithful. Undoubtedly, this is the most important characteristic of the most recent motu proprio, but it may not be the most grave, since from the theological point of view, it dismantles the construction which Benedict XVI had achieved, and creates a thorny problem which becomes unresolvable.

Pope Francis bases part of what little argumentation he provides to justify his draconian measures in regard to the traditional Mass on the assertion that it was permitted by Pope John Paul II, and afterwards regulated by Pope Benedict XVI, with the “desire to favor the healing of the schism with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre.” Although it is certainly true that both Popes wished to resolve the problem posed by the SSPX, as all good Catholics should want to do, they also wanted to maintain continuity with the traditional liturgy. In the book The Last Testament. In his own words, Pope Benedict responded to the claim that the reauthorization of the Tridentine Mass was a concession to the Society of St Pius X, with these clear and conclusive words. “That is absolutely false! For me, what is important is the unity of the Church with itself, in its interior, with its past; that that which was holy for Her before should not be in any way an evil now.” (Pope Benedict XVI with Peter Seewald, London: Bloomsbury, 216, pp. 201-202).

And there are many other witnesses who can be cited in support of this. Card. Antonio Cañizares, as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, one with privileged knowledge of the thought and intention of Pope Benedict in Summorum Pontificum, wrote: “The will of the Pope was not only to satisfy the followers of Mons. Lefebvre, nor to limit himself to answering the just wishes of the faithful who feel attached, for various reasons, to the liturgical inheritance represented by the Roman Rite, but also and especially to open the Church’s liturgical riches to all the faithful, making possible in this way the discovery of the treasures of the Church’s liturgical patrimony to those who still do not know them.” (Prologue to the book The Reform of Benedict XVI, by Nicola Bux.)

His Eminence Antonio Card. Cañizares celebrates a Pontifical Mass in the traditional Rite at the high altar of the Pope’s cathedral, St John in the Lateran, in 2009.

The website of the now defunct Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which can still be visited, and which, according to the introduction by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, then president of the Commission, is not an opinion site, but a site that includes “information and material in absolute fidelity to the thought of the Holy Father”, affirms that “the legitimacy of the Church’s liturgy resides in continuity with tradition.” Therefore, the usus antiquior certainly has legitimacy; it has hundreds of years of history behind it, and the other rites both eastern and western recognized by the Church alongside it. It has the Tradition to defend it. The idea that brought Pope Benedict to hold this position is that a rite which was a sure path to sanctity over the ages cannot suddenly become a threat, “if the Faith which is expressed in it is still considered valid”, says one of the documents on the aforementioned site. To present an opposition of missals – one good and one bad, and therefore prohibited – as Pope Francis does in TC, although it may on the practical level go to the detriment of the old one, on the level of principles, reveals the weak foundation of the new one.

In this theological perspective, what is left weakened is the Missal of Paul VI, since it is clearly a construction hastily put together in a laboratory by a group of specialists, as the protagonists of its creation bear witness in their memoires. (E.g., those of Louis Bouyer, Bernard Botte, or Annibale Bugnini).

Joseph Ratzinger, while he was still a priest, wrote in 1976 to Prof. Wolfgang Waldstein, “The problem of the new Missal lies in its abandonment of a historical process that was always continual, before and after St Pius V, and in the creation of a completely new book, although it was compiled of old material, the publication of which was accompanied by a prohibition of all that came before it, which, besides, is unheard of in the history of both law and liturgy. And I can say with certainty, based on my knowledge of the conciliar debates and my repeated reading of the speeches made by the Council Fathers, that this does not correspond to the intentions of the Second Vatican Council. (Wolfgang Waldstein, “Zum motuproprio Summorum Pontificum”, in Una Voce Korrespondenz 38/3 (2008), 201-214).

This worry has accompanied Pope Benedict all his life – how to theologically save the Missal of Paul VI, which lacks the continuity with tradition that always existed in the Church’s liturgy. Since it was impossible to demonstrate this continuity as a matter of history, the only way to do so was, and is, through an act of the will, without further proof that this continuity existed. And this is precisely what he did in Summorum Pontificum. Pope Francis has just dynamited this theological assemblage, which saved the two missals and re-established the pax liturgica, thereby not only rekindling the conflicts of the ’70s and ’80s, but also, and more importantly, aborting the solution which was found in the theological field to justify the liturgical reform of the late ’60s.

Certainly, the theology which is hidden behind TC is not an original creation of Pope Francis. It is in fact no more than a by-product of the rupturist position developed by the School of Bologna, and curiously, coincides with the theories which of one of the lesser representatives of that school, Andrea Grillo, has published in recent years.

TC also shows the concepts of authority and obedience to which Pope Francis holds, nearer to perinde ac cadaver [note] than to the tradition and theology of the Church. His authoritarian and absolutist reflections bring to my mind a passage of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

With TC, Pope Francis seeks to impose on the Church the mentality of Humpty Dumpty, and govern it as a despot: the question is, which is to be master?

We must recognize one success of TC: its title, Traditionis custodes, the opening words which gives the document its name, is perfectly true, since the bishops are the “guardians of the tradition”, which is to say, they are obliged to know it, contemplate it, and protect it. And for this reason, it is the tradition as something objective which ought to determine their actions as bishops. However, we must here note a certain nuance: the motu proprio seems to understand the expression in the sense that the tradition is what the bishops – and especially the bishop of Rome – decide it is: La tradition, c’est moi.

editor’s note: The Latin words “perinde ac cadaver – just like a corpse” are often used to describe a notion of religious obedience introduced by the Jesuits. A trenchant essay by Dr John RT Lamont, published on Rorate Caeli in 2018, describes it very well as one open to “tyrannical understanding of authority in general as based on the arbitrary will of the possessor of power, rather than on law.” Law here may also be replaced by “tradition” or “custom.”