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.

Why the Church’s Religious Should Return to the Traditional Liturgy

A Trappist offering the old rite of Mass

I once received a letter from a religious superior who explained that his community had been quietly integrating the traditional Latin Mass into its life, with several younger members learning the Mass and beginning to delve into the breviary. They all felt they had so much to learn. He asked me for advice and reading recommendations. He also noted that while some prelates had encouraged them to learn the TLM, others had strongly discouraged them, and asked me why I thought there was such a sharp division among prelates over this issue. Here’s what I replied.

Dear Father,

Thank you for your very kind and encouraging letter.

The questions you are raising are enormous ones, and very delicate, too. The problem is, to speak quite frankly, when one starts to enter into the great liturgical tradition, one can’t help noticing all kinds of ways in which it is obviously superior, from the point of view of offering worthy adoration and praise to God, cultivating the right interior and exterior dispositions, and edifying all who participate in it. The old liturgy was slowly built up as a great hymn of glory to the omnipotent God, to the humanity of the Savior, and to the invisible working of the Holy Spirit. It is supple, generous, meditative, profound, and poetic. (I speak now of both the Mass and the Office, and indeed of all the sacramental rites and the blessings.)

As one discovers these things, one also feels pained by the loss of so much beauty and reverence in the reformed rites, which will increasingly look and feel like committee-made rational constructions—which, of course, they are, even if there is no heresy or intentional sacrilege in them as such. The reformers exhibited an almost pathological aversion to symbolism, ceremonial, repetition, silence, chant, and the self-surrender of a fixed order of worship with detailed rubrics.

When Catholics, whether lay or clerical, rediscover the old rites today, they are often struck, on the contrary, by how utterly appropriate all these things are to a mysterious action in which God is the primacy agent and we are His collaborators and cultivators, privileged to step for a moment into the celestial worship of the Eternal High Priest.

Moreover, it cannot be accidental that religious communities around the world began to crumble apart and bleed their members as the liturgical axis around which their entire lives had once revolved collapsed into a shameful chaos. The Second Vatican Council taught in Perfectae Caritatis that “the religious life bears witness to the fruitfulness of the sacraments.” If that is true, what does the catastrophic decline of religious life tell us about the Church’s “updated” sacramental regime?

For these reasons (and others that I go into in this article), I am convinced that the long-term health and even viability of the religious life and of the priesthood will depend on reintegrating—and, for some communities, simply being completely dedicated to—the traditional rites of the Latin Church (and here I include Roman, Dominican, Norbertine, Carthusian, Ambrosian, and other such rites and uses), which have been powerhouses of holiness and touchstones of theology for so many centuries.

Moreover, as we briefly discussed in person, it is remarkable how well the laity respond to traditional expressions of the Faith. Wherever the old Mass has taken root, the congregation suddenly “juventates,” if I may coin an expression: young families pop out of the woodwork, while older folk feel comforted by the calmness and prayerfulness of the rite.

Here is where a difficulty begins to arise. Once a person gets a really good taste, a deep draught, of these rites, he wants to use them more. Eventually, he may want to use them exclusively, because he can so easily rest in their stability, flow along with their naturalness and rightness. Basically, the old liturgy is “built for praying.” No one feels this more viscerally than priests and religious do. As with a taste of freshly baked bread or the finest wine, so in matters liturgical: sensitive souls hesitate to go back to that which is less satisfying to the spiritual palate.

After a time, one who has entered deeply into the old Mass notices that the old Office is perfectly coordinated with it: there is a continual back-and-forth between the lections at Mass and the chapters in the Office, and the calendar, of course, is richer and more coherent. So the Mass leads to the Office, and soon it becomes challenging, if not frustrating, to be switching back and forth between the new calendar and the old, or the new Liturgy of the Hours and the old Mass, etc. Put simply, the two worlds are different, very different, and they do not readily lend themselves to coexistence.
 

Benedictines chanting Tenebrae in Australia

Now, I will qualify that last statement this way. In a community like the Oratorians, where there are many priests and where congregations of the faithful show up on a regular basis for worship, one can have a fairly dense schedule of Masses, confessions, and devotions, with priests taking turns doing various things, and most of the time praying their office privately; so they get to choose whether to use the 1960 Roman breviary or the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours (and most will choose the former). So you get a sort of rough-and-ready coexistence that works well enough on a pastoral level.

In a religious house, on the other hand, the ideal is a daily conventual Mass and at least some common recitation or chanting of the Office. This, therefore, requires a certain uniformity of practice so that everyone can be at peace and not feel “jerked around” by a shifting schedule or by the shifting expectations of different liturgical forms. It isn’t so easy in this environment to “punt” on liturgical questions, as they affect communal exercises.

If religious priests learn the TLM, they will have the freedom to offer their “private” morning Masses in the usus antiquior—regardless of whether or not the conventual Mass is the TLM. Since the daily Mass is so formative of priestly spirituality, this step will already be a great enrichment that does not directly impinge on the communal horarium. It goes without saying that no priest ever needs permission to offer the old rite.

I am happy that you asked me for reading recommendations. I know that time is limited, so I’ll recommend just a few works that I think will be particularly helpful: Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, if you haven’t already read it (this can be an excellent community read for ongoing intellectual formation); two of mine, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages and The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Traditional Latin Liturgy after Seventy Years of Exile; Martin Mosebach’s The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy. That being said, frequent experience of the rite will be more beneficial, for most, than reading and arguments—at least for a while. The intellectual component is important but can follow subsequently.

The old liturgy carries the force of conviction in its very practice. Explanations can and will be helpful, but there is a point at which liturgists might seem to be simply flinging opposite opinions at each other: “he says... she says...” Whereas when a Christian, especially a priest, experiences that he can more fervently adore, supplicate, and immolate himself, or that meditation on and assimilation of the Word of God is deepened in the traditional rite, no argument can contradict it, even as no argument can substitute for it.

Along these lines, a genre of reading that I find especially moving and effective in melting resistance or misconceptions is that of priests writing about their own journey. Some fine examples may be found here, here, and here, but many more exist.
 

Card. Burke celebrating Pontifical Mass for the Franciscans of the Immaculate, ca. 2010

As for why some prelates would be opposed to the recovery of liturgical tradition, there is much that can be said, but this much is clear: there was a mighty epidemic of identity confusion and tradition-bashing that took place overtly between 1965 and 1975, but which had roots in the 1940s, and of course, going back to the late 19th century with the Modernist controversy to which Pope Pius X responded. Once Catholics begin to study these matters in depth, they usually realize they’ve been “had,” to a greater or lesser extent. They have been lied to; their birthright has been stolen from them. Older generations do not take kindly to criticism of the novel and enthusiasm for the traditional. (I wrote about this in an article, “Can We Explain the Anti-Tridentine Phobia or Rage?”)

Some anti-traditionalists say that having the old rite in the Church “causes division.” How can they ignore the fact that the Novus Ordo has produced more division than has ever been seen in the history of Western liturgy? Don’t be put off the right path by those who discourage you from pursuing what is clearly your right and indeed your birthright. [1] It seems to me that most of the opponents of the old rite have never celebrated the usus antiquior themselves. In my experience, this is the “Rubicon”: when you know in your heart and your bones that this rite was “made to be prayed”—that it is Christ’s holocaust of love, offered in and through His alter Christus—it becomes impossible to walk away from it, much less to suppress it, without sinning against the light.

I am aware of many communities—most of them obscure, but including various Carmels, and fairly new Oratories in the process of starting up—that are experiencing a mighty tension between the “reform of the reform” and a return to the traditional rite. Their members know that the traditional liturgy is a vessel “full of grace and truth,” like the Incarnate Word who inspired its development in the Church over the millennia; but they are no less acutely aware of the ecclesiastical politics that make a simple switchover, or even a significant accommodation, difficult to achieve.

Every step taken should be gradual, gentle, and understood by all ahead of time, so that all may walk arm-in-arm. However we look at it, the incorporation of the TLM and the breviary and other sacramental rites is an immense enrichment. How could we think otherwise about a liturgy celebrated by countless saints and endorsed by centuries of Roman Pontiffs? It is truly a kind of schizophrenia when people get tied up in knots about it. As Ratzinger asked, what does this say about how we view our own tradition, our own history? When a well-meaning person says “Yes, tradition is good, but don’t get carried away…,” that is the voice of worldly prudence, not the passion of divine love that seeks to give the best and greatest to Our Lord.

Dear Father, the elephant in the room is this: many Catholics are ignorant of or malformed in theology, ignorant of or malformed in liturgy; they are not deeply rooted in the history and tradition of Catholicism. It sounds harsh to say it, but it’s clearly true. Vatican II was like a nuclear bomb. Millions of books (including liturgical books) were thrown into dumpsters in the 1960s and 1970s. The self-styled reformers attempted to make a clean break with the past. Of course, they could never have succeeded completely, and a reaction was inevitable; but the extreme makeover has succeeded well enough to leave us a vast swath of Catholics unacquainted with basic monuments and elements of the Faith, such as the liturgy prayed by the Church from well before St. Gregory the Great down to Pope John XXIII, or the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent.

After the imposition of the Novus Ordo, it was believed that the use of the old Roman rite would gradually vanish. Its endurance was written off as a fetish, a fashion, a niche interest, a bit of nostalgia. Today, decades later, we can see very clearly that it is a magnet for young people, for families, for vocations.
 

Padre Pio celebrating a Solemn High Mass

The question then becomes: How do we integrate our new knowledge of old tradition, with all its truth, beauty, and goodness, into our lives as Catholics, as religious, as priests? It is no easy task, since we are very much still living in the age of rupture, discontinuity, confusion, ignorance, and, I’m afraid to say, bad will.

This much is clear: there is no “stuffing” of the old back into a box; once it comes out, it is too powerful to push down. The priests in your community need to learn the old rite and to offer it, since it is the most perfect, most fruitful, and most formative exercise of the ministerial priesthood, the key to a richer interior life. It should be a standard feature that is accepted as a normal part of day-to-day life, and not fussed over.

Whatever else one may say, it is a time for being “wise as serpents, innocent as doves” (Matt 10, 16).

Yours in Christ our Lord,

Dr. Kwasniewski

[1] Traditionis Custodes changes none of this because it claims to revoke a faculty that was never granted. Benedict XVI did not grant a faculty in Summorum Pontificum, but precisely the contrary: he acknowledged that the old rite had never been abrogated and was always in principle available to priests, and simply proclaimed their freedom to use the older form of the Roman rite, basing his decision ultimately on a dogmatic fact that what was sacred remains sacred and great for us today.

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

“Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed” — New Book by Peter Kwasniewski

hardcover on the left, paperback on the right

I am delighted to announce to NLM readers that my new book from Angelico Press, Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed, has just been released.

As the title and subtitle suggest, the book replies to the cancer-phase Liturgical Movement arguments in favor of massively overhauling the old rite, explaining why it did not need the Consilium’s extreme makeover; and then refutes the idea that the new rite can be “reformed” or “done well” so that it might someday be the right thing. Instead, the old rite is fine the way it is, as long as it is well celebrated; and the new rite, regardless of good intentions, is irreparable.

The argument of this book is particularly important at a time when a lot of clergy and laity, feeling discouraged by various and sundry restrictions, are tempted to take the line that “As long as we do the new rite well, that will suffice.” The dangers of this approach are enormous, though seldom highlighted. I shine a giant floodlight on them.

What is more, it’s very possible we’ll see an attempt made in the coming years to impose “reforms” on the old rite: if you can’t beat ’em, beat ’em up in some other way. The enemies of tradition see that the TLM is not going to disappear entirely, so they will launch a campaign of “death by a thousand cuts”: “You can keep the TLM as long as you adopt the new lectionary, the new calendar, the new prefaces,” etc. etc.—basically, an attempt to force Sacrosanctum Concilium on recalcitrant trads 60+ years later. (And we mustn’t be naive: a “conservative” pope might throw his weight behind this campaign just as much as a progressive one would do, under the mistaken impression that it would offer “the best of both worlds.”)

My book explains why all of this is a non-starter, a dead end, a ruse, and a means of destroying the perfections of the old rite, which I describe and defend. What we love, we fight for; and to love it better, we must understand it deeply. That is the purpose of this book: to equip the reader with the deepest understand of why the old Mass isn’t broken and doesn’t need fixing, and why the new Mass is a mess that cannot be fixed but must be set aside for good.

A Foreword by Fr. Thomas M. Kocik, world expert on the reform of the reform, graces the volume.

Publisher’s Description

The Mass of Paul VI is so deeply flawed that it cannot be repaired from within, whether by copious helpings of smells and bells, by arbitrary attempts at traditionalizing, or by an official “reform of the reform”; and the Roman Mass inherited from the Age of Faith did not (and does not) need to be “reformed” along antiquarian or pastoral-utilitarian lines, as it fulfills the highest act of religion in a fitting manner perfected over many centuries of prayerful practice. The liturgical revolution, driven by ideology, culminated in balkanization, banality, and boredom; its fabrications must be retired from use, and the traditional rite must be restored to its rightful place of honor in the Church of the Latin rite.

Such are the bold claims defended in Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed, in which Peter Kwasniewski refutes the reformers’ own case for reforming the old rite and illustrates the subtle dangers to which clergy and laity are exposed by attempts at “doing the new rite reverently.” Simultaneously he reminds traditionalists that they should aspire to the noblest possible celebration of the Mass, always faithfully observing the rubrics and resisting bad habits that interfere with the rite’s full splendor and efficacy: unseemly haste, minimalism, ineptitude, and the itch for pastoral experimentation.

If the Catholic Church in the West is ever to recover her internal soundness and external cultural influence, her shepherds and her flocks must let the ill-advised Council of the 1960s and the Bauhaus liturgy fabricated in its name lapse into obsolescence, so that the perennially fresh theology of the Council of Trent and the immortally beautiful liturgy of the Roman Church may once again flourish unfettered.

What Readers Are Saying

“We are grateful to Dr. Kwasniewski for showing to the readers of our day the inestimable treasure of the Catholic liturgical tradition, which, in its prayers and rites, most perfectly reflects the integrity and the ineffable mystery of the Faith, and at the same time for exposing patiently and no less thoroughly the severe flaws of its attempted replacement.” —Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider

“David slaying Goliath is the only apt metaphor for Dr. Kwasniewski. At the Goliath of systematic lies perpetuated about the traditional Mass, he has aimed the five shiny stones of his prodigious scholarship. He has mortally wounded the giant of liturgical mendacity; it is hard to see how any thinking Catholic could ever grant it credibility again.” —Fr. John A. Perricone

“Dr. Kwasniewski has produced a volume that demands a verdict. Agree or disagree with this work as you see fit—but it cannot with integrity be dismissed or ignored.” —Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.

“Most of Kwasniewski’s conclusions in this volume are diametrically opposed to those of the Vatican, which is all the more reason they should be read—not as a proud act of dissent but in order to gain a different perspective, one that raises serious questions about a matter vital to the Church.” —Michael P. Foley

“An impassioned, uncompromising defense of the traditional Latin Mass…. An encyclopedic review of the current issues in the Catholic traditionalist movement, both clarifying fundamental theological principles and offering practical advice on celebrating the TLM today.” —Stuart Chessman

“The author makes an important contribution to a question that has become only more urgent over time: Did we certainly and genuinely need a substantial reconfiguration of liturgical rites that exchanged a venerable patrimony for a manufactured product that was (or was at least intended to be) adapted to ourselves and to the zeitgeist—or do we actually need to reform ourselves and our culture, adopting as our own a tradition passed down from time immemorial?” —Shawn Tribe

Table of Contents

Close the Workshop is available in paperback or hardcover:
• from the publisher;
• from any Amazon site;
• or via the Os Justi Press website.

Paul VI Against the Council: The Censorship of the Psalms in the Divine Office

The other day, I noticed that the problem of the psalter in the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours was being mentioned again on social media. To reiterate: three psalms were removed entirely from the psalter in the reformed Office (57, 82 and 108), with parts of nineteen others also deleted (see here for a full list). It seems an appropriate moment, therefore, to demonstrate that this censorship of the Psalms goes directly against the intentions of the Second Vatican Council, notwithstanding the desires of a tiny minority of the Fathers.

Shortly after Pope John XXIII announced the Council, a letter was sent out to all bishops and prelates asking them for their suggestions about what should be discussed. Over two-thousand responses were received; these are collectively known as the vota, and make up the antepreparatory (or pre-preparatory) part of the Acta of Vatican II. In my contribution to the 2019 Fota International Liturgical Conference, “The Proposals for Reform of the Roman Breviary in the Antepreparatory Period of Vatican II”, I noted that the omission of the imprecatory psalms from the Roman Breviary was mentioned in only three vota:

• “That it be examined whether some psalms (e.g. the imprecatory psalms) that are difficult for Christians to fruitfully pray may be omitted from the Divine Office”. (Julius Cardinal Dopfner: Bishop of Berlin, Germany: ADA II.1, p. 588)
• “Regarding the Breviary… that several Psalms, full of curses, be substituted [for others].” (Amerigo Galbiati, P.I.M.E., Bishop of Jalpaiguri, India: ADA II.4. p. 149)
• “That in the Breviary the whole of sacred scripture in the New Testament be included; and from the Old Testament, the books of Moses, the historical books, and the four major prophets. Omit the [accounts of] wars and the imprecatory psalms.” (Gaspar Lischerong, S.J., Apostolic Administrator of Daming, China: ADA II.4, p. 568)

Three vota out of over two-thousand is a vanishingly small proportion. However, this idea that some psalms were not suitable for modern prayer would actually be discussed in some detail at the Council’s Central Preparatory Commission, when the draft constitution on the liturgy was being considered in the spring of 1962. This is mostly thanks to the remarks made by Arcadio Cardinal Larraona in his relatio (presentation) of chapter 4 to the Commission, in which he claimed that the omission of the imprecatory psalms was a possibility justifiable by what was then art. 71 of the constitution:

For art. 71: In the arrangement of the psalter, these things need to be revisited… that some psalms which seem less in keeping with the spirit of evangelical charity may be omitted, or recited less frequently… (ADP II.3, p. 331)

In the subsequent discussion by the members of the Commission, Ernesto Cardinal Ruffini gave Psalms 55, 58, 83, 109, 129, 137 and 140 as examples that could be omitted from the psalter in whole or in part (ADP II.3, p. 338), and Carlo Cardinal Confalonieri declared that he had no objection to omitting verses from imprecatory or long historical psalms (ADP II.3, p. 342). In the voting on chapter 4 of the draft constitution, Valerio Cardinal Valeri, Giovanni Cardinal Montini (who would, of course, be elected Pope Paul VI in 1963), Archbishop Victor Bazin and Bishop Johannes Suhr, O.S.B., declared their agreement with Ruffini, with Paolo Cardinal Marella agreeing with both Ruffini and Confalonieri (see ADP II.3, pp. 360-362). Abbot Benno Gut, O.S.B., was alone in his defense of the preservation of the whole psalter in the Breviary (ADP II.3, p. 368). 

The issue of the imprecatory psalms would also be mentioned at the Council itself, with Cardinal Ruffini being the first to raise the issue, just as he was at the Central Preparatory Commission. At the Council’s 14th General Congregation (7 November 1962), Ruffini proclaimed:

However, in the recitation of the Divine Office, especially in the vernacular or by the people—at least by nuns and laity—I think that some psalms should be omitted: those that are called “imprecatory”. Indeed, there is none who does not see how sharply they can pierce souls: e.g. vv. 23-29 of Psalm 68, in which the psalmist calls for the chastisement of enemies… also, almost all of Psalm 108… Saint Thomas Aquinas, with the wisdom and clarity for which he is famed, best interprets and explains the imprecations in the psalms… Nevertheless, because the people are not well-versed in biblical exegesis, many would easily fall into wrath and curses against their neighbours. (AS I.2, p. 329)

Two days later, at the 15th General Congregation (9 November 1962), Antonio Cardinal Bacci would also declare that, in his opinion, various psalms—in fact, almost a third of the psalter!—should be omitted from the Breviary, because the imperfect revelation in the Old Testament has been perfected and fulfilled by the “law of charity and mercy” of the Gospel:

There are not a few psalms which reflect the particular condition of the Hebrew people, and so contribute little to our piety, as well as those which look to the law of retaliation, in force at that time. I give only two examples: Psalm 136… and Psalm 108… Those psalms which are either imprecatory or refer to the particular condition of the Hebrew people are about a third of the psalter. In my opinion, it is appropriate that all these psalms, that are in other respects divinely inspired Sacred Scripture, and consistent with the particular conditions of their times, should be expunged from the Breviary, which is primarily a book of sacred prayer and sacred meditation. Let us recall what the Divine Redeemer said: “You have heard that it was said to those of old… But I say to you.” The law of the Gospel is the perfection of the Old Testament, and in the present-day the law of retaliation is no longer valid, but rather the law of charity and mercy. (AS I.2, p. 409)

Two of the Fathers would say similar things to Cardinal Bacci during the same General Congregation. Bishop Fidel García Martínez (emeritus of Calahorra y La Calzada, Spain) suggested that readings from the Old Testament, including some of the psalms, are difficult to understand because of their incomplete revelation of God, and thus the bulk of the readings in the revised Breviary should be from the New Testament (AS I.2, p. 439). Rev Fr Aniceto Fernández Alonso, O.P., the Master General of the Dominicans, thought that it would perhaps be better to delete the imprecatory psalms from the Breviary. These psalms, he said, are obviously the inspired word of God, and can be read according to their correct interpretation, but “their expressions represent the very imperfect revelation of the Old Testament and reflect the very imperfect morality of that time”, giving the examples of Psalms 68, 108, and 136. Such psalms, according to him, are “less suitable in our day for fostering and expressing the sublime effects of charity.” (AS I.2, pp. 461-462)

Psalm 108 in the 9th century Utrecht Psalter, fol. 64r

Three other Fathers mentioned the possible removal of the imprecatory psalms from the Breviary in their written submissions to the Conciliar Liturgical Commission:

• Bishop Anton Reiterer, M.C.C.I. (Lydenburg, South Africa), wanted to “remove from the Breviary all the psalms which cannot be properly said, namely: historical and imprecatory psalms” (AS I.2, p. 560);
• In his comments, Rev Fr Mariano Oscoz, E.C.M.C. (Prior General Emeritus of the Camaldolese Hermits of Mount Corona), expressed the same logic as others (i.e. the imperfect morality of the Old Testament), and suggested it would be “sufficient” for the Council to “approve the general principle” of the removal of the imprecatory and other obscure psalms; in fact, Fr Oscoz used the Rule of Saint Benedict (RB 19.7) as justification for this! (AS I.2, p. 555)
• Archbishop Domenico Luca Capozi, O.F.M., in a slightly more vague manner, asked for the breviary psalms “to be selected in such a way that they are not too long, and those that do not foster piety are abandoned.” (AS I.2, p. 505)

Contrary to this, a number of Fathers defended the principle of the entire psalter being prayer in the Breviary. Again, at the Council’s 16th General Congregation, Abbot Jean Prou, O.S.B. (Solesmes), stated that it was “most desirable that the entire psalter be preserved in the sacred liturgy, not excluding the so-called imprecatory psalms, which can be more easily understood in a spiritual sense”. He also mentioned the fact that similar material in the New Testament and the liturgy would have to be deleted (he cites the Book of Revelation and the introit to the Mass formulary Intret in conspectu, in the Common of Several Martyrs outside Easter: see AS I.2, p. 446). Bishop Emilio Guano (Livorno, Italy) stated that “In my opinion, it is preferable to preserve the entire psalter, including the so-called imprecatory psalms, over one week, so that more and more priests, religious and the Church are imbued with the prayer of the Old Testament and of Christ himself.” (AS I.2, p. 458)

Abbot Benedikt Reetz, O.S.B. (Beuron), in a written intervention, forcefully defended the integrity of the psalter in the Breviary, contra Cardinal Ruffini:

I see no reason at all why one or the other psalm should be excluded from the Divine Office because of curses and imprecations, as proposed by His Eminence Cardinal Ruffini… The whole psalter belongs to the treasury of the sacred Scriptures, and we believe it is also inspired in those parts which are not fully understood by us now because of the fragility and weakness of our intellect. Who claims the right to exclude certain psalms from the Divine Office, and what will be the criteria for this exclusion? … For nearly twenty centuries, the Catholic Church has sung all 150 psalms in their entirety, and there is no reason why she should deviate from this tradition in the 20th century. (AS I.2, p. 559)

It is this latter group of Fathers who would prevail in the discussion. When the revised chapter IV of the constitution on the liturgy was presented to the Council Fathers on 21 October 1963, Bishop Joseph Martin (Nicolet, Canada) gave the relatio explaining the various changes made. In these remarks, he also explained that the Conciliar Liturgical Commission had considered the suggestions that the imprecatory and historical psalms should be removed from the Breviary:

However, another question of no small importance, which does not derive its origin from the text [of the Constitution], has arisen concerning the psalter. Some of the Fathers wish to expunge from the breviary those psalms which express imprecations and vengeance, or even those which provide insufficient revelation about the latter, or, indeed, historical psalms or those that ‘foster insufficient piety’. Other Fathers rejected these opinions, and our Commission adheres to this rejection: the whole psalter belongs to the treasury of the sacred Scriptures, and we believe it is also inspired in those parts which are not fully understood by us now because of the fragility and weakness of our intellect. In such an arbitrary selection of the psalms, one might perhaps indulge ‘rationalist’ tendencies; moreover, we fear that such a thing would be astonishing to the brethren who have separated from us. ‘For whatever was written was written for our instruction’ (Romans 15:4) Otherwise, those parts of the sacred liturgy, taken also from the New Testament, which speak of the same things would have to be expunged. (AS II.3, pp 136-137, emphasis mine).

So, to reiterate: the Council Fathers were told by the Conciliar Liturgical Commission that it was in no way envisaged that the constitution on the liturgy would justify the omission of certain psalms from the Divine Office. Sacrosanctum Concilium did not mention this, and the Commission explicitly excluded the possible interpretation or use of article 91 to justify it. This is important, because for many other specific suggestions for the future reform of the liturgy, the Commission told the Fathers that they would be referred to the “post-conciliar commission” to deal with, since the constitution was intended mainly to give the general principles of the reform. [1] In this instance, however, the Council Fathers were specifically told that the provisions in SC 91 did not envisage or allow for any psalms or parts of psalms to be deleted.

How, then, did we end up with a reform of the breviary in which parts of the psalter have been arbitrarily removed due to “certain psychological difficulties” (General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 131)? The blame for this lies almost entirely with Pope Paul VI. Both the consultors and members of the Consilium ad exsequendam voted numerous times in favour of keeping the entire psalter in the revised Office. [2] Paul VI ignored them. The 1967 Synod of Bishops voted overwhelmingly to keep the entire psalter in the revised Office — 117 placet, 25 non placet, 31 placet iuxta modum. [3] Paul VI ignored them.

It is true to say that the secretary of the Consilium had a hand in Paul VI sticking with his decision, as Bugnini attached his own observations to the Consilium’s final vote in favour of retaining the whole psalter, in what has been described as “bold and unwarranted interventions against the majority opinion of the Consilium.” [4] Equally, however, as we have seen above, Paul VI seemed to have had already made up his mind about censoring the psalter years before he was even elected Pope. And, ultimately, the final decision was his and his alone.

I don’t think it should be controversial — though in the current climate of the “unique expression of the Roman Rite”, it may be politically incorrect! — to say that Paul VI was wrong here: wrong to go against the specifically expressed intentions of the Council, wrong to go against the vote of the Synod of Bishops, and wrong to go against the majority of the members and consultors of the Consilium. As Gregory DiPippo has written elsewhere, “The Church lives as it lives now very largely because Paul VI rejected and did not fulfil the will of the Second Vatican Council” and I would certainly concur with that.

I would also concur with many others that the full psalter needs restoring to the post-Vatican II Liturgia horarum as a matter of urgency. As I have demonstrated above, this is in fact an issue of fidelity to the Second Vatican Council. It is also a corrective to the incredibly flawed notion that it is somehow ‘psychologically’ or ‘spiritually’ impossible to pray the full psalter in the modern world. The danger with continuing to censor the psalter in this manner is well-expressed by Trevor Laurence in his recent book, Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2022), published just last year:

The sanitized liturgies of many modern churches fail to accurately reflect the realities of life in this kind of world… the community that does not learn together through Scripture’s psalmic script how to bring its wounds and the wounds of the world before God, cultivate a rightly ordered anger, and plead in prayer for the justice of divine judgment will be uncertain whether their longings for justice belong in the presence of God at all and will risk inadvertently shaping its members to nurse wounds, vent anger, and pursue justice after the pattern of the world—contributing to, rather than confronting and challenging, the seemingly perpetual cycles of violence. (pp. 5-6)

Realistically, however, the reintroduction of the integral psalter to the post-conciliar liturgical books won’t be happening, at least any time soon, as the logic of both Traditionis custodes and Desiderio desideravi (in particular, nn. 31 and 61) mitigate against any such notion of this “reform of the reform.” Even though Pope Francis has (albeit obliquely) critiqued this censoring of the psalms, those that pray the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours will have to live for the foreseeable future with Paul VI’s personal opinion that the Roman psalter should be deformed. Still, there’s always the traditional Breviarium Romanum, or the traditional monastic offices, and also the Ordinariate’s Divine Worship: Daily Office, which preserves the whole psalter in course, spread over one month at Mattins and Evensong.

NOTES

[1] See, e.g., AS II.3, p. 274, where the details of what feast days will be on the revised calendar is left to the “post-conciliar commission”; AS II.4, p. 26, where details about sacred art are left to the “post-conciliar commission”; AS II.2, p. 307, where a whole list of specifics is left to the “post-conciliar commission”, etc.

[2] See Stanislaus Campbell, From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours: The Structural Reform of the Roman Office 1964-1971 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), pp. 151-154.

[3] See Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 507.

[4] Campbell, From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours, p. 71.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

By now, I am sure that all of our readers have heard of the various reports that further restrictions of the celebration of the traditional Roman Rite may be coming, within perhaps a few months. Rorate Caeli reported some days ago that their sources have heard nothing of it, while Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican reports that it certainly exists in some form. I have heard other reports contradicting and agreeing with them both, including one denial that any such restrictions are planned, and another that gave an outline of them which, if even partially true, would be disastrous. I have no information of my own to offer. It remains only to encourage everyone to pray fervently and constantly that God in His infinite mercy and wisdom avert such a calamity from the Church, and prevent the useless infliction of even greater suffering and sadness on followers of the traditional rite, such as is narrated in this video by a couple from Wisconsin, who recently lost their traditional Mass, one which predated Summorum Pontificum.

In the meantime, I also vehemently encourage all of our readers to read and share as widely as possible this absolutely superb column by Dom Alcuin Reid, published last week on One Peter Five, to which no summary can do justice:

https://onepeterfive.com/response-cavadini-healy-weinandy/

This article is written in large part as a response to a series published last fall by the University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal, written by Professors John Cavadini, Mary Healy, and Thomas Weinandy OFM Cap. The five articles, later republished as a unit, offer a defense of the post-Conciliar liturgy which relies heavily on the same combination of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi that all such defenses rely upon. Dom Alcuin is right to point out the “paucity of their liturgical history and the lack of range of sources in their footnotes”; I do not hesitate to assert, more bluntly, that the presentation is selective throughout, and simply ignores mountains of evidence that contradict its narrative.

Dom Alcuin outlines out a few of the broader points on which Cavadini, Healy and Weinandy (henceforth CHW, brevitatis causa) run aground. Simply put, they accept the false premise that to question the reform is to question the Second Vatican Council. (We will return to this later.) “... the intellectual and pastoral argument about the theological, liturgical, and most especially the pastoral superiority of the reformed liturgical rites has long since been lost. ... it is a well-established fact that the new rites promulgated by Paul VI after the Council were not the modest, organic development of the heretofore Roman rite for which the Council called (see Sacrosanctum Concilium 23) but were a radically new product of the body entrusted by Paul VI to implement the Council’s liturgical Constitution ... The Consilium intentionally went beyond the Constitution—with, in the case of many of its members, the best of intentions, and certainly, in the end, with the backing of papal authority. ... it is intellectually false to assert that to question or reject the reformed liturgy is in some way to ‘undermine Vatican II,’ as our three authors, and others, would have us believe.” (Or, as this fellow rightly put it:)

Their second major flaw (by far the most common with this particular genre of post-Conciliar apologetic) is to ignore the fact that the reform has not been the success that the Church was promised. Dom Alcuin writes: “... as repeated statistical studies from various countries demonstrate, the reformed liturgy has simply not delivered the ecclesial renewal promised. Promised? Yes: the assumption that guided (‘motivated’? ‘sold’?) the introduction of the new rites was that if the liturgy were simplified, modernised, made more contemporary, then people would participate in it more fruitfully and a new springtime in the life of the Church would be ushered in. Alas, the opposite has proved to be true. ... the modern liturgical rites have not of themselves proved to be part of the solution (to the problem of the decline in religious practice); of themselves they have not retained, let alone attracted, people to the practice of the Faith. Today we may, then, legitimately raise questions about their pastoral utility and about the wisdom of following the policies of sixty years ago that led to their production.”

The CHW narrative also relies on the idea that the entire process of liturgical reform, going back to the original Liturgical Movement, was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore, to question its value is to “inherently den(y) the validity of the liturgical renewal as a genuine work of Holy Spirit in the contemporary Church.” (I make bold to insert here an observation of my own and my colleagues, that their presentation of the Liturgical Movement in their first article is inexcusably sloppy, since it falsely treats it as if were ONE movement with ONE set of ideas, which then flowed perfectly into Sacrosanctum Concilium and the post-Conciliar reform. This ignores both the range of ideas within the Liturgical Movement, and the flagrant contradiction between its aspirations and the results of the reform.) As Dom Alcuin rightly points out, this simply assumes too much: “they are practically making the liturgical reforms themselves a matter of faith, of Divine Revelation, to be believed in by all the faithful. But the reforms are not. They are the product of prudential judgements of men... Certainly, these men did (we hope) fervently invoke God the Holy Spirit to assist them in their work—and in this life we shall never know to what extent He did so assist them. (Could God the Holy Spirit really have been personally responsible for all the errors that resulted in Eucharistic Prayer II?) It is therefore not the sin of blasphemy to question the liturgical reform any more that it is blasphemy to assert that the College of Cardinals is perfectly capable of invoking the Holy Spirit at the beginning of a conclave and then of electing a truly bad pope, as any history of the papacy more than clearly demonstrates.”

Esto. It has been more than fifty years since the reforms were promulgated, and at this point, it would be unreasonable to expect anything else or anything better. In regard to CHW specifically, it remains only to note that they are open to the idea of a future correction of some of the more infelicitous aspects of the reform. However, as Dom Alcuin notes, this puts them, of course, into direct conflict with the current party line that the reform is “irreversible”, which either means that the Church is stuck with (e.g.) Eucharistic Prayer II forever, or it means nothing at all.

All that being said, it is the introductory section of this essay that really makes it a permanently valuable contribution to the on-going debate in the Church about reform and renewal, and the reason why I urge you so strongly to read and share it. Simply put, there is a healthy, reasonable, theologically sound approach to Vatican II, which is to treat it as one among many ecumenical councils, which (Dom Alcuin writes), “outlined policies which were judged to be expedient at the time and which were to be interpreted in a hermeneutic of continuity with the Church’s Tradition, including the dogmatic definitions of the other twenty Ecumenical Councils of the Church.”

But there also exists an unhealthy, unreasonable, and theologically unsound version of Vatican II which can be summed up in six words: “Vatican II changed all of that.” Dom Alcuin explains more fully: “Vatican II changed all of that, radically, irreversibly,” where ‘that’ stands for any previous liturgical, doctrinal, moral, or pastoral teaching or practice that is deemed inapplicable (read ‘inconvenient’) to contemporary man.” This is what he calls the “super-dogma.” The post-Conciliar reform is the most immediately tangible sign of this super-dogma, and the unhealthy grip which it has on the Church, and therefore, to question the reform is to question not the legitimate Vatican II, one council among many in a line of continuity that goes back to Christ and the Apostles, but the super-dogma wrongly built out of it.

“When we recognise this super-dogma for what it actually is—a lie upon which generations of clergy and laity have built their ecclesiastical careers ... we can begin to understand the manic severity that is meted out to those who refuse to subscribe to it and, indeed, we can begin to comprehend the extreme lengths to which its devotees will go in propping up and jealously defending everything that they have built upon this foundation, most especially the reformed liturgy. For the new liturgy is the touchstone of Vatican II. It is the single thread by which (in the minds of many) the Council (of their own conception) hangs.”

As I said above, I do not pretend to do this essay justice by summarizing it here, and it is important to qualify that Dom Alcuin does not ascribe the fullness of this super-dogma to CHW. However, whether they will it so or no, their attempt to brand the embrace of the historical Roman Rite as a rejection of Vatican II cannot stand UNLESS Vatican II is accepted in its super-dogma version, which is unhealthy, unreasonable, and theologically unsound, and now, after sixty years, possibly THE single greatest obstacle to authentic reform in the Church as a whole. I therefore congratulate Dom Alcuin for his elucidation of this very important point, and repeat my encouragement to everyone to read the essay in full.

ADDENDUM: just today, One Peter Five has another superb article, this time by Mr John Byron Kuhner, a fitting commemoration of the octave of Dom Alcuin’s piece. This paragraph gives a neat de facto summary of the most basic problem with CHW’s article.

https://onepeterfive.com/paul-vi-refounder-catholicism/

“That the (Novus Ordo) Mass is a papal rather than a conciliar creation does not make it any less valid for Catholics, of course; but it does make it clear that discussions of it should be separated from discussions of the Council. (my emphasis) And whereas Paul permitted resistance from clerics of a modernizing tendency, even to his own decrees, Chiron is able to document his forceful crackdown on the use of older form of the Mass. He was capable of resolve against Tradition more than resolve against experimentation.”

Restoration, Not Reform, Is the Only Way Forward

Given the splash that Episode II of “Mass of the Ages” is making, it seemed an appropriate time to share the following letter, based on a letter sent some time ago to a priest who had argued that I should be more supportive of the “Reform of the Reform” as a way of connecting the new liturgy back to the old one—the route of gradual improvement rather than simple return or restoration.

Dear Father Hermes,

While you know that I appreciate your fatherly solicitude, and always consider what you have to say with great respect, in this case our disagreements cannot be easily resolved.

Paul VI’s unconscionable raft of innovations and antiquarianisms, pushed through by the abusive exercise of his power, cannot but be harmful to the Church’s identity, coherence, and mission. There is no future for a liturgy that has severed its ties to the past, its bond to the Faith of every generation, unfolding across the ages.

The sacramental sacrifice accomplished by the double consecration is always pleasing to God in itself. To the extent, however, that the new rite fails to respect the gifts of tradition that Our Lord Himself inspired in His Church and fails to give Him, here and now, the honor and reverence due to Him in our external worship, to just that extent are they displeasing to the same Lord of history and of holiness, and should not continue in existence.

As has been demonstrated by now too many times to count (Pristas, Cekada, Fiedrowicz, and Hazell are names that quickly come to mind), the modern lex orandi is defective in its texts, rubrics, and ceremonies; it fails to embody adequately and communicate clearly the full lex credendi of the Catholic Church. This is an objective wound in the Body of Christ and cannot be papered over with charitable intentions or surreptitious improvements.

It is worth pointing out that the journal Notitiae, which has provided official guidelines for the Novus Ordo for decades now, stated repeatedly that elements from the old missal were never meant to be incorporated into the new, and that the celebrant should not do so. This was back in the days when the rupture was plainly admitted, before it became politic for a time to deny there was a rupture. We are, of course, right back to the same spot:

It must never be forgotten that the Missal of Pope Paul VI, from the year 1970, has taken the place of that which is improperly called “the Missal of St Pius V” and that it has done this totally, whether with regard to texts or rubrics. Where the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing or say little in specifics in some places, it is not therefore to be inferred that the old rite must be followed. Accordingly, the many and complex gestures of incensation according to the prescripts of the earlier Missal (cf. Missale Romanum, T. P. Vaticanis, 1962: Ritus servandus VII et Ordo Incensandi, pp. LXXX-LXXXIII) are not to be repeated. [Notitiae 14 (1978): 301–302, n. 2]

As it was said in response n. 2 of the Commentary Notitiae 1978, p. 301: where the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing, it must not therefore be inferred that it is necessary to observe the old rubrics. The restored Missal does not supplement the old one but has replaced it. In reality, the Missal formerly indicated at the Agnus Dei, striking the breast three times, and in pronouncing the triple Domine, non sum dignus, striking the breast...says three times. Since, however, the new Missal says nothing about this (OM 131 and 133), there is no reason to suppose that any gesture should be added to these invocations. [Notitiae 14 (1978): 534–535, n. 10]

As generally happens, it [the manner of a priest’s raising hands and joining them at the Preface or at the final blessing] is a matter of a habit which comes from the rubrics of the former Missal. The indications of the OM, however, should be observed... Thus the ancient rite should not be retained... [Notitiae 14 (1978): 536–537, n. 12]

While I am fully prepared to call into question the credibility of the CDW and even the canonical standing of its decisions, there is no doubt that such quotations as the foregoing well express the dominant intention of liturgical severance that has generally animated the Vatican to this day, with a short and partial reprieve under Benedict XVI. What I do not see room for is a gradual “Tridentinization” of the new rite, because this is neither consistent with its rubrics nor ultimately possible given its extensive genetic mutations. The Eucharistic species may be the same but the liturgical species is different, and there is no evolutionary path from the one to the other.

Therefore, while I sympathize with a priest who wishes to do his utmost to offer the Novus Ordo as best he can, with the right intention and spirit, it is hard to find objective historical or theological grounds for supporting that approach as a formal policy or principled project, which is what I take the phrase “Reform of the Reform” to mean: a way of reconnecting the Novus Ordo to the Vetus Ordo, or to speak more truthfully, of reconnecting it with the organically developed liturgical tradition of the West, from which it departed in toto by the simple fact that everything was submitted to the scrutiny of the experts and filtered through their ideological system. Whatever remains is thoroughly modern, even the elements that come from the past.

If the liturgy is not treated as a gift of tradition that we humbly receive, it becomes a product we make, a thing we validate and give rights to—which we could just as easily toss aside. It seems to me that this is part of the reason why some clergy, such as Fr. Bryan Houghton and Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, said from the first moment that they could not, in good conscience, offer the Novus Ordo.

Do I think that a priest sins by saying it? No, if in his mind and heart he considers it to be a worthy and acceptable rite for offering the always-worthy sacrifice of the Cross. I used to think like you on this matter, as one may find in many articles (e.g., this, this, this), but my shift in thought and the reasons for it have been articulated no less clearly (e.g., here, here, and here).

What I have written above will no doubt sound like an exaggeration to you, a failure to make various distinctions. As a Thomist, I am capable of making plenty of distinctions, but distinctions are not magic; they cannot overcome certain kinds of fundamental difficulties. I don’t agree with the (neo?)scholastic assumption that the Church may never err in matters of universal discipline, at least in the sense of enforcing on the people something that will occasion harm and damage, even if it is, strictly speaking, free of heresy. Deducing inerrancy in discipline from the doctrine of papal infallibility requires a number of assumptions and a lot of whistling in the dark; a negation of it does not threaten indefectibility. One assumption in particular deserves to be rejected, namely, that liturgy is merely a matter of changeable discipline over which popes have complete disposal. To the extent that any pope has spoken or acted as if he has absolute power over cumulative tradition, he is undermining the nature of his own office. In a related matter, we would also disagree about the infallibility of canonizations.

I believe a great deal of messiness is compatible with the human governance and divine support of the Church, provided that access to the means of salvation, especially sacramental grace, remains available to those who seek it out, and that the tradition of the Church continues to endure somewhere, anywhere, without deformation. There is no question that the tradition does endure, not just here or there, but in many places, in many minds and hearts. Even if it has been overtaken by barbarians, ransacked, and crippled, the ship will not sink to the bottom and perish. It will need a complete change in captaincy and crew before there is any real hope of the liturgy being restored to its immemorial and venerable form, in accord with the sovereign law of Christian Providence.

It can hardly be surprising that there will be enormous differences of opinion on how to interpret the strange liturgical situation into which churchmen of the twentieth century have maneuvered the Bride of Christ on earth.

Yours in Christ our King,

Dr. Kwasniewski

A Reform-of-the-Reform Paladin Throws in the Towel

Denis Crouan, the French founder and president (since 1988 or so) of the organization Pro liturgia, which promotes “the Mass as Vatican II truly intended it”, with Latin, chant, ad orientem, etc., has declared such efforts to be a “waste of time”, and thrown in the towel. The following article is his Final Message on the site, although he states that its activities will continue in a different form on another site. NLM is very grateful to an old and dear friend, Mr Jerome Stridon, for providing this translation. Caveat lector: the reproduction of this text does not imply agreement on the part of anyone associated with NLM with everything that is stated herein. Below is a video in French in which Mr Crouan explains in greater detail his decision to end the activities of Pro liturgia.

Asking present-day clergy to respect the liturgy of the Church is a waste of time: with an obstinacy often coupled with a profound lack of culture, those who occupy the places from which they are supposed to teach, go before, and lead the faithful - at all levels in the Church, from the pope to the simple parish priest - seem to want to systematically sabotage divine worship in a way that remains completely incomprehensible.

We must separate ourselves from a clergy that for years has been trying to dream up, with inexplicable perseverance, liturgical celebrations that only bring together the naive, unthinking conformists who place their need for conviviality and sentimentality above any preoccupation with the truths of faith and liturgical sense, to the point of forgetting them, or even denying them, and depriving those who need them.

We must leave behind a clergy and churchgoers who find their attitudes encouraged and shared by bishops who stray into biased readings of magisterial texts (as evidenced by their ways of reading and applying both the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis’ Motu proprio “Traditionis custodes”).

Let those who wish to go on making friendship bracelets, filling in coloring books, and singing inanities at Masses that alternate between kitschiness and faddishness do so with complete freedom: they will not transmit anything to the future generations.

Let those who wish to cling to stiff chasubles or to lace albs, the hallmarks of falsely “traditional” celebrations, do so if they find it to their liking: these days, every way of celebrating the liturgy is to be considered acceptable.

Let our bishops who want to be the heralds of a rootless pastoral ministry that has never produced anything do so, if it gives them the feeling of being up to their mission: the extravagances of which they are capable and which no longer surprise are not yet exhausted.

That Pope Bergoglio is more interested in Luther and Pachamama than in the doctrine and morals of the Church is his choice: a choice that everyone is entitled to consider regrettable and more than risky. (editor’s note: I cannot help but wonder if this statement from a promotor of the post-Conciliar liturgy will lead to calls for yet another motu proprio ordering that said liturgy be suppressed.)

In any case, all of this, this way in which the Church and its liturgy present themselves, is no longer of any interest to the simple faithful who want to escape the betrayals of a clergy that wallows in the management of empty parishes where only “committed laymen” swarm and claim to “animate” liturgies that are, at best, lukewarm soups swallowed out of a spirit of sacrifice, and, at worst, poisons for inner peace and psychological balance.

Granted, there do remain harbors of peace, such as the monasteries that have resisted the winds of modernism and have received and applied Vatican II with faith and intelligence. But a monastery, though it may be an occasional place of refreshment, is not the parish sanctuary that the lay faithful should normally frequent, and where they ought to be sure that they can live out and feed their faith in silence and contemplation.

In order to get away from this ecclesial situation, which has become delirious and toxic to the point of harming inner peace and the Catholic faith, it has been decided to put an end to the “adventure” of Pro Liturgia. The current situation has no future and is kept up by a partly unstable clergy and laity that have accepted to be so disoriented that they no longer question what they are made to do during the Mass. As such, this situation demands such a decision of us.

The watchword of our bishops is that Masses should be entrusted neither to “traditionalists” nor to the faithful who respect the decisions of Vatican II on liturgy, but only to those who abuse divine worship. Therefore, to try to have a conversation with these mitred pastors, with their impenetrable way of thinking, is a waste of time (and sometimes even of faith).

Lessons from the Sixties: Selective Synodality and Princely Protests

NLM is pleased to offer readers a translation of a thought-provoking article that appeared at the German site Motu-proprio: Summorum-Pontificum.

The Ottaviani Intervention

Clemens V. Oldendorf

It is actually astonishing how little of Paul VI’s liturgical reform, especially his Novus Ordo Missae, which he promulgated fifty years ago, is being commemorated this year. The isolated contributions and initiatives that remind us of it come from the criticizing corner. [1] But it is noticeable that yesterday, September 25th (as of the original writing), as far as we can see, passed completely unnoticed. [2]

On this date, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci transmitted to Pope Paul VI the Brief Critical Examination of the “Novus Ordo Missae,” which had previously been prepared by a working group of tradition-oriented theologians. This was greatly enhanced by the signatures of the two princes of the Church who made this criticism their own, especially since Ottaviani was at the time the supreme guardian of the purity of the doctrine of faith, and could have been referred to as “the Panzerkardinal” far earlier than Joseph Ratzinger, who would later follow him in the same position.

If the advocates of liturgical reform and the representatives of university-based liturgical studies overlook and ignore this jubilee with almost complete silence, perhaps it is because they do not want to unnecessarily remind people today, in a time that is forgetful of history, that the liturgy of the Church was ever celebrated in a manner visibly different from what is now the common practice, and is, in principle, also prescribed in such a way as to be normative.

With the keyword “normative”, we are referring to the Missa normativa, which at the Synod of Bishops in 1967 was presented, as it were (not to say demonstrated) as the prototype of the Novus Ordo, and which was broadly rejected by the Synod Fathers. The votes and decisions of a Synod of Bishops do not bind the Pope in his decisions, and since the Novus Ordo, which came two years later, corresponded almost perfectly to this Missa normativa, one could already see back then what “synodality” means if its tendency does not actually fit in with the Holy Father’s agenda.

But back to the Brief Critical Examination. This document criticized above all a softening of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Real Presence and sacrificial character of the Mass as seen in the liturgical texts and gestures, both in details and in totality, of the rite as Paul VI had presented it. The Cardinals therefore implored the Pontiff not to deprive the Church of the possibility of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the former Missale Romanum. Looking at the ecclesiastical constellation at that time, this action was, in point of fact, much more explosive and massive than, for example, what the Dubia to Amoris laetitia represent today. Above all, the process was more remarkable than the interventions that Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider have been submitting at regular intervals, since the Dubia remained unanswered.

The investigation — later also called the Ottaviani Intervention — was, by the way, not momentous in effect, yet not completely without consequences, inasmuch as Paul VI had the entire first edition of the Novus Ordo Missae books pulped (!). Nevertheless, in the next edition, only the definition of the Holy Mass contained in [the introduction to] this Ordo was half-heartedly “improved” by the insertion of an addition [with Tridentine language]; nothing more changed in the rite itself.

What remains to be recorded, and what should one perhaps learn from the events of that time for today?

The critique mounted by the Brief Critical Examination did not hinge upon liturgical abuses. The object of criticism was a Novus Ordo in Latin, at the high altar, without altar girls or communion in the hand. In the eyes of the authors and signatories, this already deviated considerably from the doctrine of the Council of Trent on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and yet such a celebration today, in circles that were close to or still hope for the idea of a Reform of the Reform, would certainly already be regarded as an expression of the continuity of the contemporary liturgy with the traditional Roman practice. In theory, this form is probably also most likely to be the so-called usus ordinarius, which in purely theoretical terms is to be the reference point for liturgical celebrations according to the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. With this motu proprio in 2007, at least what Ottaviani and Bacci requested in 1969 — but did not then receive — was finally made possible.

And to be historically fair, it must be said that Ottaviani later celebrated exclusively in the Novus Ordo and even in Italian alone — despite the fact that, due to his position, and also on account of his blindness, he could undoubtedly have easily obtained the special indult to adhere to the earlier missal, an indult that was intended from the start for old, handicapped, and frail priests, as long as that they celebrated privately with one altar boy, and none other present. Later, Ottaviani never again spoke a word of criticism against what the liturgical scholar Klaus Gamber described as “the new papal rite,” to distinguish the Novus Ordo from the Ritus Romanus that had been passed down from Gregory the Great and Pius V to Paul VI.

After a footnote in Amoris laetitia and before the Amazon Synod [3], it is certainly instructive to remember Ottaviani’s silence, though whether it would be a model for Burke and Schneider to follow suit I leave open; but such silence would surely be more consistent for the circles of people who, at least under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, considered papalism to be, in principle, in conformity with tradition. Under Francis, of course, we experience a papolatry of emotions which is now completely uncoupled from theology, and that would have been utterly unthinkable even under Pius IX.

NOTES

[1] See, e.g., “The Strange Birth of the Novus Ordo”; “The New Mass: Fifty Years of Problems”; “Hyperpapalism and Liturgical Mutation”; “Lament for the Liturgy”; “Critique of the Novus Ordo in Two Recent Books”; “A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI’s Apologia for the New Mass.”

[2] See, however, this article: “The Ottaviani Intervention Turns 50: A Perceptive and Still Relevant Critique,” which was published on the date the study bears (June 5) rather than the date it was delivered to Paul VI (September 25).

[3] This article was published on September 26, prior to the opening of the current Synod.