The question of what constitutes a coetus fidelium (“group of the faithful”)
One of the issues that had become contentious after the promulgation of the Motu Proprio was the determination of what constituted a group of the faithful. The instruction establishes that a “group of the faithful” can be said to be existing in a stable manner, according to the sense of art. 5 § 1 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, when it is constituted by some people of an individual parish who, even came together after the publication of the Motu Proprio, by reason of their veneration for the Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, and who ask that it might be celebrated in the parish church or in an oratory or chapel; such a “group” can also be composed of persons coming from different parishes or dioceses, who gather together in a specific parish church or in an oratory or chapel for this purpose.(35) For this group the Instruction does not establish a number of members so it could be very small. The Instruction affirms also that in sanctuaries and places of pilgrimage the possibility to celebrate in the forma extraordinaria is to be offered to groups of pilgrims who request it as mandated in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, art. 5 § 3, if there is a qualified priest.(36) Common sense indicates that group of pilgrims going to a shrine should be accompanied by a priest capable of offering the extraordinary form.

The acceptance of the Validity and Legitimacy of the ordinary form
The Instructions establishes that “The faithful who ask for the celebration of the forma extraordinaria must not in any way support or belong to groups which show themselves to be against the validity or legitimacy of the Holy Mass or the Sacraments celebrated in the forma ordinaria or against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church.” (37) It is evident that attacking the validity of the ordinary form is a very serious problem because it puts into question the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church. With regards to the legitimacy it regards the acceptance of the power of the Holy Father to reform the liturgy and promulgate a new missal. At the same time we should underline that many faithful who certainly accept the validity and the legitimacy of the Mass of Paul VI have been deeply shocked by the abuses of this form of the Mass. Cardinal Ratzinger points out that, “While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the Traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there. After the council there were many priests who deliberately raised “desacralization” to the level of a program, on the plea that the New Testament abolished the cult of the Temple: the veil of the Temple which was torn from top to bottom at the moment of Christ’s death on the cross is, according to certain people, the sign of the end of the sacred. The death of Jesus, outside the City walls, that is to say, in the public world, is now the true religion. Religion, if it has any being at all, must have it in the nonsacredness of daily life, in love that is lived. Inspired by such reasoning, they put aside the sacred vestments; they have despoiled the churches as much as they could of that splendor which brings to mind the sacred; and they have reduced the liturgy to the language and the gestures of ordinary life, by means of greetings, common signs of friendship, and such things.” (38)
These words of the future Pontiff show that it does not constitute a form of deligitimization to make observations on the way that the ordinary form of the Mass is celebrated. Neither it is to formulate suggestions to improve the ordinary form. We can mention here several observations made by Nicolas Bux. He points out that the praying of the canon facing the people contributes to confirm the impression that the Mass is a fraternal meal. He criticizes the total substitution of Latin by the vernacular. The transformation of the altar into a table. Pushing to a side of the Church the tabernacle that it is substituted by the seat or throne of the priest. The abolition of the sacred enclosure of the sanctuary and the installation of the baptismal font in the sanctuary. (39) It is also perfectly fitting to promote that for the Liturgy of the Eucharist the whole congregation including the priest be directed towards the Lord and that is expressed by turning toward the altar, as Fr. Uwe Lang strongly suggests. (40)
In the young when they encounter for the first time the traditional liturgy of the Church there is no question of discussing the validity or the legitimacy of the new liturgy, even many of them may not understand the meaning of these words. What they experience is the sense of marvel with a liturgy that brings them closer to the infinite majesty of God which is a longing that the Lord has inscribed in our immortal souls at the movement of their creation. It is a feeling that it is akin to sense of marvel that the Kievan envoys found when they first entered Santa Sophia. It is also the joy of rediscovering a heritage, of finding their roots, in other words of finding a long lost family. A family is formed by brethren, but also parents and ancestors. A family that would give to them a common heritage and what is more important a common and reassuring future that will be built on a well grounded identity. (41)
Who can be considered a qualified priest? (Sacerdos idoneus)
The Instruction starts from the general principle that “Every Catholic priest who is not impeded by Canon Law is to be considered idoneus (“qualified”) for the celebration of the Holy Mass in the forma extraordinaria.” With regards to the use of the Latin language, the instruction takes a very reasonable position and it requires only a basic knowledge that will allow the priest to pronounce the words correctly and understand their meaning. It will be absurd to require this knowledge of Latin from the faithful as a commentator of the Motu proprio indicates.(42) He insists that the faithful have to understand what is being celebrated. At the same time it will be a praiseworthy activity to try teaching some Latin to the faithful. It also takes a benevolent approach on the knowledge a priest might have of how to celebrate the extraordinary form. “Regarding knowledge of the execution of the Rite, priests are presumed to be qualified who present themselves spontaneously to celebrate the forma extraordinaria, and have celebrated it previously.” This provision puts an end to some excessive requests of some dioceses that through severe testing were trying to limit the priests that could be considered qualified.

Formation
With regards to formation the Instruction has two provisions. Priests who desire to celebrate in the extraordinary form should be offered by their bishop the possibility of acquiring the adequate preparation in this form of the Mass. With regards to seminarians the Instruction reiterates the command of the Code of Canon Law that seminarians should be taught Latin well. The question is to what extent this provision is of the Code is observed worldwide? With regards to the formation in the extraordinary form of seminarians the command is placed in rather weak way because it is conditioned by “where pastoral needs suggest it”.(43)
“In Dioceses without qualified priests, Diocesan Bishops can request assistance from priests of the Institutes erected by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, either to the celebrate the forma extraordinaria or to teach others how to celebrate it.” (44) If we have the case that a Diocese does not have qualified priests and the Bishop refuses to call priests from the Institutes erected by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei voiding the right of the faithful to have access to the forma extraordinaria this will be a typical case that could be brought up to the Commission for resolution.

Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Discipline
The celebrants of the extraordinary form must be watchful like many priests in the past to carefully observe the rubrics. In this regard, Universae Ecclesiae is absolutely clear: “The liturgical books of the forma extraordinaria are to be used as they are. All those who wish to celebrate according to the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite must know the pertinent rubrics and are obliged to follow them correctly.”(45) Interestingly enough we can see the relation of this article with what it is stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium: “Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”(46) This applies to both the ordinary and the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. Following carefully the rubrics has to be considered a moral obligation of the priest. More so there is an important aspect of the spirituality of the traditional liturgy that connected with this duty. The priest, like Christ, empties himself and does what the rubrics demand from him and avoids inserting his personality in the Mass. As a matter of fact part of the beauty of the traditional liturgy is grounded on the obligation that it has to be celebrated always in precisely the same manner by all priests in all places.
It is very positive that the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae has clarified many points that have been discussed in the last few years, including the obligation of the faithful to receive communion on the tongue, and the requirement that only male acolytes are permitted. The opinion had been advanced that all the laws of the Church that regulated the use of the Missal and the Sacraments in 1962 had been derogated and the revival of the 1962 Missal does not automatically revive those legal norms. The shocking consequence of this interpretation is that altar girls and the reception of Communion in the hand could have been a be a legal possibility in using this Missal. We should also note that even without the instruction that position is clearly erroneous.(47) In a recent letter of May 19th 2011, the Secretary of the Ecclesiae Dei Commission explained to a faithful in England that in accordance with art. 28 of the Instruction mentioned above, the Circular Letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments of 1994 permitting female altar servers does not apply to the Extraordinary form. By a similar reasoning communion in the tongue and kneeling is mandated and female readers are not permitted.
The Motu Proprio in its art. 6th had permitted the use of the vernacular for the readings using editions recognized by the Holy See. Art 26 of the Instruction declares that the readings can be proclaimed either solely in the Latin language, or in Latin followed by the vernacular or, only in Low Masses, solely in the vernacular. We should note that the Instruction limits this option of using the vernacular solely to Low Masses.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders
In the regulation that Instruction makes of the disciplines of Holy Orders in the extraordinary form we find two novelties that were not in the Motu Proprio. First, it decides that tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate, even if they are maintained, do not have juridical consequences. “As regards tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum does not introduce any change in the discipline of the Code of Canon Law of 1983; consequently, in Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which are under the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, one who has made solemn profession or who has been definitively incorporated into a clerical institute of apostolic life, becomes incardinated as a cleric in the institute or society upon ordination to the diaconate, in accordance with canon 266 § 2 of the Code of Canon Law.”(49) This norm has been criticized as being opposed to the principle recalled in n. 3 of the instruction concerning adherence to “the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition.” This opens an interesting question because minor orders, even if they are not part of apostolic tradition, can be considered part of tradition. At the same time is positive that they can still be given because the recipients obviously receive a spiritual benefit in their path towards the priesthood.
Second, with regards to the granting of the Sacrament of Holy Orders the Instruction establishes, “Only in Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which are under the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, and in those which use the liturgical books of the forma extraordinaria, is the use of the Pontificale Romanum of 1962 for the conferral of minor and major orders permitted.”(50) We can ask ourselves if this norm of the Instruction respects the principle of equivalence between the two forms of the Latin Rite? This norm establishes a limitation that is not contained in the Motu Proprio. At the same time it seems evident that a Bishop wishing to use the Sacrament of Holy Orders could always ask for an indult from the Commission to use it. The above mentioned restrictions would lead to the interpretation that save especial cases like the ordination of a new bishop or an auxiliary bishop of the Personal Apostolic Administration Saint John Marie Vianney this will have to be done in the Ordinary Rite or by seeking permission through an indult.
It should be noted that on October 23, 2011 the Bishop of Frejus-Toulon, Bishop Dominique Rey, ordained a new priest for his diocese using the 1962 Pontifical. The new priest, Fr. Jean Christophe Pelegri, was ordained by Msgr. Rey to the diaconate on May 11 of this year, only two days before the promulgation of Universae Ecclesiae. We might presume that Bishop Rey obtained permission of Ecclesia Dei Commission to do this ordination or that he considers that this norm is not applicable.
The restrictions with regards to minor orders and the granting of the Sacrament of Holy Orders might lead to different traditionalists to petition for the approval of special canonical legislation that should take into account the particular traits of the extraordinary form.
Breviarium Romanum
The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum put an end to a long controversy whether it was licit for clerics that have the legal obligation to pray the Holy Office to fulfil this duty by praying the Breviary promulgated by Blessed John XXIII. It established that it could be rightfully used.
The instruction clarifies that the 1962 breviary has to be prayed entirely and in the Latin language. There are two authorized versions of the 1962 breviary: one containing the psalms of the Vulgata and the other containing a translation made by the Professors of Pontifical Biblical Institute and approved by Pius XII in 1945. It is also called the Bea version because at that time the future Cardinal Agustin Bea was the rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and had an important influence on Pius XII because he was his confessor. This new translation has some limitations: 1. The classical Latin used in this translation does not match well the late Latin of the Vulgata, of the Fathers, and of the liturgy. 2. The new version could be used only for the full psalms, but not for other parts of the breviary taken from the psalms. As a consequence, the correspondences between the Psalter, the antiphons, the small verses and the responsories became less evident. 3. It is more difficult to sing. For that reasons it is strongly advisable to use the breviary that contains the vulgata psalter.
Laymen should be encouraged to pray the breviary either as a whole or using the key hours like lauds and vespers. Layman also can pray the breviary in the vernacular or use a bilingual edition. They will receive great supernatural benefits and this prayer will lead them to understand better the unity and beauty of the traditional liturgy that forms an integrated whole where the Mass is at the center. At the same time, using the principle of equity, nothing would impede a cleric from using a bilingual edition of the breviary in as much as he uses the vernacular only to improve his understanding of the Latin.
The Sacred Triduum
With regards to the Sacred Triduum the Instruction establishes “If there is a qualified priest, a coetus fidelium (“group of faithful”), which follows the older liturgical tradition, can also celebrate the Sacred Triduum in the forma extraordinaria. When there is no church or oratory designated exclusively for such celebrations, the parish priest or Ordinary, in agreement with the qualified priest, should find some arrangement favourable to the good of souls, not excluding the possibility of a repetition of the celebration of the Sacred Triduum in the same church.”(51) This is an important clarification because some bishops had ruled that the Extraordinary Form was not to be celebrated in any way during the Easter Triduum – from the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday through to Solemn Vigil of Easter Sunday. This is clearly an erroneous interpretation. Article 2 of the Motu Proprio states precisely that a priest can celebrate Masses without the people on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum. This clearly should be understood in the context that in neither of the liturgical forms are Masses without the people permitted during the Easter Triduum. The Missal of 1962 is very precise in its rubrics for Holy Thursday, forbidding the celebration of other Masses besides the solemn celebration of the evening Mass in Coena Domini. So there is no basis in law to state that the Easter Triduum cannot be celebrated in accordance with the Missal of 1962 in ceremonies with the presence of the people.

The Rites of Religious Orders
The Instruction in its official English translation establishes “The use of the liturgical books proper to the Religious Orders which were in effect in 1962 is permitted.”(52) A proper translation should state, “Members of religious orders may use their own liturgical books as in force in 1962” This clarification is important because the right of using those books does not belong to the orders, but to the members. So as an example a Dominican priest is free to use either the Roman Missal of 1962 or the Missal of his order that was in effect in 1962.

Conclusions
We are committed to the celebration of a liturgy that gives us a “glimpse of Heaven on earth.” (53) But as true Catholics we do not want to keep this glimpse for ourselves but we want to share it first and foremost with all our fellow Catholics and second with the entire world. The Pope has expressed with dramatic tones the tragedy of the passing away of the faith in many parts of the world. We have to launch again our missionary efforts but we have to be fully aware that without a recovery of our liturgical worship, none of the efforts of New Evangelization will be successful. The Holy Father recently pointed out that to bear witness to our faith; we have to be aware that “it is not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we achieve this.” (53A)

We have to develop the virtue of magnanimity as St. Thomas defines it, “by its very name denotes stretching forth of the mind to great things.” (54) So we have to forgive all the ones that offended and persecuted us in particular within the Church. As Fr. Cipolla suggests in a recent article we have to move out from a bunker mentality and build bridges within the Church. (55)

Cardinal Ratzinger has denounced the “dangerous tendency to minimalise the sacrificial nature of the Mass”(56) One of the causes of this tendency is the passing away of the penitential spirit within many members of the Church. Consequently, the reestablishment of meatless Fridays in England and Wales could help to restore the sense of the sacrificial nature of the Mass.

Much needs to done and still there is long road ahead of us, but we also have to be grateful to the Lord of all that has been achieved in the last twenty seven years since the promulgation of the special indult Quattuor abhinc anno in 1984. The Instruction Universae Ecclesiae is a good step forward that would allow us to move ahead. The name in itself is a valuable program, because it underlines that the immemorial liturgy is a great good not only for the growing minority that benefits from it today, but for the whole Church.

We have to have a profound hope that the liturgy of the Latin Church will be restored. Our confidence comes first and foremost from our certainty that it is the will of the Lord. Second, our confidence also comes from how the process of restoration is moving ahead. We are seeing concrete signs for which we have to be very grateful to the Lord. We have to be grateful to the Lord as Cardinal Domenico Bertolucci pointed out that we are living in the midst of a true and proper reawakening by so many young people, who wish to relive the beauty of the Latin Mass and the greater spiritual fruit derived from it.(57) Third, last but not least, because this restoration is needed to save the souls of the millions and millions that are walking in darkness. We need a great torch to bring them to Christ and in the liturgy we have that light.

1. Instruction Universae Ecclessiae 2.
2. Interview given by Mons. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Commission Ecclesiae Dei to Nouvelles de France, June 9th 2011. http://www.santuariodivinamaternita.com/Sito/Documenti/110608_monsPozzo_IntervistaNouvellesFrance.pdf
3. Interview given by Mons. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Commission Ecclesiae Dei to Nouvelles de France, June 9th 2011, cit.
4. http://www.paixliturgique.fr/?force=1
5. http://www.paixliturgique.org.uk/?force=1
6. Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Vicesimus quintus annus” On the 25th Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Constitution of “Sacrosantum Concilium” on the Sacred Liturgy, 4th December 1988, n. 14.
7. Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering them his Christmas Greetings, Thursday, December 22nd, 2005.
8. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Feast of Faith, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1986, p. 83.
9. Address by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, given July 13, 1988, in Santiago, Chile before that nation’s bishops. The Wanderer June 22, 2000.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3032&repos=1&subrepos=&searchid=292734
10. Nicola Bux, La crise liturgique, conséquence de la crise ecclésiologique, http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2008-09/09-20/La_crise_liturgique.html
11. Paolo Farinella, Ritorno all’Antica Messa, Gabrielli Editori, 2007, St. Pietro in Cariano (VR).
12. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, Concerning the Remisission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre of March 10th, 2009.
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/, 9-02-2011, http://blog.messainlatino.it/2011/09/discorso-del-card-bartolucci.html 9-03-2011.
13. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 2.
14. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 28
15. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Ten Years of the Motu Proprio “Eccleia Dei” Sunday October 24th, 1998 Rome. http://web.archive.org/web/20020702085721/http://www.latin-mass.org/ratzinger.html
16. Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Vicesimus quintus annus” n. 16.
17. Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Vicesimus quintus annus” n.9.
18. Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Vicesimus quintus annus”, n. 11
19. “13. Side by side with these benefits of the liturgical reform, one has to acknowledge with regret deviations of greater or lesser seriousness in its application. On occasion there have been noted illicit omissions or additions, rites invented outside the framework of established norms; postures or songs which are not conducive to faith or to a sense of the sacred; abuses in the practice of general absolution; confusion between the ministerial priesthood, linked with Ordination, and the common priesthood of the faithful, which has its foundation in Baptism. It cannot be tolerated that certain priests should take upon themselves the right to compose Eucharistic Prayers or to substitute profane readings for texts from Sacred Scripture. Initiatives of this sort, far from being linked with the liturgical reform as such, or with the books which have issued from it, are in direct contradiction to it, disfigure it and deprive the Christian people of the genuine treasures of the Liturgy of the Church.It is for the bishops to root out such abuses, because the regulation of the Liturgy depends on the bishop within the limits of the law and because “the life in Christ of his faithful people in some sense is derived from and depends on him”.” Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, “Vicesimus quintus annus”, n. 13.
20. Redemptionis Sacramentum, 4.
21. Ratzinger, Feast of Faith, cit, p. 81
22. Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, Prefazione, to Introibo ad altare Dei by Elvis Cuneo – Daniele Di Sorco – Raimondo Mameli, Fede & Cultura, Verona, 2008, p. 7.

23. Gabriel Díaz Patri, El Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” y la pacificación de la Iglesia, http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2008-10/16-20/El_MP_y_la_pacificacion_de_la_Iglesia[1].html
L’attività della Santa Sede 2010, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano, 2011, p. 939.
24. “Art. 11. The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, erected by John Paul II in 1988 (5), continues to exercise its function. Said Commission will have the form, duties and norms that the Roman Pontiff wishes to assign it. Art. 12. This Commission, apart from the powers it enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See, supervising the observance and application of these dispositions.”
25. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 9.
26. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 10.1
27. “GUIDELINES REGARDING CELEBRATION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM OF MASS Diocese of Great Falls-Billings
Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, (MPSP) article 5.2 notwithstanding, celebrating the Extraordinary Form on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation in parishes of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings as a regular Mass of obligation is not allowed at this time. [Parishioners in these instances may be drawn away from celebrating at the regular Mass for Sunday or Holy Day].
Indiscriminate mixing of elements of the Novus Ordo and elements of the Extraordinary Form is not allowed. Norms for each form are to be observed correctly [N.B. Instruction on the Application of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, #24].
MPSP, article 5.3 notwithstanding, celebration of ritual Masses (funerals, weddings, etc.) in the Extraordinary Form is not allowed at this time in the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings. A priest must contact the Bishop in advance to ask for any exception to this policy and demonstrate pastoral consideration by not imposing the Extraordinary Form on a parish in these instances.
Altar Servers for the Extraordinary Form must be properly trained.
N.B.: It is important to remember that the Extraordinary Form generally does not enable full, active participation by the assembly which was called for by Vatican II. While the Extraordinary Form holds a definite place in the liturgical tradition of the Church, it does not meet the spiritual needs of the large portion of Church membership today.”
28. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 10.2.
29. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 11
30. Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops on the occasion of the publication of the Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio Data” on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the Reform of 1970.
31. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 25
L’attività della Santa Sede 2010, cit, p. 940.
32. Ratzinger, Feast of Faith, cit, pp. 81-82.
33. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 12. “Can. 34 §1. Instructions clarify the prescripts of laws and elaborate on and determine the methods to be observed in fulfilling them. They are given for the use of those whose duty it is to see that laws are executed and oblige them in the execution of the laws. Those who possess executive power legitimately issue such instructions within the limits of their competence. §2. The ordinances of instructions do not derogate from laws. If these ordinances cannot be reconciled with the prescripts of laws, they lack all force. §3. Instructions cease to have force not only by explicit or implicit revocation of the competent authority who issued them or of the superior of that authority but also by the cessation of the law for whose clarification or execution they were given.”
34. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n 13.
35. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 15.
36. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 18.
37. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 19.
38. Address by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, given July 13, 1988, in Santiago, Chile, cit.
39. Nicola Bux, La crise liturgique, conséquence de la crise ecclésiologique, cit.
40. U.M. Lang, Turning towards the Lord – Orientation in Liturgical Prayer, Foreword by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2004, p. 122.
41. Gabriel Díaz Patri, El Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” y la pacificación de la Iglesia, cit.
42. Testo dell’intervista rilasciata a Zenit (20 giugno) dal prof. Manlio Sodi a Antonio Gaspari sul tema: “Ha ancora senso studiare latino e greco?” http://www.oratoriosanfilippo.org/21-06-2011.html
43. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 21.
44. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 22.
45. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 24
46. Sacrosanctum Concilium 22 §3
47. This position even without the Instruction is clearly erroneous for the following reasons:
First, in the Motu Proprio we do not have a revival of a previous rite which had been derogated, but to the contrary, due to the explicit legally binding declaration contained in Article 1 of this law, we have the very strong affirmation that the Missal of 1962 had never been abrogated. As a consequence, all the norms that regulate the way in which it should be used, are now in force. The contrary opinion is not reasonable because it would mean that the Missal would be in existence without the necessary support of all the norms that regulate its use; it is tantamount to affirming that this Missal exists in a legal vacuum. It is abhorrent to any sane legal interpretation of any law to postulate that something should live in a legal vacuum.
Second, we have to consider the basic principle of legal interpretation that states that whoever wishes the principal also desires what is accessory. So if the Supreme Legislator of the Church has decreed that the Missal of 1962 has never been derogated, he is also stating explicitly that all the norms that regulated that Missal were not derogated either. It is evident that the normative corpus that regulates the use of this Missal is an integral accessory to the Missal.
Third, this law like any other law of the Church has to be interpreted in accordance with the hermeneutic of continuity; in accordance with this interpretative criterion, it is evident that the laws that accompanied the Missal of 1962 at its promulgation should guide its way now in the present. To propose that it is legally possible to have female altar servers or to give communion in the hand when using the Missal of 1962 would be a clear case of the hermeneutic of discontinuity which, as I stated earlier, the Holy Father denounced in his address to the Roman Curia.
Fourth, we have to interpret this law like any other law with an spirit of coherence. It is co-natural with the Missal of 1962 that it is highly regulated in such a way that the celebrant of this Mass is always guided by precise and concrete norms and that nothing is left to the spirit of invention of the celebrant. So, it is co-natural with the Motu Proprio that all the legal norms that regulated the 1962 Missal when it was issued, still regulate it now the use of this Missal has been declared to be the right of the faithful.
Fifth, the view that the legal apparatus that supported the 1962 Missal has been derogated is against the spirit of the Motu Proprio, which wishes to preserve the style that governed the celebration of the liturgy in accordance with the Missal of St Pius V and to restore a sense of respectful reverence to divine worship. It is evident that practices such as girl altar servers or communion in the hand are alien to the spirit and style that preside the celebration of the liturgy in accordance with the Missal of St Pius V. Sixth, the erroneous interpretations I have outlined above would be detrimental to one of the purposes of this law, which is to obtain a healing of the divisions that sadly affect the Church in our times. It is evident that such interpretations would not be accepted by different persons or groups (such as the Society of St Pius X) who are currently not in due canonical union with the Church.
48. http://acatholiclife.blogspot.com/2011/06/ecclesia-dei-letter-altar-girls-never.html
49. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 30.
50. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, 31 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
51. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 33.
52. Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 34.

53. Blessed John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Spiritus et Sponsa, On the 40th Anniversary of the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy “Sacrosantum Concilium”, December 4th, 2003, n. 16.
53A. Benedict XVI, Address at the Meeting with Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Chapter Hall of the Former Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Friday, 23 September 2011
54. S.T. II-II, q. 129, a. 1.
55. Rev. Richard Cipolla, Still a Landmark, The Traditionalist, Winter 2011, p. 43.
56. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Ten Years of the Motu Proprio “Eccleia Dei” cit.
57. Cardinal Domenico Bertolucci, the greatest living musician of the Church, at a concert where his compositions were played in the presence of the Holy Father in the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo on Agust 31st made very explicit declarations on the value of the immemorial liturgy of the Church: “Then, the times unfortunately changed. But today, a true a proper reawakening by so many young people, who wish to relive the beauty of the Latin Mass and the greater spiritual fruit derived from it, can be noticed with great satisfaction; this is great, a very great comfort. And it makes us hope for a liturgical future certainly desired by Your Holiness. We thank the Lord, that he may help all those who are working for seriousness in sacred music. I firmly trust that, we the help of God, a true return to the bimillenary tradition of sacred music will take place.” http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/, 9-02-2011, http://blog.messainlatino.it/2011/09/discorso-del-card-bartolucci.html 9-03-2011.

A Comment on the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae on the Application of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum

Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula, S.T.D.

Presentation
The Instruction Universae Ecclesiae on the Application of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum given as Motu Proprio by His Holiness Benedict XVI was signed on April 30th by the President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission Cardinal William Levada and the Secretary Msgr. Guido Pozzo. It had been previously approved by the Holy Father on April 8th. It was made public on May 13th. It is called the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae for the two beginning words in the Latin text. It was issued to strengthen the application of the Motu Proprio that was promulgated to offer to all Catholic faithful the celebration of the Usus antiquior as precious treasure to be preserved. By this Motu Proprio, the Supreme Pontiff promulgated a universal law for the Church, giving a new regulatory framework for the use of the Roman Liturgy that was in effect in 1962.(1) It has the objective of providing guaranties and assure to all the faithful that request it, the use of the Extraordinary Form and as consequence it promotes unity and reconciliation in the Church. (2)

We should receive this Instruction with a very positive spirit. In substance it fortifies and consolidates the doctrine of the Motu Proprio and guaranties the freedom of the traditional Missal so it is clearly a progress. The Instruction constitutes a reaffirmation that we cannot go back to the preexisting situation when the rights of the faithful to benefit from the traditional Mass were not duly protected.

The Instruction was issued also to clarify various questions from around the world that had arisen with regards to the interpretation of the Motu proprio. Some of these questions regrettably have come from an approach that treated to apply the Motu Proprio with a restrictive spirit or worse with an adversary spirit. This well known resistance of some bishops and some members of the clergy was recently pointed out by Msgr. Pozzo Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission.(3) In France one archdiocese and five dioceses so far have not granted the celebration of the traditional Mass. At the same it should be noted that also in France since the publication of the Motu Proprio 103 new locations for the celebration of the Mass have been granted.(4) In Spain before the Motu Proprio for different and complex reasons the traditional Mass had a very limited presence; today it is celebrated in about fifteen dioceses.(5) In Africa also there is a growing interest for the Extraordinary Form; recently Roger McCaffrey shipped to Nigeria fifty copies of the Missal of 1962, which he had reprinted through his publishing company Roman Catholic Books.
A fundamental element of interpretation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum can be found in many previous statements of the Holy Father on the proper interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. This is very important because many of the persons that have a distorted view of that Council are the ones that have opposed the implementation of the Motu Proprio. These were persons that had interpreted the II Vatican Council as a call for a dynamic of constant change in the Church, as it was denounced by the Blessed John Paul II. (6)
This concern was very well explained by Benedict XVI in his address to the Roman Curia of December 22nd 2005.(7) In this address he contrasted two ways of interpreting the II Vatican Council: a hermeneutic of discontinuity and a hermeneutic of renewal in the continuity. He points out that “The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.” But as the Holy Father explains within a hermeneutic of continuity the Church “is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.” This address is in total continuity with his previous thinking, some years before in a very important work Cardinal Ratzinger had stated, “The Council has not created any new matter for belief, let alone replaced an old belief with a new one.”(8) Here in a very pithy statement we have the essence of his distinction between Hermeneutic of discontinuity and Hermeneutic of Continuity. Some years later, Cardinal Ratzinger speaking about this Council to the Chilean Bishops in July of 1988 stated, “The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.” (9)
This lead us to see how as Nicola Bux points out that the crisis of the liturgy is caused by an ecclesiology of rupture instead of an ecclesiology of continuity.(10) A clear case of these types of mistakes can be found in the work of Fr Paolo Farinella, The Return to the Ancient Mass. (11) He states that the Motu Proprio is not acceptable because it reintroduces in the Church an ecclesiology that was left aside by the new ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. He underlines that, each Missal is connected with a different type of ecclesiology. The point that this author or others similar to him, are unable to demonstrate is that the Council introduced a new ecclesiology in the Church.
Important statements of interpretation of the Motu Proprio are contained also in the Letter of Benedict XVI to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, Concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre of March 10th, 2009. He affirms that, “The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society.”(12) (Referring to the Society of Saint Pius X.) This is a self evident statement, we can mention as examples the Encyclical Humanae Vitae of Paul VI or the Apostolic Letter of Blessed John Paul II Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone,
but is also obvious that II Vatican Council requires a precise interpretation within a proper hermeneutic of continuity.
Speaking about the right interpretation of the Council in the letter to Bishops the Pope stated, “But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.” This is stated by the Holy Father because many that opposed the lifting of the excommunications had espoused a hermeneutic of discontinuity with the tradition of the Church. As consequence they were opposing this gesture of reconciliation of the Holy Father because they are against the reaffirmation of the fullness of the doctrinal treasures of the Church and of the restoration of the traditional liturgy which is part of this treasure.

In this letter the Holy Father shows with anguished tones that the biggest external challenge that the Church has is that, “In vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God.” In this challenge we have also the particular call of the Lord for us in out times. We will be able to be strong missionaries again if we make our own the entire doctrinal and liturgical treasury of the Church and we offer it to the many that today are walking in darkness and in the shadows of death.
Cardinal Domenico Bertolucci, the greatest living musician of the Church at concert where his compositions were played in the presence of the Holy Father in the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo on Agust 31st made very explicit declarations on the value of the immemorial liturgy of the Church: “Then, the times unfortunately changed. But today, a true a proper reawakening by so many young people, who wish to relive the beauty of the Latin Mass and the greater spiritual fruit derived from it, can be noticed with great satisfaction; this is great, a very great comfort. And it makes us hope for a liturgical future certainly desired by Your Holiness. We thank the Lord, which he may help all those who are working for seriousness in sacred music. I firmly trust that, we the help of God, a true return to the bimillenary tradition of sacred music will take place.” (13)

Introduction
The Instruction in its opening statement affirms the very basic truth that, “The Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of the Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XVI given Motu Proprio on 7 July 2007, which came into effect on 14 September 2007, has made the richness of the Roman Liturgy more accessible to the Universal Church.” Against the negative interpretations mentioned above, that try to ignore this document it is reaffirmed that the Motu Proprio is a universal law of the Church.(14) As such it granted rights and duties to all the faithful of the Latin Church. It is very important to reaffirm this because in some places the right of the faithful to accede to the traditional Mass is still treated like a gracious indult that the local ordinary can grant or deny at will. At the same time it should be noted that under the previous legal system of the indult, an episcopal refusal was in disagreement with the Papal exhortation contained in the Motu Proprio Ecclessia Dei of providing a generous application of the contents of that document. One of the reasons that lead to the promulgation of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was this lack of generous application of the previous Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei. The Motu Proprio should be considered also a “special law” that derogates all the liturgical norms that are contrary to the rubrics of the 1962 missal, when this is missal is used today. The Instruction states “Furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962.” (15)

The traditional principle of the unity of the Liturgy is highlighted in n. 3, “The Holy Father, having recalled the concern of the Sovereign Pontiffs in caring for the Sacred Liturgy and in their recognition of liturgical books, reaffirms the traditional principle, recognized from time immemorial and necessary to be maintained into the future, that “each particular Church must be in accord with the universal Church not only regarding the doctrine of the faith and sacramental signs, but also as to the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition. These are to be maintained not only so that errors may be avoided, but also so that the faith may be passed on in its integrity, since the Church’s rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her rule of belief (lex credendi).” The Holy Father had reaffirmed this principle in the second paragraph of the introduction of the Motu Proprio. This fundamental principle has been severely challenged by the real way in which the missal of Paul VI has been implemented. Cardinal Ratzinger in 1998 pointed out, “The free space which the new order of Mass gives to creativity it must be admitted, is often excessively enlarged. The difference between the liturgy with the new liturgical books, as it is actually practiced and celebrated in various places is often much greater than the difference between the old and new liturgies when celebrated according to the rubrics of the liturgical books.”(16) I remember well the comment of a faithful that had attended four different masses at an American city some years ago; he told to me that he felt he had attended four different religions. We also have the abuses that are committed in many places giving priority to local costumes under the guise of enculturation and that also have damaged the sense of unity of the liturgy. This was a problem that Blessed John Paul II saw with concern. (17)

Those excesses lead Blessed John Paul II to warn in 1989 “Let nothing in the celebration of the Liturgy disrupt or obscure this unity of the Church!”(18) In the same document he noted that some “have promoted outlandish innovations, departing from the norms issued by the authority of the Apostolic See or the bishops, thus disrupting the unity of the Church and the piety of the faithful and even on occasion contradicting matters of faith.”(19) Blessed John Paul II proceeds afterwards to provide a detailed list of the erroneous applications of the post-conciliar reforms.(20) The condemnation of these abuses was reiterated by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum of March 25th 2004. As this instruction points out in some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses have become almost habitual.(21) So taking into account the amount of liturgical abuses that have marred the implementation of the new liturgy, the complaint of the opponents of the Motu Proprio that the re-introduction of the traditional liturgy could damage the liturgical unity of the Church seems to be very inadequate.

Both the Motu Proprio in its first article and the Instruction in art. 6 contain the principle of equivalence between the both forms of the Latin Rite. The Instruction states, “The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI and the last edition prepared under Pope John XXIII, are two forms of the Roman Liturgy, defined respectively as ordinaria and extraordinaria: they are two usages of the one Roman Rite, one alongside the other. Both are the expression of the same lex orandi of the Church. On account of its venerable and ancient use, the forma extraordinaria is to be maintained with appropriate honor.” This principle give us a solid legal ground to request that the extraordinary form should be given the same treatment as the ordinary form and should not suffer any type of negative discrimination. At the same time taking into account the history of the liturgy it seems difficult that we could place at the same level a missal that has a long tradition of organic development and the new missal. As Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out, “One of the weaknesses of the postconciliar liturgical reform can doubtless be traced to the armchair strategy of academics, drawing up things on paper which, in fact, would presuppose years of organic growth.”(22) Also we have to consider, as Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos pointed out, that it is possible to sustain that the ancient rite expresses better the sense of the sacrifice of Christ that is represented in every Holy Mass. (23)
The art. 8th of the introduction of the Instruction contains important interpretative elements: First it underlines the magisterial importance of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum declaring that it was issued as part of the competence of the Holy Father to regulate the Liturgy and establishes the aims of this law.
“a. offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure to be preserved;” So this shows that the effective preservation of the Usus Antiquior is part and parcel the of the Hermeneutic of Continuity of Benedict XVI.
“b. effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it, given that the use of the 1962 Roman Liturgy is a faculty generously granted for the good of the faithful and therefore is to be interpreted in a sense favourable to the faithful who are its principal addressees;” This clause establish the principle that in the case of doubt always it has to be interpreted in a favourable way to the petitioners of the traditional Mass and no obstacles should be placed in its celebration.
“c. promoting reconciliation at the heart of the Church.” It is important to reach reconciliation with groups that are in a more or less in an imperfect canonical situation. It is important also to reach pacification between different groups within the Church that are at odds on liturgical and on theological questions. But more important than all of that, is to build a reconciliation of the members of the Church with their own liturgical tradition, with their common memory and identity so that we can rediscover our permanent liturgical identity in the riches that were built in the past through the constant action of the Holy Spirit and can be carefully and organically developed with a sense of faithful continuity until the Second Coming of the Lord. (24)
There has been some concern on the name used to call the older liturgy. In these documents it is called Extraordinary Form and also “Antiquior Usus” (the “more ancient use”). Some commentators have pointed out that the name “extraordinary” is pejorative. If we read objectively both the Summorum Pontificum and the Instruction there is no way that this concern can be proven. But nevertheless it can be stated that the term “extraordinary” places the traditional rite in a certain condition of inferiority with regards to the ordinary form, because this denomination seems to underlines that the “normal” form is the missal of Paul VI, so it might be prudent to use a different name. This perceived inferiority can injure the legal equivalency as proclaimed in art. 6th of the Instruction. The documents refer also to the traditional rite as the “Antiquior Usus” (the “more ancient use”) so we could use that name more frequently. But even “Antiquior Usus” as a denomination has the limitations that it could be construed as somewhat like an object taken from a museum, so we should explore options to find an appropriate denomination. One possibility is to call it the Latin-Gregorian Liturgy as it has been denominated in the inform of the Ecclesia Dei Commission published in the report “The Activities of the Holy See 2010”. (25)
The Responsibilities of the Ecclesia Dei Commission
The Instruction spells out the powers of the Commission as granted by previous legislation and in particular articles 11 and 12 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.(26) The Commission has received ordinary vicarious power for the matters within its competence, to monitor the observance and application of the provisions of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. (27)

In the instruction it is underlined that the Commission has the power to decide upon recourses legitimately sent to it, as hierarchical Superior, against any possible singular or general administrative provisions of an Ordinary, either bishops or religious superiors, that appear to be contrary to the Motu Proprio.(28) As an example we can mention that the Commission might receive a complain against a diocesan decree that places illegal limits to the access of the faithful to the extraordinary form. We can mention as an example of this type of illegal decree the Guidelines Regarding Celebration the Extraordinary Form of the Mass published by the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, in the U.S.(29) We should also notice with gratitude that those Guidelines were withdrawn and they were substituted in the diocesan web-site by the publication of the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, after concerned persons expressed their perplexity to the Diocesan authorities.

Taking into account the vicarious powers that Commission has received it is evident that it can examine administrative decisions of ordinaries with out receiving the legal recourses against them. The decrees by which the Pontifical Commission decides recourses may be challenged before the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.(30) We sincerely hope that with these new and enhanced powers the Commission will be able to come to the assistance of many faithful that so far are deprived of the traditional Mass.

Liturgical Regulatory Responsibilities of the Commission
The instruction establishes that the Commission, “After having received the approval from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will have the task of looking after future editions of liturgical texts pertaining to the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite.”(31) The Holy Father in his Letter to the Bishops on the occasion of the publication of the Motu Proprio had announced that new saints and some of the new Prefaces would be inserted in the 1962 Missal.(32) To implement this desire of the Holy Father the Instruction gives this responsibility of the Commission.(33) A Vatican publication, “The Activities of the Holy See 2010” has just informed that a joint commission was set up, with experts of the commission “Ecclesia Dei” and of the Congregation for Divine Worship, for the “updating” of the commemorations of the saints and the “possible insertion of new prefaces” into the Missal of 1962.(34) We can clearly see that the inclusion of new saints and prefaces shows that the usus antiquior is not a museum piece but a living and organic reality that will grow and develop.

In the introduction of the news saints a particular respect should be given to popular piety to avoid the mistakes that were made with the new calendar, a point that forcefully made by Cardinal Ratzinger.(35) With regards to the incorporation of the new saints some particularities of the traditional 1962 calendar would need to be taken into account. To give an example, the feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe is celebrated on August 14th, as an obligatory memorial, which is equivalent to a Third Class feast on 1962 Calendar. On that date on the 1962 calendar we have the Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is a Second Class Feast, so as a consequence if the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe were to be introduced on the same date it will be permanently impeded because it will always be superseded by the Vigil. The feast of Padre Pio of Pietralcina is on September 23rd and certainly many faithful in Italy will be very glad if he were incorporated into the 1962 calendar. At the same time I would strongly suggest that it should be done keeping also in that date the feast of the second Pope of the Church, St. Linus whose feast is now celebrated in the 1962 Missal on that same date. Also I am in favor of keeping in that same date the Commemoration of Saint Tecla Virgin and Martyr to whom there is ancient devotion in Italy and in other parts of the world. With regards to the prefaces I have gone through some of the additional prefaces contained in the traditional missal that is used in France and they are very much worthy of being incorporated into the 1962 Missal.

This article of the Instruction has also a very positive implication because it assures that no other changes will be introduced in the 1962 Missal. It assures that the lectionary of this Missal will not be changed save the cases when a new saint is introduced and the new propers for this saint will have their own biblical readings, which in itself is a positive non objectionable development. It should be evident also that in the introduction of propers for new saints the structure and style of the 1962 missal has to be respected.

Specific Norms
This instruction is issued in accordance with Can. 34 of the Code of Canon Law to be a proper interpretation and lead to the correct application of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.(36)

The competence of the Diocesan Bishops

With regards to the competence of the Diocesan Bishops, the Instruction reaffirms the principle that according to Canon Law, they have to monitor liturgical matters in order to guarantee the common good and to ensure that everything is proceeding in peace and serenity in their Dioceses. It is underlined in this document that this has to be done always in agreement with the mens (mind) of the Holy Father as it was clearly expressed by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. It reaffirms what we have seen above that “In cases of controversy or well-founded doubt about the celebration in the forma extraordinaria, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will adjudicate.” (37)

(To be continued)

Genuflection

I have to confess that I don’t appreciate the word “ritual.” But I love the rite. Ritual – that’s often nothing more than the understandable attempt to bring structure again into an unraveling world. Usually, however, one perceives the contrived nature of it. “Introduce some new rituals” recommends the website “gofeminin” in the case of lovesickness “for which time was always lacking in the past. On Sundays go have brunch with your girlfriends or cook dinner together one evening.”
A yearning for stable forms is certainly present, but the answers that are offered are banal. Their meaning doesn’t extend beyond normal leisure planning with this one difference: that one thinks that by practicing them regularly one can stabilize oneself spiritually. And one thing more: a rite is more than a mere intellectual operation; the body participates too. One can gather from the “Theological Encyclopedia” that Christian modernizers also have developed “new rituals.” At the side of the wedding ceremony now stand – please note, religious – “divorce rituals.” Even the entry into menopause can be accompanies by a ritual of the Church. On the protestant side there has to be a kind of neurotic rite–envy or solemnity complex vis-a-vis Catholics and Orthodox. Otherwise these experiments are unexplainable.
And yet there could be things that are more beautiful and a more serious and reverent as well. To kneel down is just such a simple gesture – one in which everything is meaningful. It is traditional and in the one or the other variation distributed all over the world. Humility is the proper attitude towards God. The epistle of Paul to the Philippians views kneeling as the spiritual version of the profession of faith. ”So that before the name of Jesus every knee shall bend in heaven, on earth and under the earth.” I know an old man whom I admire every Sunday when I see him kneeling with his back ramrod straight. This gesture in its simplicity and universality, however, doesn’t appear to be enough for many people.
I go to another Protestant website. It is called “Faith ABC” and run by the Lutheran Church – thus, it is somewhat official. But between “cloisters” and “collect” I can’t find the word “Kneel” ( Translator: all 3 words begin with “k” in German). A second attempt with the word “genuflection” also leads nowhere. Only the extremely traditionalist “Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church”, a kind of Pius X Society of Protestantism, deliberately fosters kneeling. Everything that came of the Reformation at Geneva, from Calvin, however, put an end to genuflection.
Humility, faith and obedience go together. The pride of autonomy doesn’t belong here. And no rite can bring blessings that can’t be performed on bended knee.

The Easter Alleluia

The alleluia acclamation contains the praise of God as imperative: “Praise the Lord!” it is woven frequently into the psalms. In the New Testament, strangely enough, one finds the alleluia only a single time. In the 19th chapter of Revelation John depicts a vision: “Afterwards I heard something like the mighty voice of a great host in heaven: Alleluia! Salvation and glory and the power are with our God!”

Here is celebrated and praised the destruction of the city of Babylon, the “great Harlot” who has now been “judged.” Then, as with the “roaring of many waters” and the “rolling of mighty thunder” John hears the call once more: “Alleluia! For the Lord, our God, the Ruler of the universe, has become King.” Depicted here is the dramatic image of a spiritual war and victory.

While in American and especially Pentecostal Protestantism the joyful acclamation of “Halleluiah” is always present and left to the spontaneity of the congregation, in the Catholic Church it has a very specific place and is intoned as sparingly as in the New Testament. In Eastertide, which of course does not end with Easter Sunday, the alleluia has an importance unlike any other time in the Church year. The resurrection of Christ is the ultimate victory. Here joy has its proper place and necessity. Now in Eastertide, everything is interwoven with the ever recurring “alleluia”.

But the formulaic divine praise is not the only element of the divine service that has its exemplar as above. The threefold “Sanctus”, another part of the liturgy, derives from a vision of the prophet Isaiah. He sees the Lord “sitting on a lofty and exalted throne, his train fills the sanctuary.” Around Him stand the Seraphim, high angels, who ever and always call to each other: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the entire earth is filled with his glory.”

And from this one can start to derive a philosophy of the liturgy. It is, in essential parts, absolutely not the work of man but an imitation of a heavenly chant, and, in addition, the imitation of a heavenly event. A liturgy is “good” to the extent that it is less “made,” to the extent that it sees as its mission to make understandable to man this origin from above. Creativity and construction may be always desirable – here they would be misplaced.
One could almost say that this philosophy of the liturgy resembles in many aspects ancient paganism. As the Chinese emperor imitated the course of heaven by his strictly regulated ritual gait and thus renewed the harmony of heaven and earth, so should the liturgy comport itself – without an emperor, but with another King.

What does it mean to love Jesus?

I have read Karl Rahner’s short essay “What does it mean to love Jesus?” for the second time after twenty five years. Once again in every line I have the impression that here speaks an eminent thinker in theology. And yet the book remains for me as strange as it did then. Is it the fault of the language, which in ever renewed cascades talks of the “unconditional” and the “radical,” as does existentialism? Have we been washed so thoroughly in the waters of postmodern irony that we have lost our appreciation for this kind of grandiloquent discourse, or is something else involved?

Rahner relates a conversation with a Protestant theologian. “Then I said to him: Yes, you see, in reality one only has something to do with Jesus if one falls around His neck and recognizes in the depths of one’s own existence that something like this is possible also today.” I have here the feeling that I can’t follow this. It smacks of ranting, heated indiscretion – pious, if you like, but also very German. The gestures of closeness, of which the New Testament speaks, appear to be rather more unobtrusive and delicate.

In the 13th chapter of the Gospel according to John a scene from the last supper is handed down. Immediately preceding is the emotional turmoil of Jesus in the face of the impending treason. “One of his disciples lay at the table at the side of Jesus; it was he whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter gestured to him to ask whom Jesus meant. He leaned back on the breast of Jesus and asked Him: Lord, who is it?” Art has often depicted this moment; now and then with the addition that John – for it was he “that Jesus loved” rests his hand on the hand of the Lord.

Now, in principle that doesn’t change anything regarding the appropriateness of the question set forth in the title of Rahner’s essay. The resurrected Christ Himself asks it of Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others? He answered Him: yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him: Feed my sheep!” He repeats the question two more times. Peter answers as well as he can, and both times he received the mission: “Feed my sheep!” What is demanded is not an expressive answer in a dramatic gesture but faithfulness in the fulfillment of an apostolic office.
One could say that the New Testament answers Rahner’s question with a slight shift to the institutional, in which the personal has to prove itself. The command to love Jesus is possibly not meant as a summons to immediate, direct revelation. For one loves Jesus, and orients one’s life to Him first, in prayer, and then in the reception of the sacraments. But Rahner wanted the starting point for answering his question to be not so much in the organized Church but in the individual man. Therefore for him theology finally became humanized – faith became “trust” and the death on the Cross “solidarity”.

The Sign of the Antichrist

In the last book of the bible we encounter again old acquaintances who, however, have grown larger. The snake of the first book of the Bible has become a dragon. The twelve tribes of the chosen people have been transformed into the 12 times 12 times one thousand (or 144, 000) saved. And while earlier, in the times of Isaiah and Jeremiah, there arose only counter-preachers and false prophets, we now meet, after the appearance of the Messiah, his negative as well: the Antichrist. He is as similar to Jesus as a parody is to the original. Christ appeared in the image of the lamb, the Antichrist as the beast which rises from the sea. And he can also show a miraculous cure – of himself.

The Revelation of John is a difficult book. It can lead to false applications to the present age of the images of the end of the world. This was Luther’s attitude. He knew exactly what he was talking about in the sectarian and revolutionary epoch of the reformation, when “fanatics and mobs” found particular inspiration in this book.

There are, however, serious reflections concerning the apocalyptic signs. The Russian religious philosopher Vladimir Soloviev wrote more than a hundred years ago his “ Short Tale of the Antichrist.” We stop short, however, right at the word “serious.” For Soloviev’s work, a negative utopia of our twenty-first century which can be easily compared to Orwell’s “1984,” is also just as witty and wise as one would expect from an author schooled in Gogol and the literary grotesque.
The Antichrist appears as the inspired benefactor of mankind. He has written a trailblazing work that will solve all problems: “The Open Way to Peace and Prosperity for the World.” The United States of Europe has been set up for a long time now and even a secular-progressive world empire has arisen. Now – it is in the year 2077 – the emperor and Antichrist summons a council in Jerusalem. He promises to each religion what it most desires. Except for one thing: the heart of the matter.

Orthodoxy receives a great “World Museum of Christian Archeology “in Constantinople for its icons and liturgical rites. He promises to the Protestants, who have arrived with a delegation of prominent scholars from the University of Tübingen, a “World Institute for the Free Investigation of the Scriptures.” After all, the theology department of Tübingen had just awarded him an honorary doctorate. Finally, the Antichrist wants to tempt the Catholics with the principle of authority, which he himself naturally incorporates. A universal “civil religion,” totally of his own making and backed up by electronic miracles, shall become the new faith.

Pope Benedict XVI in his most recent book “Jesus of Nazareth” has strongly stressed this deeply serious joke of Soloviev. A splendidly staged, but gutted religion: is this the sign of the Antichrist?

The Divine Service and the Community

The interior history told by the Old Testament is very simple despite all the colorful and often, in the details, confusing twists and turns. The idea of God becomes clearer in successive stages against continuous resistance and relapses. The divine service takes shape and finally the house of God is built. Even in the time of the Judges we are still dealing with the Ark of the Covenant which recalls the forty years in the desert and the time of the tents.
David, as King, first made Jerusalem to the center of the cult, and it was only his son Solomon who had the temple built. This is the culmination of the Old Testament – all the rest is decline, Babylonian captivity and then the restoration of the temple by Ezra. The Maccabees defend the temple one last time against desecration by foreign powers and purify it. The visions and images of the prophets also proclaim only one thing: the rebuilt house of God on Mount Zion and the return of the house of David.
The divine worship is fixed in the smallest details, beginning with the garments of the priests (which material may be used for them and which not?) and the diadems which crown them. How the curtain before the Ark of the Covenant should appear and what colors it should have. How the candelabra and the brazen basin should be formed. How the sacrifices are celebrated and how the priests are consecrated. In the construction of the temple by Solomon the form, dimensions and precious metals are also precisely specified. Nothing is optional; rather, each aspect is carefully thought out.
Whoever makes the effort to read these parts of the Old Testament dealing with worship and house of God – which may at first seem superficial- cannot escape a feeling of admiration. He overviews a good thousand year period in which an understanding of worship first takes shape and then is defended against all resistance.
After the canon of the Scriptures had been concluded, Jesus appears, the fulfillment of all that has been prophesied. The worship of God is once again dealt with in the Acts of the Apostles and in the epistles. Here one encounters the word “Sacred Tradition” which is to be preserved.
One can now form a judgment of the distance that separates us from the Old and the New Testaments. Recently we saw on the concrete walls of a church in Frankfurt paper images of the Passion made mostly by children. A sign encourages one to bring in home-baked goods which, after being blessed, can serve as hosts. The community wants to have itself and its creativity appreciated; the priest should look at them. It has long ceased to be a question of technical liturgical issues. We are encountering another philosophy. It is the humanistic democracy which will probably emerge as the victor from the liturgical wars.

Worship and Nature

Religious worship in the ancient world not only organized itself by instituting a calendar and prayers but also by nature – it distinguished the realms of the “clean” and “unclean.” Yet this was not intended to be a matter of hygiene in the contemporary sense.

The 21 chapter of Leviticus, the third book of Moses, sets forth the strict rules that the Lord promulgated for the priesthood. “If one of your descendants in future generations has a bodily defect he may not approach to offer the sacrifice to his God. Then no one may approach who has a bodily defect, no one who is blind or lame or mutilated; no one who has a limb too long; no one who has a broken arm or leg; no one who is hunch backed or consumptive; no one who has white spots in his eye or who suffers from scabies, scurvy or hernia.”

Admittedly that is a very extreme quotation. It indicates, however, that man originally started from the idea of an interconnected cosmos, in which the Creator could make demands upon the nature of creatures. Now if there is a supportable concept of the “modern,” it would state the exact opposite. We can summarize its position as follows: between nature and worship the greatest possible distance should be established; the two spheres should not touch at any point and no element of one should be used as an argument to substantiate the other. In other words, the book of Leviticus has become foreign to us not only in its details but also in its claim to issue rules, based on the divine cult, which intrude into nature.

Therefore all the questions and topics that critics advance against the Catholic and Orthodox Churches – the ordination of women, the blessing of homosexual couples, the admission of homosexual priests – at the end of the day relate back to the one question whether theology has any kind of jurisdiction in the natural sphere, whether criteria for admission and exclusion can be obtained from nature itself. Viewed philosophically, opinions part company here.

Jürgen Habermas calls this development the “reduction of the sacred to speech” and assesses it very positively as the very beginning of modernization and rationalization. In the place of ritual sanctity stepped the “liberation of communicative action from sacrally protected normative contexts.” “The exorcising power of the sacred becomes the unitive power of claims to validity that are subject to criticism.”

If one really wants to discuss the current issues that are rocking the Church, he must start almost from the very beginning, especially with philosophy. He has to make at least conceivable that ritual can make demands on nature

Incense and Myrrh

Incense is not a question of faith, it has probably never been the object of dogma. On the other hand it is a part of religion, yes, of almost all religions – thus of the principle of religion, just like candles. Not only the Church, but also Shintoists in Japan, Brahmans in India and Buddhists all over Asia use incense. The “scent of sanctity” is evidently indispensable in this matter.

The Old Testament already provided detailed rules for the service of incensation even during the wandering in the desert, even before the construction of the temple. The book of Exodus describes the splendid altar of incense, still portable in the time of the tents and of the forty years’ wandering. It was made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold. “For this purpose he prepared the sacred oil and the pure fragrant incense as prepared by the apothecaries.” When the Magi bring gold frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Child they were no doubt thinking of anointing and altar.

But why is incense used? If we turn to a treatise of Plutarch to get information from an ancient author who himself was a priest of the mysteries, we experience an initial surprise. For precisely mysteriousness is absent here. Plutarch is a reasonable man, enlightened by the standards of his time. He resolves the entire Egyptian system of rites according to natural philosophy. He explains the daily incensations by noting that the “Egyptian priests always place the greatest value on measures that promote health.”

Air, grown stale through breathing – “ at once gloomy and heavy” – is purified and ventilated by incensation with resin. The “pneuma” – the soul – which inhabits the body is aroused from its weariness. Towards noon the priests then disperse the humidity, the “mucky,” with myrrh. But as so often with reasonable speech, that which is intended to be explained is not. Rather, reasonable explanations are superimposed after the fact.

The biblical explanation is otherwise. Incense and prayer are in an intimate relationship, they are, so to say, the same thing projected on different screens. “May my prayer arise before Thee like incense” says psalm 141. The missal adds an echo to this: “May my prayer, O Lord, be directed like incense before Thy countenance.” John in Revelations relates a vision which clarifies the interrelationship and even the identity of each element: “each bore a harp and a golden bowl full of incense; these are the prayers of the saints.”

In opposition to such a service, comprehensible by the senses, there always arises the endeavor to radically clear out the stage of the sacred. Whoever wants that should know that he is separating himself not just from an arbitrary custom specific to one confession but in this case from a universal religious action.

The Beauty of Thy House

You are visiting the Frankfurt center of an American-style Protestant sect. The assembly hall would remind you of the local community center if a great black cross hadn’t been set up in front above the stage. It is set off somewhat from the wall and behind it shimmers blue neon light. An altar can’t be seen.

This place thus really reminds the visitor of the democratic origin of many small protestant churches. What is striking is the meteoric growth of these religions of American origin since globalization has picked up speed. Simplicity and immediacy of the teachings, and an undemanding theology are the secrets of success

But even before you even begin to address the theology of the group, the hall itself stops you. The sacred has to express itself differently, so you think, and neon, the hard and cold light of the New Objectivity, is out of place. It doesn’t correspond at all to the inward light that after all should arise.

These reflections are not superficial, faithless aestheticism. “I love, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, the noble dwelling of Thy Glory” says Psalm 26. But how should one represent glory? Should it only refer to the sacredness of the word, without a thought for the external? Admittedly Psalm 93, that takes up once again the word “beauty,” can suggest this interpretation. In Luther’s translation it reads: “Thy word is true doctrine. Holiness is the eternally the adornment of Thy house.” According to this it could appear that the word of doctrine is adornment enough.

But the religions, when they arose in the ancient world, never thought this way. All sought their own form of splendor appropriate for the sacred. And perhaps most impressively of all in the Revelation of John, in the vision of the New Jerusalem. The whole last book of the Bible is a just a cascade of splendors: all that is sacred is bathed in white and gold. One image follows upon another because one alone cannot comprehend the vision.

And then there is the city walled about by precious jewel jasper. It is itself “of pure Gold, like pure glass.” The heart of the vision is the supernatural light of holiness. The city has no more need of a sun, it has reached God and is itself entirely a temple – and thus doesn’t contain one anymore.

It is adorned with twelve kinds of precious stones. And in addition, there are pearls. When you read the Apocalypse, you have at the end the impression that the utterly precious is the essence of glory. Even the most radical Protestantism of the Word cannot cancel out this impression. But from it flow consequences for the aesthetics of churches. Whoever wants holiness cannot be silent about beauty.

What it isn’t

Every Blessing has something solemn about it. The blessing of the Church accompanies stages in the life of the faithful, the blessing of the parent the life of the children. A blessing has protective and sanctifying effects. That which has been blessed must on its side fulfill specific demands. At a minimum it must admit the solemnity of the blessing. One doesn’t bless a cabaret, a carnival or a “Love Parade.” And what of a parade on Christopher Street Day? The blessing of same sex couples as made possible by the Lutheran church of Hessen-Nassau poses a crucial test or the churches. Representative Erika Steinbach left this church. In other parts of Germany as well this topic is creating unrest. The Protestant church of the Pfalz (translator: the Palatinate) has announced in Speyer that it will develop its own liturgy “to accompany same-sex couples in the divine service.”
In this controversy it is worth examining the theories developed by active homosexuals and lesbians, like Judith Butler. In the internal discussions of homosexuals and lesbians those forms of personal identity which contain an element of parody enjoy the greatest respect. Those, for example, in which there is a difference between the anatomy and the played out gender role – like what a transvestite makes fun of. The merry or funny – the English expression is “gay” – is typical of many homosexual self–portraits. Almost forty years ago Susan Sontag named the homosexual style “camp.” “It is the love for the exaggerated, the crazy, the “everything is what it isn’t.” Esther Newton, another lesbian theorist, writes: “My “external” appearance (my body, my sexual identity) is feminine – but my inner essence (within me myself) is masculine.” A blessing that is given to a parody does not remain uninfluenced by it. At sometime or other it can itself become a gay “everything is what it isn’t.”

Avalon isn’t Rome

There are priestesses in mediocre fantasy literature. To be sure, the ancient world also knew of priestesses. These were, however, occupied exclusively with the cult of female deities. The “pontifex maximus” after all always remained a man. Or, the origin of a sanctuary was linked to an earth mother, like the Greek site of the oracle of Delphi, where Pythia, induced into a trance by vapors emanating from a crack in the earth, declared the universal will.

Because the Old Testament had no goddesses it had no priestesses. The New Testament took over this exclusion. In the First Epistle to Timothy the Apostle Paul stated: “A women should accept instruction silently in all subjection. I do not permit a woman to teach. She also should not desire to rule over the man but should be still. For Adam was created first and then Eve. And Adam was not seduced but the woman let herself be seduced and it came to the fall.”

This passage is not an isolated one. Its views are not limited to Paul but are shared by Peter. An explanation of the evident inequality could possibly be that precisely the young Church wanted to concentrate totally on proclaiming the gospel and avoid additional areas of conflict with the in many other respects difficult non-Christian environment. But this supposed pure pragmatism would once again eliminate the biblical explanations plausible to the early community.

The positive model of the Old Testament is Sarah, the spouse of the patriarch Abraham. She is even named in praise “the Lady.” But it is precisely Sarah whose beneficent actions were limited to the interior realm of the family. She never appeared outside – for example, in political negotiations. With Eve, however – so the thought may have gone – this division of tasks had been distorted. She took over, even usurped the exterior relationships with disastrous results.

In the meantime, the voices are growing from circles of Catholic laity demanding the ordination of women. The best known, but certainly not the only, advocate of this reform is Hans Küng. Canon law is clear: “Only a baptized man can receive holy orders.” The problem facing the Church is dramatic. If she only refers to traditional practice and relies on no better reasons, she can certainly exclude women from the priesthood another fifty years. At some time, though, the walls will break. On the other hand, she could decide on a real, philosophical, anthropological and biblically founded explanation for her position – one that contradicts any kind of equality. This however, would lead to a conflict with everything that is taught today about sexual and even more so gender differences. There isn’t a third way.

Julien Green in Church

Are the supporters of the traditional liturgy in the Catholic Church motivated by a frivolous and thus totally non-religious aestheticism? Let’s recall that in the early seventies it was above all men of aesthetic judgment who rejected the post-conciliar liturgical renewal – among them famous names like the authors Jorge Luis Borges and Evelyn Waugh, an artist close to surrealism like Giorgio Chirico and the film directors Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson. Isn’t it evident that it was only an elite circle which basically remained aloof from the “people of God?”

On the other hand, they were serious. They contemplated the form without which even the most revered content dissipates. The most moving witness of concern for the Church is found in the diaries of the French – American Author Julien Green (1900-1998). Among the spiritual practices of a layman attending church should be foremost. Now Green was a great visitor of churches – one can hardly find a comparable spiritual diary. He who had learned Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament had a hard time with his skepticism regarding the reforms. He noted in July 1976: “the mass in French – I will try to accustom myself to it, perhaps love it. “ But he doesn’t succeed – he feels repelled.

On June 15, 1976 he records, after a visit in ht chapel of the Rue Cortambert, that the sisters don’t sing anymore; “The birds don’t sing in winter – winter has come to the Church.” What he was seeking was a liturgical form that makes present the mystery. So he begins to turn his gaze to the churches of the East. They were not foreign to him, since even as a boy he had taken part in a service in which prayers were offered for the recovery of the Tsarevitsch. Here among the Russians and the Ukrainians – and also among the Armenians whose church he had vested during a trip to Iran – he finds what is threatening to disappear in his own church. He doesn’t hesitate to call it the “poetic.” Everyone who has once participated in an Orthodox service knows what Green was speaking of. What is external is precisely not he superficial. And anyone talking of “aestheticism” should grow reflective on reading Green’s description of the deep singing voices of the Ukrainians. He hears a thundering that creates an inner turmoil, which “touches and vivifies the oldest faith of all – that of the child to whom the Kingdom of Heaven opens.

When people speak of “ecumenism” a German thinks mostly of the Protestant churches. In Rome other regions come into view: the Anglican world church and especially Greek and Russian Orthodoxy. And we know that Benedict XVI’s gaze is especially directed to the East.

Copyright 2011 by Lorenz Jäger

Catholic Traditionalism from a French Perspective

There is a deeply rooted conviction among French Catholics, in particular French bishops, that Traditionalism – or as it called with a very negative innuendo « intégrisme » (integrism) – is nothing but a … French question connected with a few unpleasant political episodes of our national history during the first half of the XXth century. Scholars like Etienne Fouilloux, Philippe Levillain, Florian Michel are constantly hammering this idea. In Norwalk (CT) half of my goal is already achieved because Americans know very well they live in the Promised Land for Traditional Catholicism. To give a couple of examples of this transition from Old Europe to the New World : two personal parishes and one quasi-parish, the latter in my home diocese of Strasbourg, have been established before Summorum Pontificum and nothing has changed since when the number of personal parishes in Northern America is nearly ten times more and one has been established in Rome in 2008. At its birth, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter was mainly French though a German-Swiss priest was appointed superior general, Fr Bisig ; then Fr Devillers, a Frenchman, was appointed as superior general but he was before superior of the American district and finally, in 2006, Fr Berg, an American, was elected at the helm of the F.S.S.P.
Before looking at the present Traditional landscape in France, which is nicknamed « Tradiland », it is necessary to expose this controversial historical legacy that is still having effects today. Then we’ll be able to suggest some perspectives for the coming years.

A controversial historical legacy

If France played her part in the original integrist network of Msgr Benigni (1) under Saint Pius X, code named La Sapinière or Sodalitium Pianum, French Catholicism paid a much bigger tribute to Charles Maurras (1868-1952) and his movement Action Française (French Action) mainly between the early XXth and the 1940’s. To smear French trads with the infamous label of « Maurrassiens » is the most common way to dodge their legitimate questions and requests, just like it is to consider Bishop Williamson’s negationist statements to be reflecting the official position of the Society – following the U.S. use to speak of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X. Why ?

Charles Maurras has been an intellectual luminary for the Far-Right as soon as the 1900’s when he gave a second life to the Monarchist movement infusing it with a strong nationalism, antisemitism and a passion for authority. But this admirer of the Roman Church was himself an agnostic and expressed fierce contempt for the growing aspirations called « Social Gospel » – re Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. To provide an illustration of this influence suffice it to say that the young François Mitterand, future Socialist French president, raised in a very Catholic family, found in the 1930’s Paris an accommodation in a student home controlled by Action Française ; when he converted to Catholicism with his wife Raïssa, the famous philosopher Jacques Maritain began a companionship with Action Française which ended only in 1926. Saint Pius X put some of Maurras works on the Index list in 1914 but stalled the publication of his decision because the movement was a precious ally in the fight between Church and the anticlerical Third Republic. In 1926 and 1927, Pius XI unearthed this condemnation and added the paper L’Action Française to the Index list. The movement went outlawed up to 1939. This caused a huge trauma among the French Catholic elites : families divided, Cardinal Billot deprived of his red hat, Fr Le Floch cssp removed from office as superior of the French seminary in Rome. Both Marcel Lefebvre and his elder brother René were admirers of Fr Le Floch though the future leader of the Traditionalist dissent never belonged to Action Française nor fully endorsed its philosophy.

This situation has been made even worse by three facts. During the Second World War, Maurrassians sided with the Vichy regime of Marshall Pétain like the young Jean Arfel (the real name of essayist Jean Madiran) or then Fr. Georges de Nantes who mistakenly took the secular collaborationist regime of Pétain for an ideal Catholic state close to the model of the Syllabus. With the Liberation of France in 1944, Maurras was sent behind bars. In the 1950’s, a hot debate opposed anticommunist « integrists » and « progressives » who were attracted by the Communist movement like the worker priests : La Pensée catholique versus Témoignage Chrétien and Fr Congar op got involved in this passionate controversy. Worse during the war of independence of Algeria (1954-1962), « integrists » were often among the most radical opponents of General de Gaulle. In 1962, when he was briefly – less than six months – bishop of Tulle, Archbishop Lefebvre paid a visit to leaders of the terrorist organisation O.A.S. imprisoned in his episcopal city. He had also in Dakar some reservation on the pace – not the principle – of the independence movement affecting French African colonies.

This political background produced a kind of informal network of clubs, associations, papers, reviews, leaflets and this existing network found with the opposition to Vatican II orientations a rejuvenation. It explains why the French Traditionalist movement began early and forcefully if we compare to Northern America. In the end of 1964, Una Voce France was created, roughly six months after the minute Una Voce Norway, and the French association assumed a very active role in the 1960’s and 1970’s : nothing today matching the strength and influence of Una Voce America. Fr de Nantes and his Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart were already at the frontline by 1963-1964 and he got his canonical penalty in 1966. It was a small group of French seminarians in Rome, like then Fr Aulagnier during a long time Assistant to Archbishop Lefebvre in the Society, that urged him to launch a new seminary first in Fribourg (CH) then in Écône (1970).
This controversial history is today largely ignored by the younger generations of trads and the name of Charles Maurras stays unknown or little known for many people.(2) The Far-Right main political party, Front National, has always been a secularist party : the companionship with some trads was/is an individual story not a massive trend. Even less with the new party chairwoman Marine Le Pen who defeated a more openly Catholic oriented challenger in her victorious battle for the succession of her father. As for Philippe de Villiers, a more conservative politician who has been playing the Catholic card during a long time, he completely and bitterly distanced himself from the Church (and the faith) last year deciding to leave political life.

Besides even among French trads affiliated to Maurras or merely influenced by him, different choices regarding the Church have been made. Fr de Nantes never joined the Society and remained until his death in a special form of dissent : very critical of the popes and of the Council, he nevertheless downplayed the liturgical opposition and allowed his disciples to attend Novus Ordo masses when it was necessary. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is one of the four bishops consecrated in 1988 in the F.S.S.P.X and whose excommunication was lifted in 2009. Jean Madiran opted for the full communion with the Holy See after the schismatic episcopal consecrations of 1988. Three « Maurrassian » Catholics, three different choices.

Above all what is pushing a still tiny minority of Catholics in France to join the rank and files of Traditionalism is certainly not a reverence for Charles Maurras, a love for dictatorship or the antisemitism of Action Française. The main reasons are to be found within the Church rather than through a specific political affiliation or questioning. Some of them do that because they’ve been educated in Traditional families and within a growing network of Traditionalist schools. But this reaches to hardly 10.000 pupils, probably less, if we combine all types of traditional schools. However a majority of priestly vocations in the Society seminaries are coming from these schools. The largest group is made of an increasing number of Joe and Jane Pew fed up with the neo-liturgical chaos which is still dominating the scene. The « litnik » – to use this picturesque neologism – establishment is still in charge and backed by most bishops : it is providing a neo-liturgical training of priests, seminarians and the local increasingly prevalent lay teams. This goes with a poor training in catechism. Cardinal Ratzinger had a fight with the French bishops in the early 1980’s about that. Technically, Pierres vivantes (Living Stones), the French episcopally approved catechism, was improved a little bit but not truly reshuffled. We can keep in mind this episode to understand why the same Cardinal Ratzinger pushed for a Roman Catechism which editio princeps in 1992 was in … the French language. Finally some Catholics are increasingly dissatisfied with the tepid stance often adopted by the French episcopal Conference (C.E.F. in French) on critical issues. French bishops are reluctant to stand up and speak out loud and in doing so embarrassing the government whether a right-wing or a left-wing administration. C.E.F. issued, like U.S.C.C.B., guidelines to help the Catholic citizens to make a choice for the 2012 general elections : its tone is softer than the American document and though controversial and specific questions (abortion, euthanasia, human cell research …) are listed, they are carefully mixed up with more consensual debates. According to some sources, the initial draft was tougher and more « Ratzingerian » but it has been toned down. Bishops stayed in the background on the newly imposed gender theory in school programs even when 80 representatives decided to protest. A handful of bishops are joining in physically a « Marche pour la vie » (marching for life) – though 10% of the diocesan bishops supported it in 2010 – organized by trads and neo-conservative Wojtylian Catholics every year and very few dioceses have a pro-life office in their chanceries. When Trads and some other Catholics decided to protest again a play where the face of Christ was covered with feces and stoned in previous performances, cardinal Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris and president of C.E.F., lashed at … the protesting Catholics claiming they are « des idiots sympathiques » (naive dummies) manipulated by the Society and o horror … Maurrassians. Later the Archbishop of Rennes, a major see, endorsed the play with an astonishing statement : « Castelluci n’est-il pas un de ces « chercheurs de Dieu », dont a parlé Benoît XVI à Assise ? » (3) As early as 2002, Archbishop Rouet and Bishop Louis endorsed the Piss Christ of Andres Serrano. The contrast between France and the U.S.A. is also striking when it comes to reprimanding high profile politicians who openly advocate for proposals openly contradicting the Church doctrine and yet keep flaunting their Catholic beliefs. Mrs Bachelot, a Catholic member of the Sarkozy administration, is, for example, a champion for gay marriage and personally responsible for supporting planned parenthood in state high schools. She has never been publicly disciplined or even warned by her bishop. Recently Frédéric Mounier of La Croix – a kind of influential French version of John Allen – was proposing this tepid stance adopted for years by the French Catholic Church as a model for Catholics in a secularist Europe. This modern Nicodemite « expertise », Mounier used this word, is exactly what Traditionalists and, in general, the John Paul II and Benedict XVI generations are refusing : to become the gentle humanitarian supplementation of a soul-less Europe, in short to set aside the Via Crucis. Here is the real driving force for French traditionalism’s growth.

An overview of French « Tradiland »

The hardest question to be answered is : how many Trads in France ? According to the most recent poll, there are 64% of self-declared Catholics among the population : 20 years ago, they were around 80%. Practicing Catholics are between 5% and 8% and a realistic estimation gives 50.000 Trads so they represent only 1% of the … sole practicing Catholics. At a local level, the Strasbourg (4) quasi-parish of Saint Joseph Koenigshoffen is reaching to a maximum of 500 people for the major celebrations and an average 200 people regular attendance on any given Sunday. In the whole diocese of Strasbourg, there are only 2 official locations for T.L.M.

Nearly all traditional priestly societies are represented in France, from the pioneering F.S.S.P.X covering roughly 60 % of the dioceses to the Fraternity of Saint Peter (25%), the Institute of Christ the King,  the Good Shepherd Institute (born in Bordeaux 2006), the little association of diocesan priests Totus Tuus launched after the Motu proprio. Religious orders like the Benedictine abbeys (Le Barroux, Triors, Randol …), the Dominican Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer at Chémeré-le-Roi and the Avrillé Brothers (close to the Society), a couple of Dominican teaching sisters revolving around the Society, the Canons of the Mother of God in Lagrasse and their feminine counterpart … all this shows a greater variety than in the USA. In the diocese of Toulon-Fréjus, there is at least one locally recognized Society of Mercy (Fr Loiseau).

Unlike in the U.S.A., monasteries played an important part in the growth of the Traditionalist movement in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, in particular when Dom Gérard Calvet (1927-2008) was abbot of Sainte-Madeleine of Le Barroux. So the sensitivity of French Trads when the newly elected abbot of Fontgombault (5) , Dom Pateau, is underlining his support to concelebration and a hybrid 1965 version of the Traditional Latin Mass. Cardinal Ratzinger chose a symposium held in this abbey in 2001 to call for his famous « new liturgical movement », stressing shortly after that it was from the Novus Ordo to the 1962 missal and not the reverse as some, among the French Benedictines in particular, seem to have understood until then. For numerous reasons, these Benedictine monasteries, though still rather prosperous, are not to the same extent the beacons of French traditionalism they were in the past.

There are three other major differences between North American Traditionalism and the French one . Sedevacantists are sometimes boisterous (like on the web the sites linked to Louis-Hubert Rémy…) but they have never been really significant ; the proportion of people following late Fr Guérard des Lauriers and his Thesis of Cassiciacum is greater than elsewhere – apart from Mexico – probably because this former Dominican father who proclaimed himself a bishop in 1981 was French and had been briefly teaching at the Society Ecône seminary. Also the number of independent priests, whose credentials can be dubious depending on each case, has been very low in France compared to Northern America since the 1980’s and the gradual extinction of the few local parish priests who initially refused the Novus Ordo. The different priestly societies have taken over. The last difference is striking : with Winona and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Denton (Nebraska ), the USA have two big seminaries for Traditional priests when there is none in France for the Roman Traditionalist societies ! The French section of F.S.S.P. is located in Wigratzbad (Germany), the I.C.R.-S.P. has one in Gricigliano (Italy) and even the Society seminary of Flavigny (diocese of Dijon, France) is not hosting a complete cursus. An attempt of first cycle seminary for traditional vocations began last year in Lyons under the authority of Auxiliary bishop Batut and the Totus tuus association. But so far, it is a failure with only two candidates and no guaranty for them, if they pursue to the priesthood, they could have an apostolate related to the T.L.M. There is also a trad-friendly diocesan seminary at La Castille, under the French Bruskewitz, Bishop Rey (Toulon-Fréjus), and Bishop Aillet (Bayonne, former vicar general of bishop Rey) said he will open one.

With Bishop Centène (Vannes), they are the only openly trad-friendly bishops among the French episcopal Conference (over 120 bishops) and none has been appointed to a major see, though Toulon-Fréjus has become a nationwide attractive diocese first with Bishop Madec then with Bishop Rey, both appointed under John Paul II. The lack of support from the French bishops is mainly illustrated by what I call the containment policy unofficially adopted to stall the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. If there are now a handful of dioceses left without a single official T.L.M., if the increase of the locations since 2007 has been noticeable (around 40%), we are still far behind to meet not the expectations but the actual official requests of the faithful. Not only in too many cases, bishops have retained the final decision, implementing … Ecclesia Dei adflicta of 1988, but very often they have the initial word before any pastor could use his right to decide. One parish pastor of Paris who took this liberty had to seek refuge in Bishop Rey’s diocese after his mandate was not renewed by the Cardinal-archbishop. In this regard, there is little change to be expected with the Instruction Ecclesiae universae (2011) because the containment policy is more subtle than a frontal opposition. The renewal of the episcopate is decisive and the contrast between Northern America (or Australia)and Western Europe (beyond France herself) is striking : on one hand, a determined policy started by John Paul II and actively endorsed by the present pope, on the other hand a handful of « new evangelization » prelates appointed in an ocean of moderate « Spirit of the Council » bishops. Without an Americanization, so to speak, of the European college of bishops, the doom and gloom perspective is likely to prevail alas.

After this grey picture of French Traditionalism, I want to offer a few words of conclusion with some encouraging elements.
Amidst an ageing and rapidly declining cafeteria Catholicism, the « Tradiland » offers a younger face with numerous active lay people. The success of Traditionalist websites, like le Forum Catholique or le Salon Beige, is so obvious that it was acknoledged this year by the Holy See, to the great disappointment of the semi-official paper La Croix (a daily paper ideologically close to the U.S. Jesuit review America). Traditional communities are in France, like everywhere else, a cradle for religious and priestly vocations. French liberal dioceses (ex. Poitiers) have become vocational deserts ; in Strasbourg, from around 40 seminarians less than ten years ago, we have now 14 and a single new one in first year. It is commonly estimated, based on the present stats, that traditional institutes will provide nearly 20% of French ordained priests around 2015. Moreover, when they are not pressured to quit, trad-oriented seminarians, if not traditionalist themselves, are a growing number in the surviving diocesan seminaries.
For the whole Western Europe, Traditional communities, with a few others mainly coming from the « Ratzingerian » movements, are called to become little strongholds of the Catholic faith, a Catholic diaspora scattered on a secularized continent like Early Christians were in the Pagan world.
From a Catholic point of view, in spite of the slow growth in Europe and more spectacular in Northern America of Traditionalism, it is a necessity for all to consider that, based on vocations statistics, the future of the Church along this century is in Africa and Asia, the two continents where the Traditionalist movement is the weakest. Are Traditional Catholics able to spread the flame of their missionary zeal to Africans and Asians, it is a key question for Catholicism in the end of the XXIst century.

1. Emile Poulat, Catholicisme, démocratie et socialisme : le mouvement catholique et Mgr Benigni de la naissance du socialisme à la victoire du fascisme, Turnhout, Casterman, 1977.

2. There is a revival of interest in academic research but on a purely historical basis cf. M. Leymarie et J. Prévotat, L’Action française : culture, société, politique, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2008.

3. After considering that the old man’s loose bowels represent the image of « Christ who purged from himself until death and death on the Cross » (sic), Archbishop d’Ornellas – during a long time the right hand of Cardinal Lustiger – is asking : « Is Castellucci one of those who seek God Benedict XVI talked about at Assisi ? » (Statement of the archbishop posted on the official website : http://catholique-rennes.cef.fr/?Sur-le-concept-du-visage-du-fils, November 3, 2011). Another bishop in charge of monitoring the cultural scene, Bishop Wintzer, issued a Note applauding the play and basically considering that any work of art is by essence laudable even as a provocation to the Catholic faith. Fortunately, Bishop Brincard (Le Puy) stated bluntly the obvious truth : « la pièce de Castellucci est – et je pèse mes mots – violente, pénible et inutilement provocante. » (http://catholique-lepuy.cef.fr/Quelques-propos-au-sujet-d-une.html) [Castellucci’s play is – and I weigh carefully my words – violent, a nuisance and offensive without any necessity].

4. The city with its outskirts has over 400.000 inhabitants.

5. Clear Creek abbey is a daughter of Fontgombault in Oklahoma.

Copyright 2011 by Luc Perrin

Opening Remarks

Fr. Richard G. Cipolla, Ph.D., D. Phil.(Oxon.)

It is with great pleasure that I offer my introductory remarks at this conference sponsored by the Society of St Hugh of Cluny. This talk does not pretend to be either scholarly or profound. Although I would not go so far as to describe this talk as an amuse bouche, perhaps it can be taken as a hearty Umbrian antipasto. We shall need to wait until tomorrow for the main course: to hear the words of scholars who are also men who love the Church and who love the traditional Roman Mass. We are blessed with the presence of Professor Luc Perrin, Dr. Lorenz Jaeger, , and Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro Carámbula, S.T.D., Acting President of Human Life International. We look forward magno cum studio to hearing them speak tomorrow.

What I wish to do, as a parish priest for whom the discovery of the Traditional Mass was a revelation and is an incalculable blessing to my priesthood, is to talk about the agenda in this post- Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae- time in which we live and worship in the Catholic Church. By agenda, and this I say as a Latin teacher, I do not mean a list of topics to be brought up at a meeting. I mean agenda in the strictly gerundival sense: things needing to be done, things that must be done. The gerundive in Latin always bears a sense of urgency, and at this time in the Church, there surely is a sense of urgency about the liturgical situation that has prevailed for nearly a half century now, whose negative fruits are widespread and well known. But in this time, there is also, for me at least, a sense of urgency with regard to the full implementation of Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae in the whole Church.

It is certainly true that there are various interpretations of those two documents. One interpretation, the most common taken by bishops and priests, is that this is purely a kindly act on the Pope’s part to allow the few in the Church who have a liking for the Traditional Mass to celebrate that rite with more freedom than was possible after the promulgation of the Missal of Paul VI. To say that this interpretation does not include a sense of urgency is a real understatement. Another interpretation takes the form of a deliberate misreading of the sense of the documents and a conscious blocking of the generous application of the pastoral freedoms guaranteed by SP and UE regarding the celebration of the Traditional Roman rite.

That I do not subscribe to either of these interpretations of the documents should be obvious from where I stand before you. For me, the interpretation of SP and UE, especially the former as a Motu Proprio, must be consonant with the teaching of Joseph Ratzinger on the Liturgy in his years as Cardinal as well during his pontificate. Papa Ratzinger’s writings on the liturgy, especially the Mass, are many and well known. From these writings it is clear that he understands the liturgical situation in the post-conciliar period to be problematical. Some of the problems he addresses in his writings are the lack of continuity between the Missal of 1962 and the Missal of 1970; the lack of an ars celebrandi that is beautiful and in continuity with the Church’s liturgical tradition; the banality of much music used at Mass after the Council; and most importantly, the loss of the sense of, and the understanding of, the sacred.

I believe that SP and UE must be understood in the context of the Pope’s writings on the liturgy and as his positive response to the very real problems that exist in the liturgical life of the Church after the Second Vatican Council. To take the “vanilla” view that this is merely a kind gesture on the Pope’s part for the few that like traditional things, or to take the vinegar view that that the TM is a threat to the status quo and must be resisted at all cost: to take either view within the context of Ratzinger the theologian seems at best disingenuous and at worst dishonest.

Therefore the agenda I propose are based on the assumption that the widespread celebration of the Traditional Mass in the Church today and in the near future is necessary for the liturgical reform that is so sorely needed today. You notice that I have not used the terms “ordinary form” and “extraordinary form”. I did not and do not use these terms because they can be quite misleading, especially in English. In addition to the hermeneutical problems with these terms, there are certainly theological problems in the declaration that there are two forms of the Roman rite. I am willing to live with the theological ambiguity in this declaration, for it at least gives us some breathing time to figure out what the two forms of the one rite can mean and to allow the Traditional Mass to gain a real foothold in the liturgical life of the Church. But I prefer not to compound the problem by a false understanding of what “ordinary” and “extraordinary” mean in this context in English. Many English-speaking people have understood the adjective “extraordinary” as meaning rare and a bit outré. And they would understand “ordinary” as the norm, what should be. But this certainly is not is what it is meant in SP. Ordinary means what most parishes celebrate today. It is just a statement of what is obvious, what is the case today. And so extraordinary means what is not the usual rite that is celebrated in most parishes. In this light, I hope we can look forward to the time when the Traditional Mass is the ordinary form, even though it will always be extraordinary, that is superlative, in character.

Commentary on a full agenda would take quite a long time. I will offer two items that head my own list of the agenda. The first is this: the Traditional Mass must be celebrated on a regular basis in as many parishes as possible. How will this be accomplished? Not very easily, but it must start somewhere. And I want to start with the concrete example of this parish church of St Mary in Norwalk, CT. We started offering a Missa Cantata on Sundays well over three years ago as one of the scheduled Sunday parish Masses. It began, because of the bishop’s directive, in the downstairs chapel. Within six months it was obvious that the Mass had to be moved to the main church because of the numbers attending this Mass. And so, with the bishop’s permission, we came from the quasi-catacombs into the full light of the main church. Since then we have celebrated a Solemn Mass every Sunday and most holy days. We have a professional schola that sings chant and polyphony at these Masses. We have a complement of at least 20 boys who have learned to serve the Solemn Mass that is offered every Sunday at 9:30 in the morning. This Mass attracts parishioners from the whole of Fairfield County, some of whom travel over an hour to come here. And many of these new parishioners are young couples with children. More and more of our Hispanic parishioners are coming to the Traditional Mass. Furthermore, the way the Novus Ordo Masses is celebrated in the parish, the ars celebrandi, especially on a Sunday, bears the mark of mutual enrichment that the Holy Father spoke about in SP. The main Novus Ordo Mass on Sunday is a Sung Mass at the high altar celebrated ad orientem. The presence of the Traditional Mass in the parish was the main spur for the complete restoration of the sanctuary that was completed some two years ago. . We are the only parish in the diocese that has installed altar rails, after the original rails were destroyed in the iconoclasm of the 1960s. The marble sanctuary floor, the restored high altar, the sedilia, the restoration of the two side altars that had been ripped out by the iconoclasts: all of this was done because of the real presence in the parish of the Traditional Mass. The next phase will begin in two weeks with the painting of the apse, the triumphal arch and the vaulting in the sanctuary and in the bays containing the side altars. The marble reredos behind the high altar that had been destroyed by the Catholic Roundheads will be replaced by a large painting of the Assumption of the Virgin by a well- known Manhattan artist. And all of this, which costs money, has been and will be accomplished by a parish that is certainly not a wealthy parish by any means.. The presence of the Traditional Mass in this parish has rejuvenated the parish not only liturgically but spiritually as well. The number of Confessions heard on a daily basis is strong evidence that the spiritual and sacramental life of this parish is flourishing.

How did this happen? The short answer is: by the grace of God. The longer answer is more complex. What has happened at St Mary’s in the first place would be impossible if our pastor were not a man of courage, vision and faith. Let me rephrase that in the indicative rather than the subjunctive. Our pastor, Fr. Markey, is a man of courage, vision and faith, and also prudence. He understands the importance of the role of the Traditional Mass not only in this parish but also in the Church of the future. This is a parish in which all the priests, despite having different personalities and different takes on many things, are of one mind and one heart in their love for the Traditional Mass and in their understanding of its importance in the necessary task of re-forming Catholic culture. The parish has a remarkable deacon who has discovered his vocation in the context of being deacon at Solemn Mass. The parish has a remarkable young choirmaster who not only knows and loves the music of the Church, but also is filled with a missionary zeal that goes beyond the boundaries of this parish. The whole parish, from religious education to youth group, benefits from the blessings that the real presence of the Traditional Mass provides.

Fr. Markey has begun evenings of instruction for local priests who are interested in learning how to celebrate the TM. This program will continue and we hope will grow in the coming years. There are a good number of priests, especially young priests, who want to connect with the Tradition of the Church by learning to celebrate the Traditional Mass. This is part of the missionary effort that must be part of the process and fruit of SP and UE. This parish, and those few like it in this country, can never become merely churches in which the liturgy is celebrated with great beauty and solemnity. The vinegar crowd that I referred to at the beginning of this talk would like nothing more than to have a few churches that they would call ‘high church” to please the traditionalists and the aesthetes. Never. Numquam. Mai. Jamais. Jamás. Nie. These parishes must be totally Catholic in the deepest sense and must be centers of Catholic renewal and must be lights on a hill that will help other lights to shine, to shine vibrantly in a world in love with the drab greyness of secularism.

This is what must happen in many if not all parishes in this diocese and dioceses all over the world. I know the obstacles. I know the problems. But this is an integral and most important part of the agenda for the full implementation of SM and UE in the Church. And it will be done by priests who celebrate this Mass not out of some antiquarian interest, or because of high church tendencies, but who will celebrate this Mass because of the joy of entering into the worship of the full Church: militant, expectant, and above all, triumphant. And it will be done by laity who have discovered the pearl of great price and are willing to do what has to be done to let others know this pearl exists and urge others to make this pearl their own.

The second item on my agenda is more complex and yet just as important as fostering the use of the Traditional Roman Mass in as many parishes as possible. I would characterize this agendum as theological. It is agreed upon by all that there are real problems associated with the relationship of the Novus Ordo rite of Mass and the Council that preceded it that asked for liturgical reform. There needs to be a continuing and open theological discussion about the methodology, presuppositions and the question of continuity with the Tradition with respect not only to the Novus Ordo rite of Mass, but also, I would submit, to the beginning of the Bugnini reforms of Holy Week in 1955. Dr. Lauren Pristas has already begun to do this in her series of articles on the Collects of the Novus Ordo rite. Her careful scholarship has shown that there was a bias within the Consilium entrusted with the revision of the collects against any words or phrases that the members of the Consilium thought might offend modern ears, especially things referring to sin and grace. She shows that even when the collect was taken from an early source, the Latin words in the original collect were changed according to the bias of the Consilium. One would think that this would cause disquiet among at least the Magisterium. That is has not done so can be explained by the irrational notion that seems to have prevailed and still prevails within the Church that whatever happened to the liturgy before and after the Second Vatican Council must be the will of God by definition—because it happened, it must be meet and right.

When stated in this way, it should be obvious that not only is this way of understanding an ecumenical council and liturgical reform novel and not traditional, it is also unreasonable. Surely the understanding of the meaning and role of any ecumenical council and its documents must include the question of historical context, historical perspective, and hermeneutics. Never in the history of the Church have the documents of any council been understood as having fallen from heaven to be swallowed whole by all faithful Catholics. This unreasonable attitude, combined with a brand of Ultramontanism that would make Pius IX blush, has been one of the central problems in the post-conciliar Church and has resulted in a real failure of that re-evangelization of the Church and the world that was the hope of the Second Vatican Council. The novel and ultimately romantic notion that the reform of the liturgy should be based on what amounts to a historical-critical methodology based on tenuous and changing scholarship and hankering for an imaginary early Church is what it would seem Pius XII strongly spoke against in Mediator Dei. But he spoke against this just as those he entrusted to organically reform the liturgy were proceeding on exactly this rationalistic and romantic basis.

The Church cannot be fully who she is and must be in this increasingly secular world without first grappling with these questions theologically, that is: faithfully, prayerfully, reasonably and charitably, all within the context of Holy Tradition. In order to do so, one must be able to question whether the basis of the pre- and post -Conciliar liturgical reform is consonant with the Tradition of the Church. One must be able to question the basis and nature of the authority of the Pope with regard to the Liturgy. Is he, as Benedict XVI, so aptly said, the guardian of what has been handed down to him, or is he an agent of change and innovation in the Liturgy? Surely no one in this room doubts the Pope’s authority to oversee and to regulate the Liturgy. But does this power extend to do what Paul VI seemed to do in 1970: to suppress the Traditional Roman rite and introduce something related to that rite but in many ways radically different? One should be able to openly discuss this question and by doing so not be accused of disloyalty to the Pope or to his office or to the Magisterium. Sentire cum Ecclesia should never be reduced to merely sentire cum Papa or sentire cum peritis. And more emphasis should be given to the sentire, which in this context means to think. We need to reread what Blessed John Henry Newman says about these matters. I often wonder what he would think about the current situation in the Church vis -a -vis the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reforms.

This indeed is a huge task, but it must be done. The debate going on currently, especially in Italy, about the hermeneutic that should be applied to an understanding of the Second Vatican Council, is necessary and salutary. And this debate must be expanded to the Bugnini led liturgical reform. This is the beginning of the task, a task that is labor ,a task that Vergil would call tantae moles. And this labor pro ecclesia, this labor caritatis, will be carried out not by my generation who seem incapable of being objective about the situation of the Church today. It will be carried out by the generations to come, not only because they will have the advantage that time affords to see things with greater clarity and objectivity; but also because the next generations will have the advantage. Deo volente, of being in touch with the Tradition in its fullest form, its most beautiful form, in its deepest form: they will be in touch with the Traditional Roman Mass, and it is there that they will find the courage and the freedom to do what has to be done so that the Church can be once again the light on the hill.