Irrwege und Umwege im Frömmigkeitsleben der Gegenwart
“Dead Ends and Deviations in the Piety of the Present Day.”
By Fr. Max Kassiepe OMI
Second Expanded and Revised Edition, Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1940.
Irrwege und Umwege (“Dead Ends and Deviations”) is a most extraordinary work – the first edition was published in 1939. For it is a very early detailed critical commentary on the forces within the Church that were even then advocating change – above all, the Liturgical Movement. By 1939 the Liturgical Movement had obtained achieved real significance, at least in the German-speaking world. It’s obvious, however, that it still retained somewhat the air of a cult, gaining momentum, but still not readily understandable to the mass of Catholics. The Liturgical Movement, as described by Fr. Kassiepe, was promoted by a clique of writers, monks, young priests and their youthful lay enthusiasts. And it still remained a movement, as Fr. Max Kassiepe’s book testifies, that had not yet been canonized and could be challenged publicly and directly. (The publication date of this book also shows that even in 1940 the Church enjoyed considerable freedom in the Third Reich – that is, as long as one didn’t criticize the regime.)
Our author, Fr. Max Kassiepe, approaches the issue from the perspective of an experienced spiritual director. Fr. Kassiepe had led a wide variety of Catholic pastoral activities and seems to have specialized in giving retreats and addresses at major Catholic gatherings and events. He emphasizes from the start that he is not utterly opposed to the Liturgical Movement – in fact it has brought about many beneficial results. He does object to the one-sided, confrontational and non-pastoral face of the new movement. Fr. Kassiepe describes the adherents of the Liturgical Movement as elitist, unrealistic and lacking in understanding of the life and issues of ordinary lay Catholics.
His first point of criticism is the reduction by the Liturgical Movement of Catholic spiritual life exclusively to participation in the Mass. The prior forms of Catholic individual piety – most notably the rosary – are displaced and marginalized. Fr. Kassiepe criticizes the theoretical basis of this approach which proposes the superiority of an “objective” spirituality, as embodied in the Mass, over an alleged “private” spirituality. He calls this approach “liturgism.” Fr. Kassiepe specifically criticizes the notion of returning to the age of the “Early Church” (Urkirche). He points out – decades before such scholarly positions became more widely known – that the Liturgical Movement’s claims about the form of the liturgies of the Early Church – like the prevalence of versus populum celebration or the location of the altar in the center of the church building – were historically dubious.
Fr. Kassiepe objects to the widespread disregard of the liturgical rubrics by the Liturgical Movement. The Liturgical Movement utilizes unauthorized vernacular texts, promotes versus populum celebration of the Mass and arbitrarily modifies the rules for nuptial marriages. Further, the Liturgical Movement agitates publicly for concelebration. Or its clerical members don’t celebrate Mass when a congregation is not present. Obviously, this kind of criticism is what we would expect in the days of the rules-focused 1870-1958 Church. But did not this principled rejection of liturgical rubrics later reach epic proportions during and after Vatican II and especially after the promulgation of the Novus Ordo?
Fr. Kassiepe deems many of the initiatives of the Liturgical Movement non-pastoral. So, for example, he advocates continuation of the practice at that time of distributing communion outside of the celebration of the Mass. He further condemns the disparagement of the forms of popular piety and the reduction of the interiors of churches to “a puritanical prayer room as devoid of decoration as a barn, cold as the stable of Bethlehem, uncomfortable as a homeless shelter.” (p. 38 – quoting Cardinal Faulhaber!)
Kassiepe diverges from his liturgical focus to deal with other pastoral issues less obviously linked with the Liturgical Movement. He accuses circles associated with the Liturgical Movement of promoting an excessively romantic, lyrical and spiritual image of marriage. This leaves couples unprepared for the demands of married life. This chapter reminded me of an exchange at a conference long ago between Alice von Hildebrand and Christopher Derrick concerning the nature of marriage – von Hildebrand’s highly romantic view contrasted with Derrick’s realism.
Some of Fr. Kassiepe’s objections are at first hard to understand but reward closer investigation. For example, in one chapter, he denounces “semi-quietism.” This would seem to an odd issue, given the almost exclusive focus of the pre-Vatican II Church on the active apostolate and the emphasis of the Liturgical Movement itself on participation in the publicly celebrated liturgy. However, what Fr. Kassiepe is primarily addressing is not a mystical deviation, but what later became known as pastoral approach in the sense familiar to us from the developments of the 1960s onward: relaxing collective, objective liturgical and moral duties in favor of spontaneous individual acts. The author even mentions some Catholics skipping Mass on Sunday given, what was to them, the right circumstances!
A particular sore point for Fr. Kassiepe was the tendency of the disciples of the Liturgical Movement to disparage frequent confession and to restrict the sacrament of penance only to where it is absolutely necessary – when the penitent is in a state of mortal sin. These observations have particular resonance today when the sacrament of penance to a great extent has fallen out of use entirely. One cause was exactly this restrictive view of the sacrament of penance which I recall being expounded in the now-distant past.
Fr. Kassiepe devotes a chapter to the necessary interaction of young and old in the ministry of the Church. There is always a conflict but also a complementarity, a mutual enrichment between the generations. I think the Liturgical Movement – with its perceived disdain for the “old-timers” and their ways – represented to the author the younger generation! Fr. Kassiepe’s understanding approach, derived from his lengthy pastoral experience and seeing the good in both sides, contrasts with the 1946 Letter of Ida Görres – a one-sided indictment of the German clergy of that day by a sympathizer of the Liturgical Movement. And the Letter was published just six years after Fr. Kassiepe’s book!
Fr. Kassiepe thus treats many issues that would become the focus of conflict twenty or more years later. Many of the practices and assertions he critiques in this book became dogma within the Church by 1970 – and in certain places, like Germany, well before that. But intellectually, how successful are Fr. Kassiepe’s arguments? In his introduction to the second edition, the author notes that some who agreed with him nevertheless concluded he had not gone far enough in his criticism. They pointed out that he did not explore the theological implications of the Liturgical Movement and the dogmatic errors which underlie the aberrations catalogued in his book. “More profound observers see a serious danger for the faith in these phenomena” (p.7) On the contrary, Fr. Kassiepe states that he has assumed the good faith of the Liturgical Movement advocates and chooses to treat the abuses he discusses primarily as problems of practical pastoral management.
I would agree with these critical observations on Fr. Kassiepe’s book. For the aberrations of the Liturgical Movement were by no means only attributable to mistaken pastoral policy or uncontrolled youthful enthusiasm but also reflected a more fundamental opposition to the Catholic Church as it existed in that day. It was indeed the beginning of a true revolutionary movement: rejecting practices of Catholic life as actually harmful which up till then had been encouraged or even mandated. And we all can observe about us today the effect on the practice and understanding of the Faith of the reforms originating in the Liturgical Movement
Yet the author has good words to say about aspects of the Liturgical Movement. He mentions the renewed sense of being a child of God, and of the membership of all Catholics in the mystical body of Christ. The Liturgical movement works to transform superficial, routine and “other-directed” Catholics into conscious, understanding and joyful followers of Christ. It has eliminated much that was kitsch and unworthy in Catholic devotional literature. And this kind of Catholicism is much more accessible to youth and those outside the Church.
Reading such passages is it not paradoxical that the traditionalist movement today best realizes what was of value in the original Liturgical Movement? I would cite the awareness of the centrality of the mass, particularly the sung mass, and of the importance of understanding the liturgical texts. There is a stronger orientation of the spiritual life of the Catholic around the Church year and its various feasts, saints’ days and seasons – yet without any detriment to the devotions such as the rosary and Eucharistic adoration. And finally, a much greater participation by the laity in all aspects of the Church’s life. The results are clear in the growing participation of youth and the increasing numbers of converts to traditionalist and conservative parishes. So, many years after the publication of Irrwege und Umwege, and under unimaginably different circumstance, the reconciliation between the legacy of the past and that of the Liturgical Movement – as wished for by Fr. Max Kassiepe – may have finally taken place!