Thursday, May 29 -Ascension of the Lord, Holy Day of Obligation

6:00 PM – Sung Holy Mass (1962)

Saturday, May 31- Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

8:30 AM – Sung Holy Mass (1962)

Friday, June 6 – First Friday

8:30 AM – Holy Mass (1962)

9:00 AM – 8:00 PM – Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament7:00 PM – Sung Holy Mass (1962) Coram Sanctissimo (in the presence of the exposed Sacrament) concluding with the Litany of the Most Sacred Heart and Benediction

Latin Mass Group 

The first meeting for the discussion group on the Latin Mass will take place this Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 PM in Pryor-Hubbard Hall at the Georgetown Oratory of the Sacred Heart in Redding, CT.  Fr. Novajosky will offer a brief presentation on what he hopes to accomplish and will share thoughts and some proposals.  He will ask those in attendance for ideas on topics.   While the preference is for the meetings to be done in person, there will also be a zoom meeting option for those who are unable to come to the oratory campus.  Here is a link to set up for the Zoom meeting: Link

St Joan of Arc. A past victim of episcopal malfeasance(Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais ). Later, the decision of Cauchon’s court was overturned and much later Joan was canonized.

What have we learned about Pope Leo so far  – at this very early stage of his papacy? What have his initial actions  – or his inaction – revealed about the potential direction of his pontificate? Let us remember that many of the steps being taken at this moment were agreed and decided before the election of Leo. Their disclosure at this time is nevertheless significant.

As to his appointments, on May 25 we read:

The Holy Father has appointed His Eminence Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as his special envoy to preside over the liturgical celebrations to be held on 25 and 26 July 2025 at the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, diocese of Vannes, France….1) 

A ceremonial position, yes – but a mark of a certain favor. Much more important, however, was this announcement on May 22:

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sister Tiziana Merletti, former Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, as Secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. 2) 

There she joins Sister Simona Brambilla in the leadership of the dicastery. I think that at the very minimum this appointment is a vote for the status quo. Let us remember that the “status quo” in this dicastery means that conservative or traditionalist orders (from the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate to the FSSP)are subject to visitations or even takeovers while the progressive and mainstream religious orders and institutes continue on their disastrous downward course in numbers and activities without the slightest interference from Rome. In that regard, I note that, as of 2023, Sister Merletti’s order (which she led 2004-2013) has a total of 106 members. I cannot find information on prior years. 3) The (at least nominal) prefect of the Dicastery, Sr. Simona Brambilla, led her order,  the Missionary Sisters of the Consolata, between 2011 and 2023.  In 2008 they numbered 762 in 128 centers, in 2022, they had 532 members in 73 centers. 4)

As to Traditionalism, we must start our review with the “interregnum” – with the critical illness of Pope Francis. Since then, we have received news of new traditionalist apostolates and initiatives. At least one prelate has made a public statement in favor of at least toning down Traditionis Custodes. The Pentecost pilgrimage to Chartres  has achieved yet another record in participation – subscription is now closed except for children. 

However, all these favorable signs have been offset by other official, specific measures of the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican:

The drastic restrictions imposed on the celebration of the TLM in the Detroit Archdiocese( announced 4/16/2025);

The expulsion of the institute of Christ the King from Oakland(effective 4/20/2025);

The procedural roadblocks imposed on the Chartres pilgrimage ( issued 5/6/2025, only weeks before the pilgrimage is scheduled to begin);

The expulsion of the FSSP from Valence in France(announced 5/15/2025);

The restrictions on (almost the abolition of) the TLM in the Charlotte diocese( announced 5/23/2025; effective 7/8/2025).

Now Cardinal Roche explicitly participated in drafting the measures against the Chartres pilgrimage; I would be very surprised if other actions listed above (particularly those in Detroit and Charlotte)did not involve at least the relevant nuncio and perhaps the Vatican as well. 

The form of these decrees is as important as the substance. The message is conveyed in curt, authoritarian, bureaucratic language. The texts,  when they do refer to the traditionalists, seems to me to be outright sarcastic or contemptuous. The nebulous, verbose, emotional passages often found in official Catholic documents are not to be found here. Likewise, there is no “dialogue,”  ”accompaniment,” “tenderness,” or “mercy.” These allegedly sacrosanct principles fall by the wayside when dealing when someone perceived as an actual enemy. 

The earlier actions seem to me like opportunistic moves on the part of the establishment to take advantage of the last days of the rule of Francis or to create a fait accompli in advance of whatever new regime might come. The later actions, after the election of Leo – particularly that in Charlotte – seem more like a demonstration of strength, even a challenge, to the new pope. For I think those in the Vatican and locally involved in such decisions expect that the pope will take no action against them. 

For even assuming Pope Leo disagrees in part or totally with the anti-traditionalist campaign of Francis (which is not at all clear!) these actions put him in a difficult spot. For if it is his intent to disengage from the Bergoglian course,  I would assume he would want to do so only gradually. Now, however, he will have to overrule bishops or one of his own officials in the earliest days of his papacy. This would bring down on his head the wrath of the dominant progressive forces in the Church and the secular media which stand behind them. But by doing nothing on these matters he will be giving the progressives carte blanche to do whatever they want. Their agenda, let us remember, is by no means limited to exterminating traditionalism. There is the unfinished grand project of the synodal path in Germany and elsewhere (married priests, women priests and elimination of the remaining restraints of Catholic sexual morality). A less obvious conflict between progressives (and the Vatican) and Opus Dei continues in Spain and elsewhere. Bishops in the United States and Italy call for the abolition of kneeling when receiving communion – repudiating a decades-old compromise.

So, for the time being at least, the Church’s war of annihilation against traditionalism – and really against the totality of its own heritage – continues. Whether this conflict can be sustained long-term is another matter. Will the acolytes of Francis be able to persevere in the war against the traditionalists, absent the fanatic will of their late master? Financial and personnel realities will likely soon catch up with the Vatican and the local churches. I can’t exclude the possibility that even more unsavory details of Francis and his entourage will emerge, putting the establishment under pressure.  Whatever may happen, it is regrettably unlikely that peace will return to the Catholic Church anytime soon. 

1. Resignations and Appointments, 24.05.2025, Press.Vatican.va.
2. Vatican News, 5/22/2025’
3. “Franciscan Sisters of the Poor,” Catholic-Hierarchy.org.
4. “Suore Missionarie della Consolata,” Catholic Hierachy.org; “Suore Missionarie della Consolata, it.wikipedia.org.

This coming Thursday, May 29 is the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord, a holy day of obligation. The following churches will offer Traditional Masses. If you know of a Mass that is not on our schedule, please let us know so that we can add it.

Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, 8 am Low Mass; 7 pm High Mass

Georgetown Oratory of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Redding, 6 pm Missa Cantata. There will also be a Missa Cantata for the Vigil of the Ascension at 6 pm on Wednesday, followed by chanted Vespers.

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, 7:45 am Low Mass; 6 pm High Mass

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, Low Mass 8 am; HIgh Mass 6 pm, preceded by Benediction

St. Martha Church, Enfield, 7 pm

New York

Holy Innocents Church, Manhattan, 8 am, 6 pm

Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Manhattan, 7am and 7:45am Low Masses, 9:30 to 12 Noon Eucharistic Adoration, 6:00 PM Confessions, 7:00 PM Missa Cantata 

St. Josaphat Church, Queens, Missa Cantata 7 pm

St. Rocco Church, Glenn Cove, Long Island, Missa Cantata 7pm

St. Matthew Church, Dix Hills, Long Island, 10:30 am

St. Paul the Apostle, Yonkers, 12 noon.

Annunciation Church, Crestwood, 7 pm Missa Cantata

Immaculate Conception, Sleepy Hollow, Low Mass, 7 pm

Sacred Heart, Esopus, 11:30 am

St. Mary and St. Andrew, Ellenville, 7 pm

Holy Trinity, Poughkeepsie, 7 pm

New Jersey

Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City, 7 pm Missa Cantata

Our Lady of Fatima, Pequannock, 7 am, 9 am, 12 noon, 7 pm

St Anthony of Padua, West Orange, 9 am Low Mass; 7 pm High Mass

Corpus Christi Church, South River, Missa Cantata, 7 pm

Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Raritan, 7 pm

St. John the Baptist, Allentown, 7 pm Solemn Mass

We have a new pope in Leo XIV. What can traditionalists expect from his papacy? The first impressions have been favorable. The new pope’s choice of name, his vestments, his demeanor, and several early addresses have found favor among traditionalists. These matters of form all indicate a break with the culture of his predecessor.

On the other hand, Pope Leo is reliably described as a candidate of the circle of Pope Francis, promoted by them when, for one reason or another, the “Bergoglian” papal candidates with the greatest media support could not advance. It was then that Prevost’s name moved to the front of the list. Indeed, Leo seems to be in several respects a compromise candidate. We see this reflected in the fact that representatives of contradictory factions in Catholicism are vying to claim him as their own. Moreover,  there still remains a dearth of information on what his real views are. 

Some conservatives and traditionalists remain disappointed because a pope explicitly friendly to traditionalism and orthodoxy was not elected. However, is it surprising that the new pope would emerge from the “Bergoglian” camp, given that the vast majority of the Cardinals were appointed by Francis?  And after Francis had de facto eliminated the college of cardinals as some kind of cohesive, deliberative body? As we shall see, however,  the prior history of a new pope, as well as the expectations of those who achieved his election, are by no means determinative of what his actual papacy will be like.  

Let me set forth some historical parallels to illustrate these points. Now I recognize it is a perilous thing to draw on historical precedents to understand the present. In this very year there appeared in the pages of Commonweal magazine a fatuous comparison, intended to be insulting, of the Catholic traditionalist movement to the Jansenists of the 17th century. (I myself thought traditionalists should be flattered by this comparison, especially since under Francis there was talk of canonizing Blaise Pascal.) Yet, if used cautiously in a general, non-pedantic way,  the past does offer real insights into the current age and, if we recognize this culture to be problematic, examples of how to get out of it.

I would analogize the “Conciliar” era, commencing in 1958, to three other great periods of crisis, decadence and collapse which enveloped the papacy and much of the rest of the Church as well: 

First,  the Pornocracy or Saeculum Obscurum, which lasted roughly from 880 to 1040. 

Second,  the Renaissance papacy between 1470 and 1534. 

Third, the late 18th century crisis between 1758 and 1800, culminating in the French Revolution.

Characteristic of each of these periods of decline is an almost exclusive focus of the papacy on a limited range of secular political issues. The popes withdraw from the great religious concerns of the Church that had previously governed their actions. The growing lack of awareness of spiritual issues goes hand in hand with the institutionalization of an all-engulfing fantasy world into which the leadership of the Church retreats.

In such ages we see the gradual acceptance as normal of what once had been considered unimaginable, perverted or even criminal. For example, in 882 the first pope was assassinated – in the following hundred years it became a fairly regular event.  After 1470, the popes and higher clergy routinely promoted and extravagantly enriched their nephews – and soon their sons and daughters as well – at the expense of the Church. In 1773 the Jesuit order was disowned and suppressed by its principal patron and beneficiary, the pope himself. In our own day, we have seen a never-ending series of financial scandals at the Vatican, a sexual abuse crisis continuing to rock the Church,  the trial, deposition, and laicization of Cardinals,  and papal promotion of change in what had been considered immutable rules of Catholic morality.

This indifference to scandal is not confined to the papacy.  The Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, discussing the disreputable conduct of Pope John XII (955-964) – who was at most 20 years old – is said to have philosophically remarked “he’s only a young pope.”  Leo X (1513-1522), under whom the Protestant Reformation got underway, was lauded by the humanist writers – the equivalent of today’s media.  If we look at our own day, the official Catholic Church – the Vatican, the mainstream religious orders, the hierarchy, the educational and media apparatus, and a great part of the laity – does not acknowledge that there’s anything amiss in the Church – at least nothing attributable to the Pope, the clergy or Vatican II.  

Now, in each of these cases, the papacy was completely immersed in the decadence and indeed led the way downward. And at no time did change for the better happen because a newly elected pope suddenly came to his senses, recognized the perilous situation and then systematically confronted the issues. Rather, the beginnings of recovery first required either outside political intervention (impossible today) or total disasters for the Church like the French Revolution. For it’s exceedingly difficult for the papacy to work its way out of bad situations all by its own,  because all the likely candidates for the papacy are themselves participants in the crisis. 

What can happen, however, is popes or bishops have a surprising change of heart, and members of the establishment begin a gradual and tentative transformation of a corrupt culture. A famous example is the election in 1534 of Alessandro Farnese as Pope Paul III. Pope Paul’s predecessor, Clement VII, when faced with the Protestant Reformation, the separation of England from the Catholic Church,  Turkish advances and local political disasters, such as the sack of Rome,  had no response other than to continue the Renaissance papacy’s focus on secular political maneuvering. His successor, Alessandro Farnese, embodied the best and worst features of the college of cardinals of that period:  an extravagant patron of the arts,  the proprietor of the most splendid palace in Rome, a skilled political leader – and the father of a number of children. Moreover, his rise to such prominence was in large part attributable to the status of his sister Giulia as mistress of Pope Alexander VI. He would seem to have been an unlikely candidate for a reformer. Indeed, Pope Paul III continued some of the worst abuses of the past (extreme nepotism, a focus on secular politics).  Yet this man, definitely not a saint,  also launched the Catholic Reformation – patronizing new orders, promoting spiritually minded clerics and calling the Council of Trent. By the death of Paul III in 1549, the Catholic Reformation was well underway. In the next decades setbacks and regressions occurred, but by 1564 changes for the better had become irreversible. Going forward, the Church, now under the leadership of the reformed papacy,  was able to hold fast against her enemies and create the baroque Catholic culture that flourished all over Europe. 

Of course, by that date, one third of Europe had been permanently lost to the faith.

I am in not at all suggesting that Leo XIV resembles in character Paul III!  However, the Farnese pope’s story does illustrate that the prior conduct and utterances of a cardinal are not necessarily an indicator of what he does as pope. And that, amid an age of decadence, often the most that one can hope for from a conclave is a pope who perceives at least in part the need for change and begins to initiate it – even if the reversal of culture is not total or complete. 

The indications Leo XIV has given us so far have been favorable. It is far too early to adopt an air of optimism, but let’s not be caught up in deterministic scenarios of disaster either.   We will learn about Leo XIV not so much by what he says but from the issues he addresses (or does not address), from the men he promotes (or leaves in place). We already have a welcome sign in the reduction of the responsibilities of archbishop Paglia. And it is likely that the Bergoglian and progressive forces will try to force the pope’s hand early on. Consider the insulting and restrictive actions just taken by Cardinal Roche and the French bishops against the Chartres pilgrimage ( measures decided before the election of Leo).  It is only from how Leo handles such sensitive matters that we will be able to gauge better the true meaning of his papacy. 

There will be a Sung Requiem Mass (Missa Cantata)for Pope Francis on Tuesday, May 20 at 6 PM at the Georgetown Oratory in Redding, CT.   Come join in prayer on the 30th Day of the passing of Pope Francis.  

Other upcoming Traditional Masses at the Oratory:

Thursday, May 29, 6 pm: Ascension Thursday

Saturday, May 31, 8:30 am, Queenship of Mary

Friday, June 6, First Friday, 8:30 am Mass; 9 am-8 pm Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; 7:50 pm Litany of the Most Sacred Heart and Benediction.

The Oratory also offers a weekly Sunday Traditional Mass at 12 noon and a weekly Traditional Mass on Wednesdays at 6 pm.

The Georgetown Oratory now sends out a Flocknote by email, listing upcoming Masses and events. If you would like to receive the Flocknote please message Fr. Novajosky at frnovajosky@diobpt.org.

At St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT:

On May 19 at 1:25pm in the Lower Chapel, Regina Pacis Academy is excited to host a special talk on the Shroud of Turin for our middle school students and invite all families and friends to join us!

The presentation, by Shroud expert, Patrick Riley, is entitled “The Shroud of Turin: Medieval Forgery or the Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?” The Shroud of Turin is a relic, an 8-foot strip of linen with the imprint of a man’s body on it, is said to be the cloth Jesus’s burial garment. It is not a painting, nor made with any type of pigment. The image is burned into the fabric itself, creating a photographic negative.

Attendees to the talk will also get to see life-sized replicas of the Shroud. All are welcome to attend. Please feel free to share the flyer below.

To RSVP, please contact office@reginapacisacademy.org

Graham, Ruth, What Will the New Pope Do About the Latin Mass? The New York Times (May 5,2025)

Today we find a new article on both the Traditional Mass and one of the most egregious recent examples of the abuse of power by the Roman Catholic Church: the upcoming summary termination of the TLM at 27 ( ? – the article does not make clear the exact number) locations in the Archdiocese of Detroit. The article also discusses how these plans of the new archbishop may be upended by the results of the conclave which will begin shortly. A new pope is likely to be selected before the effective date of the new anti-TLM measures in July. The reporter states that she has spent eight hours in Traditional Masses in preparing for this story. Is this article related to others which, I have heard,  have appeared just in the last day or so in the mainstream English, Italian and French press? For some reason, these media are (finally) criticizing aspects of the rule of Francis and certain of his acolytes – notably, Cardinal Parolin. For the most remarkable thing about Graham’s article is that it appears in The New York Times at all.

Overall, the article is fair. The reporter has spoken directly to the traditionalists – not just academics and administrators of the Catholic establishment. Although despite the eight hours of masses she says she attended, the descriptions of the TLM and the reasons people attend it remain incomplete – but they aren’t a gross caricature either. She lets the reader draw his own conclusions. On the one hand, the stories of the faithful regarding their devotion to the Mass and their parishes. On the other hand, the Archdiocesan spokeswoman presents the whole affair as a bureaucratic exercise, over which no one should get excited. And Archbishop Weisenburger adds more menacing talk: the TLM might have become an issue because of the ”character of the priests who celebrate it.” Obviously,  the reporter doesn’t need to point out that the large scale of the TLM activity in Detroit, the close connection with the policies of Pope Francis and the announcement of the drastic restrictions so early in Weisenburger’s tenure render preposterous a merely “bureaucratic” explanation. 

Graham mentions that several priests who celebrate the TLM have refused to be interviewed for this article (she doesn’t mention if she also presented the same request to Archbishop Weisenberger). Indeed, Graham’s article is especially good at conveying the regime of fear that now prevails in the Detroit archdiocese under “shepherds” like the late Pope Francis or Archbishop Weisenburger. The Catholic Church’s culture of intimidation requires resort to political subtlety,  and often even subterfuge,  to practice the faith. I cannot say this is a good advertisement for the Catholic Church.

Graham’s article is not perfect. At times she falls back on then platitudes one would expect from the NYT, like this internally contradictory passage:

More recently, the traditional Mass has become an unlikely lightning rod for broader theological and ideological disputes, especially in the American church, with its strong strain of theological and liturgical conservatism. Its adherents tend to attend Mass more often and have a vision for the church focused on theological orthodoxy over the openness and modernity of the Francis era.

I would say the TLM, as Graham herself illustrates in this article,  is highly likely to be a lightning rod for broader theological and “ideological” disputes. (“Ideological” is a pejorative term with which theological and political progressives designate their opponents’ views.) The traditionalists may have been encouraged in their views by the conflict, as Graham perceives it, between “theological orthodoxy” and the “openness and modernity of the Francis era.” The Catholic establishment nowadays often prefers to understand Catholic traditionalism as a uniquely American phenomenon attributable to America’s native conservatism.  Historically that is absurd. As for the present, if Ruth Graham operates out of the New York City area, I would refer her for further research to the Manhattan parishes of St. Francis Xavier or St. Paul the Apostle and such universities as Fordham, Sacred Heart and Fairfield.  But let’s not get mired in such arguments – Ruth Graham’s article is a welcome addition to the literature on American Catholic traditionalism. 

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!