As an introductory comment
on the ecclesiastical talks from the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger
in Rome for the anniversary, Michael Davies writes in a personal
correspondence:
" ... When interviewed by our national Catholic weekly The
Catholic Herald, I said that [Cardinal Ratzinger's talk at
the conference] was the most important statement on the Mass
since the promulgation of the 1970 Missal -- and I meant it. You
will be amused to know that the reporter then asked "What
exactly is the 1970 Missal?"
"The Pope's address was very positive when read within the
context of Roman politics which very few in the USA understand
... The two key points are that the Pope did not in any way
attempt to lecture us or to suggest that we should accept the
liturgical reform. He treated all Catholics as equals, referred
to legitimate diversity and sensibilities worthy of respect,
urged all Catholics to proclaim the Gospel together, and asked
the bishops to have "renewed attention to the faithful who
are attached to the old rite." The very fact that we were
granted an audience was a triumph, and the discourse was far more
positive than I had dared to hope. The influentional French
daily, _Le Figaro_, described the discourse as
"encouraging for traditionalists".
Ten
Years of the Motu Proprio "Ecclesia Dei"
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
translated by Fr. Ignatius Harrison, Brompton Oratory, London
A lecture given at the Ergife Palace
Hotel, Rome on Saturday 24th October 1998, to an audience of some
3000 traditional Catholics.
Ten years after the publication of the Motu proprio
"Ecclesia Dei", what sort of balance-sheet can one
draw-up? I think this is above all an occasion to show our
gratitude and to give thanks. The divers communities that were
born thanks to this pontifical text have given the Church a great
number of priestly and religious vocations who, zealously,
joyfully and deeply united with the Pope, have given their
service to the Gospel in our present era of history. Through
them, many of the faithful have been confirmed in the joy of
being able to live the liturgy, and confirmed in their love for
the Church, or perhaps they have rediscovered both. In many
dioceses - and their number is not so small! - they serve the
Church in collaboration with the Bishops and in fraternal union
with those faithful who do feel at home with the renewed form of
the new liturgy. All this cannot but move us to gratitude today!
However, it would not be realistic if we were to pass-over in
silence those things which are less good. In many places
difficulties persist, and these continue because some bishops,
priests and faithful consider this attachment to the old liturgy
as an element of division which only disturbs the ecclesial
community and which gives rise to suspicions regarding an
acceptance of the Council made "with reservations", and
more generally concerning obedience towards the legitimate
pastors of the Church.
We ought now to ask the following question: how can these
difficulties be overcome? How can one build the necessary trust
so that these groups and communities who love the ancient liturgy
can be smoothly integrated into the life of the Church?
But there is another question underlying the first: what is the
deeper reason for this distrust or even for this rejection of a
continuation of the ancient liturgical forms?
It is without doubt possible that, within this area, there exist
reasons which go further back than any theology and which have
their origin in the character of individuals or in the conflict
between different personalities, or indeed a number of other
circumstances which are wholly extrinsic. But it is certain that
there are also other deeper reasons which explain these problems.
The two reasons which are most often heard, are: lack of
obedience to the Council which wanted the liturgical books
reformed, and the break in unity which must necessarily follow if
different liturgical forms are left in use. It is relatively
simple to refute these two arguments on the theoretical level.
The Council did not itself reform the liturgical books, but it
ordered their revision, and to this end, it established certain
fundamental rules. Before anything else, the Council gave a
definition of what liturgy is, and this definition gives a
valuable yardstick for every liturgical celebration. Were one to
shun these essential rules and put to one side the normae
generales which one finds in numbers 34 - 36 of the Constitution
De Sacra Liturgia (SL), in that case one would indeed be
guilty of disobedience to the Council! It is in the light of
these criteria that liturgical celebrations must be evaluated,
whether they be according to the old books or the new. It is good
to recall here what Cardinal Newman observed, that the Church,
throughout her history, has never abolished nor forbidden
orthodox liturgical forms, which would be quite alien to the
Spirit of the Church. An orthodox liturgy, that is to say, one
which express the true faith, is never a compilation made
according to the pragmatic criteria of different ceremonies,
handled in a positivist and arbitrary way, one way today and
another way tomorrow. The orthodox forms of a rite are living
realities, born out of the dialogue of love between the Church
and her Lord. They are expressions of the life of the Church, in
which are distilled the faith, the prayer and the very life of
whole generations, and which make incarnate in specific forms
both the action of God and the response of man. Such rites can
die, if those who have used them in a particular era should
disappear, or if the life-situation of those same people should
change. The authority of the Church has the power to define and
limit the use of such rites in different historical situations,
but she never just purely and simply forbids them! Thus the
Council ordered a reform of the liturgical books, but it did not
prohibit the former books. The criterion which the Council
established is both much larger and more demanding; it invites us
all to self-criticism! But we will come back to this point.
We must now examine the other argument, which claims that the
existence of the two rites can damage unity. Here a distinction
must be made between the theological aspect and the practical
aspect of the question. As regards what is theoretical and basic,
it must be stated that several forms of the Latin rite have
always existed, and were only slowly withdrawn, as a result of
the coming together of the different parts of Europe. Before the
Council there existed side by side with the Roman rite, the
Ambrosian rite, the Mozarabic rite of Toledo, the rite of Braga,
the Carthusian rite, the Carmelite rite, and best known of all,
the Dominican rite, and perhaps still other rites of which I am
not aware. No one was ever scandalized that the Dominicans, often
present in our parishes, did not celebrate like diocesan priests
but had their own rite. We did not have any doubt that their rite
was as Catholic as the Roman rite, and we were proud of the
richness inherent in these various traditions. Moreover, one must
say this: that the freedom which the new order of Mass gives to
creativity is often taken to excessive lengths. The difference
between the liturgy according to the new books, how it is
actually practiced and celebrated in different places, is often
greater than the difference between an old Mass and a new Mass,
when both these are celebrated according to the prescribed
liturgical books.
An average Christian without specialist liturgical formation
would find it difficult to distinguish between a Mass sung in
Latin according to the old Missal and a sung Latin Mass according
to the new Missal. However, the difference between a liturgy
celebrated faithfully according to the Missal of Paul VI and the
reality of a vernacular liturgy celebrated with all the freedom
and creativity that are possible - that difference can be
enormous!
With these considerations we have already crossed the threshold
between theory and practice, a point at which things naturally
get more complicated, because they concern relations between
living people.
It seems to me that the dislikes we have mentioned are as great
as they are because the two forms of celebration are seen as
indicating two different spiritual attitudes, two different ways
of perceiving the Church and the Christian life. The reasons for
this are many. The first is this: one judges the two liturgical
forms from their externals and thus one arrives at the following
conclusion: there are two fundamentally different attitudes. The
average Christian considers it essential for the renewed liturgy
to be celebrated in the vernacular and facing the people; that
there be a great deal of freedom for creativity; and that the
laity exercise an active role therein. On the other hand, it is
considered essential for a celebration according to the old rite
to be in Latin, with the priest facing the altar, strictly and
precisely according to the rubrics, and that the faithful follow
the Mass in private prayer with no active role. From this
viewpoint, a particular set of externals [phénoménologie] is
seen as essential to this or that liturgy, rather than what the
liturgy itself holds to be essential. We must hope for the day
when the faithful will appreciate the liturgy on the basis of
visible concrete forms, and become spiritually immersed in those
forms; the faithful do not easily penetrate the depths of the
liturgy.
The contradictions and oppositions which we have just enumerated
originate neither from the spirit nor the letter of the conciliar
texts. The actual Constitution on the Liturgy does not speak at
all about celebration facing the altar or facing the people. On
the subject of language, it says that Latin should be retained,
while giving a greater place to the vernacular "above all in
readings, instructions, and in a certain number of prayers and
chants" (SL 36:2). As regards the participation of the
laity, the Council first of all insists on a general point, that
the liturgy is essentially the concern of the whole Body of
Christ, Head and members, and for this reason it pertains to the
whole Body of the Church "and that consequently it [the
liturgy] is destined to be celebrated in community with the
active participation of the faithful". And the text
specifies "In liturgical celebrations each person, minister
or lay faithful, when fulfilling his role, should carry out only
and wholly that which pertains to him by virtue of the nature of
the rite and the liturgical norms"(SL 28). "To promote
active participation, acclamations by the people are favoured,
responses, the chanting of the psalms, antiphons, canticles, also
actions or gestures and bodily postures. One should also observe
a period of sacred silence at an appropriate time" (SL 30).
These are the directives of the Council; they can provide
everybody with material for reflection. Amongst a number of
modern liturgists there is unfortunately a tendency to develop
the ideas of the Council in one direction only. In acting thus,
they end up reversing the intentions of the Council. The role of
the priest is reduced, by some, to that of a mere functionary.
The fact that the Body of Christ as a whole is the subject of the
liturgy is often deformed to the point where the local community
becomes the self-sufficient subject of the liturgy and itself
distributes the liturgy's various roles. There also exists a
dangerous tendency to minimalize the sacrificial character of the
Mass, causing the mystery and the sacred to disappear, on the
pretext, a pretext that claims to be absolute, that in this way
they make things better understood. Finally, one observes the
tendency to fragment the liturgy and to highlight in a unilateral
way its communitarian character, giving the assembly itself the
power to regulate the celebration.
Fortunately however, there is also a certain disenchantment with
an all too banal rationalism, and with the pragmatism of certain
liturgists, whether they be theorists or practitioners, and one
can note a return to mystery, to adoration and to the sacred, and
to the cosmic and eschatological character of the liturgy, as
evidenced in the 1996 "Oxford Declaration on the
Liturgy". On the other hand, it must be admitted that the
celebration of the old liturgy had strayed too far into a private
individualism, and that communication between priest and people
was insufficient. I have great respect for our forefathers who at
Low Mass said the "Prayers during Mass" contained in
their prayer books, but certainly one cannot consider that as the
ideal of liturgical celebration! Perhaps these reductionist forms
of celebration are the real reason that the disappearance of the
old liturgical books was of no importance in many countries and
caused no sorrow. One was never in contact with the liturgy
itself. On the other hand, in those places where the Liturgical
Movement had created a certain love for the liturgy, where the
Movement had anticipated the essential ideas of the Council, such
as for example, the prayerful participation of all in the
liturgical action, it was those places where there was all the
more distress when confronted with a liturgical reform undertaken
too hastily and often limited to externals. Where the Liturgical
Movement had never existed, the reform initially raised no
problems. The problems only appeared in a sporadic fashion, when
unchecked creativity caused the sense of the sacred mystery to
disappear.
This is why it is very important to observe the essential
criteria of the Constitution on the Liturgy, which I quoted
above, including when one celebrates according to the old Missal!
The moment when this liturgy truly touches the faithful with its
beauty and its richness, then it will be loved, then it will no
longer be irreconcilably opposed to the new Liturgy, providing
that these criteria are indeed applied as the Council wished.
Different spiritual and theological emphases will certainly
continue to exist, but there will no longer be two contradictory
ways of being a Christian; there will instead be that richness
which pertains to the same single Catholic faith. When, some
years ago, somebody proposed "a new liturgical
movement" in order to avoid the two forms of the liturgy
becoming too distanced from each other, and in order to bring
about their close convergence, at that time some of the friends
of the old liturgy expressed their fear that this would only be a
stratagem or a ruse, intended to eliminate the old liturgy
finally and completely.
Such anxieties and fears really must end! If the unity of faith
and the oneness of the mystery appear clearly within the two
forms of celebration, that can only be a reason for everybody to
rejoice and to thank the good Lord. Inasmuch as we all believe,
live and act with these intentions, we shall also be able to
persuade the Bishops that the presence of the old liturgy does
not disturb or break the unity of their diocese, but is rather a
gift destined to build-up the Body of Christ, of which we are all
the servants.
So, my dear friends, I would like to encourage you not to lose
patience, to maintain your confidence, and to draw from the
liturgy the strength needed to bear witness to the Lord in our
own day.