From Inside the Vatican, October 1998 issue. Robert
Moynihan, Editor
Recently, the Italian priest Gianni Baget Bozzo, for many years a close collaborator
of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa (who was twice almost elected Pope in 1978),
raised the issue of the restoration of the liturgy in the Italian press. In
an article in Il Giornale on August 26 entitled "Why the Latin Mass in Not
a Rite for Nostalgics Only," Bozzo set forth the arguments in favor of the
"old Mass" which an increasing number in Rome are beginning to find compelling.
"There has been an increase, in many dioceses, of the permission granted to
the faithful to celebrate the traditional Catholic Mass, which dates back 1,800
years," Bozzo began. "The Mass is called the Mass of St. Pius V because it was
this Pope who codified its authentic text. It is in Latin and so starting to
celebrate it again has up until now been seen as the longing of a club of nostalgics
for the past in an age of globalization."
But the desire for the "old Mass" is more than just nostalgia and anxiety in
the face of modernity, Bozzo argues. "The groups in favor of the Mass of St.
Pius V which sprang up immediately after the introduction of the reformed liturgy
following the Second Vatican Council loved the beauty of the Latin language
and of Gregorian chant, and so they wanted the Mass in Latin because it was
in Latin," he writes. "But those who are interested in the Mass of St. Pius
V today are not attracted by the Latin alone, but rather by the text of that
Mass, independent of the language."
It's not just the Latin and the chant that is at issue, but the content of the
Mass, Bozzo argues.
"The post-conciliar reformed Mass is a different thing from the traditional
Mass," he says. "It is certainly orthodox, but it does not have the mystical
spiritual quality of the ancient Mass. The old Mass has a personal tone. The
earthly celebrant is the priest, who feels himself to be a sinner who, as such,
asks forgiveness. The people feel the same thing, and seek forgiveness in a
personal self-accusation, not in a communal one. Each person is a sinner; collective
sin does not exist. The word 'we' appears only after the end of the penitential
part of the Mass."
"Finally," he writes, "the entire old Mass is dominated by the proclamation
of the real presence (not metaphorical or symbolic) of Christ under the appearance
of bread and wine. The signs of the cross over the bread and the wine which
accompany the Canon, indicate... the renewal of the sacrifice of the Cross.
The kisses of the altar express a form of tenderness.
"There are great things in the Mass of St. Pius V that are not found in the
Mass of Paul VI. The Mass of Paul VI is marked by an affective sterility...
It is a cold Mass, to which guitars are added as an extraneous sound, with words
without doctrine and music sometimes devoid of beauty.
Could it be that there is some connection between the great crisis that invested
the Church in the 1970s and the change in the Mass? Could it be that the crisis
in priestly vocations stems from the loss of the sacrality of the priest, well-expressed
in the ancient Mass?
"If the custom of celebrating this Mass should flourish once again among Catholics,
even if only alongside the monopoly, rigorously imposed, of the reformed liturgy,
it would be a good thing," Bozzo sums up. "The Council recognized the religious
freedom of non-believers and multiplied the liturgical forms. Can there not
be freedom in the post-conciliar Church to celebrate the Mass of the Tradition?"
It is, we think, a good question, and one John Paul is clearly pondering.