Father John W. Mole, O.M.I.
We are told that wherever the New York Subway ends there is nothing but outer space so that whoever comes from beyond cannot be other than a bizarre alien.
No doubt this is an unjust caricature of the New York mentality but I mention this myth because it aptly describes the traditional/progressive dichotomy with which the Church has been afflicted since the Second Vatican Council. In consequence, we traditionalists are regarded as outsiders to be kept at a distance. This prompted me once to address my audience in the manner of St. Damien: Dear fellow lepers. The title of my talk, In medio Ecclesiae, was taken from the Introit of the Mass for a Doctor: "In the middle of the Church, he opened his mouth." The question I posed was: how can we move in from the outside and open our mouths in the middle of the Church? The reply is now happily to be found in the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta.
In Respighi's symphonic poem, the Pines of Rome resound to the triumphant return of Roman legions. They have recently resonated even more vibrantly to the music of the march of thousands of Ecclesia Dei pilgrims bearing with them back to Rome the Roman Rite.
The Roman Pontiff himself has been banned from Rome more than once. Pius VI, Pius VII and Pius IX were all expelled. The first named died in captivity but the other two returned. The Babylonian exile of the Avignon Popes in the 14th and 15th centuries was brought to an end by a young woman named Catherine of Sienna. And who knows? A Catherine of Cambridge is now come to end definitively the exile of the Roman Rite.
This symposium is an echo of the 10th anniversary celebrations at Rome and, thanks to your kind invitation, I can open my mouth in the middle of Manhattan, my discourse being in three parts:
1) The nature of the affliction announced by the incipit of the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta.
2) Actual initiatives taken by the Traditional Mass movement to come to the aid of the Church and as suage her affliction. 3) The magnificent response of Ecclesia Dei adflicta to these initiatives.
I: THE CHURCH SORELY AFFLICTED
The English version opens with the sentence "With great affliction the Church has learned of the schismatic act" and thus attributes the affliction to Archbishop Lefebvre.
More strictly translated, however, the sentence would read: "The afflicted Church of God has learned of the schismatic act, etc." and so would refer to an affliction already existing which has been aggravated, rather than caused, by the Archbishop.
How and when did this affliction begin? Let us put the question to the one who drafted the document. While its designation "motu proprio" means personal initiative of John Paul II, it is marked with a genius which cannot be other than that of Cardinal Ratzinger. The Holy Father's own great genius does not extend to matters liturgical, given that sometimes he takes advice in this domain from sources not always sound. Thus he permitted the Congregation of Worship to compromise on the question of altar girls. He did this after being advised that Canon 230, section 2, does not forbid women from serving at the altar. Neither does it forbid cows from jumping over the moon. However, the firm tradition extending over two millennia which bars women from the sanctuary during the liturgy stands too high for the Congregation of Worship to jump over. So it advised the bishops to use their own pastoral prudence in the matter of permitting or prohibiting altar girls. As many of them are intimidated by feminists, a more appropriate term would be "under duresse" rather than "pastoral prudence."
However if John Paul II lacks the genius of a Pope St. Gregory the Great, or Pope St. Pius V or Pope St. Pius X, in matters liturgical, it was certainly a stroke of genius on his part to choose Joseph Ratzinger as his Cardinal Prefect of Faith and to put him in charge of the case of Archbishop Lefebvre at the height of the liturgical crisis.
My Path of Ascent
At this juncture permit me to explain where I myself come from, if not from outer space. At the beginning of my priesthood, I was seized with the problems of the communications revolution and only after some decades did I become immersed in the problems of the liturgical revolution.
On Dec. 3, 1963, the Constitution on the Liturgy was promulgated simultaneously with the Decree on the Media of Communication and it was the latter which attracted my attention at the time. However Paul VI did remark judiciously that both documents had to do with communication, one within and the other without the Church. The desire for authentic communication is indeed a path of ascent to that which is sacred.
My first assignment, after ordination, had been as editor of a Marian magazine published at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape on the St. Lawrence River, beside which there is a paper mill. The clatter of my typewriter was accompanied by the background noise of logs racked up on high by a jack ladder and plunked on to the top of a mountainous pile which I could see from my window. These logs were pulped into paper for LIFE magazine which had a circulation of millions, compared to the several thousand of my Marian magazine. So I was constantly preoccupied with what a Catholic writer must contend with in a world being more and more secularized by huge mass circulation media.
I don't know if my superiors were impressed by my editorial ability but apparently they did notice that 1 could type quite rapidly so, after three years, I was sent to Rome as secretary to the Superior General of our order. Once when he remarked that during the War it took a ton of steel to kill a man, 1 could not help responding, "Father General, judging by what we do here, it takes a ton of paper to save a soul." Happily after six years of this holy slavery, 1 was not only released but allowed to choose my next occupation. I had profited from travel opportunities in Europe to find out what was being done in the way of study of mass media, so 1 asked to be attached to our University in Ottawa where I could engage in such research myself. I soon discovered the huge difference between the European approach and that of North America. The Europeans studied the problems arising from the application of technology in the domain of communication just as previously they had studied the impact on man and his society of the application of technology in the domain of production. It was such study of the industrial revolution that enabled the Church to develop her marvellous social doctrine. And I came in contact with European Catholic circles concerned with developing a similar social doctrine in regard to the communications revolution. But I found on returning to this side of the Atlantic that communications research meant something vastly different: content analysis. This was a pragmatic approach occasioned by the second World War when the U.S. Defence Department mobilized university personnel and facilities to analyse the content of enemy propaganda with a view to devising methods of counter propaganda. After the war, these institutes were commissioned by the advertising industry and political interests to study how to exploit media for their own commercial or political advantage. The concept of communication was really that of propaganda: how to manipulate men's minds. Content analysis presumes that a communicator pours the content of his mind into the heads of the people as if they were empty recipients or jug heads.
In any event, besides launching a research review called Canadian Communications based on the European approach, as well as a pastoral periodical called Christian Communications based on the Communications Decree of the Second Vatican Council, I prevailed on the authorities of our Oblate university in Ottawa to set up an Institute of Social Communication. Unfortunately, they decided that the Institute be equipped with a studio to train producers for the media. That would surely attract students, so they thought, fearing that it might be impractical to be too theoretical. I then found myself trying to lecture on the philosophy of communication to students resentful of being taken away from their electronic toys and anxious to get back to their playpen. So to my mind the project was ruined by pragmatism. My chagrin was such that I was inclined to set off for the French Foreign Legion but I compromised by consenting to be a reservist chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces.
This proved congenial as it allowed me to rise from the level of secular to that of sacred communication, or catechesis, and indeed to that of the Liturgy of the Word. There is an institution in the Armed Forces called the Padres Hour to which the troops are entitled once a week. They did not insist on it but I did. In fact, on my first day, after reporting to a large training base and being decked out in an officer's uniform, my first duty was to give a Padre's Hour. I went to the building indicated and waited outside for the troops to arrive. A hundred men were marched up to me by a corporal who saluted and asked for instructions. So 1 said "Protestants to the left and Catholics to the right" and followed my lot into a class room. My topic was the Gospel for the following Sunday which was the Parable of the Sower and asked the men how many of them knew it. Of the fifty, only two stuck up their hands. Well, well. Anyway I read the Gospel and then asked, "How many of you have heard that story before?" Again, only two hands. Without further ado, Ilaunched into my explanation and had been going a good ten minutes when the Protestant Padre rushed in and cried, "Hey, you've got my men!" "Oh!" said I, "That's what the trouble is." As I walked out, I asked, "Don't they tell you anything?" But in fact, it was much the same with the Catholic men. And that is how I was launched into developing a catechesis based on the Sunday readings of the Novus Ordo lectionary and its three year cycle. But instead of calling this program the Padre's Hour, I called it the Word of God Hour, by which I meant an invitation to People to prepare themselves to listen to the Word of God in the Scripture readings for the coming Sunday. The materials I prepared for my Word of God Hour grew into a 500 page book, The ABC Catechism, published by Franciscan Herald Press and recently I have installed it on Internet as the Word of God website. I am very happy to have made this contribution to the Novus Ordo for it is well that we, who seek to overcome prejudice against the Roman Rite, show ourselves as free from prejudice against the Novus Ordo.
My involvement with the Traditional Mass movement began when, on returning to Ottawa after a seven year stint in the Armed Forces, I found myself solicited to serve the Latin Mass community in the city. This was not an indult community but one that existed thanks to a proposal made by Rome in 1967 that a Latin Mass be retained in major cities for the benefit of the international community. A French diplomat made the request to the Archbishop who, eager to be in good rapport with the diplomatic corps, gladly organized the Ottawa Latin Community with a chancery priest in charge. This was in March, 1968. A convent chapel was placed at its disposal for a Sunday Mass until 1984, in which year the community acquired its own place of worship. It then required a second Sunday Mass as well as weekday Masses. The chancery priest, being unable to provide this extra service, requested me to do so, with the written assent of the Archbishop.
This Latin community was a very privileged and secure community and, in consequence, rather complacent. This prompted me to make no bones about exhorting the people not to be motivated only by personal preference lest they fall into a ghetto mentality. They must be convinced that they were serving the good of the Church as a whole by keeping alive and visible the ancient Mass. In order to inculcate this conviction, I had to do my homework on the liturgical movement. But by now I was a septuagenarian and could not dream of becoming a liturgical scholar. So I simply tried to acquire enough erudition to ask questions for scholars to answer. And thank heaven, the scholars we need are now coming forward. And who better to answer our questions about Ecclesia Dei adflicta than the incomparable Cardinal Ratzinger? In fact, one must study his mind in order to obtain a full understanding of this document.
II: INITIATIVES IN AID OF THE CHURCH
The scene of devastation concluding our first part is dark indeed but nonetheless illumined by rays of hope. Again, it is the perspicacious Cardinal Ratzinger who not only points them out but identifies them as emanating from the new ecclesial movements.
New ecclesial movements
He gave a discourse' to leaders thereof at a meeting at Rome prior to an enormous gathering of their members, convoked by John Paul II last year on Pentecost Saturday, May 30, and which filled the entire Piazza San Pietro, and the Via della Conciliazione down to the Tiber.
In his first part, Ratzinger goes thoroughly into the theological rightness of this phenomenon as well as the problems it poses for the institutional structure of the Church. Many bishops have hitherto perceived these movements only as a nuisance because it is difficult to integrate them into parochial and diocesan structures. But, says Ratzinger, without the new movements recurring periodically in various forms in the history of the Church, she would become bogged down and moribund in her institutional organization. These movements are, he says, "ever renewed irruptions of the Holy Spirit which ceaselessly revitalize and renew the structure of the Church."
Part Two of his discourse is historical. First there was monasticism which in the seventh and eighth centuries became missionary. Europe was covered with monasteries which civilized as well as evangelized large regions around them. In the 13th century, there was the evangelical movement inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic, the impetus of which is far from spent today. In fact, the movement to save the Roman Rite in France is also one of monastic renewal, there being eight monasteries and one Dominican Priory in the Ecclesia Dei movement. Dom Gueranger's movement in the 19th century was entirely monastic. In the 16th century appeared St. Ignatius Loyola and his Jesuits. And finally, says Ratzinger, there were the movements of the 19th century with the emergence of strictly missionary congregations and, above all, of a great female movement.
One ecclesial movement in particular was unable to be present on May 30th at Rome for two reasons. First, it was on its own Pentecostal pilgrimage on foot from Paris to Chartres, in which 15,000 young pilgrims take part annually. Secondly, its pilgrimage to Rome in 1998 was planned for October when it would send 3000 pilgrims to participate in the 10th anniversary celebrations of the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta Such is the Traditional Mass movement.
Traditional Mass movement
It has evolved in two branches, independent of each other. The first branch was launched in England and France in 1964 and internationalized in 1968 under the name of Una Voce, so that with one voice it could raise its voice in the middle of the Church. It took the low road of humble petition and obtained its first success in 1971: an indult for England and Wales procured by Cardinal Heenan, Primate of England and Wales. To him, distinguished converts such as Evelyn Waugh had recourse in their great distress over the loss of the Roman Mass which had attracted them to the Church. Besides the plight of these converts, Cardinal Heenan had an even more cogent argument. Forty English and Welsh martyrs who had died for the Latin Mass in the sixteenth century rather than accept Cramner's vernacular Mass, were canonized in 1970. So Heenan was able to confront Paul VI with the incongruity of abolishing the Mass for which they died about the same time as they were canonized. The indult for England and Wales was granted in 1971 but loaded with humiliating and punitive conditions that were only lifted in 1991, by which time the Heenan indult had been extended to the whole Church. That was in 1984.
The second branch of the Traditional Mass movement was launched in France, under the name of the St. Pius X Society and took the high road of organizing Roman Rite seminaries.
Its origin around 1969 is attributable to the circumstance that young aspirants for ordination as traditional priests were being turned away by the French bishops. So they addressed themselves to a retired missionary bishop who had organized the whole Church of North Africa below the Sahara and who well knew how to organize seminaries. This was Marcel Lefebvre whom Pius XII made Apostolic Delegate to North Africa. When he retired to France, he was prevailed upon to become successively Bishop of Tulle, superior general of his missionary order, and member of John XXIII's Commission to prepare the Council. Finally he retired to an apartment in Rome where he was sought out by the would be traditional priests and by 1971 he had launched the seminary at Econe with permission of the bishop of the diocese. This was the first of six seminaries.
In 1976, Paul VI suspended him a divinis and declared that the St. Pius X Society was non existent as far as the Church was concerned. That the conflict would take this direction and even end in schism was inevitable, given that Paul VI failed to rise above the traditional progressive dichotomy in order to be arbiter of both sides. He chose instead to come down on the progressive side, that of Bugnini whom he made the chief artisan of his reform. Thus he was reduced to being a protagonist, trying to overwhelm his adversary even to the extent of demanding abject capitulation and blind surrender of the Pius X seminaries and other properties. His attitude towards Lefebvre was also characterized by mistrust in that he thought Lefebvre's defence of the traditional Mass was a cover for an ulterior motive, that of resisting the Second Vatican Council.
Lefebvre reciprocated by fomenting in his soul a mistrust of the Holy See which was to prove insuperable during the pontificate of John Paul II who, under Ratzinger's guidance, resorted to a policy diametrically opposite to that of Paul VI: conciliation not capitulation, full ecclesial communion for the St. Pius X Society, not suppression and a climate of trust, not mistrust. There was of course intransigence on both sides of the Montini Lefebvre struggle. The documentary record gives an impression of a conflict of personalities between two holy men who only had one thing in common: bad advisors.
The Pauline reform was supposed to have been preceded and accompanied by a catechetical effort to prepare the faithful for the changes. But the crash programme mentality of Bugnini could not wait. He had the Novus Ordo Mass ready by 1967 when it was shown to the Roman Synod of 187 Bishops. It made no difference that a majority of these Bishops showed disfavour. The same Novus Ordo was given to Paul VI to promulgate on April 3, 1969, only to be rejected again when Cardinal Ottaviani intervened on the grounds that it was at variance with the doctrine of the Council of Trent.
Pastoral need to disobey
This botched 1969 promulgation was the climax of five years of recklessness of the reformers. Total vernacularisation, communion in the hand (also voted against by a majority of bishops), communion in both species for everybody and at every time, altar girls all these brought in under the sign of disobedience and justified by pastoral necessity. But woe to the priest who thought himself justified by pastoral necessity to continue saying the old Mass. He could find the police at his door sent by the Chancery to eject him from his presbytery. This actually happened in England, France and French Canada. And woe to Archbishop Lefebvre, who argued that it was a matter of pastoral necessity to organize Roman Rite seminaries.
Invoking pastoral necessity to nullify key articles of Sacrosanctum Concilium caused a vacuum into which rushed a plethora of unauthorized Eucharistic Prayers, or messes sauvages, as the French called them. By 197 1, only a year after the Pauline Missal became obligatory, there were 200 Eucharistic Prayers published and in use. The abomination of desolation in the holy of holies also became manifest. By 1972 Paul VI was complaining bitterly of the smoke of Satan rising from a fissure in the sanctuary. The situation was out of control and still is. In these United States the spectacle of the Call to Action Mass in a large convention hotel with 3000 concelebrants, ten percent of them priests with a bishop or two, and a third of them nuns happens every year in November about the same time as the general assembly of bishops which, for its part, is powerless to issue a Call to Order.
Bugnini, in the face of growing indignation of Curial Cardinals, tried in 1973 to curb the wildness by issuing a decree of the Congregation of Worship, of which he was secretary, stipulating that only four Eucharistic prayers were authorized for general use and only these four were to be incorporated into the body of the Missal. Eucharistic Prayers for special occasion should be printed aside in brochures. But his propensity for "even more radical" reform (a phrase cunningly inserted in article 40 of Sacrosanctum Concilium), prompted him to put in an escape clause whereby any episcopal conference's request for a special Eucharistic Prayer would be received benevolently. The Swiss Conference promptly applied for a Mass of Lutheran style, whereby Christ would become present in the Eucharist not by transsubstantiation but in an unspecified manner. This was an impudent repetition of Article 7 of the General Instruction promulgated with the Novus Ordo in 1969. Bugnini approved the Swiss Mass in 1974, as usual without authority of the Congregation of Faith, whereupon it began to propagate into 17 countries on three continents. The Congregation of Faith did not catch up with the Congregation of Worship until 1991 and even then, only obtained a partial rectification. This Swiss Mass is presented in the Italian Missal as a fifth Eucharistic Prayer for general use and is therefore to be found on the altars of Rome and probably lies unblushingly in the sacristy of the papal chapel.
In short, the situation of the postconciliar Church has been such as to prompt the Holy Spirit to include the Traditional Mass movement amongst the new ecclesial movements in order to ensure the survival and continuity of the Roman Rite.
III. Response Of The Holy See
We come now to Ecclesia Dei adflicta considered as a response of the Holy See to initiatives taken by the Traditional Mass movement. It sums up its business succinctly in six articles, with a seventh invoking the Blessed Virgin. It also absorbs into its scope three contributory documents: the letter of April 8, 1988, whereby John Paul II mandates Cardinal Ratzinger to deal with the Lefebvre crisis, the protocol of May 5, rejected by Lefebvre but endorsed by John Paul II, and the indult of 1984. This indult which grants the use of the 1962 Missal as a privilege is now incorporated into a document which legislates in favour of the rights of those attached to the traditional Mass. Its status therefore has been raised. Ascende superius, says our Lord. Go up higher!
In this, our third part, we will run through the salient features of John Paul II's moto proprio of July 2, 1988 which are: genius, thrust, radicality, catholicity and decisiveness.
Genius
First, to cope with the magnitude of the crisis, the motu proprio had to be a work of genius and, to this end, it was providential that, when schism erupted, John Paul II was enabled, thanks to having Joseph Ratzinger at his side, to take the swift, wise and resolute action that the situation demanded. The reason why Ratzinger was at his elbow in this moment of truth was because, eleven years earlier, he laid on the altar of sacrifice the theological career to which he profoundly desired to devote himself exclusively. Not that the burden of the episcopate and the cardinalate could diminish his theological acumen. This is marvellously evident. But his theological mind was reduced to working intermittently and without momentum. But had Ratzinger been able to continue unfettered his career as a theologian, by now he would have completed his opus magnum on the sacred liturgy on which he is known to be working sporadically. For it is the liturgy which has been at the centre of his life since boyhood as well as at the centre of his preoccupations as a theologian.
His memoirs extend from 1927 until 1977 and terminate with his whimsical description of how much he hesitated before accepting the bishopric of Munich. In the end, he signified his consent by including in his episcopal armories the sign of a bear carrying a packsack. This alluded to an episode a thousand years before in the life of the first bishop of Munich who was a saint. While on his way through the Alps to Rome, a bear attacked the packhorse he was leading. The saint punished the bear by making it carry the packsack to Rome where, on arrival, it was allowed to go back to the Alps. Ratzinger relates that he was called to Rome, not to be released, but to be weighed down with the still greater burden of Cardinal Prefect of Faith. He consoles himself with the reflection that a beast of burden is close to the Master who leads it. Chesterton's song of the donkey comes to mind: “Fools, I have also had my hour; a far fierce hour and sweet. There were shouts about my ears; and palms beneath my feet.”
It is burdensome for Ratzinger to be duty bound to judge the orthodoxy of other theologians in view of possible sanctions. Even before coming to Rome, he was required to report on the aberrations which led to the removal of Hans Kung from the Catholic chair of theology at Tubingen. When he rose to the office of Cardinal Prefect of Faith, he was pursued by the scorn of this uncatholic theologian who, being a darling of the media, was able to make his derision of Ratzinger reverberate around the world.
One thinks of the derisory roundel about the bear that went up the mountain to see what he could see. And all that he could see, shouts the roisterous refrain, was the other side of the mountain. But here was a Bavarian bear, whose theological genius brought him to the spiritual summit of the Church, which is her liturgy, and whose spirit of sacrifice brought him to the administrative summit of the Church as Cardinal Prefect of Faith and who, thanks to being able to see both sides of the question in depth, could produce the brilliant document Ecclesia Dei adflicta with fulgurating rapidity, that is, only two days after the Lefebvre crisis had reached its paroxysm. The reason why grave damage was done to the liturgy by Paul VI was because he confided the task of reform to those who only had a one sided view of the matter, that of the progressive side. For the liturgical movement had been divided, from the 1940's on into two sides, traditional and progressive, and by the time of the Second Vatican Council, the progressive, or pastoral side as it prefers to call itself, had gained the ascendancy. Incidentally, Bugnini had been in collusion with this progressive wing since 1948. After spending four days at one of its study sessions near Paris in that year, he told them: "The greatest service I can render you is not to breathe a word at Rome of what I have heard at this meeting.
Thrust
Second in our list of features of Ecclesia Dei adflicta is its thrust. Its first three articles dealing with the schismatic act of Archbishop Lefebvre are simply a statement preliminary to saying what is to be done about it. The thrust of Ecclesia Dei adflicta is remedial, not condemnatory. The Archbishop has acted in a schismatic manner. Very well, says John Paul II, I hereby declare what I shall do in consequence. He has repudiated the protocol of May 5th. I shall uphold it. He has slammed the door shut. I shall open it wide to all traditionalists. Let them come into the middle of the Church and raise their voices.
The leaders of the St. Pius X Society choose to contend that this trio of articles makes of the document an act of condemnation. But this is contrary to its explicit purpose, announced in its subtitle, as that of "expediting full ecclesial communion for members of the Fraternal Society of St. Pius X" The persons involved in the illicit ordination had excommunicated themselves and the canonical act of condemnation had been pronounced in Osservatore Romano. It would have been odious for the motu proprio to do nothing but recriminate. Rather it seeks to be a magnanimous act of reparation, an act to repair the damage done in toto et ab initio, the whole damage from the beginning and not just the aggravation thereof by Archbishop Lefebvre. John Paul II’s motu proprio keeps the gates of Rome open to members of the St. Pius X Society. We will hear at this symposium of how the passing of former members of this Society through the porta speciosa, the beautiful gate, of Ecclesia Dei has enhanced the celebration of its tenth anniversary.
Besides the die hard leadership of the St Pius X Society contending that the gates are shut, Adoremus has, in the last two issues of its otherwise excellent Bulletin, referred to Ecclesia Dei adflicta as an act of excommunication. Adoremus seems to neglect its homework habitually in matters pertaining to the Traditional Mass movement. It mars its fine Statement of Purpose by making it state the purpose of the Traditional Mass movement as that of going back to the preconciliar Mass. Adoremus et procidamus says psalm 94 "Let us adore and fall flat on our faces." Our friends of Adoremus should say: Let us adore but let us not be prone, that is, let us not be prone to making such a gaffe as to assert that the Traditional Mass movement moves backwards. Una Voce America, the official voice of the said movement on this continent, officially stated at its last general meeting that its purpose is not to go back to the preconciliar Mass, but to go forward with the Roman Rite. And now, it receives its forward marching orders from John Paul II's motu proprio.
The dramatic thrust of this motu proprio evokes the famous mot d'ordre of Marshal Foch in the 1917 Battle of the Marne. "My left wing is yielding, my right is collapsing. The situation is excellent. I advance by the centre." In the face of the news of the complete collapse of all efforts to conciliate Archbishop Lefebvre and his St. Pius X Society, Ecclesia Dei adflicta advanced by the centre. It advanced with the Roman Rite which is the centre and summit of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus was victory snatched from defeat. And it was a victory which, while it did not save the person of Archbishop Lefebvre, at least saved his cause. Although he did not appreciate it at the time, his high road of Roman Rite seminaries has proved to be a road which leads to Rome. Ten years later, we have the prospect of throngs of ardent young priests pouring out of Ecclesia Dei seminaries.
Radicality, catholicity, decisiveness
Third in our list of features of the motu proprio is the focus in its fourth article, on the root cause of the liturgical crisis, namely the traditional/progressive dichotomy. The full import of this article is contained in the letter of April 8 from John Paul II to Cardinal Ratzinger. It speaks of extremism on both sides of this dichotomy, of which the error consists in failure to take into account the living character of the liturgy. Living tradition goes hand in hand with progress. Cardinal Newman was fond of saying "Growth is the only sign of life." Hence tradition and progress are complementary dimensions of the liturgy. They ought not to be in opposition with each other.
The traditional/progressive dichotomy existed long before the Traditional Mass movement or Archbishop Lefebvre came on the scene. It was the aberrations of progressive extremists which prompted Pius XII to write his encyclical Mediator Dei in 1947.
The fourth important feature of the motu proprio is the upholding of the principle that Catholic unity is characterized by diversity. Section (a) of article 5 affirms: "it is necessary that all pastors and faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate." That many bishops are unwilling to allow Ecclesia Dei communities because they think this would be detrimental to the unity of their dioceses, is a problem that, we have said earlier, may relate to the loss of the priestly sense of identity which can only be assured in the Roman Catholic Church by the Roman Rite. This may be the reason why Cardinal Ratzinger told the Ecclesia Dei pilgrims to be patient about the reluctance of the Holy See to improve the juridical status of the traditional Mass at this time. It may do more harm than good to try to solve the juridical problem while the pyschological problem still prevails. He seemed to intimate that we must wait for a new generation of bishops. Certainly the younger Novus Ordo clergy that is appearing on the scene are free from prejudice for the ancient rite.
Our final aspect is that of decisiveness. Article 6 begins: "By virtue of my apostolic authority I decree the following”. This covers administrative measures to be taken immediately, in the light of the protocol of May 5, in view of Lefebvre's valiant initiative of Roman Rite seminaries now becoming the initiative of the Holy See.
Article 5 provides the fundamental and long term solution to the liturgical crisis which consists in the redressing of the movement of liturgical studies so that they will be based primarily on the nature of the liturgy in itself, rather than on pragmatic problems of how to adapt it to modem man.
The implementation of article 5 has already been undertaken on a marvellous scale by a group of young men and women in France associated with the movement Renaissance Francaise, closely affiliated with Una Voce France. They have organized a forum for scholars called Centre international des etudes liturgiques, hence with the heavenly acronym CIEL. In each of the last four years they have held three day symposia to which theologians, philosophers and sociologists have responded. Volumes of the papers given are published in French, English, German, Italian and Spanish and sent to the bishops who speak these languages. They are preparing their fifth symposium for this year. This is a splendid response indeed to the appeal of article 5 of Ecclesia Dei adflicta.
In conclusion, 1 make bold to say that Ecclesia Dei adflicta in the ten years of its existence, has produced more tangible fruits than those of Sacrosanctum Concilium in the thirty five years of its existence.
The tangible fruits are worshipping communities that exist under the aegis of either document. Those that take their origin from strict conformity with the Constitution on the Liturgy are few indeed. All I know of personally are the St. Agnes parish in St. Paul Minnesota, directed by Mgr Schuler, St. Agnes here in New York, the 10.30 Mass on Sundays at Westminister Cathedral, London, the monastery of Solesmes, and the Latin Masses in St. Peter's Basilica or in the papal chapel at Rome. No doubt there are others, but not enough to maintain that the potentiality of Sacrosanctum Concilium has really begun to be actualized.
On the other hand, there are hundreds of worshipping communities which now exist under the aegis of Ecclesi Dei adflicta, of which 200 are in North America. And they will become thousands when bishops generally allow themselves be become convinced of the wisdom of John Paul II's motu proprio.
What of the future? It would seem that the liturgical movement is crystallizing into three branches, each of which must run its course while the outcome must be left to Divine Providence.
There will be the Ecclesia Dei movement to assure the survival and continuity of the Roman Rite; the Sacrosanctum Concilium movement seeking the revision of the Roman Rite according to the directives of the Second Vatican Council; and the Novus Ordo movement. The last named must no longer be confused with Sacrosanctum Concilium, its purpose being simply that of becoming established as a new rite. This is not a revolutionary aim as there were two major rites in the first millennium, the Gallican and the Roman, which merged in the second. So it may well be within the designs of Divine Providence that, in addition to the Roman Rite, there will be a Novus Ordo rite which may branch into other rites for Africa and Asia. Time will tell.
The great lesson to be learned from the disastrous experience of the Pauline reform is the imprudence of setting up a worldwide establishment of liturgical changers, with Bugnini's Consilium at its apex, and allowing it to act autonomously as an innovative body in the Church. All this has been without any provision whatsoever to preserve the continuity and integrity of the Roman Rite. Hence, as long as the Sacrosanctum Concilium movement exists, the Ecclesia Dei movement must also exist to ensure that nothing happens to impair the continued existence of the Roman Rite.
Normally there should be no need for either movement. The Roman Rite should, as it has done since the fourth century, grow and develop from its own inner vitality with the process of change being purely organic, not artificial. True it is that special reasons, decided upon by the Second Vatican Council, require the existence of the Sacrosanctum Concilium movement. But let it no longer monopolize and dominate the whole field of the liturgy. Let there also be the Ecclesia Dei movement of which the prestige will be such as to command respect and deference. For all must ever be mindful of the Roman proverb quoted by St. Paul in chapter 13 of his Epistle to the Romans: mala colloquia corrumpunt bonos mores evil communication corrupts good manners. The converse is also true: "Bad manners corrupt good communication." Indeed the ultimate significance of the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta is that it restores the good manners that have been lacking during this postconciliar period in regard to that most sublime form of communication which is the sacred liturgy.
Notes
1. Catherine Pickstock, After Writing.. On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (London: Blackwell Press, 1998).
2. Cipriano Vagaggini, O.S.B., The Canon of the Mass and the Liturgical Reform (New York: Alba House, 1967).
3. The views of Cardinals Ottaviania and Ratzinger are well known. Cardinal Seper said nothing publicly. Bugnini himself informs us that Cardinal Seper was "notoriously opposed to the reform," cf. La Riforma Liturgica, pp. 477-478.
4. Nicola Giampietro, 11 Card. Ferdinando Antonelli e gli sviluppi della riforma liturgica dal 1948 al 1970 (Roma: Studia Anselmiana, 1998).
5. Pierre-Marie GY, O.P., La Liturgie dans l'Histoire, Paris, Editions Saint Paul, cf. p. 317. The idea that the reform of Vatican II must be of diluvian proportions was promulgated by the historian Josef Jungmann, S.J., who was a member of the Consilium. The germ of this idea is to be found in his work The Mass of the Roman Rite. Vol. I, p. 140-14 1, where he speaks of the Missal of Pius V being "a powerful dam holding back the waters" which presumably will have to burst in order to permit liturgical progress.
6. Malinski, Mon Ami, Karol Wojtyla, (Paris, 1980),p. 210.
7. Raoul Jaouin, O.M.l., L'Eucharistie du mil (Paris, 1996).
8. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements," in Communio 25 (Fall, 1998), pp. 480-504.
9. As cited in Pie Duploye, O.P., Les origines du Centre de pastorale liturgique: 1943-1949 (Mulhouse: Editions Salvator, 1968), p. 338.
10. Besides plurality of rites, plurality of Eucharistic Prayers may also prove to concern only the Novus Ordo, not Socrosanctum Concilium. The Roman Canon is undoubtedly the most substantial part of the Roman Rite. Making it optional (and therefore exceptional -- ever used) is probably contrary to the exigency of article 38 of Socrosanctum Concilium, namely that the substantive unity of the Roman Rite must be safeguarded.