Finally, some attention, in the Catholic media, at least, to the Holy Father's powerful teaching letter to the Italian bishops at their general assembly in Assisi this week. After Father Z's annotation of the message yesterday on his blog,
wdtprs.com/blog/2010/11/pope-benedict-speaks-to-italian-bishops-about-...
here is Sandro Magister's take.
The Pope to Italian bishops:
'Learn from Saint Francis'
Who knew what true liturgical reform is, writes Benedict XVI
in a message that amounts to a severe rebuke to the Italian Catholic hierarchy
where his opponents continue to prevail in liturgical matters
ROME, November 12, 2010 – The last two popes, on numerous occasions, have pointed to the Italian Church and its episcopate as a "model" for other nations.
There is one field, however, in which the Italian Church does not shine. It is that of the liturgy.
This was clear from the severe lesson that Benedict XVI gave to the Italian bishops gathered in Assisi for their general assembly from November 8-11, an assembly centered on an examination of the new translation of the Roman missal.
In the message that he addressed to the bishops on the eve of the assembly, Papa Ratzinger did not limit himself to greetings and good wishes. Instead, he gave them the criteria of "true" liturgical reform, citing the example of St. Francis himself.
"Every true reformer," he wrote, "is obedient to the faith: he does not act in an arbitrary manner, he does not appropriate any discretion over the rite; he is not the owner, but the custodian of the treasury instituted by the Lord and entrusted to us. The whole Church is present in every liturgy: adhering to its form is a condition of authenticity for what is celebrated."
The Pope gave as an example of genuine liturgical reform in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which have form to the priests' "Breviary" with the liturgy of the hours, and reinforced the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic bread and wine.
Saint Francis of Assisi lived in that time. And Benedict XVI dedicated a good part of his message to illustrating for the Italian bishops the spirit with which that great saint obeyed liturgical reform, and made his friars obey it.
[And Francis wasn't even a priest nor a deacon, but his respect and esteem for priests was legendary.]
Saint Francis, as is known, is one of the most popular and universally admired saints. He has also become a model also for those Catholics who want a Church that is more spiritual and "prophetic," instead of institutional and ritual. These professed Franciscan followers also insist on more 'creativity and freedom', even in the liturgy.
But Benedict XVI showed, in the message, that the real Saint Francis was of a completely different bent. He was profoundly convinced that Christian worship should correspond to the "rule of faith" that has been handed down, in this way giving form to the Church.
The priests, first of all, must base their holiness of life on the "holy things" of the liturgy.
The Italian bishops to whom the Pope addressed this lesson had gathered this time in none other than Assisi, the city of Francis.
[Which was the obvious reason that the Pope used the example of the Poverello for this lesson.]
And the bishop of Assisi is Domenico Sorrentino, an expert on the liturgy, but his approach has been the polar opposite of Joseph Ratzinger's.
In 2003, Archbishop Sorrentino was appointed secretary of the Vatican congregation for divine worship. But he lasted only two years, because shortly after he became Pope, Ratzinger transferred him to Assisi, and replaced him with someone extremely faithful to the Pope's liturgical ideas - Malcolm Ranjith of Sri Lanka, today archbishop of Colombo and soon to be named a cardinal.
Before 2003, for five years, the secretary of the congregation for divine worship had been another Italian expert on the liturgy, Francesco Pio Tamburrino, a Benedictine monk. But he, too, was had a liturgical stance contrary to his own cardinal prefect at the time - the "Ratzingerian" Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez of Colombia. Tamburrino, too, was transferred to a diocese, that of Foggia.
[But only to be replaced by the like-minded Sorrentino!]
Sorrentino and Tamburrino are two prominent figures of the commission for the liturgy of the Italian episcopal conference. But also on this commission, until a short time ago, was Luca Brandolini, bishop of Sora, who distinguished himself by proclaiming a sort of protest "bereavement" when in 2007 Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio
Summorum Pontificum, which liberalized the use of the ancient rite of the Mass.
In electing the members of the commission for the liturgy, the Italian bishops have always given preference to their colleagues who draw their inspiration from the architects of th post-Vatican II liturgical reform - particularly Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, and the main conceptualizer and executor of that reform, the late Archbishop Annibale Bugnini.
The negative results of that reform are what Benedict XVI has been working against. But Paul VI had already seen its abuses, and was so pained by them that in 1975 he removed Bugnini and exiled him from the Vatican and sent him to Iran as Apostolic Nuncio.
Yet, most Italian bishops and clergy continue to be influenced by the "Bugnini line." The excesses of the Novus Ordo seen in other European Churches are rare in Italy, but the predominant style of celebration is more "assembly-focused" than "turned toward the Lord," as the Pope advocates it ought to be.
The Italian bishops' conference is a special case among bishops; conferences because it has a direct connection to the Bishop of Rome
[who, it must be underscored, is also Primate of Italy!]. In fact, its president is not elected by the bishops but appointed by the Pope.
Introducing the work of the episcopal conference in Assisi on November 8, the current president, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, cited a comment by Ratzinger on the fact that Vatican Council II dedicated its first session precisely to the liturgy:
By starting with the subject of the liturgy, it unequivocally put in the spotlight the primacy of God, the absolute priority of the topic 'God'. Before everything, God: this is what starting with the liturgy says. Wherever attention to God is not the deciding factor, everything else loses its orientation.
But in order to understand more deeply the meaning of the "reform of the reform" intended by Papa Ratzinger, his message to teh Italian bishops meeting in Assisi spells it out.
[The entire message is the second post on this page. It is very much worth reading and re-reading!]
And here is Bruno Mastroianni's elegantly apposite commentary on the Pope's liturgical celebrations in Spain this weekend:
From England to Spain:
All the good that can come
from beautiful liturgy
by Bruno Mastroianni
Translated from
Nov. 11, 2010
The Second Vatican Council began its work by looking at the liturgy.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the liturgy is first mentioned as early as Paragraph #3, which says that he who has received the faith is called on to transmit it by "annpuncing it", "living it in fraternal union" and "celebrating it in the Liturgy" [with a capital L).
ZENIT reported that in preparing his trip to the United Kingdom, Benedict XVI personally intervened in the details of the Mass at Westminster Cathedral, if only to make sure that it would show Anglicans the respect and attention that the Catholic Church has for the liturgy.
Antoni Gaudí, the architect genius of the now Basilica of Sagrada Familia, which the Pope consecrated on his visit to Barcelona this weekend, appreciated the truth of the faith through its expression in liturgy.
The first book to be published of Joseph Ratzinger's Opera omnia, which recently came out in the Italian edition, is on liturgy.
"The liturgy of the Church," he wrote, "has been for me, since childhood, the central activity of my life".
These are the reasons for Benedict XVI's extreme concern, care and attention for everything that has to do with liturgy. Not because of estheticism or traditionalism. Rather, it is the outcome of that 'primacy of God' that is so dearly important to Joseph Ratzinger.
[Which is, in fact, the guiding principle and principal point of his Magisterium, as it should be for every Catholic priest.]
The Church is not a moral mega-entity dedicated to dispensing constructive discourses. Its mission is to bring God to man. With concrete acts, with the sacraments, with rites of divine worship - celebrated with the care one gives when addressing a divinity who is not cosmically remote but a God who is real and present.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 12/11/2010 13:01]