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'Populus Summorum Pontificum' - may our numbers grow!
I apologize that I have not done enough on this Forum to mark the 10th anniversary year of Summorum Pontificum, and I had to be reminded of my failure by the following commentary by the director of the Office for Sacred Worship in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin,the editor of the Adoremus Bulletin, and visiting faculty member at the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Illinois.
And I post it in order to disagree with the writer's basic premise – that 'Summorum Pontificum' is basically seen as 'merely an analysis of rites and rubrics',. It certainly never was that for those who believe and abide by it (because those who dismiss it as anachronistic and irrelevant would never have bothered to read it anyway).
It is very clear from the first line of the motu proprio that Benedict XVI meant to showcase the importance of liturgy – 'worthy worship of the Divine Majesty' - in the life of the Church:
The Supreme Pontiffs have to this day shown constant concern that the Church of Christ should offer worthy worship to the Divine Majesty, “for the praise and glory of his name” and “the good of all his holy Church.”
In fact, the motu proprio does not at all get into 'the analysis of rites and rubrics' but simply lays down the rules by which the Church 'restores' to the traditional Mass a continuing legitimacy which the creators and proponents of the Novus Ordo simply assumed to have been abrogated.
What was ‘Summorum Pontificum’ really about?
By Chris Carstens
July 29, 2017
Ten years ago, Pope Benedict XVI issued his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum(SP), which liberalized the use of the traditional Latin Mass and addressed a number of concerns about its use.
Nonetheless, many still have questions about SP and its implications. A helpful yet often under-emphasized read of this document sees it not as an analysis of rites and rubrics, but as a call to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the liturgy’s power and efficacy.[But this second part of the statement was always the immediate understanding of SP by those who are serious about liturgy – in which rubrics describe the external form in which a rite must be celebrated, because in liturgy, as in anything serious, form expresses content.]
Following Pope Benedict’s 2007 letter, the two missals, that of Paul VI (1970) and that of John XXIII (1962), were named the “Ordinary Form” and “Extraordinary Form,” respectively. Further, between these “two usages of the one Roman rite,” Pope Benedict saw an opportunity for a “mutual enrichment.” Since the Missal of St. John XXIII was “never juridically abrogated,” the Pope wrote, any “qualified priest” of the “Latin rite” may celebrate it without special permission.
As crucial as these points from SP are for our understanding of the document and the liturgical life of the Church, they all have one thing in common: Each of them addresses missals, ministers, rites and rubrics. But these elements of the Mass celebration, while the most obvious to see, are not the only ones to consider from the 2007 motu proprio. [Again, my point about 'form'. The very juxtaposition of the two forms of the Roman rite now existing side by side with co-equal legitimacy underscores a difference in 'form' which expresses the great chasm that separates the liturgical content expressed in each of the two forms.]
In fact, they may not even be the most important for the faithful who live out their faith in the pews, the family dinner table and around the water cooler.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, easily the most prominent supporter of SP among the Church’s hierarchy, offers another insight into SP, one especially salient for the “Catholic in the pew.” In remarks to the March 29 colloquium “The Source of the Future,” the cardinal explains Pope Benedict’s letter within the context of the liturgical movement that began before the Second Vatican Council and culminated in the Council’s work on the liturgy.
This 20th-century liturgical movement, Cardinal Sarah recalled, was initiated officially by Pope St. Pius X. Desiring to “Restore all things in Christ” (his papal motto), Pius X encouraged the laity to “assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this [true Christian] spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church” (1903 letter, Tra le Sollecitudini).
Sixty years later, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council approved the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which invokes Pius X’s notion of “active participation” in the sacramental work of Jesus as the “aim to be considered before all others” in the reform and restoration of the sacred liturgy.
As Cardinal Sarah put it, the Council’s constitution was “one of the finest fruits” of the liturgical movement begun by Pope Pius X. This same liturgical movement “continues in our days following the new impetus given to it by Pope Benedict XVI,” Cardinal Sarah explains in his SP address.
But what is this “liturgical movement,” and why does Cardinal Sarah see it as essential to understanding SP? And how can the liturgical movement give Catholics greater insight into both the ordinary form and extraordinary form of the Mass?
These answers are found in the early figures of the liturgical movement. Dom Virgil Michel, a Benedictine monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and a “founding father” of the American liturgical movement, said succinctly in 1929 that “the true significance of the liturgical movement lies just in this: that it tries to lead men back to the ‘primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.’”
The liturgical movement championed by Pope Pius X and Dom Virgil Michel, and experienced by the young Joseph Ratzinger, thus sought to inspire the faithful to enter into the depths of the liturgy. In other words — and here is where SP becomes more legible — what moves and changes in a liturgical celebration of any form is the heart of the participant.
It is tempting and even reasonable to let discussions of Summorum Pontificum center exclusively on rituals and missals. [But no serious discussant of SP and devout follower of the traditional Mass has done that! Mr Carstens is fighting inexistent strawmen.]
By reading SP in the context of the liturgical movement, Cardinal Sarah lets us see Pope Benedict’s letter in a larger framework, one that reminds us that the liturgy’s primary change, restoration and enrichment is of participants. [In order for them to worship God worthily and appropriately. i.e., for the greater glory of God, not theirs. I do not think Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was ever remiss in underscoring all this in everything he wrote and said about the liturgy, and in the very way he celebrated it himself.]
Whether or not the language is changed from Latin to English, for example, the people of God are changed by either missal. In the letter to the Church’s bishops that accompanied SP, Pope Benedict suggested this same dynamic of change, restoration and enrichment.
Explaining why some of the faithful were still attached to the old missal, he credits “the liturgical movement [that]had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier form of the liturgical celebration”. In other words, the early 20th-century movement formed the people; it did not reform the rites. The grace of Christ has always flowed from the liturgical spring, and the liturgically minded pastor of the 1930s taught his people how to drink from it. [And in many ways, the unabashedly Protestantized Novus Ordo rite is really a poisoned spring to drink from – although the immediate antidote one must self-administer at the same time is a proper and reverent celebration of it, which includes the congregation's conscious participation in such properness and reverence, not ad hoc 'creative' touches meant to make the Mass more 'interesting'!
I think a simple test of whether Mass accomplishes this is to ask whether the person, emerging from Sunday Mass, is suffused with gratitude that he has been able to participate in a communal worship of God and allows this experience to shape his thoughts and actions for the week, or whether he simply thinks 'Well, thank God I've done my Sunday duty and won't have to do it again for another week!']
Even at the Second Vatican Council, during which the rites themselves became the subject of reform, any future changes were to move hearts. “The liturgy,” the constitution says, “moves the faithful, filled with ‘the paschal sacraments,’ to be ‘one in holiness’” (10).
While the ink was still drying on the document, a pioneer of the pre-conciliar liturgical reform, Father Romano Guardini, would write in 1964 that if the faithful were not equipped and receptive to liturgical transformation, “reforms of rites and texts will not help much.” In other words, as the Council affirmed and Father Guardini confirmed, it’s the faithful, not the rubrics, which determine the fruitfulness of a liturgy, extraordinary or otherwise. [Carstens seems to insist in keeping the horse before the ;liturgical cart, which in this case, is wrong. Lex orandi, lex vivendi, as Benedict reiterates in SP. And this is even truer in a perverse sense about the Novus Ordo – in which the 'new order' was not specifically taught to the people at all because it was imposed on them overnight, then they were were left to their own devices, which is always the path of least resistance - in which 'lex orandi,lex vivendi ' simply meant 'laissez faire' (Do as you please). Moreover, Guardini's comment was made years before the liturgical reform referred to in Sacrosanctum concilium went into effect. I doubt that he imagined the reform would mean protestantization of the Mass.]
Today, 10 years after Summorum Pontificum, Cardinal Sarah claims that “the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium is the context in which we ought to consider the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.” Put differently, Summorum Pontificum isn’t ultimately about ritual usage and the potential enrichment between missals. [Of course, it was never about just that – but about the ultimate meaning of liturgy in the life of the Church], although this element is, as Pope Benedict notes, vital.
Rather, the document seeks primarily to facilitate the change of the Catholic faithful. Thus, to read Summorum Pontificum with an eye not only on ritual books, but also on the participants they are meant to perfect, is to read this document according to the depth it invites. [Mr Carstens is preaching to a devout choir who have long known this!]
To be sure, Cardinal Sarah’s own remarks on Summorum Pontificum hit upon ritual change.“The liturgy,” he says, “must therefore always be reformed so as to be more faithful to its mystical essence.” Indeed, the two forms should peacefully coexist to allow for “the possibility of perfecting them by emphasizing the best features that characterize [each of] them.”
Still, Cardinal Sarah’s last word on the subject is a road map for all Catholics to move deeper into the liturgical source through silence, adoration and solid formation, while he says little about how rites — old or new — should adapt themselves to those in the pew. Whether the priest faces east or not, participants must orient their hearts toward the Rising Son.
It is undeniably true that a praying soul’s path to holiness is easier to follow when the corresponding ritual allows for moments of silence, directs it toward God’s adoration, and prayerfully expresses the Church’s belief in the Risen One. Yet the cardinal’s road to liturgical renewal falls in large part to each of us.
Our own “enrichment” unto God’s glory is the goal of both the ordinary form and extraordinary form of the Mass, however these forms may mutually enrich each other. We are each called to adapt ourselves to the eternal Mystery the Mass contains, regardless of how the missals adapt to the needs of the present time.
The true perfection sought by Summorum Pontificum is that of each and every Catholic soul, even as the peaceful coexistence of the two missals affirmed by Summorum Pontificum may lead to the perfection of both books.
The results of this kind of liturgical movement, as Pope Benedict, Cardinal Sarah and Father Virgil Michel would all concur, will be nothing less than extraordinary.
Then there was this most poisonous and insulting article by the ever-repellent 'Maximum Beans' for La Croix International… I cannot understand that he calls SP ''one of Pope Benedict’s acts destined to have a deep and long-term impact on the life of the Church', and then follow it up with the insulting "Never has so much been owed by so few to one pope".
Ten years of 'Summorum Pontificum':
Tradition vs. traditionalism
by Massimo Faggioli
June 26, 2017
This coming July 7th will mark the tenth anniversary of Benedict XVI’s “motu proprio” Summorum Pontificum, a document that liberalized the use of the Roman liturgy as it celebrated prior to the reforms following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). [SP did not just liberalize the use of the traditional liturgy - it restored it to full and co-equal legitimacy in the life of the Church.]
This is one of Pope Benedict’s acts that is destined to have a deep and long-term impact on the life of the Church.
The 2007 “motu proprio” addressed the concerns of certain groups of traditionalist Catholics that were very small, marginal and barely visible. SP and Joseph Ratzinger changed their situation considerably. To paraphrase one of Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, “Never was so much owed by so few to one pope”.
Paul VI and John Paul II had already sought to accommodate liturgical traditionalists by issuing special indults for celebrating the pre-Vatican II liturgy, most particularly in 1984 and 1988. But they never cast any doubt on the legitimacy and the good fruits of the Vatican II liturgical reform, the theological and ecclesiological framework of which is found in the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium. [Neither does Benedict XVI. What he actively opposed was the distortion and widespread abuse of what that constitution provided.]
Those earlier popes saw a fundamental coherence between the tradition of the Church, the theology of Vatican II and the council’s liturgical reform.
There is little doubt that Benedict expressed and embodied a clear shift from a magisterium that saw Vatican II as part of the tradition of the Church to a magisterium that saw tradition and Vatican II in much more complicated terms. Certain issues, such as the liturgical reform, were seen in tension and opposition. [What? Vatican II as 'part of the tradition of the Church'? Is that not exactly what Faggioli and his fellow progressivists object to, insisting that Vatican-II marked the birth of a new church? Whereas John Paul II and Benedict XVI both advocated that Vatican II had to be interpreted in continuity with tradition. If it is, then it becomes part of Church tradition; if it is seen as a rupture with Tradition, then time will tell if Tradition will triumph, as it has always done.]
While it is certainly too early to assess the long-term effects of SP, it is necessary to begin the effort. For example, ten years on it is striking to re-read Benedict’s hasty, and failed, attempt to stop the tendency to interpret the “motu proprio” as a denunciation of Vatican II, which – in fact – is widespread in Catholic traditionalist circles. [It was not at all hasty, because it came in the letter that he sent to all the bishops of the world to accompany the motu proprio, and it is not 'failed' just because some bloggers may have used it to denounce Vatican II. But these same bloggers maintain at the same time that Benedict XVI himself is a traitor to the Church because he has supported Vatican II and they refuse to see that much of it can – and should – in fact be interpreted in continuity with Tradition.]
“In the first place, there is the fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council, one of whose essential decisions – the liturgical reform – is being called into question,” the former pope wrote in his letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum. However, he then declared: “This fear is unfounded.” [Precisely. He made that clear from the start. He cannot be blamed if people like Faggioli insist on claiming that the fear is real – but what's to fear when perhaps 99% of the Catholic world follow the Novus Ordo? Even if it was not legislated directly by Vatican-II, and in fact, distorts and violates some of the key provisions of Sancrosanctum concilium (with respect to ad orientem, the use of Latin and the vernacular, and the kind of Church music that is permissible)! The real question is why are people like Faggioli (and Bergoglio) so threatened by the EF when no one is asking them to even think about it and they can safely ignore it to the end of their days?] Moreover, Benedict expressed the wish that “the two forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching”. [So what's wrong with that? Oh, I see - Faggioli does not think that the OF needs enriching at all, much less fro, the EF!]
But on both accounts, the reality of these last ten years has produced something very different from the former pope’s stated intentions. In fact, the backlash against Vatican II has been a key component of the enthusiasm (and nostalgia) for his pontificate, while the coexistence of the two forms of the Roman rite within particular communities remains a chimera. [Excuse me! How can 'backlash against Vatican II' be a key component of enthusiasm for the pontificate of someone who has been denounced by unregenerate anti-Vatican-II traditionalists as a traitor to the Church, precisely because he has stood by Vatican II, correctly interpreted?
And to mock the coexistence of the two rites as a chimera (I think he means a mirage, because a chimera would refer to the eventual hybrid that might result from mutual enrichment if it does happen) ignores the fact that it is far from a mirage or illusion in communities where both forms of the Mass are available – not even in New York City, where I live – and in communities where the EF is not available, then the question of coexistence does not even come up until the EF becomes available.]
Yet there are two phenomena that are part of the post-SP ecclesial and theological landscape of Roman Catholicism, which are difficult to separate from the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
The first phenomenon is that SP boosted the pre-existing, sociologically limited world of liturgical traditionalism and projected it onto the wider world of the Catholic Church, especially among English-speakers. It is has given theological legitimacy to traditionalist views of the Vatican II liturgical reforms. [Really? In the world of Faggioli and his ilk, opinions can provide theological legitimacy???] And it has raised the visibility of traditionalist liturgy in the virtual spaces of the Catholic Church.
Over the past decade, social media has increasingly become a forum where the people of God can make their voices heard. Images of elaborate vestments used for pre-Vatican II liturgical celebrations have become part of the daily diet of those who follow the life of local churches and even prominent Church leaders. [Those 'elaborate vestments' constitute one of the many strawmen erected by enemies of Tradition against the traditional Mass. Throughout the two millennia of Church history before Vatican II, the use of such vestments, as well as of precious Mass vessels, and indeed, priceless monumental altars and altarpieces, were never an issue. When St. Francis of Assisi, who was not a priest, said, " “My people, it is your duty to give all you can, to buy beautiful chalices and beautiful vessels for the altar", he was referring to the general principle that nothing is too good for the worship of God, which is at the origin of the very expression 'Sunday best' which we use to describe how we ourselves ought to dress for Mass.]
This has had a significant impact on important parts of contemporary Roman Catholicism and its future – especially on committed Catholic youth and recent converts, as well as on seminarians and young priests. [So, Faggioli finally articulates the origin of 'their' fear! Quite an admission!]
The second phenomenon has been the reduction of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology to that of traditionalism. In fact, Summorum Pontificum has helped to greatly distort the overall theological legacy of one of the most important theologians in the 20th century.
If Joseph Ratzinger’s emphasis was on the tradition of the Church (“continuity and reform”), Benedict XVI’s pontificate has been reduced, especially in these last few years, to an icon of traditionalism (against any kind of theological development, seen as “discontinuity”).
[This is yet another facile generalization that Faggioli makes, even if there are quite a few 'traditionalist' bloggers who seem to do this, and I submit that they belong to the few who choose to use the liturgy as a perpetual issue to be fought over with those who dismiss the traditional Mass altogether. But surely, one of Benedict XVI's motivations for SP was to do away with any such 'ideological' wars over liturgy. As much as I personally do not 'like' the Ordinary Form, I do not – and cannot – dismiss it because it has become a fact of Church life. And when it is offered correctly and properly, as Benedict XVI did (and I am sure, as thousands of priests around the world do), then Deo gratias!]
This liturgical traditionalism has contributed to an overall traditionalist understanding of Catholicism to the point that it has become a problem and challenge for Pope Francis. Last year (July 11, 2016) the pope finally felt the need to intervene. In a statement released by the Holy See Press Office, he disavowed the so-called “reform of the liturgical reform”, which Cardinal Robert Sarah – prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship – had promoted a few days earlier during a public lecture to priests in London.
The Vatican statement warned that the notions of a reform of the reform “may at times give rise to error”, but it also made clear that Francis did not intend to eradicate Catholic liturgical traditionalism. Rather, he wanted it to remain in the limited and specific place that his predecessor had assigned to it. [Well, that seems to be in line with the supposed intention to circumscribe permission for the Extraordinary Form only to the FSSPX! Benedict XVI certainly never 'assigned' the traditional Mass 'a limited and specific place', in legislating that priests no longer have to get their bishop's permission to say it – as they had to do most anomalously from 1970-2007 – for any group of faithful wanting to avail of the Extraordinary Form.]
“The ‘extraordinary’ form, which was permitted by Pope Benedict XVI for the purposes and in the ways explained in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, must not take the place of the ‘ordinary’ one,” the statement said. [But Cardinal Sarah never said that! His use of the term 'reform of the liturgical reform' harks back to Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself, for whom certainly SP with its 're-legitimization' of the traditional Mass was the most important first step.]
So what are the lessons we’ve learned in the tens years since the publication of Summorum Pontificum?
First, there is a gap between the intended/declared and the unintended/undeclared goals of a papal act.
Second, there is sometimes a disconnect between the mind of Benedict XVI and how latter-day Ratzingerians have distorted his thinking (though not without the help of Ratzinger himself).
Third, there appears to be a link between liturgical traditionalism and the crisis of globalization and universalism within Catholicism. [Faggioli is reversing Cardinal Ratzinger's famous dictum that the present crisis of the Church had to do with the crisis in the liturgy.]
Fourth, the resurgence of traditionalism is typical of all religions in the post-secular age.
And, fifth, liturgical traditionalism among Catholics has had a negative effect on the acceptance of other documents from Vatican II, such as those on ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and missionary activity of the Church.
However, this is only a preliminary and very short list of the consequences of Summorum Pontificum.
Let me leave the sulfurous sphere of Maximum Beans and look at the manifestations to mark the 10th anniversary of SP that I could find rapidly online - some choose July 7 when SP was promulgated as a celebration date, others September 14, when it went into effect. But like most, I choose to look at all of 2017 as anniversary year, the same way as it is the Fatima centenary year.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/08/2017 05:24] |