Today, like it or not, is the 40th anniversary of the Novus Ordo - Paul VI's Missal - going into practice. An article by a Catholic writer in the New York Times last Saturday gives the right perspective. And I am using my banner for Benedict XVI's 'reform of the liturgical reform' as a reminder, as the article does, of what he has done so far to redress some of the 'defects' inherent in the Novus Ordo.... I must admit I am pleasantly surprised that the Times even thought of publishing this article.
Latin Mass appeal
by KENNETH J. WOLFE
November 28, 2009
WALKING into church 40 years ago on this first Sunday of Advent, many Roman Catholics might have wondered where they were. The priest not only spoke English rather than Latin, but he faced the congregation instead of the tabernacle; laymen took on duties previously reserved for priests; folk music filled the air.
The great changes of Vatican II had hit home*.
All this was a radical break from the traditional Latin Mass, codified in the 16th century at the Council of Trent. For centuries, that Mass served as a structured sacrifice with directives, called “rubrics,” that were not optional. This is how it is done, said the book.
As recently as 1947, Pope Pius XII had issued an encyclical on liturgy that scoffed at modernization; he said that the idea of changes to the traditional Latin Mass “pained” him “grievously.”
Paradoxically, however, it was Pius himself who was largely responsible for the momentous changes of 1969. It was he who appointed the chief architect of the new Mass, Annibale Bugnini, to the Vatican’s liturgical commission in 1948.
Bugnini was born in 1912 and ordained a Vincentian priest in 1936. Though Bugnini had barely a decade of parish work, Pius XII made him secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform. In the 1950s, Bugnini led a major revision of the liturgies of Holy Week.
As a result, on Good Friday of 1955, congregations for the first time joined the priest in reciting the Pater Noster, and the priest faced the congregation for some of the liturgy.
The next pope, John XXIII, named Bugnini secretary to the Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy of Vatican II, in which position he worked with Catholic clergymen and, surprisingly, some Protestant ministers on liturgical reforms.
In 1962 he wrote
[he drafted it, and the Council worked it over and amended it accordingly] what would eventually become the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the document that gave the form of the new Mass.
Many of Bugnini’s reforms were aimed at appeasing non-Catholics, and changes emulating Protestant services were made, including placing altars to face the people instead of a sacrifice toward the liturgical east. [Why was it necessary to appease non-Catholics at all in the matter of liturgy, when as they were and are not likely to adopt Catholic liturgy at all to replace what is their own- as indeed, none of them have!]
As he put it, “We must strip from our ... Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants.” (
Paradoxically, the Anglicans who will join the Catholic Church as a result of the current pope’s outreach will use a liturgy that often features the priest facing in the same direction as the congregation.)
How was Bugnini able to make such sweeping changes? In part because
none of the popes he served were liturgists. Bugnini changed so many things that John’s successor, Paul VI, sometimes did not know the latest directives.
The Pope once questioned the vestments set out for him by his staff, saying they were the wrong color, only to be told he had eliminated the week-long celebration of Pentecost and could not wear the corresponding red garments for Mass. The Pope’s master of ceremonies then witnessed Paul VI break down in tears.
Bugnini fell from grace in the 1970s. Rumors spread in the Italian press that he was a Freemason, which if true would have merited excommunication. The Vatican never denied the claims, and in 1976 Bugnini, by then an archbishop, was exiled to a ceremonial post in Iran. He died, largely forgotten, in 1982.
But his legacy lived on. Pope John Paul II continued the liberalizations of the Mass, allowing females to serve in place of altar boys and to permit unordained men and women to distribute communion in the hands of standing recipients. Even conservative organizations like Opus Dei adopted the liberal liturgical reforms.
But Bugnini
may have finally met his match in Benedict XVI, a noted liturgist himself who is no fan of the past 40 years of change.
[It is obviously inappropriate to speak of Bugnini as a match in any way for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who is the very nemesis of misguided liturgical reform. As Pope, he is showing the way to redress liturgical wrongdoing, even as he continues to show docile obedience to the Novus Ordo as the ordinary form of the Latin rite, adhering strictly to what Vatican-II's Sacrosanctum concilium says, much of it largely ignored by the 'new liturgists']
Chanting Latin, wearing antique vestments and distributing communion only on the tongue (rather than into the hands) of kneeling Catholics, Benedict has slowly reversed the innovations of his predecessors. And the Latin Mass is back, at least on a limited basis, in places like Arlington, Va., where one in five parishes offer the old liturgy.
Benedict understands that his younger priests and seminarians — most born after Vatican II — are helping lead a counterrevolution. They value the beauty of the solemn high Mass and its accompanying chant, incense and ceremony. Priests in cassocks and sisters in habits are again common; traditionalist societies like the Institute of Christ the King are expanding.
At the beginning of this decade, Benedict (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) wrote: “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.”
He was right:
40 years of the new Mass have brought chaos and banality into the most visible and outward sign of the church. Benedict XVI wants a return to order and meaning. So, it seems, does the next generation of Catholics.
*[Indeed, the new Mass soon became iconic for the 'great changes of Vatican-II', which favored the prevailing superficial and often misguided interpretation of Vatican II. The external forms of the Mass were quickly adapted freely and arbitrarily with virtually no restrictions on the part of bishops, even if the adaptations were mostly inconsistent with the provisions of the Vatican-II liturgical constitution, especially about language and Church music.
License in the Mass form came to be seen as license to choose what one wanted to believe and practice about the faith. Cardinal Ratzinger well analyzed that the post-conciliar crisis of the Church had its roots in the abuse of liturgical reform. 'Lex orandi, lex credenci' - you pray and worship God according to what you choose to believe of the Catholic faith, since after all, liturgy is meant to express the essential elements of the faith.]
marks the day by translating parts of what Paul VI said in his General Audience on Nov. 26, 2009, to introduce the Novus Ordo - the excerpts which show he was not unaware of the possible 'problems' with the new Mass. The Vatican posting is in Italian - but I will translate it in full later, if I cannot find a full English translation online. It is, after all - and again, like it or not - a truly historical document.
12/1/09
P.S. Damian Thompson had this sardonic 'tribute' to mark the anniversary, a parody of what someone like the editor of Britain's ultra-liberal Tablet might write if only any of these had come to pass!
Happy 40th birthday, Novus Ordo!
November 30th, 2009
It is 40 years ago today since the New Mass of Paul VI was introduced into our parishes, writes Margery Popinstar, editor of The Capsule. We knew at the time that this liturgy was as close to perfection as humanly possible, but little did we guess what an efflorescence of art, architecture, music and worship lay ahead!
There were fears at first that the vernacular service would damage the solemnity of the Mass. How silly! Far from leading to liturgical abuses, the New Mass nurtured a
koinonia that revived Catholic culture and packed our reordered churches to the rafters.
So dramatic was the growth in family Mass observance, indeed, that a new school of Catholic architecture arose to provide places of worship for these new congregations.
Throughout the Western world, churches sprang up that combined Christian heritage with the thrilling simplicity of the modern school, creating a sense of the numinous that has proved as irresistible to secular visitors as to the faithful.
For some worshippers, it is the sheer visual beauty of the New Mass that captures the heart, with its simple yet scrupulously observed rubrics – to say nothing of the elegance of the priest’s vestments, which (though commendably less fussy than pre-conciliar outfits) exhibit a standard of meticulous craftsmanship which truly gives glory to God!
The same refreshing of tradition infuses the wonderful – and toe-tapping! – modern Mass settings and hymns produced for the revised liturgy. This music, written by the most gifted composers of our era, has won over congregations so totally that it is now rare to encounter a parish where everyone is not singing their heads off!
Even the secular “hit parade” has borrowed from Catholic worship songs, so deliciously memorable – yet reverent! – is the effect they create. No wonder it is standing room only at most Masses!
Did Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who birthed this
kairos, have any idea just how radically his innovations would transform the Church?
We must, of course, all rejoice in his imminent beatification – but, in the meantime, I am tempted to borrow a phrase from a forgotten language that – can you believe it? – was used by the Church for services before 1969:
Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/12/2009 14:14]