—the folks who comprise the "small but vocal group of Catholics began to call for a 'reform of the reform' of the liturgy for the church across the board." That quote is from a Commonweal article by Rita Ferrone, the title of which leaves little doubt about her opinion of Pope Benedict's recent motu proprio: "A Step Backward: The Latin Mass Is Back." Of course, the "Latin Mass" has never been missing or away; the Novus Ordo is the Latin Mass (now called the "ordinary form" of the Latin rite) and is meant to have some Latin in it, at least according to the documents of Vatican II. Ferrone's article is filled with the sort of complaints that one expects from a magazine that wishes to liberalize just about everything except access to the Tridentine or extraordinary form of the Latin-rite Mass. In addition to Ratzinger, another Ignatius Press author gets special mention:
Another partisan of the “reform of the reform,” Alcuin Reid, OSB, of Farnborough, England, published The Organic Development of the Liturgy in 2004. In giving a positive review to Reid’s book, Ratzinger voiced some of his own views on liturgical reform. He opined that scholars and experts were heeded too much after the council, and that although pastors should have had more of a voice, pastoral insights are unreliable. “Because...people’s judgments as to what is pastorally effective are widely divergent,” Ratzinger wrote, “the ‘pastoral’ aspect has become the point at which ‘creativity’ breaks in, destroying the unity of the liturgy.” Once you’ve eliminated scholarship, expertise, and pastoral judgment, what basis remains for constructive liturgical reform? Clearly, the deck is stacked against the acceptance of any reform whatsoever. In his letter accompanying the motu proprio, Benedict chides those bishops who believe that expanding the use of the Tridentine liturgy will detract from the standing of the Second Vatican Council, of which the reformed liturgy was sign and symbol. Yet surely the bishops’ concerns are justified.
If you read Ratzinger's preface to Reid's book, you'll quickly see that Ferrone misrepresents him. Here is the larger context:
At this point modernists and traditionalists are in agreement: As long as the material gifts are there, and the words of institution are spoken, then everything else is freely disposable. Many priests today, unfortunately, act in accordance with this motto; and the theories of many liturgists are unfortunately moving in the same direction. They want to overcome the limits of the rite, as being something fixed and immovable, and construct the products of their fantasy, which are supposedly "pastoral", around this remnant, this core that has been spared and that is thus either relegated to the realm of magic or loses any meaning whatever. The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to overcome this reductionism, the product of an abstract sacramental theology, and to teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of Tradition that had taken concrete form, that cannot be torn apart into little pieces but that has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone who, like me, was moved by this perception at the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for.
I should like just briefly to comment on two more perceptions that appear in Dom Alcuin Reid's book. Archaeological enthusiasm and pastoral pragmatism–which is in any case often a pastoral form of rationalism–are both equally wrong. These two might be described as unholy twins. The first generation of liturgists were for the most part historians. Thus they were inclined to archaeological enthusiasm: they were trying to unearth the oldest form in its original purity; they regarded the liturgical books in current use, with the rites they offered, as the expression of the rampant proliferation through history of secondary growths that were the product of misunderstandings and of ignorance of the past. People were trying to reconstruct the oldest Roman Liturgy and to cleanse it of all later additions. A great deal of this was right, and yet liturgical reform is something different from archaeological excavation, and not all the developments of a living thing have to be logical in accordance with a rationalistic or historical standard. This is also the reason why–as the author quite rightly remarks–the experts ought not to be allowed to have the last word in liturgical reform. Experts and pastors each have their own part to play (just as, in politics, specialists and decision-makers represent two different planes). The knowledge of scholars is important, yet it cannot be directly transmuted into the decisions of pastors, for pastors still have their own responsibilities in listening to the faithful, in accompanying with understanding those who perform the things that help us to celebrate the sacrament with faith today and the things that do not. It was one of the weaknesses of the first phase of reform after the Council that to a great extent specialists were listened to almost exclusively. A greater independence on the part of pastors would have been desirable.
Because it is often all too obvious that historical knowledge cannot be elevated straight into the status of a new liturgical norm, this archaeological enthusiasm was very easily combined with pastoral pragmatism: people first of all decided to eliminate everything that was not recognised as original and was thus not part of the "substance", and then they supplemented the "archaeological remains", if these still seemed insufficient, in accordance with "pastoral insights". But what is "pastoral"? The judgments made about these questions by intellectual professors were often influenced by their rationalist presuppositions and not infrequently missed the point of what really supports the life of the faithful. Thus it is that nowadays, after the Liturgy was extensively rationalised during the early phase of reform, people are eagerly seeking forms of solemnity, looking for "mystical" atmosphere and for something of the sacred. Yet because–necessarily and more and more clearly–people's judgments as to what is pastorally effective are widely divergent, the "pastoral" aspect has become the point at which "creativity" breaks in, destroying the unity of the Liturgy and very often confronting us with something deplorably banal. That is not to deny that the eucharistic Liturgy, and likewise the Liturgy of the Word, is often celebrated reverently and "beautifully", in the best sense, on the basis of people's faith. Yet since we are looking for the criteria of reform, we do also have to mention the dangers, which unfortunately in the last few decades have by no means remained just the imaginings of those traditionalists opposed to reform.
Ferrone continues:
It is hard to credit the pope’s claim that his edict is intended for the benefit of the faithful. How can it be “for the benefit of the faithful” to return to a ritual of baptism in which the parents of infants say nothing? In the spirit of ecumenism, the liturgy that came out of Vatican II eliminated the abjuration of heresy and schism that non-Catholics made before being admitted to Catholic communion. How can we justify reviving such practices today? There was no catechumenate in the Tridentine church, despite a crying need around the world for this liturgical structure of evangelization and formation. How can we deprive adult converts of the catechumenate-which canon law now requires them to have? The reform of the liturgy was not a mere matter of aesthetic preferences, of “contemporary relevance” versus “timeless mystery,” of Latin versus the vernacular. The reformed liturgy embodies the values of the council in innumerable ways.
As I recall, in the Byzantine liturgies there are no speaking parts specifically for parents of children being baptized (although they do plenty of singing, joined by everyone else who is present), nor is there usually a catechumenate in the Eastern Catholic Churches. How can they live in such a way?! And how, dare we ask, do they manage to be real, modern-day Catholics without these things?
Meanwhile, an opinion piece in The New York Times by Lawrence Downes, who serves on the newspaper's editorial board (and covers "suburban issues") is filled with the sort of wisdom and deep thought commonly associated with The Gray Lady:
Pope Benedict insists he is not taking the church on a nostalgia trip. He wants to re-energize it, and hopes that the Latin Mass, like an immense celestial object, will exert gravitational pull on the faithful.
Unless the church, which once had a problem with the law of gravity, can repeal inertia, too, then silent, submissive worship won’t go over well. Laypeople, women especially, have kept this battered institution going in a secular, distracted age. Reasserting the unchallenged authority of ordained men may fit the papal scheme for a purer church. But to hand its highest form of public worship entirely back to Father makes Latin illiterates like me irate.
It’s easy enough to see where this is going: same God, same church, but separate camps, each with an affinity for vernacular or Latin, John XXIII or Benedict XVI. Smart, devout, ambitious Catholics — ecclesial young Republicans, home-schoolers, seminarians and other shock troops of the faith — will have their Mass. The rest of us — a lumpy assortment of cafeteria Catholics, guilty parents, peace-’n’-justice lefties, stubborn Vatican II die-hards — will have ours. We’ll have to prod our snoozing pewmates when to sit and stand; they’ll have to rein in their zealots.
Ah, yes, those "stubborn Vatican II die-hards," who talk endlessly about the "spirit of Vatican II" but more often than not don't know the difference between Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Lumen Gentium. How revealing that Ferrone and Downes see the liturgy predominately (solely!) in terms of social progress, social status, and political beliefs, with hardly a thought about what constitutes worship, what is liturgy, and so forth.
And, finally, a prominent Catholic cardinal reveals that he will not celebrate the Mass in Latin.
• For much more about matters liturgical, visit the "Spirit of the Liturgy" webpage.
Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old
Testament in Christ and the Church
