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Four years have passed by Fr Thomas Crean O.P.
Four years have now passed since that golden summer’s day, 07.07.07, when Pope Benedict XVI, acting motu proprio, released the immemorial Roman rite from its shackles. This year, on the day associated the world over with our Lady of Fatima, and her message to the Church of comfort and tribulation, the Pope has acted again, to reinforce and safeguard his former measure, by the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae. The Instruction does not have the dramatic, indeed historic, quality of the Motu Proprio. Nor is it in the same degree a personal act of the Roman pontiff, being mediated through the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, itself now a part of the senior Roman dicastery, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is nonetheless another landmark in the struggle to restore to the traditional liturgy its rightful ‘primacy of honour’ within the Catholic Church. Yet despite its official freedom, the Roman rite apparently remains unknown, or a mere rumour, for a vast number of Catholics. In part, this is due simply to inertia, a powerful force in human affairs. But in part it is due to hostility. Many of those whose office fits them to spread knowledge and love of the ancient liturgy seem resolved rather to ‘contain’ it, as doctors and politicians may unite to contain a dangerous strain of flu. I think of one English diocese where the bishop wrote to console his clergy in the wake of Summorum Pontificum, telling them ‘not to worry about it’. Rather than a gift from the vicar of Christ to Christ’s people, it was apparently for him a problem, though one that could happily be overcome. Most striking in this bishop’s letter was the assumption that all his clergy would think as he did. Again, one may think of the Scottish Archdiocese where the archbishop, this very year, wrote to advise his clergy that there was nothing in Pope Benedict’s initiatives that could be thought of as ‘encouragement for any of us to promote the so-called extraordinary form’. I certainly do not suppose that such hierarchs wish any harm to the flocks entrusted to them; yet are they not severing them from that liturgy which has peacefully grown up from the time of the Apostles? What of the lower clergy? Those who accepted the radical changes of the 1960’s, whether with enthusiasm or with wistful backward glances, and who could hardly be expected to change a second time back to tradition, are retiring or retired or have died. But still in positions of authority are those who were trained in the succeeding decades, and told by word and example that the Roman rite had been consigned to history: that in the words of the French Jesuit musician Joseph Gelineau, ‘it has been destroyed’. Such men, now parish priests, or deans, or vicars-general, would often have been taught to regard the traditional Mass as in some way deficient, even dangerous; or if good in its day, yet unsuitable for our own. Hence a widespread, deep unwillingness to profit from the Pope’s liberation of the Mass; a tendency, against all the evidence, to explain that his action was merely aimed at those who would otherwise go to the Society of St Pius X, or not practise the faith at all. Hence too, saddest of all, the opposition sometimes shown by clergy to their brother clergy who promote the traditions of holy Church. I think of a parish priest who recently remarked in my hearing that one must ‘question the formation’ of young priests wishing to offer Mass in the usus antiquior. Nor should we forget those priests who were not prejudiced against the Tridentine Mass by their seminary instructors, but have simply had no experience of anything other than the typical Novus Ordo Mass; these priests may be puzzled rather than hostile when they hear of the traditional rite, not understanding why it is desired. These things being so, we should not be surprised that the restoration of holy tradition proceeds slowly. As Churchill said after El Alamein, we have reached only the end of the beginning. And what a battle still remains! A recent international petition to the Holy See, in accord with canon law, respectfully and carefully expressed reservations about the then forthcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II. After noting some troubling events that took place during certain papal liturgies, the authors made this strong remark: ‘Honesty compels one to admit that if the great preconciliar Popes had witnessed these papal liturgies of John Paul II, or indeed the general state of the Roman Rite throughout his pontificate, they would have reacted with a mixture of outrage and terrified incredulity’ (italics added). How much has changed in the average parish or cathedral since the last pontificate? True, some improvements have been made in certain places. Yet one may visit churches up and down the country and still see no melting of the long winter’s frost. The unfortunate practices that have become encrusted onto the new rite of Mass show little sign of disappearing: laity taking the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle and placing it into the hands of standing communicants, the sacred vessels handled by all, bare-headed women and girls dressed as clerics and serving at the altar, laity ‘proclaiming the word of God’ in the sanctuary or addressing Him in the bidding prayers while the clergy listen and respond, a secularised sign of peace, music unworthy of the sacred walls... ‘Let all things be done decently and according to order’, says St Paul. But all these things bring disorder to the holy Sacrifice. I am not thinking of the disorder of sin, since all these things may be done in good faith and with an upright intention. I mean disorder in the sacred rites themselves: the disorder of what is incongruous, unfitting and grotesque. These things wound what Dietrich von Hildebrand called the sensus catholicus, our sense of what the Catholic Church is, and of the proper distinction of roles within it. We may thing of the remark made by Kent in King Lear to a servant who treats the humbled King without respect: ‘I’ll teach you differences’. Our churches lack these salutary ‘differences’. Here it may be interesting to mention a message once given to me by a person who believes that she receives locutions, or ‘interior words’, from heaven. Such claims, of course, are to be approached with caution and even initial scepticism. In this case my confidence is based on personal acquaintance and careful study of many messages over several years. They show great sympathy with poorly catechised Catholics who have little awareness of Christ’s real presence or traditional attitudes toward what is sacred. They encourage people to believe in the Church’s teachings on faith and morals; and some express sadness at widespread irreverence in our churches, showing the remedy for this problem in clear, striking and sometimes surprising terms. One of the messages that was passed to me was: ‘Order will be restored to the Church when the hierarchical government is recognised, when sanctuaries belong to priests, and when women cover their hair in church.’ Yet in assessing the battle between the traditional and anti-traditional principle within the Church and her liturgy it is not enough to see how the terrain is presently divided. One must also consider which side is gaining recruits and influence. In the Old Testament we read how ‘there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: David prospering and growing always stronger and stronger, but the house of Saul decaying daily’. David, who had begun by hiding in a cave with only 400 followers, ascended at last to the throne and was crowned as King of Israel. In the same way, I should suggest, while the principle of rupture still dominates the terrain, it is growing weaker, and the principle of tradition, though hardly out of the cave, daily stronger. Since the Church is ruled by the Holy Spirit, we can be sure that holy order will eventually prevail within her. How will this happen? For the moment it seems that the same concatenation of forces that helped bring about the Motu Proprio of 07.07.07 will continue to win back the ground. The work of the heirs of Archbishop Lefebvre; the work of the fraternities overseen by Ecclesia Dei; the work of priests in ordinary parishes who do what they can to promote tradition, and reduce, as far as their authority permits, whatever within the reformed liturgy offends the sensus catholicus. It is no secret that members of these three groups do not always agree about the best way to restore ‘the devastated vineyard’, but what of that? If each one does his duty as he sees it, surely God will bless and finally unite their work. Yet even this concatenation of forces, while it may prepare the victory, will perhaps not win it. Disorder in the liturgy, after all, is only an aspect of a chaos in the Church and in society that seems hardly remediable by any human action, even when virtuous and persistent. The wound to the Church has been so deep, heresy allowed to flourish with such impunity, the corruption of public life and the darkening of consciences so unprecedented, that one instinctively looks for something more. Pope St Pius X, in his last address to the cardinals, three months before he died, said in effect that he had striven to pluck heresy from the heart of the Church, and that he had not succeeded. Who will succeed where Pius X failed? One wonders whether it will not be some special intervention of heaven alone that will finally restore holy order to the teaching, governance and worship of the Church. Perhaps this is what was meant at Fatima, when the Blessed Virgin spoke of the triumph of her Immaculate Heart. This in turn may lead us to ask whether the requests mentioned there as conditions for the triumph have been fulfilled. In particular, has Russia been consecrated to her as she asked? With great respect to those who think differently, I at any rate do not think so. But that would take us too far afield. Trials are easier to endure when we know the reason for them. As we look forward to an ultimate but perhaps far-off victory, we may ponder the question, ‘what does it all mean?’ St Paul tells us that there must be heresies, so that those who are faithful may be manifest. It is as if God wishes faith, which is a hidden virtue, to shine more brightly by reason of a surrounding darkness, for the glory of the faithful and for the encouragement of future generations. But why must there be violence done to the liturgy? Or why would divine providence permit the traditional Latin Mass, after so many centuries, first to be abolished and replaced almost everywhere by something so different, and then, as I am confident will happen, at last restored? What will it all have meant? Here we must beware of presumption, since after all, ‘who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counsellor?’ I simply offer one suggestion. The Mass of Pope Paul VI was introduced in 1969. It is true that the path to the New Ordo of that year had been prepared throughout the decade by a constant stream of changes: the vernacular, the turning away from the tabernacle towards the people, the abolition of many hallowed practices and phrases. But the promulgation of the new Missal in 1969 enshrined and ratified all those changes, and broke symbolically with the past. Now this immediately followed that other pivotal year in our modern history, 1968. In that earlier year, Pope Paul had with great courage and in solitude published Humanae Vitae, and invoking the mandate entrusted to him by Christ, taught the whole church that it is inherently wrong to frustrate the marital act, even by anticipation. That teaching, though meeting the criteria for infallibility, was rejected, it seems, by many Catholics. Whether they thereby lost the faith, I do not know: the waters were muddied by Monsignor Lambruschini, who at the moment of presenting the encyclical to the world’s reporters told them that though it was papal teaching, it might be wrong! But in any case, a new problem came into being at that moment: the existence within the Church, probably in great numbers, of ‘dissenters’ who would continue to attend Mass but reject the Church’s doctrine. Of course all Catholics fail to live up to the faith, since ‘we all offend in many ways’; and there have no doubt always been a few within the Church who merely feigned allegiance to her. But in 1968 something new began: an apparently large and powerful body of Catholics within the Church who refused obedience to her of set principle. From this unprecedented cause, unprecedented results were bound to follow. We read in the Scriptures that during the reign of the faithless King Ahab, God brought a drought upon Israel. Not that He took pleasure in the suffering of His people: but by shutting up the heavens, He wished to give them a visible image of their spiritual state. The rain no longer fell upon their fields, to show how their hearts were dried up from want of grace. But when fruitfulness was rejected by contraception, a hidden sin was introduced among God’s people. To make this sad fact visible, has He not allowed a less fruitful liturgy to be introduced into His Church? At any rate, since the new liturgy came in, we have seen vocations fall, parishes merge, seminaries and religious houses shut. I do not think that it is impious to suggest that the liturgical reform may in part a punishment for sin: do we not read that Moses gave a certain commandment for the people because of their hardness of heart? But there is another point which is hard to raise without sounding like a Pharisee, and yet which perhaps goes still deeper. In allowing the reformed liturgy to drive the ancient one into exile, has God not protected tradition and done it honour? Would our case not be worse and more sad if dissenting Catholics were coming to the ‘Mass of all time’, because it was the only Mass, and there receiving Holy Communion? Is it not a great thing, in this time of apparently widespread dissent, that the ancient Mass should be protected? For while there are, thank God, among those who know only the reformed liturgy, faithful and saintly souls, and while all those who attend the ancient one are sinners, it seems that this latter has some power or other to repel those who do not yet accept the teaching of Christ and the Church. If these suggestions have any truth, the traditional rite will not obtain its proper primacy of honour, until contraception (to say nothing of the horrors that it has brought in its wake), or at least the refusal to accept the Church’s teaching, has been uprooted from the Christian people. Whence another reason for bishops and priests to preach about this sin; and such preaching will do good. Meanwhile we can thank the Holy Father for Universae Ecclesiae, and each according to his possibilities, work, for the fruitful return of ‘the Mass of all Time’.
The above article first appeared in 'Mass of Ages' in August 2011. It was given the title, 'The traditional Mass and the Church's Faith'. Version: 6th September 2011 |