The "New Translation" of the Mass III--More on the "Reform of the Reform"

A medieval illustration from the

Bibliothèque nationale de France

depicting a Requiem Mass being

celebrated ad apsidem (facing

the rear wall of the Church

I mentioned in the last post the “Reform of the Reform” school of liturgical renewal that feels that Paul VI went far too far in the Reform of the Roman Rite in the 1970 Missal and who have been advocating “correcting” the excesses of the Novus Ordo.  I also mentioned Father Joseph Fessio who as founder and president of Adoremus has been the chief American voice for the movement.  He is not the only advocate of the program, nor is his position on revising the current Rite even the most extreme.  Father Fessio may be a conservative and suffer from an exaggerated sense of his own importance, but he is both intelligent and highly educated.  Not all voices have such credibility.  I had mentioned Father Jerry Pokorsky from the Arlington Diocese.   He founded an organization called CREDO which has long agitated for revisions in the Novus Ordo including a more literal translation of the Latin texts.  Father Pokorsky holds an undergraduate degree in business and a seminary degree in theology.  A liturgical experience in his parish, Saint Michael’s in Annandale is, well to avoid the word eccentric, unique.  There is much razzle-dazzle, one could even say sacred glitter, but little substance in the way of sound liturgical spirituality.   One of  his partners in CREDO, Father Cornelius O’Brien often made pretense to a doctorate which in fact he had never completed.  Sermons by some of the CREDO priests in the diocese of Arlington are often otherworldly—not as in Divine or ethereal, but in the sense of “what planet is this priest from.”  Tales of spurious miracles and implausible hagiographic stories replace the scriptures in “thrill ‘em and chill ‘em” pulpit pyrotechnics.   Father Brian Harrison, an Australian priest who is a convert to Catholicism, received a doctorate from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross but his tapes on biblical exegesis that contradicted the Pontifical Biblical Commission and attacked biblical scholarship since Pius XII’s encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu have undermined, indeed destroyed, what little academic credibility he might otherwise have enjoyed.  All in all this is the problem with the Reform of the Reform—From Msgr. Gamber down to “Doctor” O’Brien, there is a lack of intellectual bottom to the movement.   Of course that is not to say that any of the other “schools” of liturgical renewal are any better.  Frankly, I wonder where the scholarship of the Jungmann’s and Dix’s and Deiss’s is today.  Where are the successors of  Odo Casel and Ildefons Herwegen and Lambert Beauduin? Frankly, there is grave need for ongoing renewal of the Roman Liturgy but it cannot be undertaken until a new generation of serious scholars, scholars that have credibility beyond the narrow and intellectually thin world of contemporary Catholic “Theology.” 
     Looking through the publications of various “Reform of the Reform” advocates we can see the movement’s agenda.  This is not to say that each and every voice of the movement subscribes to each and every point, but it does give us an overall view of what this particular group would like to see the Catholic Liturgy adopt.  
      What is the Reform of the Reform all about? 

1.    The priest and people facing the same direction in the liturgy
2.    The restriction of communion to one species for all but the celebrating priest
3.    The elimination of the sign of peace
4.    The restoration of kneeling for holy communion
5.    The administration of holy communion directly on the tongue
6.    The recitation of the Canon in Latin
7.    The translation of “pro multis” to be restrictive (for many) rather than inclusive (for all)
8.    The abolition of all other Eucharistic Prayers other than Prayer I—the “canon” of the Mass in the Tridentine Liturgy
9.    The use of two scripture readings at Sunday Mass rather than three
10.The elimination of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist at the liturgy
11.The exclusive use of men in liturgical ministries
12.The use of black or purple vestments for the funeral liturgy
13.The elimination of concelebration of the Liturgy
14.The use of “Roman” vestments –the “fiddleback” chasuable
15.The revival of suppressed or archaic customs such as the use of the maniple, the biretta, and, for prelates, the cappa magna.
     The 2000 Third Edition of the Roman Missal addressed none of these issues.  The new translation—at the insistence of Pope Benedict—does translate the “pro multis” as “for many,” but other than that doesn’t  address the “Reform of the Reform” agenda.  I don’t mean to say that the “new” missal isn’t problematic, even a step backwards, but it isn’t a threat to the substantial revisions made in the Liturgy after the Second Vatican Council.  What is a threat is what happens in many parishes where priests on their own authority begin to turn back the clock, withdrawing the chalice from the laity, eliminating the sign of peace, closing liturgical ministries to girls and women.     

Is Vatican II in Danger? V Reform of the Reform

In 1996—eleven years before Summorum Pontificium, Monsignor M. Francis Mannion, then rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, a church well noted for the high quality of its liturgical celebrations under his direction, wrote an article for America Magazine in which he analyzed five distinct liturgical movements in the Church in the United States.  One of these schools of thought called for the restoration of the preconciliar rites, a goal at least partially achieved by Summorum Pontificium.  A second school of thought, or liturgical movement, Mannion termed “Reforming the Reform.”  This group was profoundly unhappy with the post-conciliar developments of the liturgy claiming that they went far beyond the reforms explicitly mandated by, the council. (And, by the way, I believe he was right. That is in part what I implied in a previous post when I said that the only people who truly understand the New Rites are those who have objected to them on the basis of their discontinuity with the 1570 Rite.)   Mannion cited a book published by the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, published in English in 1993 as providing the ammunition the “Reform of the Reform” advocates have used as a basis for their plan to restructure the post-conciliar liturgy.  Gamber admitted that the Council needed to address the issue of the Liturgy as the Roman Rite had become “ossified” and devolved into mere rubricism.  Nevertheless, he believed that the Missal of Paul VI, issued in 1969, had not only gone far beyond the changes mandated by the Council but represented some serious breaks with the Tradition of the Church.  Mannion, in his article, wrote that the Reform of the Reform movement put particular blame for the Novus Ordo of Paul VI on ICEL (The International Committee for English in the Liturgy) and faulted the bishops for abdicating their responsibilities to “specialists and scholars.”  The Reconstitution of ICEL in 2003 by mandate of the Holy See and the subsequent retranslation of the Roman Missal, the translation which will be effective in the United States in Advent of 2011, indicates the strength of the “Reform of the Reform” school even though the new missal does not reach all their objectives.  

The objective of the Restorationist  movement, at least as regards liturgy, is the restoration of the pre-conciliar liturgy as the only liturgy, or at least the preferred form, in the Western Church.  This goal has been partially achieved by Summorum Pontificium in giving a carte blanche to priests to celebrate Mass in the “Extraordinary Form” at their discretion regardless of the pastoral oversight of the bishop or even the preference of the congregation.  What are the objectives of the Reform of the Reform?  Father Brian Harrison, a spokesperson for the Reform of the Reform, suggested in bulletins of Adoremus, the leading American voice of the Reform of the Reform movement, called for the following changes in the liturgy:

1.      The abolition of all other Eucharistic Prayers other than Prayer I—the “canon” of the Mass in the Tridentine Liturgy

2.      The recitation of the Canon in Latin

3.      The restriction of communion to one species for all but the celebrating priest

4.      The priest and people facing the same direction in the liturgy

5.      The use of two scripture readings at Sunday Mass rather than three

6.      The exclusive use of men in liturgical ministries

Other changes often proposed—and often implemented in parishes by pastors sympathetic to the movement—by Reform of the Reform advocates are

1.      The elimination of the sign of peace

2.      The use of black or purple vestments for the funeral liturgy

3.      The restoration of kneeling for holy communion

4.      The administration of holy communion directly on the tongue

5.      The elimination of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist at the liturgy

6.      The elimination of concelebration of the Liturgy

7.      The use of “Roman” vestments –the “fiddleback” chasuable

8.      The revival of various customs that had been suppressed or fallen into disuse such as the use of the biretta, the maniple, “subdeacons,” etc.  

Slowly but with certainty various elements of the Reform of the Reform have been introduced in many parishes and dioceses.  It is not unusual, for example, to see purple or even black vestments used for a “Requiem” liturgy along with various other accoutrements of the old requiem mass—the candles around the catafalque or the use of the Requiem Aeternum and other chants.  The Swine Flu epidemic gave rationale for suspending the sign of peace and communion from the chalice, but these practices have not been restored in many places even though the crisis passed.  Bishop Slattery of Tulsa wrote a letter to his faithful informing them that henceforward he would—at least in his cathedral—be celebrating the Liturgy ad absidem—that is facing the back wall of the church.  He is not alone in this practice. According to the website of the New Liturgical Movement, one of the voices of what Mannion called The Reform of the Reform—though also an advocate of restoring the pre-conciliar liturgy—the following notice appeared in the bulletin of St. Benedict’s Church in Duluth MN. 

All the Masses at St. Benedict's parish (with the exception of the early Sunday morning Mass) are celebrated in the common posture turned towards the Lord (ad orientem) in the direction of the liturgical east.

We will continue this topic in our next blog, but a clarifying word about “ad orientem.” I hope in the next few weeks perhaps to do an expanded article on the historical issue of “ad orientem” which means “towards the east” and refers to the ancient (but not universal) custom of Christian worshippers—officiants and participants alike—to face eastwards for prayer.  The Sun, a symbol of the Resurrected Christ, rises in the East.  When a church building is “oriented”—that is laid out with the altar at the eastern end—one can say that worship is “ad orientem,” but this term is often used to simply to mean that the priest and congregation stand (or kneel) face the same direction, that is facing the altar and the wall beyond it.  Except in those situations where the church is actually laid out facing eastwards, the correct term is actually ad apsidem (toward the apse or rear wall).  When advocates of the ad apsidem posture use the term “the liturgical east” they create an artificial pole that actually mocks the theological significance of the eastwards position.