The Foundation of the Anglican Church III

The Image of Christ as Apollo

found in the Vatican Necropolis

beneath St Peter's Basilica.  The

rising sun is here used as a

symbol for the Resurrected

Christ.

Before we go on let me draw your attention to two aspects of Romano-British Christianity that bear note.  The first is a small point but could have some significant repercussions.  In my last posting, I used the illustration of an ancient church discovered in the archeological dig at Calleva Attrebatum, a Roman town on the site of modern Silchester in Hampshire.  What I found curious about this church is that while it runs on an east-west axis, the altar was at the western end, the doors at the eastern end.  I say this because there is always much discussion about how early churches were oriented, that is built facing eastward to that priest and people faced the rising sun as they celebrated the Eucharist.  This argument is used by those who want to reverse the altars in Catholic Churches and have the priest again face away from the people as was the usual custom before the Second Vatican Council.  Well, this ancient church could be a sort of fluke in the normal practice except that as I have noted in other blogs that deal with the “ad orientem” (facing eastward) issue, the practice was not followed at Rome where ancient churches can be found facing every direction of the compass.  Yes, the ancient churches of Rome face every direction of the compass except that Saint Peter’s Basilica and Saint John Lateran Basilica—two of the three Constantinian Basilica’s in Rome face westward. That does not seem to be a co-incidence given that they are such prominent churches built under imperial supervision. The argument, for St Peter’s, was always given that the terrain of the Vatican Hill gave the builders no choice in how to situate the church, but in fact Constantine had his builders level out the hill and built the basilica on top.  It could have  been built in an eastward position.  Moreover, while the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls—the third of the Constantinan basilicas in Rome and the “twin” to St. Peter’s—faces east, I was surprised on a recent visit to Rome to read in a museum display at Saint Paul’s that it too originally faced west.  Hmmm.  And now we find an ancient church in Roman Britain also facing west.  Could it be that these churches were built so that the bishop or priest standing at the altar faced, not the rear wall of the Church, but, looking over the altar, faced the east and the rising sun?  Was there a Roman peculiarity here of situating the priest—but not the faithful—to face the rising sun?  We do know that the custom in Rome up to at least the 11^th century was for the bishop or priest to stand behind the altar facing the people, not with his back to them.  A westward facing Church would permit the celebrant to face the rising sun while maintaining the Roman custom of facing the faithful over the altar.
Now, the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber in his book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy (Die Reform der römischen Liturgie)made the somewhat preposterous claim that in St. Peter’s and other westward facing churches, the people stood at the Eucharist facing eastward towards the open doors of the Church to greet the rising sun.  This means, that they would have stood with their backs to the priest and the altar for the Eucharistic Liturgy—a very strange position, especially if they believed that Christ became truly present in the Eucharist.  Gamber would have us believe that the faithful stood facing a symbol of Christ—the rising sun—while their backs were to his Real Presence in the Eucharistic Gifts?!?  Gamber was opposed to the liturgical reforms that followed the Council and his work is more a polemic undermining the Liturgy of Paul VI than it is a critical study of Liturgical history.  Jungmann and Dix still remain the better works for liturgical history.  Nevertheless, Gamber is often cited by those neo-traditionalists who want to restore the pre-conciliar rites, especially the ad apsidem position of the priest at the altar with his back to the people.    
What we do know about this small Roman church in Hampshire is that the altar was freestanding.  A somewhat more elaborate mosaicked square in the apse of the Church marks where the altar would have stood and like all other altars of the period it was square and free standing.  The priest presumably stood behind it in the Roman fashion facing the congregation and beyond them the rising sun. 
What is this importance of the rising sun?  We have wandered far from the topic of this chain of postings—the history of the Anglican Church but it is worth commenting on none the less.  The Eucharist was normally celebrated early in the morning—at dawn.  The ancient cultures were far more sensitive to the interplay of nature and religious faith and the liturgy expressed this.  From the beginning of the Christian cult the rising sun was a symbol of the Risen Christ.  In the catacombs of Rome, or rather in a Christian tomb in the necropolis beneath Saint Peter’s Basilica, one can see Christ depicted at the god Apollo whose chariot daily drew the sun on its arc across the sky.  The paradigmatic liturgy of the year—the great Vigil of Easter—was always timed so that the great prayer of Thanksgiving, the Eucharistic Prayer, was being sung at the moment that the morning sun, representing the Risen Christ, broke over the horizon.  Each Sunday, therefore, the liturgy was celebrated at dawn to continue the Easter celebration in the weekly Eucharist.  The Sunday Eucharist was seen—and still is—as the weekly renewal of the Easter Proclamation.  We moderns with our vigil Masses and our preference to lie abed on Sunday mornings with coffee and papers have lost that connection.  Anyway, let’s get back to British Christianity.   
My second point that I wanted to make regarding Christianity in Roman Britain is that is spawned a heresy.  Pelagius (c. 354- c.420) was a British monk who came to Rome at the end of the fourth century. (There is some possibility that he was from Brittany in France rather than from Britain but most sources believe he was British.)  Coming out of the very strict ascetic tradition of hiberno-british monasticism, he was a man of very severe temperament shocked by the moral laxity in Rome.  (He would have an absolute apoplectic seizure if he saw Rome today.)  He blamed this laxity on the influence of Augustine of Hippo—who was still alive—the distinguished North African bishop-theologian who determined the course of Western theology and is usually considered a rigorist, though not by Pelagius.  Pelagius was actually far more morally rigid than Augustine and he thought that Augustine’s emphasis on grace was simply a cop-out that let people blame God for their own moral failures.  “I committed perverse sexual acts because God didn’t give me the grace to resist,” or as Geraldine used to say “The devil made me do it.” 
Little of Pelagius’s writings have survived.  His name being associated with heresy, his once-extensive writings were destroyed early on.  We know what various councils such as the one Augustine called at Carthage in 418 claim he taught but Pelagius was not at that Council and had no opportunity to explain himself.  The Council of Diospolis in 415—at which he was present—heard him out and confirmed his orthodoxy.  From what little we do know, we probably should conclude that Pelagianism, the heresy named after him, is more of a caricature of his actual teaching than an accurate reflection.  Pelagianism says that the human person is capable of doing good moral acts independent of God’s grace.  This is a heretical position, but nowhere do we find that it is actually what Pelagius taught.  Being a strong Augustinian myself and having what might even be an overdeveloped appreciation for the mystery of Grace, I abhor Pelagianism which I see very much reflected in the shallow naiveté  of today’s happy-clappy Matthew Fox pseudo-Christianity.  Of course I think the morose and sullen pseudo-Catholicism of Michael Voris and Joseph Fessio is shot through and through with Jansenism, equally heretical and the moral opposite of Pelagianism. 
All this takes us far away from today’s topic, the development of the Ecclesia Anglicana but I did want to draw reader’s attention to the vitality of the Romano-British Church before we move onto its Celtic salvation and the Anglo-Saxon era.                

Benedict XVI and Turning Back the Clock 200 Years

Medieval bas-relief at Luca Cathedral

showing Mass celebrated facing the people

I mentioned in recent posts that Benedict XVI has not been completely comfortable with the direction the Catholic Church has taken since the Second Vatican Council which is ironic because he, as a theological advisor to Cardinal Frings of Cologne—one of the leaders of the Council—had much to do with shaping the Vatican II Church.  I pointed out in recent postings that his discomfort with the policies of John Paul II in regards to ecumenism and to inter-religious dialogue have led to a cooling of the friendly conversations the Catholic Church has conducted with other Christian denominations and with non-Christian religions. But Ratzinger is also uncomfortable with the liturgical revisions issued under Paul VI in the Missal of 1970. 

I have long felt that the only people who understand the changes of Paul VI—really understand them—are those who, like those who followed Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in schism—have rejected the new liturgy.  Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly support the liturgical revisions and had hoped to see even more revision, but there is a discontinuity in the theology of the Mass of Pius V in the 1570 Missal and the Mass of Paul VI in the 1970 Missal.  I think the Pauline “Novus Ordo” is more faithful to the theological/liturgical heritage received from the Fathers of the Church and that it did well to clear away many of the medieval accretions and restore the Roman Rite to some degree of its original clarity and simplicity of expression.  I wanted—and still want—to see further simplification of the Rite along with a corresponding flexibility that frees it from rubricism and would permit it to be more authentically prayerful.  Not everyone sees it that way.  Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is one who does not.

From early on Josef Ratzinger identified himself with a faction in the Church that resisted the liturgical developments of 1970.  This is not to say that Ratzinger was opposed to any liturgical reform or renewal but he obviously though the reforms of 1970 went way too far.  For years he attended various seminars and workshops at the Abbey of Fontgombault, a French Benedictine Community of the Solesmes Congregation that has opted to maintain the pre-Conciliar Rite.  Fontbombault has been a center for neo-traditionalists who are anxious to minimize the liturgical changes of Paul VI’s revisions of the Missal and Breviary.  Ratzinger also was a close friend of the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber,(+ 1987) whose book Die Reform der römischen Liturgie, (in English: The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, Una Voce Press, 1993) was an attack on the Reforms of Paul VI. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote an introduction to this book. I have mentioned Gamber in previous postings and believe he was distinctly inferior as a scholar to Josef Jungman (+1975) and Gregory Dix (+1952) whose works have prepared the way for the liturgical reforms at the Council.  But Ratzinger, a theologian and not a historian, has not seen the flaws in Gamber’s “scholarship” and has embraced many of his ideas for their theological import despite of their being grounded in poor historical understanding.  One of the particular issues that Ratzinger/Benedict has followed Gamber’s faulty research is the matter of “orientation”—that is the idea that priest and people alike should pray facing Eastwards.  Granted, that the tradition of the Eastern Churches (Orthodox and Catholic, Chalcedonian and non-Chalecdonian) and the prevalent custom in northern Europe was for Churches to be built facing eastwards so that priest and people together would face the rising Sun—a profound symbol of the Risen Lord, but a study of the ancient Churches in Rome shows us two things.  In Rome, unlike the East, churches were built to every point of the compass.  And in Rome, unlike the East and Northern Europe, altars were positioned so that the bishop or priest presiding at the Eucharist faced the congregation over the altar.  Cardinal Ratzinger was an ardent proponent of the priest celebrating with his back to the congregation.  As Pope he has in public celebrated facing the people.  We need to do a posting on the topic of the Roman Liturgy and the issue of versus populum or versus absidem or ad orientem—three distinct positions for the priest at prayer.

Benedict was also unhappy with the translation of the Latin “pro multis” in the consecratory words over the cup “This is the cup of my blood shed for you and for ????”  Benedict insists on a literal but misleading “for many” whereas most of the translations of the 1970 Rite had long used the more theologically accurate “for all.”   We need to look at that question too.  The pro multis issue has long been a thorn for neo-traditionalists because it was not being translated literally (though, as we will see in a future posting, it was being translated accurately.) 

In expanding the use of the pre-conciliar rites with the 1962 Missal of John XXIII as the so called “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite Benedict has hoped that the traditional rites will bleed back into the revised rite of Paul VI and eventually “correct” the 1970 Rite with accretions from the earlier rite borrowed into the new.  That threatens to make a bit of a “dog’s dinner” of the Liturgy, a hodge-podge as it were—but the scholarly Benedict has little experience with the pastoral issues and practices.  The more significant point, however, is that he too is one whose enthusiasm for the Council is guarded, or even tepid and this is leading to the new hermeneutic that is re-interpreting the Council far from the intentions of the Council Fathers and, presumably, the Holy Spirit who inspired them.       

Reform of the Reform: A Rationale For the Craziness

I recently made a reference to “The Reform of the Reform” and some readers inquired as to what I meant.  I first heard of the term myself in an article by Monsignor M. Francis Manion in America Magazine some twenty years ago.   Monsignor Manion was at the time the Rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City and he outlined five different approaches to liturgical renewal that were prevalent at the time.  To the far right were the restorationists who were campaigning for the full restoration of the pre-conciliar liturgy, the so-called Tridentine Mass or Mass of Pius V.   Right of center, but not to the extreme of the restorationists, is “The Reform of the Reform.”  At the time it was a somewhat marginal movement but with the election of Benedict XVI it has moved into an undeclared but papally preferred first place guiding philosophy for reshaping the Church's Liturgy. 

“Back in the day” of Msgr. Manion’s article, the Reform of the Reform was represented in the United States by a group of neo-traditionalist (as opposed to traditionalist, i.e. restoratinist) clergy under the leadership of Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.  Fessio did his doctoral studies at the University of Regensburg where then professor Josef Ratzinger (yes, that Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI) directed his dissertation. 

Father Fessio has had a rather volatile career.  In 1976 he founded the Saint Ignatius Institute at the University of San Franciso.  The Saint Ignatius Institute became somewhat of a university within the university and generated much controversy over the years but even though I tend to the liberal side of things, it seems that the Institute (and Fessio) were treated rather heavy-handedly for their conservative approaches.  It may have been Fessio’s personality, or even lack of a sound ethical (I hesitate to use the word “moral” as that might imply wrongly) compass, that caused this.  Fessio eventually resigned from the Institute to devote his time to Ignatius Press, another endeavor which he founded and which has provided somewhat of a balance to the more liberal Paulist Press as a Catholic publishing house.  Again, while I tend to the liberal, Ignatius Press continues to provide valuable service to the Catholic and intellectual world and I am a frequent purchaser of their books for a library with which I am involved.  Father Fessio went on to a number of academic posts and was connected with Ave Maria University where his involvement in several controversies led to his being fired as provost and then two years after fired from the faculty. 

One story about Father Fessio that was related to me while I was living in Rome was that shortly after the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict, Father Fessio had a group of benefactors of Ave Maria University with him in Rome and was going to present them to the Holy Father after the weekly papal audience.  Fessio was so presumptuous as to introduce “my friend, Pope Benedict.”  Now one thing about the Holy Father is that he is very sensitive to any lèse-majesté against the papacy. Consequently Benedict is not one to champion undue familiarity.  He deeply resented Gamarelli’s (Rome’s premier ecclesiastical tailors) presumption to exploit their relationship is previous popes and it wanted it to be known that Prada did not in fact make his famous red shoes.  When Father Fessio referred to His Holiness as “my friend,” the Pope reportedly immediately and publicly corrected him reminding Fessio that he (the Pope) had been his (Fessio’s) professor, not his “friend.”    

Fessio is a bit of a slippery character, but then he is a Jesuit.  I remember a business dealing a project with which I was involved had with him at Ignatius about ten years ago.  The kindest word that I could attribute to him would be “duplicitous.”   He definitely has an agenda and one of the ways he has furthered that agenda is in an organization for the “renewal” of the liturgy called Adoremus.

Fessio and other advocates of the Reform of the Reform draw their ideas from the work of Monsignor Klaus Gamber and in particular from his book Die Reform der römischen Liturgie, (in English: The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, Una Voce Press, 1993).  Being a historian myself, I find Gamber’s work skewed by his vehement bias against and opposition to the liturgical reforms of Paul VI.  Far more reliable histories of the liturgy are Gregory Dix’s and Josef Jungmann’s classic works.  But the problem is that then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger wrote the introduction to Gamber’s book.  I find this troubling as it indicates that the current Pope has reservations about the liturgical reforms of Paul VI and I hate to see any turning back.  But for the purposes of this entry let’s just say that Fessio’s Reform of the Reform ideas which are embraced by a significant number of the Arlington clergy—and indeed the “biretta brigade” elsewhere—are derived from Gamber’s uneven work.   

Let me just make one final clarification.  If the Holy Father has theological reservations about the Liturgical reforms of Paul VI, or indeed if anyone with a competency in theology, has theological reservations about the “new Mass” that is worthy of further investigation and discussion.  I am not a theologian and not qualified to judge the theological issues regarding the post-conciliar liturgy.  My critique and negative evaluation of Gamber’s work is not theological—and Gamber’s work  is not a theological book—it is historical. There I do have some competency. I don’t fault the Pope theologically and his claims to infallibility do not mean that he is not above criticism for a lack of historical competency displayed in his endorsement of Gamber’s work.  Of course most of the Reform of the Reform advocates have expertise neither in theology or history.  And frankly, when you see the liturgies they construct in their nostalgia for the good old days of Father Chuck O’Malley the Bells of Saint Mary’s, it shows. 

 This brings us back to the question about Vatican II and is it being undone.  More on that soon. 

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.     

The "New Translation" of the Mass II--The "Reform of the Reform"

This medieval bas-relief on the facade of Lucca

cathedral testifies to the practice of celebrating Mass

versus populum (facing the people) in the medieval

period.

Almost twenty years ago Monsignor Francis Manion, then rector of the Cathedral of the Magdalene in Salt Lake City, published an article in America Magazine on five schools of thought regarding how the Roman Catholic Liturgy should be celebrated.  It has been a very important article to track the development of various liturgical movements through the reign of John Paul II and into Pope Benedict’s pontificate.  One of the “schools of thought” then on the fringe that Monsignor Manion identified was a groups he termed(and others have used this phrase, including its adherents) “The Reform of the Reform.”  
      The “Reform of the Reform” school of liturgical renewal believes that Paul VI went far beyond the mandate of the Council Fathers in his restructuring of the Liturgy in the 1970 Roman Missal.  They insist that the Council Fathers wanted certain portions of the Mass, mostly those parts which gave the laity a direct participation of listening (the Liturgy of the Word) or singing (the various chants proper to the celebration such as the introit, the gradual, and the offertorium) put in the language of the people, while the core prayers were to stay in Latin.  They insisted-and I think they are substantially correct—that the Council Fathers had not called for the radical restructuring of the “offertory” rites, the repositioning of the altar to face the people, the multiplicity of Eucharistic (consecratory) prayers, and what they perceive to have been a deemphasizing of the role of the priest-celebrant in favor of an expanded role of the laity that creates the impression that the non-ordained in any way “celebrate” the Liturgy along with the priest or bishop.  Advocates of the “Reform of the Reform” also are quick to point out that the Council never mandated the altar to be turned so that the priest faced the people.   
      The “Reform of the Reform” has taken its energy from a book written by Monsignor Klaus Gamber (1919-1987), a German liturgical historian who wrote a book known in English as The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background.  The book is not without its historical problems and differs in substantial ways from the earlier liturgical histories written by the Jesuit Josef Jungmann and the Anglican Benedictine Dom Gregory Dix.  The Jungmann and Dix works have been surpassed by subsequent research which both validates their research and theses and builds on their work.  But we can save that for a future entry.  As I have written in some earlier entries, my chief problem is with Gamber’s thesis that priest and people have always faced in the same position—facing eastwards—during the liturgy.  While the predominance of the ad orientem (eastward positioning for prayer) seems to be true in the East (due to the influence of the synagogue tradition) and in even northern Europe, the archeological evidence is clear that it was never the custom in Rome.  Moreover, various paintings, book illustrations, bas-reliefs, and mosaics show that it was not a universal practice in the western Church even outside of Rome.  I think in particular of a medieval bas relief on the façade of the Cathedral of Lucca that clearly shows a Eucharistic celebration in which the clergy face the people over the altar.  The illustration I used on the previous blog is another example of a medieval liturgical celebration facing the people.  But again, I have done entries on the ad orientem vs versus populum debate and don’t want to get side tracked here.  (See entries for January 25, February 26, March 3, August 9, and 16, all of this year.) 
    Joseph Fessio SJ—the somewhat troublesome and seemingly troubled founder of Ignatius Press, and one-time provost of Ave Maria University emerged as the American leader of the “Reform of the Reform movement.”  Let me make it clear that Father Fessio is a priest in good standing and impeccable reputation regarding his personal life, but the hills and valleys of his career indicates a troubled soul whose personal agenda often overpowers an ability to work collaboratively or integrate his vision with other members of a team.  In other words, he would seem to be a raging megalomaniac.   I don’t mean this to be an ad hominem attack but an attempt to put the “Reform of the Reform” into the context of the actual people behind this agenda.  Father Fessio established an organization known as Adoremus to further the “Reform of the Reform” through their newsletter, speaking engagements, and various publications including a traditional hymnal.  In addition to Father Fessio, the executive committee of Adoremus also includes the traditionalist spokesperson Helen Hull Hitchcock and another, to put it kindly,  “highly eccentric” member of the clergy, Father Jerry Pokorsky of the Arlington (Virginia) Diocese.  Adoremus has done a noteworthy job of advancing the agenda of the Reform of the Reform, but the success of the movement has depended more on an admirer of Monsignor Gamber’s work, Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. 
       Then-Cardinal Ratzinger had always been very clear in expressing his opinion that he perceived problems with the Novus Ordo of Paul VI and that he saw the work of Liturgical Renewal as not finished with then current edition  but in need of continuing Reform—the exact point of the “Reform of the Reform.”  While he was no supporter of the late Marcel Lefebvre, the schismatic archbishop who consecrated his own bishops in defiance of the Holy See, Ratzinger was in constant supportive dialogue with those who continued to celebrate the preconciliar rites.  His Eminence was a regular participant in liturgical conferences at the Benedictine Abbey of Fontgombault which has been a center for the preservation of the pre-conciliar rites.  At the same time, the Cardinal also wrote theological justifications for maintaining the “ad orientem” position with priest and people alike facing eastwards in the liturgy.  He also expressed deep concern about the translations of the Words of Consecration of the chalice that declared that Christ died “for all” rather than “for many.”  This is a very complex issue both theologically and linguistically and merits a blog entry or two on its own.  
      Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a preface to Gamber’s book and this energized Gamber’s disciples in the Reform of the Reform, but it was only with the election of Ratzinger as Benedict XVI in 2005 that the weight of a pope (as opposed to that of a Cardinal) shifted the movement from fringe to mainline.  Ironically, since his election, Benedict has backed away from (not renounced) his support for the ideas espoused by the Reform of the Reform.  On only one occasion that I know of has the Pope celebrated the liturgy ad apsidem, that is facing the wall.  He has never (publicly) celebrated the Tridentine Rite.  On the other hand, he has insisted that those receiving communion from him receive kneeling and directly on the tongue and these are two of the cardinal “reforms” of the Reform of the Reform.  
       The Third Edition of the Roman Missal, issued by Pope Benedict’s predecessor, Blessed John Paul II,  in 2000 has been a big disappointment to the “Reform of the Reform” as it has not addressed any of their principal concerns for a genuine “reform” of the Novus Ordo.  In as that the Mass of Paul VI remains substantially intact beneath the new translation mandated at the time of the Missal’s promulgation it is no more likely to please the “Reform of the Reform” advocates whose agenda it fails to meet than it will please those who have been happy with the Novus Ordo since it has been in place these last forty years.  It was well within Cardinal Ratzinger’s power to insist, as the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that the 2000 missal address the doctrinal concerns of the “Reform of the Reform;” his election as Pope in 2005 empowered him, if he had so chosen, to supersede the 2000 Missal with yet a fourth edition that would have mandated various items of their agenda.  Neither as Cardinal Prefect or as Pope has Benedict XVI made substantial changes in the 1970 Rite.  While I am less than happy with the new translation, it is to Benedict’s credit that he is not turning the clock back on the post-Conciliar Rite.

Is Vatican II in Danger? VI Pope Benedict's Approach to Liturgy

Pardon for the interruption in regular postings of the blog but I had a few days of visiting with friends in the Southwest—nice break from winter—and they are the sort of folk who don’t let a moment go by that isn’t scheduled—bluegrass concert, art show, Mexican restaurant, weekly discussion group, church (of course), dinner at home, dinner out—I was never so glad to get on a plane.  All the work I had brought with me, including class preparations remained undone.  But I amhome  again and ready to pick up.   We were discussing some of the reasons for wondering if Vatican II is in danger and we were focusing on the Liturgy.  I am giving a talk next month on the new English translation of the Roman Missal so as I continue my research on this topic, I am sure we will return again to the issue of whether or not this new translation represents a threat to the post-conciliar advances in Catholicism, but for today let’s look at Pope Benedict and his personal preferences for the Liturgy and how they play out regarding “forward” or “backward.”  We have already spoken about the “Reform of the Reform” movement and in particular about a book by the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber calling for a reining in of the Liturgical Reforms initiated by Pope Paul VI.  You may recall that Joseph Ratzinger had written the preface for that book which more or less defines the “Reform of the Reform.”

Benedict is in an uncomfortable position with the liturgy.  He himself has had very limited pastoral experience having been a theology professor and then a Vatican bureaucrat with only a slight interval as a residential archbishop—archbishop of Munich—if being the metropolitan of a large see can even be called pastoral experience.  For most of his years as a priest and even as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he celebrated mass privately with only a server or his secretaries in attendance.  It can be expected that his own experience of the Eucharist has been focused on the celebrant in his relationship to God to whom the sacrifice is offered and to Christ as whose alter persona he offers it.  It should not surprise us then that his theological reflection on the Eucharist will be different than the understanding of the Eucharist of a person who has normally celebrated the Eucharist in the context of a large community of the faithful who are bringing to the altar a wide variety of hopes, concerns, anxieties, and life experiences.  The theologian or the prelate can be expected to have a more “high” or even ethereal interpretation of the Mysterium while the pastor or the lay theologian (or member of the lay faithful) may have a more “low” or even experiential understanding.  This does not have to be problematic in an inclusive Church. The Eucharist should be understood and appreciated on a variety of levels—the complexity and variety of meaning is what makes it a mysterium.   Nevertheless, Joseph Ratzinger had publically identified himself with both the Restorationist and Reform of the Reform schools before being chosen as pope and it should not surprise us that he is more open to liturgical developments on the right side of the spectrum than on the left.  He long attended conferences on the traditional liturgy at the abbey of Fontgombault,  a daughter house of Solesmes but a monastery which, unlike its motherhouse, never accepted the Reformed Missal of Paul VI.  Cardinal Ratzinger also wrote the preface for Klaus Gamber’s book, The Reform of the Roman Rite, giving an endorsement to Gamber’s position that the liturgical reforms implemented by Paul VI after the Council exceeded the Council mandate and created a flawed liturgy. In his preface to Gamber, Ratzinger showed his hand very clearly

In the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.

 At the same time, however, and this is what makes Benedict’s position so uncomfortable—as pastor of the Universal Church Benedict cannot himself deviate—at least deviate far—from the established norms.  He has yet to publically celebrate the extraordinary form permitted by his own motu proprio Summorum Pontificium.  Claims that he privately does so have not been substantiated.  And the failure of the pope to personally use the traditional rite leaves the extraordinary form without the highest endorsement.  Cardinal Dario Castrillon-Hoyos, a strong advocate of the Extraordinary form—has claimed that the Holy Father wants at least one liturgy each Sunday in every parish to follow the extraordinary form, but this claim has never been substantiated and Castrillon Hoyos is a notoriously unreliable source for an inability to differentiate his dreams and fantasies from fact.  Benedict has, on at least one occasion, celebrated the liturgy of the 1969 missal of Paul VI ad absidem—on the high altar of the Sistine Chapel—but as the papal altar in all four major basilicas in Rome face the people—as they have always faced the people, his public masses are invariably versus populum.  This too must make him uncomfortable as before his election as Pope  he had written extensively on the theological rationales for  celebrating the liturgy while facing in the same direction as the congregation.  Such celebration is impossible in the papal basilicas—where it has never been done—as the main altars are designed in such a way that one cannot ascend much less stand on the people’s side of the altar. 

One area which Pope Benedict has been able to demonstrate his preferences is that he himself only distributes communion directly on the tongue and to kneeling communicants, though in his diocese—the diocese of Rome—communion in the hand and to standing communicants is both permitted and the all-but-universal practice.  This has created a dilemma for some other bishops. While the directives of the American bishops supposedly guarantee communicants the choice of receiving in their hands or directly on the tongue, bishops find themselves unable or unwilling to discipline those priests who refuse to administer the Eucharist into the hands of the faithful.  In some places such as the Dioceses of Arlington Virginia, Lincoln Nebraska, Oklahoma City, and Colorado Springs this is an increasingly common phenomenon.  Priests argue that if the pope can do something in the Vatican Basilica, then they can also in their parish church.  Now, I am just waiting to see the red pradas peeking out from beneath their albs. 

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.