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 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.