Pope Benedict will be
remembered primarily for two things. One
will be his resignation as it established the precedent that a pope can resign,
something which had not happened for centuries, and because it had not happened
for centuries had been ruled out as an option by several recent popes who
suffered from a debilitating old age, namely Popes Pius XII and John Paul
II. (This is not to say that Pope
Benedict had become debilitated for while he seems to have the normal
infirmities of age, he otherwise appears to be in good health for his 87
years.)
The second legacy that
Benedict has left the Church may have far more deleterious consequences in
years to come, namely the revival and diffusion of the pre-Conciliar Liturgy to
which he gave somewhat of a carte blanche with the promulgation of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007. This more-or-less unrestricted permission for
priests to celebrate the pre-Conciliar Liturgy at their own discretion is the
very manure that is providing the nutrients for a nascent schism that is
threatening the unity of the Church by creating a separate and self-defining
Catholic movement with ties to the Holy See that are, at best, tenuous.
The problem is not the traditional
Liturgy itself. This Liturgy served the
Church well for four centuries. Nor is
the problem a lack of Liturgical uniformity; the Church—it all its different Rites ranging
from the Mozarabic in the West to the Syro-Malankar in the East—has long
flourished with a wide variety of Rites.
Moreover, with the inculturation of the Liturgy called for by the Second
Vatican Council we need, if anything, a wider variety of Rites in the Western
Church to reflect the cultural diversity of the Catholic faithful. The problem is that an unforeseen consequence
of Summorum Pontificum is the development
of two separate Churches that not only practice
vastly different rites, but have two differing sets of beliefs, two separate
hierarchies, and two magisteria.
The vision of Pope Benedict
to expand the use of the pre-conciliar rite, the usus antiquior (the older usage) of the Roman Rite, was that it
would be an alternative choice for the same worshippers who normally attend the
Novus Ordo Missae (new Order of Mass
promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970).
The same people, Pope Benedict hoped, would use both rites
interchangeably. In fact, it has worked
out quite differently. Less than 3% of
those Catholics in the United States who attend Sunday Mass weekly attend the
TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) while the vast majority of American Catholics have
shown no interest in the pre-conciliar rites.
Granted, some attend the TLM when it is available and otherwise attend
the Novus Ordo, but they are few and
far between. Most Catholics who attend
the TLM feel no obligation to attend Mass when only the Novus Ordo is available; and I suspect that most who are used to
the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite would feel no obligation to attend the TLM
if it were their only option.
While there are some who
prefer the TLM for aesthetic reasons—finding it more “solemn,” more
“meditative,” or more “beautiful,” the majority of those who attend have issues
not only with the “new liturgy” but with the Second Vatican Council itself and
particularly with the Conciliar teachings on Ecumenism, Inter-religious
dialogue, and Religious Liberty. If they
looked at the Conciliar decrees more carefully they would be certain to have
difficulties with Dei Verbum (The
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) and Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World.) Many who have looked at the Conciliar
documents—and frankly there are not that many who have in either the “New
Liturgy” or the “Old Mass” camps—have other piques particular to their own
opinions and ideas, but by and large those who attend the Pre-Conciliar Rites
do not accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. They are anxious for their children to be
catechized by the pre-conciliar Baltimore Catechism which does not reflect the
teaching of the Church these last fifty years.
They have formed what up to now has been a “Church within the Church”
but which, especially under the pontificate of Pope Francis, threatens to
become open schism. There seems to be a particular rejection of
the Church’s efforts at and after the Second Vatican Council to better
appreciate the unique position of the Jewish people in the plan of Salvation as
there is a much higher incidence of anti-Semitism on the part of
neo-traditionalists.
A significant number of
adherents of the usus antiquior do
not recognize the validity of the revised rites. This was a concern of Pope Benedict in
granting permission for the wider use of the pre-conciliar rites. Benedict had insisted upon a recognition of
the equal validity of both rites, but the number of parents who insist on their
children being baptized and confirmed according the older rites belies their
acceptance of the sacramental validity of the new ones. Moreover, more and more traditionalists are
insisting that their priests have been ordained in the pre-conciliar rite,
again expressing a hesitancy (at best) regarding the validity of the Reforms of
Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.
Up to now the Church has held
together under the strain of two distinct liturgies and two differing sets of
beliefs by having one single hierarchy, but that too is starting to show
fissures. The appointment of Blase
Cupich as Archbishop of Chicago has created a panic among many
neo-traditionalists in the Midwest. The
authority of Cardinals Wuerl, Dolan, and O’Malley has been flouted by many in
their own Archdioceses. Michael Voris,
spokesperson for many neo-trads has been openly encouraging rebellion against
the above Bishops and others whom he deems to be unfaithful to authentic Catholic
teaching. On the other hand Cardinal
Burke—whose remarks disparaging the leadership of Pope Francis have been the
most outspoken public criticisms of any pope since Cardinal Lucien Buonaparte
whose open mockery of Pius IX was the delight of Roman anti-clericalism in the
second half of the 19th century—has created a “Burke faction” in the
Church distinct from those who admire and trust the leadership of Pope
Francis. Burke’s protégés among the
American hierarchy, notably Bishop Robert Finn and Archbishops Salvatore
Cordileone and William Lori, on the other hand, are often held up to criticism
and even contempt by progressive Catholics in their dioceses.
The fracture in the hierarchy
creates a crises in the magisterium as many in the neo-traditional camp,
including those who attend the Novus Ordo
Mass in their parishes have grown very distrustful of Pope Francis. While less than 3% of weekly Churchgoers
attend the “old Mass,” estimates are that somewhere between 10 and 12 percent
of American Catholics disagree with Pope Francis on his efforts to reconcile
the divorced and remarried and gay Catholics to the Church and probably a
greater percentage would disagree with him on social issues such as the
welcoming of immigrants, the unsuitability of the death penalty, and the need
for a more just distribution of wealth. Cardinal Burke’s criticisms of Pope Francis
and the direction in which the Pope is leading the Church has set him up in the
minds of many as the “true voice” of Catholicism even as Michael Voris has
replaced the bishops for many American Catholics.
Only time will tell the what
the results of this fracture will be. It
is another case of the toothpaste won’t go back into the tube, though this time
with the neo-traditionalist brand. It is
too late to suppress the TLM as that would make the schism immediate, but it is
hard to see that Pope Benedict’s long term legacy will not be anything but the
emergence of a new Church claiming to authentic and traditional
Catholicism.
