Dialogue Mass: A Plea for Silent Participation in the Liturgy

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Dialogue Mass XIV: 1951-1955: The Vatican Started the Liturgical Reform

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

Before dealing with the actual changes to the Holy Week liturgy in 1955 under Pius XII, which were many and significant, we will take a look at the guiding principles of the 1948 Commission for the General Reform of the Liturgy and the manner in which its Secretary, Fr. Annibale Bugnini, went about his task of overhauling the Church's most ancient and venerable ceremonies.

Secrecy paramount, ethics thrown to the winds



Bugnini: 'I am the liturgical reform'

Bugnini's penchant for secrecy informed all his actions. We have seen how he had been making clandestine visits to the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique (1) since 1946, the year in which Pius XII requested Card. Carlo Salotti, the Prefect of the Congregation of Rites, to begin forming a project for the general reform of the liturgy. Bugnini himself admitted that his Commission met "in absolute secrecy." He transmitted selective information via Fr. Augustin Bea and Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini "up the back stairs," so to speak, to the Pope, kept the Sacred Congregation of Rites in the dark and sprang the first of the Holy Week reforms on the unsuspecting faithful in 1951.

In fact, so secret was the work of the Commission on this project that Bugnini (allegedly known as Brother Buan in Freemasonry) admitted that "the publication of the Renewed Order for Holy Saturday at the beginning of March 1951 caught even the officials of the Congregation of Rites by surprise." (2) If even the Congregation knew nothing of the projected Easter Vigil reform until it was formally proclaimed, one wonders at the integrity of Card. Clemente Micara who was simultaneously President of Bugnini's Commission and Pro-Prefect of the Congregation of Rites. In fact, it was Micara who signed the Decree publishing the new Order of Holy Saturday. (3) (See here). This raises the question of collusion with Bugnini, and whether the Easter Vigil reform had been, as it were, stitched up between them.

"I am the liturgical reform!"

These words of inflated self-esteem – "I am the liturgical reform" – were attributed to Bugnini by a close colleague. (4) Whether or not Bugnini actually said them, he had no difficulty in fulfilling the absolutist role. It is also an example of the corrupting power handed to him by Pius XII. Without such papal backing, the work of the Commission would have ground to a halt. But with the power of the Pope behind it, Bugnini's Commission became an end in itself, unchallengeable and unquestionable, the ultimate bureaucratic weapon against all objectors. It would grow into a global, powerful and unaccountable industry forcing the world's Bishops, willy-nilly, to toe the Bugnini line.

Divise reforms

It is not generally appreciated just how controversial the 1951-1955 Holy Week reforms were in their day. Historical records exist to show that they were vehemently criticized by many Bishops, priests and lay people on account of the radical nature of the changes then initiated. Among the most outspoken critics was Msgr. Léon Gromier, a distinguished Prelate of the Papal Household and a Canon of St. Peter's Basilica. As a consulter to the Congregation of Rites since the time of Pope Pius X, he was in a position to speak with authority on the Holy Week ceremonies. His knowledge was legendary on all liturgical subjects from bugia to buskins and falbalas to faldstools, which made him the strongest of advocates for arguing the case for the traditional rites. Msgr. Gromier, who had been publicly criticizing the Liturgical Movement since 1936, gave a conference in Paris in 1960. (5) (See here) In it he excoriated the 1955 Holy Week reforms, exposing the false liturgical science and the false reasoning behind them.

He did not hesitate to describe them as an "act of vandalism," "an immense loss and an outrage to history," "the negation of reasoned principles" and the product of a "pastoral mentality impregnated with a populist attitude, unfavorable to the clergy." With reference to the liturgists who produced the reforms, he lamented that their "discretionary powers are vast, as are the abuses."



Msgr. Leon Gromier, a bitter and outspoken enemy of the 1955 Holy Week reforms.

Objections from Bishops (6) to the interim Holy Week changes of 1951 poured into the Vatican with requests to leave the traditional rites intact. The final and obligatory reform of 1955 was vigorously opposed by more Bishops, for instance Card. Francis Spellman of New York and Arch. John Charles McQuaid of Dublin (on the grounds that it might destabilize the faith of the Irish people). (7) Among the laity, the Catholic newspapers of 1955-1956 were rife with objections. (8 ) The novelist, Evelyn Waugh, who had converted to Catholicism, considered the changes ruinous to his spiritual life and a danger to the faith itself, particularly among simple folk. (9)

No leeway for traditional rites

But, disregarding warnings about the consequences of changing long-established patterns of worship –  the new rites would endanger the habitual, ingrained attitudes to the faith of devout Catholics – Pius XII issued his new liturgical laws and instructions in Maxima Redemptionis in 1955, and made the traditional rites illegal:

"Those who follow the Roman rite are bound in the future to follow the Restored Ordo for Holy Week... This new Ordo must be followed..." (10)



Pius XII mandated the changes in the Holy Week ceremonies in 1955.

A tragedy for traditionally-minded Bishops

Pius XII used legislation to introduce arbitrary and unnecessary changes devised by revolutionaries. This put the law-abiding Bishops (who placed obedience to the Pope as their foremost duty) into an untenable position: They were thus maneuvered into implementing the reforms that they objected to on grounds of the Faith. In other words, giving them no choice but to comply forced them to act against their principles and their conscience. And because Maxima Redemptionis legitimated the actions of progressivist clergy who had been implementing the reforms without the Pope's authority for decades, it was a document fundamentally biased against the traditional rites.

Naturally, no mention was made in the Decree of the many Bishops who considered the reforms to be pastorally unsound. The claim that the Holy Week reforms were attended by "the greatest success everywhere" is highly tendentious. (11) This reveals a quite considerable degree of contempt not only for traditionally-minded Bishops but also for those Catholics who were attached to their traditions and had never requested or welcomed such changes. Whether such a document against all the past of the Church had the power to bind the faithful is a question open to discussion. In short, the 1955 Holy Week reform, whatever the degree of Pius XII's complicity in it, was a papally-backed mechanism for re-ordering the liturgy to incorporate the basic wishes of the progressivists and to begin implementing their ideas for future changes. That is how the will of Bugnini's Commission triumphed – and thus inescapably stifled opposition.

1. The CPL was a liturgical think tank characterized by ideological commitment to the most avant garde reforms.
2. Annibale Bugnini, La Riforma Liturgica: 1948–1975, Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 25. The reason for his astonishing candor was that he regarded his scheming not as something to be ashamed of, but to boast about.
3. "De solemni vigilia paschali instauranda," Acta Apostolicae Sedis, February 9, 1951, pp. 129. Bugnini was mistaken when he said that the publication date was the beginning of March 1951.
4. Anscar Chapungco OSB, What, Then, Is Liturgy? Musings and Memoir, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010, p. 4. Fr. Chapungco, former President of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome and avid defender of the reforms, recalled that Bugnini spoke these words during one of his visits to the Institute.
5. L. Gromier, 'La Semaine Sainte Restaurée', in Opus Dei, 1962, n. 2, pp. 76-90. Opus Dei was a monthly journal edited by a French priest, Fr. Ferdinand Portier, who was known for his arrangement and promotion of Gregorian Chant.
6. These included Msgr. Felice Bonomini, Bishop of Como, Card. Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, and Msgr. Cornelio Cuccarollo, Archbishop of Otranto. Apud Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, 2005, p. 222, note 270.
7. Alcuin Reid, ibid., p. 231.
8. See, for example, The Catholic Herald and The Tablet.
9. Writing in The Spectator in 1962, Waugh stated: "During the last few years we have experienced the triumph of the 'liturgists' in the new arrangement of the services for the end of Holy Week and for Easter. For centuries these had been enriched by devotions that were dear to the laity – the anticipation of the morning office of Tenebrae, the vigil at the Altar of Repose, the Mass of the Presanctified. It was not how the Christians of the second century observed the season. It was the organic growth of the needs of the people," apud Scott Reid, A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the liturgical changes, London: St Austin Press, 1996, pp. 24-25.
10. Sacred Congregation of Rites, General Decree and Instruction, Maxima Redemptionis, November 16, 1955, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 47, p. 840.
11. This claim was made by the Prefect of the Congregation of Rites, Cardinal Gaetano Cicognani.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

Dialogue Mass XV: A Self-Contradictory Liturgical Reform

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

With Mediator Dei of 1947, Pius XII had set the stage for "active participation" of the laity. Not only did he strongly encourage the "Dialogue Mass" and congregational singing in this encyclical, but he also exhorted the Bishops to set up diocesan committees to ensure that these revolutionary measures "in which the people take part in the liturgy" would be everywhere promoted as a "liturgical apostolate" for the laity. (1) Here we see the first intimation of the "theology of lay liturgical ministry" that would be ordered by Vatican II, whereby the whole assembly shares the responsibility for celebrating Mass. Thus, Pius XII effectively undermined his own teaching on the Catholic priesthood found elsewhere in the same document. With such confusion between the ordained and the non-ordained, is there any wonder that there developed a crisis of priestly identity?



Today's lay eucharistic ministers act as participants of the priesthood - Diocese of Austin, Texas.

Almost immediately following the encyclical, Pius XII placed Fr. Annibale Bugnini in charge of a Commission for the General Reform of the Liturgy staffed by a few hand-picked "progressivist" satraps. (2) The first result of the Commission's work was the restructuring of the Easter Vigil rite (1951) with a view to promoting "active participation" leading to an entire revision of the Holy Week liturgy in 1955. This in turn would spawn all subsequent liturgical reforms up to and after Vatican II, with the same rationale in mind. There was no doubt in the minds of the two most influential members of the Commission, Fr. Bugnini and Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli, that the reforms they devised in the 1950s were based on the same principles as the post-conciliar reforms.

Bugnini made several statements to the effect that the 1955 reforms were a transitional stage of a more general liturgical reform, "the first step toward measures of a wider scope," "an arrow" pointing forward. (3) Fr. Antonelli, future Secretary of the Liturgical Commission of Vatican II and Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, stated that his revision of the Roman rite under Pius XII was simply a "kind of novitiate" for the official reforms of Vatican II and later. (4)

When Bugnini's chickens came home to roost



A first reformer, Fr. Antonelli was granted a cardinal's hat and prestige from the Popes.

How ironic that Fr. Antonelli (later Cardinal), who had been given chief responsibility on Pius XII's Commission for the reform of Holy Week, later deplored the outcome of what he had initiated in the 1950s. In his memoirs, he noted:

"Many of those who have influenced the reform ... and others, have no love and no veneration for that which has been handed down to us. They begin by despising everything that is actually there. This negative mentality is unjust and pernicious ... with this mentality they have only been able to demolish and not to restore." (5)

Precisely. Yet at that critical point in history when papal support for the protection of the traditional rites was essential, Pius XII was on the wrong side, aligning himself with those who aimed to demolish Tradition.

The hermeneutic of rupture

Continuity with Tradition was exactly what Pius XII's Commission did not want, as was made abundantly clear in the 1951 Decree (6) introducing an experimental Easter Vigil service and also in the 1955 Decree (7) making it (and the whole of the Holy Week reforms) obligatory for the Roman rite. Both of these Decrees, as we shall see below, contain unjustified criticisms of the traditional rites; they are also accompanied by Instructions for new rites in which the emphasis was placed on the "active participation" of the laity. Here we see the first glimmerings of a new approach to liturgy – known later as "horizontalism." The ordering and meaning of Catholic worship was now in the hands of the reformers who began systematically to replace rituals that transmitted a sense of reverence and awe in the presence of God with "simplified" man-centred constructs promoting "active participation."



The "horizontal" church reflected in an egalitarian architecture & liturgy.

By 1955, with the Decree Maxima Redemptionis, the shape of this most ancient of Vigils (which St. Augustine called the "Mother of all Vigils") was reformulated and some texts were massively curtailed. And new arrangements were invented for the priest to face the people, involving "dialogue" with them in the vernacular. One could say that the decline of the sense of the sacred began in embryonic form with the 1951-1955 changes.

False dawn of the Easter Vigil reform

Under pressure from the French and German Bishops, Pius XII made a new rule that the Church should no longer hold the Easter Vigil in daylight hours, as had been the case since the 7th or 8th centuries, but should revert to the practice of the first Christians who held it after dark. No convincing reason was given by the Congregation of Rites as to why the night time should be deemed the "proper hour" for the Vigil service. In fact, there is no "proper" hour for a vigil. The mystery of the Church's liturgy is, in its essence, not bound by the clock. In liturgical terms, a vigil refers to the eve of a feast day and can be celebrated with propriety at any time of the day.

However, Maxima Redemptionis arbitrarily insisted that the ceremonies "may not begin before twilight, or certainly not before sunset." But the timing of the Easter Vigil had never been set by astronomical calculation, as if everything depended on how many degrees the sun is above or below the horizon.

The self-contradictory nature of the Easter Vigil reform

The Church was ordered to return to the catacombs. It is perplexing that the same Pope who had condemned such a retrograde step in the strongest terms as "antiquarianism" only four years earlier, could have countenanced this reversal of his own teaching:

"The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man." (8 )

But the point about his 1955 Decree Maxima Redemptionis was that it did state that the early Christian Easter Vigil was "more suitable and proper" than what had developed over the intervening centuries; and it did reject the principle that "the more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect." There is no mistaking the language used in the Decree to denigrate the liturgical tradition as it had developed up to the 1950s. Maxima Redemptionis carried a note of reprobation of what had been approved and maintained as Catholic practice for centuries, with the scarcely veiled implication that for most of her history the Church had conducted her worship on wrong lines.



A post-Vatican II Easter Vigil celebration in the Los Angeles Cathedral.

In it, the accusation was made that the Easter Vigil had lost its original clarity and the meaning of its words and symbols when it was "torn" from its "proper" nocturnal setting and was no longer in line with the Gospel accounts. According to the reformers, it had even become "harmful" to the symbolic meaning of the Vigil. (9) Anyone would think they were referring to a monstrous iniquity that must be removed from the Church. In other words, the Holy See (echoing the reformers) was claiming that the public prayers of the Church celebrated continually for many centuries, sanctified by long usage and codified by the Council of Trent were theologically defective and liturgically "improper." Is it conceivable that the traditional manner of celebrating the Easter Vigil in the daytime was a disastrous mistake and that the Church had to wait 14 centuries for Bugnini and his henchmen to put the matter right?

Of course not, and in the next instalment we will be examining the spurious reasons for the Easter Vigil changes, which were published in the 1951 and 1955 Decrees.

1. "Wherefore We exhort you, Venerable Brethren, that each in his diocese or ecclesiastical jurisdiction supervise and regulate the manner and method in which the people take part in the liturgy, according to the rubrics of the Missal and in keeping with the injunctions which the Sacred Congregation of Rites and the Code of Canon Law have published. ... It is also Our wish that in each diocese an advisory committee to promote the liturgical apostolate should be established." (Mediator Dei, n. 109)
2. The members of the Commission in 1948 were: Card. Clemente Micara, Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (President); Fr. Annibale Bugnini CM (Secretary); Msgr. Alfonso Carinci, Secretary of the Congregation of Rites; Fr. Agostino Bea SJ; Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli OFM; Fr. Joseph Löw CSSR; Dom Anselmo Albareda OSB, Prefect of the Vatican Library.
3. A. Bugnini, The Simplification of the Rubrics: Spirit and Practical Consequences of the Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites March 23, 1955, with a Preface by Ferdinando Antonelli, Collegeville, MN: Doyle & Finegan, , 1955.
4. Cf. Nicola Giampietro, The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948-1970, Fort Collins CO: Roman Catholic Books, 2009, p. 69. Giampietro gleaned his information from research into Antonelli's personal writings as well as archival material from the minutes of the Commissions on which the Cardinal had served.
5. Ibid., p. 192. This is not to suggest that Card. Antonelli wanted to preserve intact the Church's liturgical tradition. He was Secretary for the Liturgical Commission of the Second Vatican Council, a member of the post-conciliar Concilium and became Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Rites in 1965.
6. De solemni vigilia paschali instauranda, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1951, pp. 128-37. There exists no English translation.
7. Maxima Redemptionis, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1955, pp. 838-847.
8. Mediator Dei, 1947 n. 61.
9. Maxima Redemptionis: "profecto non sine detrimento liturgici sensus, nec sine confusione inter evangélicas narrationes et ad eas pertinentes liturgicas repraesentationes. Solemnis praesertim paschalis vigiliae liturgia, a propria nocturna sede avulsa, nativam perspicuitatem ac verborum et symbolorum sensum amisit." (certainly not without detriment to the liturgical meaning, creating confusion among the Gospels accounts and related liturgical ceremonies. Principally the solemn liturgy of the Easter Vigil, snatched away from its proper nightly time, lost its innate clarity as well as the meaning of words and symbols) The expression avulsa ("snatched away") is offensive and unwarranted, as it has a particularly violent connotation in Latin, descriptive of robbery, abduction etc.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

Dialogue Mass XVI: An Incoherent Reform

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

What was the rationale of the Holy Week reforms when, in the opinion of everyone else outside the Liturgical Movement, there was no obvious or compelling need for any change whatever? Bugnini later "explained" in his memoirs:

"The Liturgical Movement was an effort to unite rites and content, for its aim was to restore as fully as possible the expressiveness and sanctifying power of the liturgy and to bring the faithful back to full participation and understanding." (1)

A circular argument

But this explains nothing except that the assumptions he started with determined the conclusion he came to. In other words, he already believed, like the Protestants, that the Catholic liturgy, as it had been handed down through the centuries, was essentially falsified and also dysfunctional. According to him, there was a mismatch between the ceremonies of the Roman Rite and the content that they were meant to represent, leading the faithful astray. (We should note here that any Catholic who expressed this attitude was considered excommunicated by the Council of Trent). (2)



With his innovations, Pius XII laid the foundation to destroy the traditional ceremonies.

His "solution" – to adapt the liturgy in the direction of "active participation" so that people could understand it better – simply reinforced his preconceived ideas about a supposed "ignorance and dark night of worship... out in the nave." (3) With this "explanation," the cat was well and truly out of the bag. It was exactly the same argument put forward by the Commission that had produced the Decree Maxima Redemptionis back in 1955. The main point of similarity between them was the undercurrent of hostility to Tradition discernible in both accounts, which is hardly surprising given that they were masterminded by the same person – Bugnini.

A strange anomaly

It is noteworthy that those who happily condemn such an "explanation" coming directly from Bugnini are prepared to brush it aside or overlook it when it emanates from a decree promulgated by Pius XII. That is because they have conferred on Pius XII the iconic status of the "last traditional Pope," believing that he ensured the continuity of Tradition. But the proof of continuity is fidelity to Tradition, and Pius XII authorized substantial changes including innovations in the Holy Week rites – all in the name of "active participation." How could he have ensured continuity when he failed to make a full commitment to the liturgical tradition that is its only guarantee?



An extravagant fire receptacle for the modern Easter Vigil ceremony.

Whatever the degree of Pius XII's personal complicity in the reforms, it is unarguable that an arbitrary restructuring of the Church's liturgy has always been alien to orthodox Catholic sense and practice. What possible justification could there be for changing the face of the Holy Week rites? When we examine the Decree Maxima Redemptionis we will see that its purpose was not to provide well reasoned arguments for reform, but to convey an attitude. It positively bristled with loaded polemics that served to prejudice the faithful against their own traditions and to lock the Liturgical Movement into a negative attitude to the Church's spiritual patrimony. Let us look at the reasons that were considered by Pius XII's Commission to be worthy of special consideration and emphasis.

A benighted reform

The most popular argument put forward by the reformers in favor of changing the Easter Vigil was the alleged illogical character of lighting the Easter fire and candle in daylight hours. How absurd, they scoffed, to be singing about the darkness of "this night" in broad daylight – as if the Church had committed a liturgical gaffe that had gone unnoticed for 13 centuries. And so the reformers sneered and sniggered at the age-old Easter Vigil, led on by the instigator of the Liturgical Movement, Dom Beauduin, who stated scathingly in 1951:

"How is it that we have endured and accepted uncritically for centuries the practice of singing the Exsultet and the Vere beata Nox ("O truly blessed night") in broad daylight? And how many other equally serious anomalies we now accept without batting an eyelid! Surely this must lead us to conclude that our liturgical consciousness is not sufficiently enlightened?" (4) (See here).

It was an astoundingly arrogant view that assumed that all his predecessors in the priesthood were either oppressed by tyrannical Church leaders or were too dim-witted to think for themselves and, furthermore, that there was only one way to think – his way. It was also a view that came to dominate and distort the thinking of theologians and liturgists up to our times. (5) But it was Beauduin and his fellow-reformers, not the followers of Tradition, who were the benighted ones. The central fallacy in Beauduin's argument, which was enshrined in Maxima Redemptionis, was that midnight, or at least sundown, was the "proper" time to hold the Easter Vigil. (6)



Cardinal Wiseman justified the traditional Easter vigil ceremonies.

Having claimed to be following the superior path of enlightenment over the Church's lex orandi, Beauduin failed to see what was glaringly obvious to well instructed Catholics: that the references to the "night" in the traditional Easter Vigil had a mystical rather than a naturalistic significance. Let us listen to the following explanation of this point given by a Prelate who had never been indoctrinated in the Liturgical Movement's ideology. With reference to the Easter Vigil, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman (1802-1865), the first Archbishop of Westminster, stated: "The service speaks of the "night;" it is the night in which Israel escaped from Egypt, and which preceded the resurrection of Christ." (7) In other words, "night" was used in the Vigil texts in a pre-figurative sense, (8 ) as a metaphor for the darkness of the world in the bondage of sin before the Redemption. It has no intrinsic connection with the time when the sun sinks below the horizon.

An incoherent reform

So, the time of day when the Vigil takes place is irrelevant: as far as the celebration of the mysteries of salvation is concerned; it matters not a jot if the sky is dark or light. The point is not a trivial one. It follows that holding the Easter Vigil in daylight hours could not, as Maxima Redemptionis contended, be "detrimental to the liturgy's meaning" or contribute to any loss of its "innate clarity." The irrationality of this claim becomes even more obvious when it is made the basis of legislation, as if the 1955 reforms were founded on solid and irrefutable arguments for the good of the Church. With Maxima Redemptionis the Bishops of the world were told that they would be breaking the law if they continued the traditions of their predecessors. Even today, to celebrate the Easter Vigil in daylight is regarded as "reprehensible." (9) And although there is no rational reason to insist on a nocturnal celebration of the Vigil, those who favor the traditional practice are themselves relegated to outer darkness.

1. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, Collegeville, Minnesota:, Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 6.
2. Council of Trent, 22nd Session, Canon 7: "If any one says that the ceremonies, vestments and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema."
3. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, ibid.
4. L. Beauduin, 'Le Décret du 9 Février 1951 et les Espoirs qu'il suscitent,' ('The Decree of 9 February 1951 and the Hopes It Has Raised'), La Maison-Dieu, n. 26, April 1951, p. 103. Translation from the French: "Comment...pendant des siècles s'est-on résigné...a-t-on accepté presque inconsciemment de chanter l'Exsultet de la Vere beata Nox en plein jour? Et que d'autres anomalies aussi énormes se maintiennent, sans provoquer en nous aucun étonnement! Ne doit-on pas en conclure que notre conscience liturgique n'est pas suffisamment éclairée?"
5. The radical theologian, Fr. Herbert McCabe OP, echoed both Beauduin and Maxima Redemptionis when he opined: "Before the [1956] restoration ... 'the Vigil' was a very ramshackle affair and its meaning was badly obscured by the preposterous practice of celebrating it on Holy Saturday morning instead of at night" [emphasis added] . Herbert McCabe., 'The Easter Vigil: the mystery of new life' in God Matters, Continuum, 2005, p. 103.
6. But there is no rational sense to be found in the notion that the Church should imitate the example of the early Christians who held the Easter Vigil at midnight. Strong evidence exists to show that their worship meetings generally took place during the hours of darkness, i.e. between dusk and dawn, only because they were living in an era of persecution.
7. Nicholas Wiseman, Four lectures on the offices and ceremonies of Holy Week, as performed in the Papal chapels delivered in Rome in the Lent of MDCCCXXXVII, London: C. Dolman, 1839, p. 102.
8. This also applies to expressions such as "this night" and "this blessed night" which are reiterated in the text.
9. Circular Letter Concerning the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts, Protocol n. 120/88, published by the Congregation for Divine Worship 20 February 1988.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

Dialogue Mass XVII: Bias, Manipulation & Suppression of Adverse Data

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

The essence of the problem with the Easter Vigil reform is that it was built on a series of fantasies, the first one being the inappropriateness of lighting the Easter fire and candle because the sun is shining. Alas, this was no joke: the framers of Maxima Redemptionis were perfectly serious in stipulating that the Vigil must be held in the dark on pain of losing its "innate clarity" and even its sanctifying power. This idea was the brainchild of the Liturgical Movement. We will examine what the maverick liturgist Fr. Pius Parsch had to say on the subject. Let us keep in mind that he had been celebrating the Easter Vigil at midnight since 1936, contrary to the universal practice of the Roman Rite, and was overjoyed that Pius XII had put the official seal of approval on his dissident behavior:

"It is a restoration that is in part due to our efforts. ... It is one of the great objectives of the Liturgical Movement to restore to the Catholic world the Easter Vigil service. ... The unliturgical spirit and mentality of the last centuries has deprived us of the holiest of all nights; the liturgical spirit of our day will correct this error." (1)

There could hardly have been a clearer description of two positions developing alongside each other in the Church: On the one hand the bi-millennial liturgy of the Catholic Church inspired by the Holy Ghost, and on the other hand a rapidly increasing parallel universe, of very recent origin, populated by the members of the Liturgical Movement in self-declared opposition.

The aggressive implementation of the reforms

It is obvious that by 1955 the Liturgical Movement had overreached itself in trying to upstage the Holy Ghost and, as a result of its hubris, had turned itself into a coercive ideology. It would not be long before efforts would be redoubled against Bishops who were trying to hold the traditional line: They would feel the "iron fist" of Msgr. Montini shorn of Pius XII's velvet glove. Maxima Redemptionis thus resulted in enforced surrender and a victory for Bugnini and his Liturgical Commission. The injustice lies in the fact that here was a Commission with a highly radical and ideological concept of its role in the Church, pressuring Pius XII to make rulings which would be harmful to the interests and values of Catholic Tradition. In fact, the whole issue of the night time celebration of the Easter Vigil can now be seen as a giant red herring that was forced down the throats of the world's Bishops by Pius XII at the behest of the reformers who had other, more revolutionary cards up their sleeves.

Creative pretexts for change



Paul VI in a special altar concelebrating in May 1969.

The other justifications for the Easter Vigil reform were hardly any more credible and deserved an equal amount of scepticism. Maxima Redemptionis told us that attendance at all the Holy Week rites had been decreasing since the Middle Ages "especially because their celebration had long since been put back into the morning hours when, on weekdays, schools, businesses and public affairs of all kinds were and are conducted everywhere." It went on to assert: "In fact, common and almost universal experience teaches that these liturgical services of the sacred Triduum are often performed by the clergy with the body of the church nearly deserted." These claims were specious in the extreme and did not stand up to scrutiny. We will deal with each of them in turn. They were based on reports sent to the Holy See by the world's Bishops and heads of religious congregations in response to an international survey, the purpose of which was to garner opinion on the 1951 experimental Easter Vigil reforms.

Selectivity bias in the interpretation of the results

The first step in approaching the survey is to understand how that game had been rigged. According to Maxima Redemptionis, enthusiasm was reflected world wide: "This experiment had the greatest success everywhere, as very many Ordinaries have reported to the Holy See." But by then, the Liturgical Movement had succeeded in spreading its influence throughout most of the Catholic world, with the result that there were some Bishops in almost every country who welcomed a break with tradition. This was very different from having a worldwide consensus. By ignoring this distinction, those who wrote Maxima Redemptionis were led to read too much into the data by interpreting random variation as representative of the general opinion among the Bishops.



Gradual changes at St. Peter's Church in Maryland: from a table before the altar in 1970 to the radical 2001 reform.



The pro-reform Bishops were reported to have "generously praised the restored rite, told of the spiritual fruits derived from it, and asked that the permission to celebrate it be further extended." (2) Well, they would, of course, considering that they had been putting pressure on Pius XII for precisely those reforms. (3) We can infer that the predicted outcome of the survey was a certainty for the reformers who had the Pope's ear. If further confirmation of this self-fulfilling prophecy is needed, the archives of the Diocese of Brentwood in the UK for 1951 record the responses of those priests who had elected to celebrate the new Vigil. All were in favor of the changes and some were wildly enthusiastic in their praise. But the fact that they had voluntarily taken this step suggests that they had progressivist tendencies from the start and were predisposed in favor of the new Vigil. Their comments reveal that they had hobby-horses of their own: They were already committed to the simplified rites in the vernacular and facing the people. (4)

Thus the international survey gave liturgical cranks, dissidents and radicals everywhere the opportunity to indulge their favorite pastime with permission from the Holy See. But even more unethical was the cynical use of the unsuspecting faithful: They were the guinea pigs for the full-blown Holy Week changes that would be foisted on them a few years down the line.  But what about those Bishops who sent in negative reports or who protested vehemently? Or those who declined to comment? No indication was given as to their number, which we know must have been considerable from the available evidence. In some countries, the experimental Vigil was not adopted by the majority, for example in the United States where it was very much the exception. (5) However, the tradition-minded Bishops were accorded no recognition or consideration: Their views were trivialized and dismissed with a wave of the hand (6) and certainly were not allowed to make any impact on Maxima Redemptionis. They had become the equivalent of Orwell's "unpersons," (7) found guilty of the "thought-crime" of opposing the Bugnini project.

As far as Maxima Redemptionis was concerned, it was as if they did not exist. And ever since then, they have been denied a voice in the Church, their marginalization being used to create a false consensus.

Pius XII sided with Bugnini against the traditional Bishops

Pius XII ordered that the same Commission of liturgists that had prepared the rite of the 1951 Vigil should analyze the reports. (8 ) As there was no independent review of their work, the outcome was predetermined in favor of the Commission members who performed their task in the predictably biased manner we have seen above. Bugnini declared the new rite an instant success and described its reception as "an explosion of joy throughout the Church." (9)

The general principle of the survey seemed to be that the conclusion came first and the data were cherry picked to support and "explain" the desired result, i.e., the world's Bishops were in favor of the renewed Easter Vigil. This process, more commonly known as "spin" or skewing the facts to fit a prejudice, raises the gravest possible doubts about the integrity of the Commission's work. It was obvious from the moment of Bugnini's appointment as head of the Commission – if not before – that nothing or no-one, not even the Pope, must get in the way of the projected reforms. That is why Bugnini relied on bias, official manipulation of the statistics and suppression of inconvenient facts.

1. Pius Parsch, The Church's Year of Grace, vol.2: Septuagesima to Holy Saturday, Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1962, pp. 337-338
2. De Facultativa Celebratione Instauratatae Vigiliae Paschalis, Sacred Congregation of Rites, 11 January 1952 Acta Apotolicae Sedis, p. 49.
3. At the First German National Liturgical Congress (June 1950), organized by the Trier Liturgical Institute, Romano Guardini's talk on the Easter Vigil sparked the resolution: "That the bishops be asked to petition Rome for the transfer of the Holy Saturday celebration to the evening or night." On 2 November 1950, the Bishops of Germany, France and Austria formally petitioned Pius XII to move the celebration of Holy Saturday to the evening. Their request was accepted and an experimental Vigil was inaugurated on 9 February 1951. With this concession from the Holy See, the Liturgical Movement was officially engaged in liturgical reform.
4. Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005, p. 181
5. "Liturgical Briefs," Worship, 26, n. 7, 1951-1952, p. 374. This progressivist magazine, successor to Orate Fratres and organ of the Liturgical Movement in the USA, registered its disappointment at the lack of enthusiasm for the experimental Vigil among most Bishops.
6. De Facultativa Celebratione Instauratatae Vigiliae Paschalis, Sacred Congregation of Rites,AAS, p. 49. This simply states that several Bishops reported "difficulties and doubts" from parish priests which could be easily cleared up by the Holy See. "Nonnulli tamen locorum Ordinarii, auditis parochorum relationibus, de quibusdam quoque difficultatibus aut dubiis, in celebratione instaurati ritus occurrentibus, referre non omiserunt ; ea quidem mente, ut ab Apostolica Sede opportunis ordinationibus difficultates componantur et dubia solvantur." (Some local Ordinaries, however, on the reports received from parish priests, also mentioned certain doubts and difficulties which occur in the celebration of the restored rite; having in view, of course, that the Holy See would, by appropriate ordinances, settle the difficulties and solve the doubts.)
7. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, an "unperson" is someone who has been "vaporized." It commonly refers to a public figure, especially in a totalitarian country, who, for political or ideological reasons, is not recognized or mentioned in government publications or records or in the news media.
8. De Facultativa Celebratione Instauratatae Vigiliae Paschalis, AAS, p. 49: "Sanctissimus autem Dominus Noster Pius Papa XII mandavit, ut peculiaris illa virorum peritorum Commissio, quae vigiliae paschalis ritum paraverat, praefatas relationes accurato examini subiceret." (Our most holy Lord Pope Pius XII ordered that the same special Commission of experts who had prepared the rite of the Pascal Vigil should carefully examine the aforementioned reports.) Pius XII would, as always, follow their recommendations.
9. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-1975, Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 10
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

Dialogue Mass XVIII: Maxima Redemptionis, a "Potemkin Façade."

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

In the previous article we saw how Pope Pius XII's Liturgical Commission conducted the Easter Vigil survey among the members of the Church's Hierarchy in 1951. By counting the hits and ignoring the misses, so to speak, Bugnini and his henchmen arrived at conclusions that were not fully supported by the data. The result was a partial, over-simplistic and highly fanciful picture of the general opinion among the world's Bishops on the Easter Vigil ceremonies. Yet it was this self-serving interpretation, which acted as the starting gun for the Holy Week reforms, that would be imposed on the Church in 1955.

A "Potemkin façade"



A kind of Potemkin-façade intended to deceive passersby.

But why was there no external or independent evaluation to ensure an objective scrutiny of the results? Why was Mgr. Léon Gromier, for instance, not consulted? Pius XII could hardly have expected the Commission to act as a dispassionate evaluator of the evidence when he knew that the people running the survey had an obvious interest in a favorable outcome for the Liturgical Movement. This institutionalized conflict of interest should be called by its proper name: fraud. The evidence available so far indicates that this was a survey forged in a crucible of secrecy and deception. Like all "Potemkin façades," (1) it was designed solely to deceive others with an elaborate and impressive result and thus impress the credulous.

Spinning a false narrative

Maxima Redemptionis told us that attendance at all the Holy Week rites had been decreasing since the Middle Ages to the point where, by the 20th century, "common and almost universal experience teaches that these liturgical services of the sacred Triduum are often performed by the clergy with the body of the church nearly deserted." It placed the blame for this alleged state of affairs on the Church's scheduling of these services to the morning hours "when, on weekdays, schools, businesses and public affairs of all kinds were and are conducted everywhere."

It is difficult to know where to start to evaluate the accuracy of these broad and sweeping generalizations encompassing not just centuries but the dizzying complexity of the myriad parishes all over the world.  The salient feature of the Liturgical Commission's survey was its intentional lack of perspective. No allusion was made to the many historical variables that may have affected the levels of attendance at the Holy Week services since the Middle Ages, such as the Pseudo-Reformation, the French and Russian Revolutions, the two World Wars and the persecution of Catholics in various countries around the world. While there were bound to be churches where the Easter Vigil was not well attended, this may have been due to any number of causes – for instance difficulty of access in remote areas, shortage of clergy, absence of apostolic zeal or even the effects of the Liturgical Movement itself.

We are entitled, therefore, to ask: What percentage of the alleged diminution in attendance was due to the morning celebration of the Easter Vigil? The fact that other contributory factors were intentionally ignored means that the argument rests on shaky grounds.

An invented scenario too implausible to be true

If the opinion expressed in Maxima Redemptionis were true, we would have been constantly hearing from our pastors or reading in the Catholic papers about a momentous dearth of support for the Holy Week services. But, of course, there was no such situation. Good Friday has long been a widely-held national holiday in most countries, and Maundy Thursday in many, (2) and most Catholics were free – or could arrange to be free – to attend Church services then as well as on Holy Saturday morning. (3)



An Easter Vigil at Westminster Cathedral in the 1930s attended by a crowd of faithful.

But Bugnini did not need arguments that could be proven, only those that could not easily be disproven by his opponents. His tactic was to present incomplete, out of context and misleading information to unsuspecting faithful who were in no position to judge its accuracy on a world-wide scale; they would have no means of identifying the mismatch between the assumption and the facts. Even if the claim happened to be true – although its veracity is far from established – it by no means followed that changing the Holy Week liturgy would increase attendance. Up until 1955, there is ample reason to believe that the Holy Week services were well attended. Although few people are alive today to provide memories of the pre-1955 ceremonies, there is an alternative source of information: contemporary newspaper coverage.

Maxima Redemptionis disregarded the reality on the ground

All we have to do is search the archives of various Catholic newspapers dating from the late 19th to the mid-20th century or the Pathe newsreels to provide a reality check. These attest to the fact that Catholics flocked to the Holy Week services, including the Easter Vigil, in great numbers. Here are a few representative examples from the London area which could be multiplied around the world:

  • 1898: "The services at Farm Street (4) and at the Oratory (5) were also followed by dense throngs. Never does there seem to have been greater fervour in the churches during Holy Week in London." (6)
  • 1917: "The churches were crowded at all the Holy Week services until the dawn of the new Easter Day." (7)
  • 1920: "Mass of the Presanctified was celebrated on Good Friday in the presence of a congregation which filled the Cathedral." (8 )
  • 1920: "A commentary upon the sterling Catholicity of the working classes of South London is the fact that they attended in large numbers the services of Holy Week and Easter." (9)
  • 1920: "At the Church of the English Martyrs [Streatham] on Good Friday, Dr. Terry's setting of the music was finely rendered by the voluntary choir, the conductor being Mr. Collis, the organist, formerly of Westminster Cathedral. There was a crowded congregation throughout the day."(10)



Above, a 1950s Irish parish in the U.S. - filled with people for Holy Week services; below, whole villages in Spain taking part in Holy Week ceremonies in 1911.



None of these accounts comes anywhere near the description of almost deserted churches found in Maxima Redemptionis. Indeed, by one of those delicious ironies of which history is replete, Romano Guardini himself inadvertently revealed the non-sense in this claim. Having visited the Basilica of Monreale, Sicily, during Holy Week of 1929, he recorded how impressed he was that on Holy Thursday "the ample space was crowded." and attendance at the Easter Vigil service filled "almost every part of that great church." (11)

Irony heaped upon irony, ruin upon ruin

It was only in 1956 when Maxima Redemptionis came into force that disaffection with the new Holy Week rites set in among many of the faithful, especially those who were most attached to the traditional ceremonies. The result was that as soon as the novelty wore off, attendance began to fall (12) and the Holy Week services are still playing to rapidly diminishing audiences. Even worse, the administration of Baptism which was meant to be a high feature of the progressivist rites has plummeted to a level unprecedented in the history of the Church. What more ironic indictment could there be of a key objective of the Holy Week reform which was to increase attendance? Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli, later Cardinal, who had been given chief responsibility for its implementation, had confidently explained in 1955 that the motives for the changes were "of a pastoral nature; that is, to bring the masses of the faithful back to the commemoration of the holiest mysteries of Christ's Passion and Death." (13)

What neither he nor the other Bugnini-bots on the Commission realized was that the Holy Week reform, not being built on the solid rock of Tradition, had all the stability of a house of cards. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it was subject to imminent collapse.

1. The pejorative expression "Potemkin façades" comes from the 18th-century Russian Minister, Gregory Potemkin, a favorite of Empress Catherine II. When Catherine decided to visit the Crimea in 1787 to inspect that part of her Empire, Potemkin allegedly erected fake settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River so that she would think the poverty-stricken area was a prosperous and thriving place. He is also said to have provided crowds of waving and cheering peasants to impress the Empress as she cruised down the river. It is tempting to draw a real life parallel with Bugnini and his attempts to beguile the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII into believing that all the Bishops were cheering the start of the liturgical reform. The expression is now used, especially in politics and economics, to describe any construction (literal or figurative) built to hide an adverse fact or situation.
2. Countries where Maundy Thursday is a public holiday include Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Guatemala, Iceland, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Spain and Uruguay.
3. Catholic families often took time off work during the long Easter weekend. It is a longstanding custom that government offices and many businesses do not operate on Saturday, leaving many Catholics free to attend the morning Easter Vigil. In countries where it was customary for children to attend school on Saturday mornings – even in the unlikely event that this applied to Holy Saturday – it was within the remit of teachers in Catholic schools to accompany their charges to Church services.
4. The Church of the Immaculate Conception at Farm Street, Mayfair, in London has been run by the Jesuits since its establishment in the 1840s. In pre-Vatican II times, it was famous for its phenomenal success in making many thousands of converts to the Church.
5. Established in the mid 19th century, the London Oratory was the largest church in London before the building of Westminster Cathedral.
6. The Tablet, 16 April 1898
7. Ibid., 14 April 1917
8. 'Easter in the Churches,' The Tablet, 10th April 1920
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Translated from 'Reise nach Sizilien' (Voyage in Sicily) in Romano Guardini, Spiegel und Gleichnis. Bilder und Gedanken (Mirror and Parable: Images and Thoughts), Mainz-Paderbon: Grünewald-Schöningh, 1990, pp. 158-161.
12. "Now that the novelty is wearing off, parishes in many areas report dwindling congregations." Fr John Coyne, 'The Traditional Position', in Charles Cunliffe (ed.), English in the Liturgy: A Symposium, Templegate, 1956, p. 97.
13. Fr. Ferdinando Antonelli, L'Osservatore Romano, November 1955
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

Dialogue Mass XIX: A Reformed Liturgy Turned against Traditional Devotions

In TIA.

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain.

When Bugnini described the reaction of the Bishops to the reformed Easter Vigil as an "explosion of joy throughout the Church," his jubilation was premature – the boast immediately backfired. From 1951 onwards, the reform ran up against an intractable problem: a sense of Catholic Tradition among the majority of the faithful that could not be steamrollered out of existence. That would take some time longer to achieve. By 1959, the American Augustinian writer, Fr. Dennis Geaney, commented glumly that "the restored Easter Vigil meets with quiet but stubborn resistance." (1) The people, in other words, were loath to give up their Holy Week traditions that had been an integral part of Catholic life for centuries.

Intolerance towards traditional devotions

It has always been a key aim of the Liturgical Movement to eliminate most of the expressions of legitimate popular piety, whether they take place during the liturgy or outside it. Dom Lambert Beauduin was the first to urge that Catholic devotions should undergo a process of "sublimation" so as "to have the Christian people all live the same spiritual life, to have them all nourished by the official worship of Holy Mother Church." (2) In his opinion, only strictly liturgical rites were of any real value and dignity. That is why liturgical reformers did everything in their power to accelerate the collapse of pious customs and traditions that were dear to the Catholic faithful.



English villagers process around the parish church in the Holy Thursday ceremonies in the 1950s.

There is no doubt that the reformers viewed their efforts in terms of a zero-sum game in which the winnings on their side must necessarily equal the losses on the side of traditional Catholics. Suddenly, devotions found themselves in competition with the liturgy, whereas traditionally they had always been regarded as a means of supplementing the benefits of the liturgy by increasing the religious fervour of the faithful. One liturgist summed up the general feeling of reformers: "We must deplore the success of devotions because they invade the whole of Catholic consciousness at the expense of the liturgy." (3)

The way of the triffids

On the theme of invasion, Fr. Joseph Jungmann, one of the consultants to Pius XII's Liturgical Commission, stated that the "entire wild growth of very peripheral forms of devotion" was as welcome in the Church as weeds in a well-tended garden. (4) Devotions were thus depicted as a feral population of sinister weeds – the word "triffids" comes to mind – advancing on the liturgy with malevolent intent. This was one example of the sort of irrational prejudice on which the Liturgical Movement thrived. As calumnies against traditional piety flew thick and fast, (5) popular devotions came to be viewed as pestilential – as if they were a swarm of locusts or some sort of disease to be controlled or eradicated. And so they were persecuted almost to vanishing point. (6) The history of the Liturgical Movement has shown that any attempt to systematically root out popular devotions destroys not only those forms of piety but piety itself. Wherever deeply ingrained Catholic traditions – whether liturgical or not – have been rooted out, the void is invariably filled by activities of a secular nature, from which a sense of holy reverence is necessarily absent.

The downplaying of pious devotions during Holy Week (7)

In Mediator Dei Pius XII robustly encouraged and defended traditional devotions. (8 ) That was before he appointed the members of his Liturgical Commission. But by 1955 there was a distinct change in papal policy towards the popular devotions traditionally associated with Holy Week. They were mentioned only once in Maxima Redemptionis where they were treated with aloofness and disdain, as if they were unworthy interlopers on hallowed ground. The Decree states: "Nor can these [Holy Week ] rites be sufficiently compensated for by those exercises of devotion which are usually called extra-liturgical."



The whole town of Perpignan, France, used to come out for the Hoy Week ceremonies.

This was a classic example of a straw man argument – no one had proposed replacing the Church's liturgy with "extra-liturgical" services. In fact, both had been coexisting peacefully and happily for centuries. Contrary to what was asserted in Maxima Redemptionis, both had been popular among the faithful in most European countries, especially those with a long Catholic tradition. To say that they were attended by crowds would be something of an understatement; in many Catholic countries, whole villages and towns turned out to attend them. (See Holy Thursday in Perpignan 1952). There is eye-witness evidence that during Holy Week in Rome in the early 20th century all churches large and small were packed for liturgical as well as "extra-liturgical" services:

"On the afternoons of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the great basilicas of St. Peter, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major were thronged with thousands of worshippers ... while devout Romans preferred to attend the services in the less-known churches. Never, perhaps, before were the Altars of Repose visited by such immense numbers – outside San Silvestro or the Gesu one had sometimes to wait a quarter of an hour before being able to enter the church, while at the Scala Santa throughout the entire week there was an unending pilgrimage of the devout who ascended the sacred stairs on their knees. For the time being it is hard to remember that Rome of 1911 is honeycombed with Freemasonry, Socialism, Anarchy, and Anticlericalism in all its forms." (9)



Climbing the Scala Santa on one's knees was a popular Holy Week devotion in Rome.

A similar scenario was found in 18th-century Venice at the Basilica of St. Mark where we learn that "At the Holy Week ceremonies in St. Mark's the Doge was present as a matter of course; and with him the Signory, (10) the Senate, the great officers of State, the Papal Nuncio and the other ambassadors." (11) By playing liturgical and "extra-liturgical" ceremonies against each other, Maxima Redemptionis thus stirred up a spirit of contention in the Church with the Sacred Triduum at the center of the storm. In the accompanying Instruction that followed the Decree, Bishops were no longer requested to actively promote devotions, but to treat with caution ("prudenter") the various popular customs ("populares consuetudines") associated with Holy Week. (see document here). In the same document the traditional devotions were referred to as problems to be solved ("De quibusdam difficultatibus componendis") – in other words spokes in the wheel of the Liturgical Movement – rather than as cherished traditions and efficacious means of spiritual renewal for the faithful.

Furthermore, the Bishops were asked to instruct the faithful that the "restored" Holy Week rites were vastly superior to any of their devotions. (12) The message, rammed home with heavy force, about the superiority of the Church's official liturgy over popular devotions, was another straw man argument. What traditional Catholic would deny that the liturgy is the very acme of Catholic worship?

A dog-whistle strategy (13)

The progressivist Bishops in the Liturgical Movement understood the radical revisionist implications of the Decree far more clearly than many of the conservatives outside the Movement. The underlying Bugnini-inspired message was that they should be on the alert to defend the boundaries of the reformed rites against any competition from traditionalists. It was also clear to the progressivists that the millions of Catholics who found spiritual refreshment in the Holy Week devotions were given no encouragement to continue doing so, and that without such encouragement from the pastors the traditional devotions would wither and die. So, the good of souls was not the point at all: it was rather the reformers' desire to use the Church's liturgy as a means to a self-serving end – to indulge their animosity to the devotions that were popular with the faithful.

Maxima Redemptionis and its accompanying Instruction, thus, helped to give a negative connotation to the traditional Holy Week devotions, implying that these were in some way usurping the role of the Church's official liturgy. It was only a matter of time before these anti-devotion sentiments would become entrenched in the mainstream Church to the point where they would routinely produce a "knee-jerk" reaction in most of the clergy against the very concept of Catholic piety. With the initial impetus given by Maxima Redemptionis, those pious practices connected with Holy Week, which the Liturgical Movement has been doing everything possible to suppress, were officially consigned to oblivion.

1. Dennis Geaney "Guarded Enthusiasm," Worship, vol. 33, n. 7, 1959, p. 419
2. L. Beauduin, La Piété de l'Eglise, Louvain, Abbey of Mont-César, 1914 (published in English translation by Virgil Michel under the title of Liturgy the Life of the Church, Collegeville, 1926)
3. Marcel Metzger, History of the Liturgy: The Major Stages, Liturgical Press, 1997, p. 135. The same author states: "Vatican II has restored the teaching of the liturgy in the formation of the clergy. We must recognize that this teaching was not given in a satisfactory way prior to the Council." (Ibid., p. 136)
4. Joseph Jungmann, "The Constitution on the Liturgy" in Herbert Vorgrimler (Ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 1, New York: Herder & Herder/London: Burns & Oates, 1967, p 17.
5. The reformers charged that the faithful only resorted to devotions because they were alienated from the true worship of the Church through lack of "active participation." They denigrated traditional devotions as a primitive hangover from supposedly superstitious pre-modern times and rejected them as being "saccharine," "sentimental" and "individualistic."
6. The only places where popular devotions may be tolerated are in the home, at meetings, in schools and in some religious societies – but certainly not in church.
7. The most popular Holy Week devotions were visiting seven Altars of Repose, the Stations of the Cross, the Tre Ore – a Good Friday service consisting of sermons on the Seven Last Words, meditations and hymns commemorating the Three Hours' Agony of Christ on the Cross – religious processions in the streets, and the blessing of homes on Holy Saturday evening. The latter was specifically eliminated in the Instruction accompanying Maxima Redemptionis to make way for the "restored" Easter Vigil.
8. Mediator Dei, 1947 nn.173-185.
9. 'Holy Week in Rome,' The Tablet, April 22, 1911
10. The governing body of the Republic of Venice.
11. "Holy Week and Easter in St. Mark's, Venice, in The Eighteenth Century," The Tablet, April 8, 1911
12. AAS, 1955, "Instructio De Ordine Hebdomadae Sanctae Instaurato Rite Peragendo," p. 847.
13. Based on the fact that dog whistles are of such high frequency that they can be inaudible to the human ear, a "dog-whistle strategy" is a form of political messaging employing coded language whose meaning is lost on a general audience, but has a specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The relevance here is that the members of the Liturgical Movement who were "in the know" would take away the secret, intended message.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Quaremerepulisti

I gotta give it this: this series of articles is actually much more honest and profound in its historical analysis than what traditionalists typically promote.  The Novus Ordo did not happen overnight.  Of course, it's still essentially polemical in its outlook with any and all goals of liturgical reform dismissed as pure evil, despite that they were supported (at least to some extent) by Popes even well before Vatican II, which forces the conclusion that either they were simplistic dupes or else evil themselves.  And likewise, with its insistence that the traditional liturgy was absolutely perfect in every way.

And the truth is just not that simple.  The situation in the First World today is vastly different than the Middle Ages, where the vast majority of the laypeople were uneducated and illiterate.  Claiming that, therefore, some liturgical reforms are good and worthy, as more corresponding with present circumstances, is perfectly fine.

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 13, 2017, 12:04:47 PM
The Novus Ordo did not happen overnight.

Of course not. It was brewing for 60 years at least.

By the 1950's the momentum for a deep liturgical reform along the lines that were followed after Vatican II (vernacular use, active participation, simplification, rationalization, etc.) was already inevitable. Pius XI and Pius XII could not really stop it. They thought they could control it by blessing the movement as whole and keeping the commission for liturgical reform (with Bugnini et al.) on close check. That only backfired in the end.

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 13, 2017, 12:04:47 PM
Of course, it's still essentially polemical in its outlook with any and all goals of liturgical reform dismissed as pure evil, despite that they were supported (at least to some extent) by Popes even well before Vatican II, which forces the conclusion that either they were simplistic dupes or else evil themselves.  And likewise, with its insistence that the traditional liturgy was absolutely perfect in every way.

Yes, it's a polemical series in nature but it gives us a good overview of the situation prior to Vatican II. I still have to reproduce the remaining articles of this series when I have time, though. There are those of us who will lament any of these changes in principle, while others will just accept them or tolerate them as, more or less, an inevitable historical process.

QuoteAnd the truth is just not that simple.  The situation in the First World today is vastly different than the Middle Ages, where the vast majority of the laypeople were uneducated and illiterate.  Claiming that, therefore, some liturgical reforms are good and worthy, as more corresponding with present circumstances, is perfectly fine.

I suppose you could make that argument.

I do lament the loss of the mystical view of the Traditional Latin Mass (still present in the Eastern rites) that was definitely put aside with the introduction of the actuosa participatio of the laity and the Dialogue Mass. It was the definitive step, in my view, towards what we have today.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Quaremerepulisti

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on November 13, 2017, 12:26:52 PM
By the 1950's the momentum for a deep liturgical reform along the lines that were followed after Vatican II (vernacular use, active participation, simplification, rationalization, etc.) was already inevitable. Pius XI and Pius XII could not really stop it. They thought they could control it by blessing the movement as whole and keeping the commission for liturgical reform (with Bugnini et al.) on close check. That only backfired in the end.

Yes, but the real question is from where did this momentum come from?  Is it merely due to the machinations of evil liturgical reformers or were their real societal changes which would call for such a reform, or (as I would suggest) a bit of both?  Is it a good idea to doggedly push an ancient "way of life of the Church" which has become more and more alien to the modern life of the ordinary person in the pew, so that he simply regards the Church as a Sacrament store but little else?  Railing against everything modern accomplishes nothing.  The question still remains.  The modern educated, literate man simply does not accept that he should not know what the priest is saying and doing.  Sure, you can publish Missals with vernacular translations, and if you're going to do that, why not just go all the way and have Mass in the vernacular and save the trouble? Or, if not, he just gets his "Mass ticket" punched every Sunday, but very little to identify with.

It can be argued that this did not succeed; if anything, the average man in the pew is even more alienated from the Church and especially from the Vatican (and I don't mean only traditionalists).  That does not prove the goal was not a worthy one.

Or you can dig in your heels and insist the man in the pew in the world must adapt to the Church, and not the other way around.  While there is a certain truth to this, it can also be used to justify the worst excesses of clericalism.  But should the Church doggedly keep the Christmas Proclamation, with its young earth, or does the findings of science that the earth is old mean a liturgical revision is appropriate there?  And similar questions.


Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 13, 2017, 12:04:47 PM
I suppose you could make that argument.

I do lament the loss of the mystical view of the Traditional Latin Mass (still present in the Eastern rites) that was definitely put aside with the introduction of the actuosa participatio of the laity and the Dialogue Mass. It was the definitive step, in my view, towards what we have today.

Well, the Eastern rites have the vernacular and the active participation of the laity (the Byzantine, anyway).  And yet I don't really feel the mystical view of the Divine Liturgy is lost.  Maybe there's a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things.


Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 14, 2017, 06:53:29 AMYes, but the real question is from where did this momentum come from?  Is it merely due to the machinations of evil liturgical reformers or were their real societal changes which would call for such a reform, or (as I would suggest) a bit of both?

The efficient cause were the principles of the Liturgical Movement (LM) as started in 1909 by Beauduin. These principles were radicated in a conception of the Church and of the liturgy that was already far removed from the traditional Tridentine and Medieval view. Ab ovo, I think it was not so much a question of adaptation to modern circumstances per se (the more or less benign aggiornamento thesis), but a question of differing principles. Differing starting points. In the view of these reformers, the Church would need to adopt, what we could call without polemical abuse, a more Protestant view of herself: more collegial in her constitution, more democratic in her structure, less rigid in her doctrine and her practice, willing to engage and incorporate into her being what were considered the civilization achievements and humanistic gains of the Enlightenment.

The necessary instrument by which this reform would blossom among the faithful was the liturgy: it would definitely be geared towards the congregation, much less clerical, simpler and more horizontal. The congregation would become the crucial actor in the Mass as the communal gathering of the Body of Christ with the priest presiding, hence the virtual disappearance of private masses and side altars since the VII reforms. The fist step was the Dialogue Mass and the stress in the actuosa participatio of the faithful, i.e., the verbal responses to the action in the sanctuary and the virtual abandoment of private devotions during the liturgy. In that sense, the Missal of Paul VI fulfilled all of the goals that the LM set itself to accomplish. THe 1962 Liturgy that we still celebrate today was simply transitional.

Having said that, I wouldn't necessarily ascribe malevolence to those who devised and lobbied for the liturgical reform up until 1970. Although I disagree with their starting point (and their conclusion), I believe most of them thought that their work was necessary and beneficial to the Church. Sadly, time has proven it not to be the case. The fact that in the 20th century we witnessed a series of drastical social and political changes in the Western world, certainly contributed to the growth of the LM among the clergy. But that, in and of itself, doesn't seem to me to be a sufficient cause for the sucess of the movement. 

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 14, 2017, 06:53:29 AMThe question still remains.  The modern educated, literate man simply does not accept that he should not know what the priest is saying and doing.  Sure, you can publish Missals with vernacular translations, and if you're going to do that, why not just go all the way and have Mass in the vernacular and save the trouble? Or, if not, he just gets his "Mass ticket" punched every Sunday, but very little to identify with.

If the starting point is the communal participation of the laity in the mass as the decisive factor to consider, then there's really no sense in the Tridentine Missal as it was handed down to us. Nor in the architectural structures of the churches as we have come to know them. That's why the Dialogue Mass is something that should seriously be avoided by those wishing to recover the mystical heritage of the Roman and Catholic liturgy.

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 13, 2017, 12:04:47 PM
Well, the Eastern rites have the vernacular and the active participation of the laity (the Byzantine, anyway).  And yet I don't really feel the mystical view of the Divine Liturgy is lost.  Maybe there's a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things.

The mystical view is altogether absent in the New Mass. I think that much is a given. But it is also and certainly obscured in the TLM with the dialogue format that most traditional societies and institutes have adopted.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

These paintings fittingly illustrate what was lost with the call for actuosa participatio and the rationalizing principles of the liturgical reform.

Little if no pews (like the East), the action in the sanctuary independent from the actions of the assembly, the people hearing mass through their booklets and devotions, sitting, kneeling or standing as convenient, etc. A world that seems already far removed from our own.

Quote



DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Vetus Ordo

DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Quaremerepulisti

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on November 14, 2017, 02:54:02 PM
The efficient cause were the principles of the Liturgical Movement (LM) as started in 1909 by Beauduin. These principles were radicated in a conception of the Church and of the liturgy that was already far removed from the traditional Tridentine and Medieval view. ... In the view of these reformers, the Church would need to adopt, what we could call without polemical abuse, a more Protestant view of herself: more collegial in her constitution, more democratic in her structure, less rigid in her doctrine and her practice, willing to engage and incorporate into her being what were considered the civilization achievements and humanistic gains of the Enlightenment.

But given that these achievements and gains happened, is it appropriate to insist on a Medieval view and attempt to force it down everyone's throat?  The 19th Century Popes (and even St. Pius X to some extent) attempted to do that.  Rebellion is the predictable consequence.  And if not outright rebellion, apathy towards a Church farther and farther removed from daily life.

Again, is it appropriate to keep the Christmas Proclamation given that science has shown the world to be much older?  (And it has, no matter what young-earthers claim.)  And then, demand that I say what a wonderful thing it is, and say how awful if I criticize that decision?  Which is to demand that I put loyalty to the Church above loyalty to the truth, which is exactly the m.o. of a cult.  In that case I would simply pay little attention to what the hierarchy said or did and not really care.  I'd simply get my Mass ticket punched every week and go to the local Church for the Sacraments.  That is in fact (it appears to me) just what many were doing pre-Vatican II.

QuoteThe necessary instrument by which this reform would blossom among the faithful was the liturgy: it would definitely be geared towards the congregation, much less clerical, simpler and more horizontal. The congregation would become the crucial actor in the Mass as the communal gathering of the Body of Christ with the priest presiding, hence the virtual disappearance of private masses and side altars since the VII reforms. The fist step was the Dialogue Mass and the stress in the actuosa participatio of the faithful, i.e., the verbal responses to the action in the sanctuary and the virtual abandoment of private devotions during the liturgy. In that sense, the Missal of Paul VI fulfilled all of the goals that the LM set itself to accomplish. THe 1962 Liturgy that we still celebrate today was simply transitional.

And you, and the TIA author, see all these things as pure evil.  I do not.  It's one thing to say that the LM took a wrong turn along the way; quite another to say it was evil from the get-go.

QuoteIf the starting point is the communal participation of the laity in the mass as the decisive factor to consider, then there's really no sense in the Tridentine Missal as it was handed down to us. Nor in the architectural structures of the churches as we have come to know them. That's why the Dialogue Mass is something that should seriously be avoided by those wishing to recover the mystical heritage of the Roman and Catholic liturgy.

Again, times have changed.  The communal participation of a mostly illiterate laity was not formerly the decisive factor to consider.  But, today, if you want the laity to do more than "pay, pray, obey" that's what you need to do.  The price of digging in your heels is an apathetic laity that goes to Church to get its Mass ticket punched.


Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 15, 2017, 07:32:10 AMBut given that these achievements and gains happened, is it appropriate to insist on a Medieval view and attempt to force it down everyone's throat?  The 19th Century Popes (and even St. Pius X to some extent) attempted to do that.  Rebellion is the predictable consequence. And if not outright rebellion, apathy towards a Church farther and farther removed from daily life.

A good case can be made for the actuosa participatio if you start on a different ground than the one assumed by the traditional liturgy. However, if you should consider the Mass to be solely the action of the priest, properly speaking, with the people attending (or not), then the actuosa participatio by verbal responses or singing is a consideration of secondary importance. Certainly, we could say this as much: that it is not a moral or disciplinary imperative for the life of the Church.

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 15, 2017, 07:32:10 AMAgain, is it appropriate to keep the Christmas Proclamation given that science has shown the world to be much older?  (And it has, no matter what young-earthers claim.)  And then, demand that I say what a wonderful thing it is, and say how awful if I criticize that decision?  Which is to demand that I put loyalty to the Church above loyalty to the truth, which is exactly the m.o. of a cult.  In that case I would simply pay little attention to what the hierarchy said or did and not really care.  I'd simply get my Mass ticket punched every week and go to the local Church for the Sacraments.  That is in fact (it appears to me) just what many were doing pre-Vatican II.

Yes, it is appropriate. The liturgy is, above all, a mystical event.

Regardless, if one should find the traditional Proclamation objectionable on account of scientific concerns regarding the age of the earth, there's also a revised one, I believe. Either is a product of the Ordinary Magisterium, I should add. The one to whom obsequium religiosum is due.

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 15, 2017, 07:32:10 AMAnd you, and the TIA author, see all these things as pure evil.  I do not.  It's one thing to say that the LM took a wrong turn along the way; quite another to say it was evil from the get-go.

I don't see it the LM as "pure evil." I'm not sure where you got that idea from. I believe the medium and end results were disastrous for the Church at large. But the reforms themselves are not evil in any proper sense. Neither the reforms, nor the reformers, generally speaking. As I said in the previous post, "I wouldn't necessarily ascribe malevolence to those who devised and lobbied for the liturgical reform up until 1970. Although I disagree with their starting point (and their conclusion), I believe most of them thought that their work was necessary and beneficial to the Church. Sadly, time has proven it not to be the case."

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on November 15, 2017, 07:32:10 AMAgain, times have changed.  The communal participation of a mostly illiterate laity was not formerly the decisive factor to consider.  But, today, if you want the laity to do more than "pay, pray, obey" that's what you need to do.  The price of digging in your heels is an apathetic laity that goes to Church to get its Mass ticket punched.

I'd submit that your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow. The actuosa participatio hasn't really made the laity more cognizant of the nature of the Mass (actual and mystical), or any more literate in the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.