Three of your contributors to the autumn 2010 edition of The Swag, Fathers L Donnelly, M Ryan and G Hayes, in separate articles, referred to the the so-called Tridentine Rite of Mass and its liberalisation by the Holy See in recent times. May I make some comments in reply?
To begin, I should set forth my own credentials. I was ordained in 1988 and the huge majority of Masses which I celebrate – and do so contentedly – are according to the ‘novus ordo’ of Pope Paul VI’s Missal of 1969. About 15 years ago, responding to requests from groups of the faithful, I began occasionally to celebrate Mass in the ‘Tridentine’ rite in accordance with the provisions of the papal decrees Ecclesia Dei Afflicta of 1986 and, more recently, Summorum Pontificum of 2007. Over that time I have had extensive experience of various old-rite communities in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia Western Australia and Canberra.
All of the contributors mentioned above interpret the recent liberalisation of the missal of John XXIII as an attack on the Second Vatican Council and an attempt to set the liturgical clock back. This position makes certain unwarranted assumptions about the historical relationship between the Council’s Constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the post-conciliar process of liturgical change. Work has been carried out recently on the correspondence, memoirs and biographies of some of the bishops who attended the Council and who subsequently stated that the results of that process, which came into view in the later 1960s and into the 1970s, went far beyond what they had supposed they were voting for. A sample celebration of the projected new ‘novus ordo’ of Mass was placed before the participants at the 1967 Synod of Bishops in Rome. The bishops, who had been at the Council just two years before, were asked to vote and the result was negative.
Important principles of the Council were largely ignored by those charged with implementing Sacrosanctum Concilium. The Constitution insisted that there were to be no changes at all which were not clearly for the spiritual and pastoral benefit of the faithful; it is hard to see what benefits have accrued to the people from many of the ceremonial and rubrical changes in the Mass rite. New forms were to grow organically from the older rites; but this vital principle of continuity was side-lined. The principle of ‘participatio actuosa’ , having been mistranslated, was interpreted in a superficial and materialist way. The liturgical reform was to depend on the authority of the Church, above all the Holy See; in fact, practices were soon introduced against the instructions of the Holy See, such as communion in the hand, even if that particular practice has now been legitimated as a concession. There was to be no imposition of uniformity; however, the changes were pushed through roughshod over the reasonable concerns and objections of some lay people. (There is a movement today called “What if We Just Said Wait?” which aims to hold up the new English translation of the Roman Missal; there was no waiting around when a liturgical revolution was imposed on the faithful in the 1960s and ‘70s.) Latin was to remain the basic liturgical language of the Western Church, the people to be taught to say or sing the common of the Mass in Latin; instead, it has all but disappeared. Plain chant and polyphony were again declared to be the Church’s liturgical music par excellence but little attempt was made to translate this into practice. The Church’s cultural heritage of art, architecture and sacred furnishings was to be respected and promoted; what actually happened on a widespread scale was the wholesale vandalisation of the sanctuaries of older churches. The preservation of all the rites of the Church was mandated; but the rites peculiar to some religious orders (Praemonstratensian, Carthusian, Dominican, Carmelite, etc) were abolished or fell into desuetude in the years just after the Council.
Your contributors indulge in a curmudgeonly caricature of the Mass of John XXIII. The priest does not ‘talk to the tabernacle’; as in the Mass of Paul VI he speaks mainly to God and secondarily to the assembly. Nor is it ‘non-sense’. Nor is it ‘a walk down memory lane’. I am always impressed by the youthfulness of old-rite congregations relative to what one expects to find in a typical parish nowadays. Groups of people who have otherwise disappeared from Catholic communities are found in refreshingly significant numbers: adults in their 20s and 30s, young families with children, even teenagers. Many of them were born well after Vatican II and are drawn to the 1962 Mass, not out of nostalgia, but because of qualities that they find inherent in it. They are generous with their time, talents and financial contributions and are faithful to the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church. I do not believe it is fair to call them divisive. In this context it is sad to see one of your contributors suggesting that people who choose ‘to celebrate a Mass in this manner only’ be separated from the rest of us and corralled into legally-enforced liturgical ghettos. The old rite of Mass is not compulsory. Individuals have the freedom to attend or not. It is not to everyone’s liking. It is not going to ‘take over’ the Church. There is not going to be a mass stampede back to the 1950s.
My pastoral experience teaches me that the older form of the Mass is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it does a lot of good and is a help to many people in their faith and following of Jesus in difficult times. Bishops, clergy and faithful should see it, not as a threat, but as an opportunity, a pastoral strategy among many for deepening the life and mission of the Church. God knows we need all the ideas we can get.
Christopher Dowd OP, North Adelaide SA
