A play-by-play on Pope Francis' and related comments about the Liturgy and worship.

Thursday, July 21, 2022

CNA Beauty, truth, and unity: Why Pope Francis is so concerned with the liturgy

Pope Francis at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 4, 2022

by Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis, on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, issued a letter to Catholics on the liturgy and the celebration of the Mass. The letter was published just before the July 16 anniversary of his controversial motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which introduced new rules restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

In Desiderio Desideravi, Pope Francis did not change Church law, but said he wanted “to invite the whole Church to rediscover, to safeguard, and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration.”

“I want,” he wrote, “the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the Church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue.” (A vague conclusion to an otherwise meritorious comment.)

Why is this topic so important to Pope Francis? In a word, because he is concerned about unity, a liturgy expert said. The pope is the guardian of unity in the Church, something which is threatened by liturgical in-fighting, Father Dominik Jurczak, a Dominican and expert in sacred liturgy, told CNA. Jurczak is a lecturer at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Liturgy, “the Anselmianum,” and at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, “the Angelicum,” in Rome. He is also chairman of the International Liturgical Commission of the Dominican Order. (Unity - at what price? If the cause of disunity is a specific doctrine or practice, then Catholics are obliged to disagree (in charity) with said obstacle to unity, and to work for a resolution that does not sacrifice truth on the altar of "let's go along to get along". Good people can and do disagree. Conflict is normal. As much as unity is important, Catholics cannot be theologically united with Mormons, for example, because of fundamental differences between the Catholic teaching about God and the Mormon teaching about their gods. Those differences are why Mormons are not considered Christians. Catholics cannot be united with Anglicans for a variety of reasons, too. The assumption, too often a misguided assumption, is that arguing Catholics have points of equal merit. Where do heretics come from but from within the Church? Conflict is not a threat to unity. Exchanges between rivals are essential if those processes expose serious theological and moral deficiencies. See "debates" below.)

“Here is the reaction of Pope Francis,” the Polish priest explained. “We cannot use liturgy as a weapon. … We can organize debates on the liturgy, we can discuss which part of the liturgical renewal was done better or not. But we cannot disobey and we cannot use the liturgy to show that somebody else in the Church is not a part of the Church actually.” (Debates, yes: 1) What did the Council say about the Mass? 2) To what degree did the Archbishop Bugnini Consilium, given the responsibility to reform the sacred Liturgy, conform to the wishes of the Council Fathers, to what the Fathers agreed to? 3) How does the Novus Ordo Missae conform to, or deviate from, the renewal called for by the Council?) Fr Jurczak noted that, in some places, the celebration of the liturgy is subject to abuses which keep the reality of the celebration far from what it could and should be. ("Some places"? The Holy Father's proscriptive letters are only warranted if the horrendous state of the celebration of the Liturgy is truly a widespread problem (... and it is a widespread problem, a global problem, a church-wide problem!). Fr Jurczak's comment risks avoiding the implications of the Holy Father's letters, and is a severe understatement about the loss of Eucharistic faith. The statistics speak for themselves. The number of Catholics who actually believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is shockingly low. Why that is so cannot be reduced to a fleeting state of mind, nor can culpability be conveniently laid solely upon Catholics in the pews. Decades of shabby catechesis and a liturgy prone to manipulation (because of a lack of accompanying rubrics and poor seminary training) are two obvious causes for a massive decline in the Faith.) The focus should be on trying to celebrate the Mass well, according to the rubrics in place, he said. (Which rubrics? What rubrics? The few mentioned in the GIRM? The choreography captured by Bishop Elliott in his Ceremonies Explained should be an essential complement to implementing Pope Francis' intentions.)

Father Giovanni Zaccaria, secretary of the Liturgy Institute at Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, said it is not wrong to have an attraction to the Mass as celebrated with one Roman Missal over another, as long as it does not become an idol. (The conclusion to Fr Zaccaria's comment smacks of an old chestnut lobbed at anyone who rightly understands that the Missal is the canon - rod and measure - of the Church's response to God's invitation to enter into communion with Him. The pattern of the Mass was established by Christ Himself on Maundy Thursday. It is difficult to imagine our Lord would fail to guide his disciples to observe the manner in which worship should occur. There is no danger of worshipping a missal any more than there is a danger of worshipping an Office book, provided the book is orthodox in content and beautiful in form. The contents of the liturgy - Mass or Office - should protect Christians from distortions one way - idolatry - or another - iconoclasm. A mindset commonly associated with defending the Novus Ordo Missae seems to inspire more of the latter than the former among contemporary Catholics. The considerable loss of literacy concerning gestural language - kneeling, bowing, genuflecting, etc. - and appreciation for nonverbal and paraverbal communication in the Liturgy may very well be due to the loss of (appreciation for) rubrics in the Novus Ordo Missae that protect, foster and encourage multimodal communication, awareness, formation, orientation and behaviour with respect to the ars celebrandi. Reverent celebrations of the Novus Ordo are, indeed, possible. The London Oratory comes to mind.) “Because otherwise we risk creating division in the Church. And that is what the devil wants, that we become divided,” said Zaccaria, a priest of Opus Dei and author of the Italian language book “The Mass Explained to Teens (and Not Only to Them).” (A missal that does not contain or rely upon precise rubrics might fall victim to abuse. One could argue that a lack of rubrical guidance permits room for ego, personal bias and pride to drive the celebration of the Mass. Just sayin'.)

The Roman Missal is the book containing the text and instructions for the celebration of the Mass. (Why, then, is the word 'rubric' so often a dirty word? Why are the rubrics - few as they are in the Missale Romanum 1970 - not followed?) In the Roman rite, Mass is most often celebrated according to the 1970 Roman Missal, which was promulgated after the Second Vatican Council, though some communities use the 1962 or an earlier Missal. “The most effective celebration is that which brings me to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the most important thing,” Zaccaria underlined. “Then, certainly the relationship must be taken care of, that is, where one realizes what one is doing and that this is heaven on earth.”

Pope Francis also emphasized the importance of understanding what one is partaking in at Mass and other liturgical celebrations. “We owe to the Council — and to the liturgical movement that preceded it — the rediscovery of a theological understanding of the Liturgy and of its importance in the life of the Church,” he wrote in Desiderio Desideravi. The pope praised the study of liturgy in a scholarly setting. “Nonetheless,” he added, “it is important now to spread this knowledge beyond the academic environment, in an accessible way, so that each one of the faithful might grow in a knowledge of the theological sense of the Liturgy.” (So... there is an intellectual component that must be honed after all.)

Zaccaria and Jurczak both said that while liturgical formation can include formal study, it is not merely an intellectual act, but rather a deepened participation in the mystery of the celebration. (Fr Zaccaria and Fr Jurczak are quoted in a way that suggests a very shallow understanding of intellectual faculty or power, thus creating an unnecessary dichotomy, which is not helpful to fostering clarity. By the God-given power of the intellect, infused with grace to enter into the mystery of salvation, man comes to know the living truth of God and how to respond to God's invitation to salvation.) Valentina Angelucci, a doctoral candidate in sacred liturgy at the Anselmianum, agreed. “To participate in the one mystery is to understand, that is, to be aware of the mystery that is going on,” she told CNA. The pope’s apostolic letter on the liturgy is also a good opportunity to refine the Church’s way of defining “participation” at Mass, she added. “That participation,” she clarified, “does not mean making [people] do things,” such as taking on a role as lector or usher. “Participatory means that the people are present and realize that their presence at Mass is fundamental (Participatio actuosa, NOT participatio activa).” (A shift away from 'busy-ness' to 'being present to' will greatly help the recovery of worship of Almighty God.)

Jurczak, the Dominican priest, said when discussing liturgical formation, “one of the mistakes is to treat the liturgy as an intellectual act.” (Perhaps a better expression would be "... as a solely rational act.") The answer to abuses within the liturgy after Vatican II, he said, is not “to adjust in an intellectual way, or to memorize, for example, the definition of the liturgy.” “We need spaces for good liturgy, and that’s a huge desire in the Church, in different parishes, in different dioceses, the cathedrals, [spaces] where we can really taste good liturgy.” (Ironically, the Novus Ordo Missae, its form and content, requires an overly rational mental construct or approach to ensure a proper celebration. There is so much wiggle room that unless the celebrant constantly insists on discipline, cacophony ensues. Whereas, it could be argued that other forms of the Mass - Eastern and Western - encourage by their very form and content a dignified and reverent celebration. And, yes - beautiful spaces that are theologically true to the Latin patrimony will help orient minds and hearts to God. Sadly, the shopping mall churches, parish caves, urban bunkers and fallout shelters, and other hideous utilitarian ecclesiastical disasters of the last 60 years or so are more hindrances to faith and hope than embodiments of the Incarnation. By contrast, a step in the right direction: St. Paul's, Madison: WI BEFORE=Brutal | AFTER=Beautiful).

What is the liturgy for?

“It struck me in that letter of Pope Francis,” Jurczak said, “that very often he is trying to remind us that in the liturgy is Jesus Christ, liturgy is about Jesus Christ, who is the priest and who is celebrating, and we are participating.” Zaccaria, the Opus Dei priest, explained that through divine worship, Catholics “participate in the heavenly liturgy, where God is praised, eternally glorified by saints, by angels, by the whole of heaven.” (Yes! We enter into or are present to the action of God.) “The Mass, but also the Liturgy of the Hours, Lauds, Vespers, any liturgical action, any sacrament,” he told CNA, “puts us in communion with God, obviously eminently in the Eucharist.” But the Church’s manner of celebrating the liturgy has and does change, she noted. (How does it change? How has it - prior to the Second Vatican Council - changed? In leaps and bounds or incrementally? Organically? By the decision of a commission apparently enamored in the spirit of the time?)

Angelucci told CNA that to think of “immobilizing [the celebration of] the liturgy is against the very nature of the liturgy, because the liturgy is a living thing.” “For as long as it has existed, [the celebration] has been living with the people who celebrate it. And so it is a living thing that changes,” she said. (Perhaps then the people living at the time of the revision of the Mass should be identified as weak in the Faith? By their fruits... .)

The councils and the missals

Zaccaria explained that before the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, there was considerable variation in the liturgical books used throughout the Church. (Somewhat oversimplified, but not unfair.) The Council of Trent decided that the churches of the Roman rite should all use the same books, unless a local church could prove it had a tradition dating back more than 200 years. A few years after the council concluded, Pope St. Pius V, on the directions of the council, issued a new missal. Because this form of the Mass came out of the Council of Trent, it is often called the Tridentine Mass (Tridentum is Latin for Trent). Pius V’s Missal was the primary form of the Mass in the Roman rite for 400 years. (Some commentators at this point might insist that the Tridentine Mass differed only in minor ways from previous centuries. That the Tridentine Liturgy proved to have a unifying effect in the Church constitutes for many evidence of a tangible vehicle successfully effecting the Counter Reformation.)

In 1962, before the opening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope St. John XXIII issued a revised version of the Roman Missal, including the reforms of Venerable Pope Pius XII, his predecessor. But the 1962 missal, Jurczak explained, was intended to be “transitory.” It was “not the final product.” After Vatican II, the missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970 came into force in the Catholic Church. Still today, it is sometimes called the Novus Ordo, or “New Order,” of the Mass.

In the Second Vatican Council, the Council Fathers took “the liturgy as the first argument,” and issued Sacrosanctum Concilium, a constitution on the sacred liturgy, as the ecumenical council’s first document, Jurczak said. The Fathers’ idea was to renew the liturgy, Jurczak said. “And obviously the renewal process is not easy. Nobody knew how to do that and how to proceed.” (Perhaps they should have taken more time to think over the process?)

Popes since the Second Vatican Council — John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis — “are trying to implement what Vatican II said” about the liturgy, he said. (So why have such attempts failed? Let's address the elephant in the sanctuary by suggesting that the liturgical fruit of the last 50+ years has been substantially rotten. What tree is producing such rotten fruit? Having said that, another tree has recently been planted, a tree tended to by caretakers who lovingly and artfully grafted a substantial branch into the Roman tree. Divine Worship, the Mass of the Ordinariate, was carefully synthesized - not distilled - from compatible sources. Great care was taken by the interdicasterial commission Anglicanae Traditiones to grow a Missal that is unique and beautiful.)

The experts made a distinction between the theological ideas the Council Fathers had for the Church’s liturgical renewal and what actually took place. Zaccaria said one of the problems is that “in the years immediately following the Council, so basically the ... late ‘60s, early ‘70s, and early ‘80s ... the ecclesial climate was a climate of ‘everything is changing.’” “Which was not true,” he went on. “However, there is a misunderstanding that is related to this idea of the ‘Spirit of the Council,' that the 'Spirit of the Council' means that everybody does whatever they like. But the Council never said that. Nobody ever said that; I mean the documents, the liturgical books, they don’t say that.” (Nevertheless, chaos ensued, disunity ensued.) Zaccaria said the idea that everyone could do whatever they wanted was “in violent contrast to what was there before.” “Because before, for example, to celebrate Mass there were pages and pages where you were told everything you have to do, how you had to hold your hands, how you had to move your feet, that is, everything was absolutely prescribed down to the last comma,” he said. (An exaggeration, and a confusion, between ceremonial texts that grew out of centuries of experience accompanying the celebration of Mass, and the Missal itself. The 1962 Missal, by comparison with the Novus Ordo Missae, is lean.)

According to Zaccaria, the new liturgical books themselves are not the problem. Instead, “It’s the way the reform has been received” and implemented, he said. (See above: form and content.) When a priest does not celebrate the Mass according to the rubrics, when he freely changes things, the Mass appears to “have nothing to do with the divine,” to look more like a show, he said, adding that it is a natural reaction, in this situation, to take refuge in “the sure thing.” This is where the reform, Jurczak said, “has created a huge tension inside the Church.” (Correct!) “But the tension is not the most important thing. The most important thing is also the obedience and the reform or the renewal of the liturgy, which goes forward, and we are part of this movement.” “What we can see,” the Polish priest said, “is that the liturgy, its missal, is very often used to force my position in the Church. That’s something improper, if not diabolical, in the entire discussion on the liturgy, because we are talking about the most holy, most secret spaces in the Church. And at the same time we are fighting against each other using the liturgy.” This is precisely why Pope Francis reacted the way he did, Jurczak said. (Fr Jurczak's explanation might be construed to be an attempt to temper the negative effects of the Holy Father's motu proprio.)

Zaccaria said “there is nothing wrong with celebrating according to the liturgical Books of the Council of Trent. (Then why a restriction on the older Missal?) There is no problem, that is, in the sense subject to the indications that the pope recently gave in Traditionis Custodes.” Zaccaria emphasized that one form of the liturgy must not become an ideology. “This applies to one camp as well as the other … those who are fans of the Missal of Paul VI and those who are fans of the Missal of Pius V.” (A pro-1962 Missal enthusiast might counter that that's easy for him to say, given that there is no proscription attached to the Novus Ordo Missae.)

If someone decides, “after studying, thinking, praying, etc., that for me and for my community these liturgical books are more suitable, wonderful,” the priest said. “This is not a problem. As long as this is not an ideological position, that is, taken in opposition to the Second Vatican Council.” He pointed to another constitution from the Council, Lumen Gentium. “Lumen Gentium said all members of the Church have the same dignity, all members of the Church are equally called to holiness, regardless of whether they are the pope or the last of the baptized. All members of the Church are priests according to the common priesthood of the faithful, so participation in the liturgy is an exercise of the common priesthood,” Zaccaria said. “The reform of the Second Vatican Council,” he added, “stems from this vision of the Church, that is, the Church sees itself in this way and therefore celebrates according to this way of seeing itself.” (On could be forgiven for suggesting that the Liturgy, according to the previous paragraph, has become the whim of the people, the whim of preference, which has led to a confusion of roles in the Liturgy.)

The 1962 Roman Missal puts the priest at the center, he said. “And in Paul VI’s Missal, the center is the Church, present, the whole Church, head and members, Body of Christ, present at that time in that place, in its different articulations," he explained. (Unfortunately, that premise is not sustainable. Common experience confirms that in the Novus Ordo Mass the priest is most often the centre of attention. That the current Mass is so often encrusted with decadence tends to confirm that the era in which the Novus Ordo Missae was conceived was decadent. Sons and daughters of the Church have always confidently immersed themselves in the past - in classical Roman and Greek architecture, philosophy, etc., - to move forward. Where is that ability to trust in the past? Where is the confidence in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit manifested in great literature, art, music, etc.? The architects of the Novus Ordo claimed to look back to early texts and practices. Yet, instead of acknowledging key formative processes and signs of cohesion - the most obvious being the action of the Holy Ghost - that composed the Mass, that same council of men under the direction of Archbishop Bugnini created a buffet of competing elements lacking the glue of wisdom and experience.) “Even there, if there is no priest, there is no Mass. He is not the center, though. It is a different vision of the Church,” he added, but “both are true.” (...both are true... . That conclusion, based on inaccurate terms, is a tenuous one at best.)

According to Jurczak, Pope Francis in Desiderio Desideravi is trying to make the liturgy “much more approachable to people, to make it much more understandable for people.” (1) The Mass is a mystery, sacrament, a visible sign of an invisible reality. Great poetry, art, architecture, chant and sacred polyphony have more to say than prose about the nature of the Mass. 2) The Council sought to do the same, i.e., make the Mass more approachable. Is Fr. Jurczak suggesting that Pope Francis believes the Council was deficient in that regard? 3) To paraphrase a well known quote: Mass is a mystery to be lived not a problem to be solved.)

While the pope is not offering anything “new,” so-to-speak, “we don’t need to have something new to go forward,” he said. “The Liturgy,” the pope wrote, “does not leave us alone to search out an individual supposed knowledge of the mystery of God. Rather, it takes us by the hand, together, as an assembly, to lead us deep within the mystery that the Word and the sacramental signs reveal to us.”

“I think that Pope Francis tries to remind us that … even if I’m pro the ‘62 Missal or ‘70 Missal, if I’m in the former liturgy or renewed liturgy, we have to start again thinking about the liturgy itself, to stop fighting about rules. They are important, but we have to move back to the nature of the liturgy,” the priest said. (Rubrics are the keys to preserving the nature of the Liturgy. No rubrics? Dial up Saint Sabina, Chicago, on YouTube, and see what happens. What happens there happens routinely in countless Novus Ordo parishes. The threat to Church unity does not come from the few faithful outliers who pray the Latin Mass. Rather than punish the few, turn up the heat on the narcissists who habitually turn God's Liturgy into a circus.)

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Dear Readers,

Please bear in mind that this blog is dedicated to Divine Worship, the Mass of the Ordinariate. The 1962 Latin Mass missal is dear to many friends and acquaintances. The embedded comments are intended to take issue with perspectives that are tenuous, and to lend weight to perspectives that are well founded. Of course, there may be different ways of expressing the same truth. Those moments of convergence need not be dwelt upon since neither clarity nor merit is at issue.

It has been expressed herein this blog many times that the dichotomy between old and new forms of the Mass are overcome in the Mass of the Ordinariate. Readers are advised to explore this site to determine for themselves whether or not a way exists to overcome the tension among faithful Catholics.