Liturgical Stew Since Vatican Two

Does the weakening of Catholics' testimony to Christ stem solely from the Second Vatican Council? Council teaching was susceptible to manipulation by rival groups, each keen to assert their claim to magisterial power, given that it was established during a period of revolt.

Easy scapegoat.

Three tales concerning Annibale Bugnini, the president of the consilium tasked with revitalizing the holy liturgy and the poster child for conspiracy theories, are frequently shared by opponents of the liturgical reform.

1. Some versions even claim that Paul VI was a Freemason or that an impostor took his place. Archbishop Bugnini was a Freemason who attempted to deceive Pope St. Paul VI and compromise the Liturgy.
2. In order to appease Protestants, Bugnini purportedly changed the Catholic liturgy by deleting aspects that were essential to Catholic identity. This assertion is sometimes connected to a comment that Bugnini is said to have made about getting rid of everything that Protestants would find objectionable.
3. Protestants helped Bugnini and the Consilium create a new liturgy that was more akin to an ecumenical Catholic-Protestant service than the Holy Mass.

Bugnini this, Bugnini that.

In recognition of the critics' perspective, it is evident that Archbishop Bugnini and the Consilium responsible for liturgical renewal implemented considerable modifications to the liturgy, some of which have subsequently been regarded as imprudent by popes and devout learned people.

The Fathers of the Council intended a restrained and ongoing renewal aimed at fostering improved pastoral engagement and evangelization. Some members of the Consilium reported irregularities in communication, or the lack of it, between Bugnini, Pope (St.) Paul VI, and other Consilium members.

https://wherepeteris.com/bugnini-the-protestant-myth-and-the-making-of-the-new-mass/

(T)he reform was the fruit of decades of scholarship, conciliar deliberation, and papal oversight.

Which is to say that the reforms did not just appear out of thin air, as some have claimed. The lead-up to the Council was characterized by rigorous theological reflection and resistance to deadly ideologies.

Hey teacher - leave that Mass alone!

Pope Benedict XVI, who attended the Council as an expert, articulated the drift away from the actual designs of the Council, which became entrenched in the aftermath of the Council. His Holiness gave that divergent entity a name: the media council.

Meeting With The Parish Priests And The Clergy Of Rome

Address Of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

Paul VI Audience Hall

Thursday, 14 February 2013

I would now like to add yet a third point: there was the Council of the Fathers – the real Council – but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a Council apart, and the world perceived the Council through the latter, through the media. Thus, the Council that reached the people with immediate effect was that of the media, not that of the Fathers. And while the Council of the Fathers was conducted within the faith – it was a Council of faith seeking intellectus, seeking to understand itself and seeking to understand the signs of God at that time, seeking to respond to the challenge of God at that time and to find in the word of God a word for today and tomorrow – while all the Council, as I said, moved within the faith, as fides quaerens intellectum, the Council of the journalists, naturally, was not conducted within the faith, but within the categories of today's media, namely apart from faith, with a different hermeneutic. It was a political hermeneutic: for the media, the Council was a political struggle, a power struggle between different trends in the Church. It was obvious that the media would take the side of those who seemed to them more closely allied with their world. There were those who sought the decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the expression "People of God", power for the people, the laity. There was this threefold question: the power of the Pope, which was then transferred to the power of the bishops and the power of all – popular sovereignty. Naturally, for them, this was the part to be approved, to be promulgated, to be favoured. So too with the liturgy: there was no interest in liturgy as an act of faith, but as something where comprehensible things are done, a matter of community activity, something profane. And we know that there was a tendency, not without a certain historical basis, to say: sacrality is a pagan thing, perhaps also a thing of the Old Testament. In the New Testament it matters only that Christ died outside: that is, outside the gates, in the profane world. Sacrality must therefore be abolished, and profanity now spreads to worship: worship is no longer worship, but a community act, with communal participation: participation understood as activity. These translations, trivializations of the idea of the Council, were virulent in the process of putting the liturgical reform into practice; they were born from a vision of the Council detached from its proper key, that of faith. And the same applies to the question of Scripture: Scripture is a book, it is historical, to be treated historically and only historically, and so on.

The current activities of the media, i.e., the secular media, provides a sobering reminder that Catholics must always be vigilant. Following the Council, misguided clergy and laity tampered with the holy Liturgy and effected a kind of death by a thousand cuts (... exceptions and options). It's reasonable to assume that some people were tricked into accepting seemingly endless flexibility, while others purposefully misrepresented the Council's teaching.

Few exceptions to the contrary, experience requires that Catholics must be wary of journalists in the secular media who, driven by motives beyond the obligation to disseminate facts, seem preoccupied with distorting the truth.

Catholics must recover the Council's original intent. We must move beyond the conspiracy theories, lackluster witnesses, and heterodox cafeteria religion. Informed by actual history, configured to reality, and zealous for the unvarnished Gospel, the joy from authentic witness, even in the midst of confrontation with worldly and angry mobs, will help both the Church and society recover from individual corruption and the culture of death.

Times - they are not forgotten.

What if the enactment of the liturgical renewal started much later, in less rebellious times? Has there ever been a time when the Church has not had to contend with interference? Even while there are individuals and groups wedded to societal ideologies, there are always gatherings of sensible people whose work mirrors that of councils that seek to continue the mission of Christ.

The Ordinariate Solution

A commission gathered to discern a liturgy that aligns with the designs of the Council Fathers, a liturgy that possesses a unique identity. Divine Worship: the Missal was promulgated on November 29, 2015. The ancient practice of ad orientem worship and a substantial retention of Latin, as directed by the Council Fathers, is habitual in Ordinariate communities.

The movement to welcome the Anglican Patrimony into the Catholic Church for the most part flew under the radar of worldly media and thus has not been susceptible to nearly as much coercion and distortion as the Novus Ordo Missae or Roman Missal. That, and those who left behind the comfort of their former homes to humbly place themselves before the Bishop of Rome, seeking the sure harbour of the Apostolic Faith, brought with them a charism of obedience and a love of the transcendentals that defies the understanding and assaults of the mainstream media.

Those coming into the Church via the Personal Ordinariates receive through Divine Worship a formation in the transcendentals that provides continuity with the Church's vast liturgical and theological heritage inspired by the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, a false dichotomy between past and present and a tension between traditional custom and flexibility have been resolved. The Ordinariates have triumphed over the iconoclasm of the 1960s and '70s. Love of patrimony and of the transcendentals has replaced an idolatry of caustic austerity or frivolous and undignified liturgical behaviors.

The Anglicanae Traditiones Commission

Let's examine the efforts of the group in charge of compiling the experiences that are celebrated in the liturgical, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual inheritance of the Ordinariate.

The Commission's operating philosophy is explained by the then-Monsignor Lopes. The Ratio's integrity and coherence, which are the result of regard for historical practice and theological accuracy, govern its skillful balance between freedom and restraint.

Antiphon 19.2 (2015) 116–131

A Missal for the Ordinariates: The Work of the Anglicanae Traditiones Interdicasterial Commission

By Steven J. Lopes

https://ordinariate.net/documents/2016/3/2015_Lopes_Antiphon.pdf

Prior to assembling the texts that would comprise the Missal, the commission first articulated a ten-point Ratio, a document that was not published in any form but is key to understanding the Divine Worship project. In this context, the Ratio is not to be understood as a formal instrument that enjoyed either the review or approval by the Holy See. It is rather a “working document” that guided the decisions of the commission by setting out a list of ten basic points that the members of the commission agreed to take as normative for the work. The first point of the Ratio is an articulation of the general principles and objectives, which provide a basic orientation for the development of the Order of Mass for the Ordinariates. The commission identified eight such objectives:

1. to preserve for Catholic worship the worthy Anglican liturgical patrimony, understood as that which has nourished the Catholic faith throughout the history of the Anglican tradition and prompted aspirations towards ecclesial unity;
2. to preserve such features and elements as are representative of the historic Anglican Books of Common Prayer (in the first place) and the Anglican Missals (in the second place), in conformity with Catholic doctrinal and liturgical norms;
3. to propose an Order of Mass at once distinctively and traditionally Anglican in character, content, and structure, while also being clearly and recognizably an expression of the Roman Rite, in both its ordinary and extraordinary forms;
4. to identify the patrimony from “the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition” (Anglicanorum Coetibus, art. III), rather than composing new liturgical texts or devising new liturgical forms;
5. to combine, consolidate, and harmonize wherever possible the diversity of Anglican liturgical usage for the sake of assuring the continuity, integrity, and pastoral utility of the liturgical provision;
6. to minimize the number of options, except where clearly justified by the need for pastoral flexibility in respecting the various constituencies coming together in Catholic unity;
7. to respect received texts in their integrity in as far as possible;
8. to offer an instrument for the sanctification of the faithful who come to the Catholic Church from the Anglican tradition while promoting their unity with one another, with their fellow Catholics in the wider Church, and with the See of Peter.

The Ratio encapsulates the Church's generous action to preserve the Patrimony.

Drawing on the experience of the Commission's members, the Commission adopted a brilliant strategy to honour the Patrimony in both its general and particular dimensions.

Rather than favor one form or rubrical style and impose it on all of the Ordinariate parishes and communities, the commission chose to build a certain flexibility into the rubrics themselves. This is expressed in three principal ways:

1. The rubrics permit the celebration of the Eucharist according to the liturgical renewal after the Second Vatican Council, while still preserving the traditional actions and postures which would be familiar to those who have been formed in the Anglican Missal tradition.
2. Some material that would be familiar to those preferring a traditional form of celebration has been moved to a series of appendices.
3. Two forms of the Offertory are provided, the first being drawn out of the Anglican Missal tradition while the second form reflects post-conciliar Catholic usage.

It is important to note that, because this rubrical flexibility addresses a lived liturgical experience of the Ordinariate communities, it was never intended that the forms of the Offertory be used ad libitum as simple alternates or to provide variety from celebration to celebration. This fact was expressed clearly in the Praenotanda to Divine Worship: The Missal where, at no. 31, the rubrics specify that the choice of Offertory should respect the over all shape of the celebration (i.e. the distinction between Sunday Mass and Masses on ferial days) and consider the long-standing tradition or experience of the particular parish. Lopes

With the next iteration of the Missal, the shorter Offertory (post-conciliar Catholic usage) may be removed. An informal survey of parish experiences confirms the sole use of the traditional Offertory from the Anglican Missal. Likewise, the shorter Eucharistic Prayer may fade from the Missal's pages. The translation of the Roman Canon in Divine Worship is nothing less than a work of art.

The Ordinariate community exemplifies a profound sense of identity grounded in a dedication to authentic worship. One of the key contributions Ordinariates bring to their diocesan counterparts is a strong emphasis on liturgical integrity, upheld by unwavering reverence for God within the sacred Liturgy. This reverence is cultivated through practices such as ad orientem worship, a more pronounced penitential rite positioned centrally within the Mass that integrates the formation and encounter with Christ in the Liturgy of the Word and anticipates the Presence of Christ in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and a worship language that inherently demands deliberate intent, aligning expression with purpose to maintain a focused devotion to God throughout liturgical celebrations.

Distraction

Decades of relativism working against truth, goodness, and beauty have resulted in attempts to ensnare Catholics in fashionable mindsets that undermine faith: secular feminism; sexual "liberation"; political correctness; "progressive" politics, particularly racial identity politics and sexual identity politics; and so forth. Lately, however, another form of regressive attitude has returned, an attitude that appears to be diametrically opposite to the "progressive" but is actually equally regressive because it submits the Magisterium to the whim of self-proclaimed arbiters of liturgical and theological rightness.

Human identity is authentic when worship is properly directed toward the Holy Trinity. Our character as Catholics must be purged of protest, especially the devil's protest: I will not serve.

Ordinariate gifts: evangelization, liturgical integrity, recovery of beautiful devotions that strengthen faith, introduction of legitimate renewal, and lived eucharistic fellowship.

The Second Vatican Council was a bold move. Its implementation has yet to be fully realized. That is, properly implemented according to the actual teaching of the Council.

That said, implementation requires a measure of flexibility informed by an abiding regard for the Magisterium, the authority of Holy Mother Church. Without that reference, without that clear centre, the tendency will be that would-be liturgists impose their own magisterium on the Church. Let's call that tendency a 'sola.' That 'sola' would be the emphasis derived from a popular but fading maxim known as the Spirit of Vatican II (Spiritus Concilii Vaticani II solus).

We ain't done yet.

The updated (Roman) Missal is currently in its Third Typical Edition after additional revisions. It is just untrue to say that the reform was completed in a hurry. 61 core members and more than 280 experts and consultants made up the two committees that oversaw the reform, which included more than 300 theologians and liturgical specialists. Taking into account the previous revision of the Holy Week liturgies under Pope Pius XII, their effort was considerably more extensive. Archbishop Bugnini’s own account recounts this comprehensive and collaborative process, which went far beyond his own involvement.

Recovery

Liturgical renewal benefits from the experience of the artist-theologian. Evidently, and regrettably, lesser liturgical minds have monopolized the attention of Catholics. If brutalist architecture has dominated church design, then brutalist liturgy has, to the impoverishment of the heart and the loss of souls, dominated parish experience.

If the renewal of the Liturgy, that is, the renewal of the Novus Ordo Missae, has only really begun and is meant to continue, coming ever closer to producing the ideal envisioned by the Council Fathers, configured to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to the faithful working in the wake of the Council firmly rooted in the living Tradition of the Church, not the zeitgeist, then surely that renewal can benefit from an honest assessment of the fruits of the renewal thus far.

Rotten Fruit

As mentioned, some of those developments have not been healthy for Catholics: liturgical dance that usurps worship and replaces it with entertainment; a rite of peace that destroys attention to the Presence of Christ on the altar; banal language that obscures the relationship between Creator and creature; a loss of the value of silence and listening; every manner of bizarre behavior at the homily; loose play with the form of the Mass (expressly condemned by the Church!); and poor formation in ritual gesture that otherwise communicates subtle theological expressions that form Catholics for communion and mission.

Good Fruit

Meanwhile, Ordinariate communities strive to share the gifts evident in and through Divine Worship and the Office. It may be that the Ordinariates may one day cease to be distinct entities because the wider Latin Church has assimilated the goodness of the Divine Worship Missal, and the two missals—Roman and Divine Worship—will have somehow merged. Or, perhaps the Ordinariates will continue to grow as a distinct entity, like an Eastern-rite Catholic Church, that continues to whisper in the ears of Latin Rite Catholics, whispering truth, goodness, and the worship of God in the beauty of holiness for the salvation of souls.