The Sequere Me Blog: Controversial

It's amazing this internet malarky and where you get read. Today, I penetrated the realms of my first proper communist:

Vietnam.

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Today hasn't been a very good day at all, so I'm hyper. I'm also going to be a bit controversial and make a few comments about the Pope's Motu Proprio... So controversy warning...

I'm of course very glad that the Holy Father has, by his example, has very slowly (and outside of pontifical liturgies, it is very slow indeed) been re-introducing a sense of awe into the Sacred Liturgies, which was lost a little in certain places over the years. However, I'm a bit nervous about the long-term effects of Summorum Pontificum.

There is a danger, I feel, that by championing a separation of forms and practice, the visible unity of the western Church Latin rite-ers is being threatened. We must remember that the Second Vatican Council taught us that the Roman Rite used in the period of the council was in need of reform.

I'm sure many readers will agree with me when I say that the reform we got was not entirely what was intended for us by the Council fathers. Whatever form one prefers, and whatever style of worship one appreciates, no-one can say rightly that the Council approved our current liturgies, as the Council had closed by the time they were promulgated. I reject claims that these ordinary liturgies are those given to us by Vatican II and are infallible. Neither are the rites which came before it. Rites must change from time to time, lest we become petrified and time and die spiritually as a result.

It would be wrong of me to suggest that none of us really approve fully of our current form of liturgy. A majority of Catholics - even well-educated ones - will look blindly at you if you start talking about Forms of Mass. It is simply not an issue for most people, who simply come to Mass every week and that's it, saying their own prayers at home from time to time. Start changing the Mass and other liturgies, people will not really notice, rather they will wonder what Father is doing now, and forget about it quickly. They approve of our liturgy tacitly by their presence because they know no different. I can imagine the same went for parishioners with the liturgical changes of the 1920s, 1950s and early 1960s. Nobody really noticed. They noticed in the late 60s, because Father was now looking at them in most cases, but since then, they have forgotten what altar rails are. It is not their fault, and honestly, their own sense of spirituality hasn't changed that much. In fact, with many of the novelties we have now, I would argue that many laypeople get more nourishment from attending Mass in the ordinary form (post-Vatican II), intellectually at least.

A small number of people take an interest in the liturgy, beyond the norm. There are those extremists who deny the validity of the ordinary form. There are those who just like to go to extraordinary form Masses, those who go to both, those who want a mingling of the two, and those who think guitars and tambourines are necessary for the validity of the sacrament.

[Pope Paul VI celebrating Mass in St Peter's during the Council]

[Pope Benedict XVI celebrating Mass at the same altar recently]

We must get something straight. Vatican II, as I said above, teaches that what the extraordinary form is now should be reformed. It is not appropriate to assume it will remain forever as it is until the end of time (unless, of course, time ends tomorrow). And many accept that the common celebration of our modern liturgy is sometimes rediculous (we must bear in mind that liturgical abuse is not a new thing, and has happened since the liturgy was granted to us). The Holy See recognises this, the Holy Father recognises this personally, as did our previous HolyFather, who gave approval to the document Redemptionis Sacramentum, which provides proper guidelines for the celebration of Holy Mass (however, even in the celebration of his own liturgies, these rules were often broken).

However, Redemptionis Sacramentum doesn't really go far enough. In the 1960s, we had an in-organic rupture in the method of the celebration of the sacraments. Even my own mother wonders how you get the Masses we have today out of the Masses she had as a child. They are too different to argue that the change was organic, in such a short space of time.

I'm increasingly being drawn towards the idea that our two forms of liturgy need to be used in a way that assumes one day this temporary, in-organic solution will be rectified. It is wrong and unprecidented for the same rite of Christians, us western Christians of the Roman Rite, have two outwardly distinct liturgies. The same rite requires the same liturgy in my view. Anything which gives the impression that we will forever have two forms should be expunged, though I don't think it is the will of the Holy Father to split up the Church in such a way as some, by their actions, are in danger of doing.

In my hometown, there are about 5 or 6 Anglican parishes. The main one in the centre of town is broad Church. It's a little bit of a via media. They celebrate 'Mass' (well, they claim to), believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, wear vestments and when they had a man in charge, called their 'priest' Father.

Now, down the road, there is another parish. It is a Church of England community - the same as the parish I have described above. They have a trendy evangelical who hates the idea of a 'clergy'. They do not celebrate any form of Eucharist, do not use things such as candles, and instead of an altar in their Church, they have a big projector screens to allow everyone to follow along in their heretically minded 'praise and worship' sessions.

I can imagine in about a hundred or two hundred years - following the path we are on at the moment so rigidly - we as Catholics will have something similar. In big towns in one Church, we shall have ad orientem altars, Roman vestments, only extraordinary form celebrations of Mass and other liturgies etc. Then down the road, you will have another Church, with a wooden 'communion table' surrounded by schol chairs, breeze-block walls, a tabernacle in the corner, carpeted floors, a religious sister chaplain, and music stands and a guitar case left next to the altar. Next to a picture of Oscar Romero flanked by children, will be a justice and peace board and Cafod posters, neglecting to mention their support for condoms, monopolising Catholic charity giving (basically, what a lot of Catholic Churches look like nowadays) . Maybe in this big town, you shall have a Church run by a personal prelature, who have dubious liturgies, but stick rigidly (and, frankly, quite unchristian-ly) to Catholic social doctrine, but unfathomably produce about a million new priests every year.

I don't know about you, but I don't want our glorious Holy Mother Church to become any more fragmented than it already is. The liturgy - though some refuse to accept this - is usually the sole way many Catholics communicate with God on a weekly basis, and we should give it all we have. It should not confuse people and put them off - either by giving them a sense of psychological rejection, neither should it confuse their image of God and make Love seem all hip. Everything in the liturgy is there for a reason, and bits shouldn't be rejected or inserted according to our personal needs. The primary purpose of the Mass is for the worship of God, not as a device to satisfy our own decadent hypochondria.

[Via media? The celebration of Holy Mass using the Missal promulgated after Vatican II in the Birmingham Oatory - is this perhaps the kind of celebration the Council Fathers invisaged?]

There are many changes which could, and should, be made to the ordinary form. We should look into the feasability of, for example, a silent Eucharistic prayer, prayers at the foot of the altar, longer forms of the offertory prayers, the expansion of the uses of votive Masses, Vigils and octaves, in any language in all sorts of directions. Perhaps, as Cardinal Godfrey argued during the council, the Church didn't use Latin enough, or maybe we use it too much liturgically. We should abide by Church Council teaching and teach and be taught the prayers in Latin (we are required to know how to respond to Mass in Latin) and sing parts to basic tones at least. We should completely re-orientate our view of where we place ourselves in the liturgy, especially as lay people, but we should also recognise that the our current practices actually seem to increase clerical control over the liturgy. I don't really care about the Latin, nor frankly the orientation (though for the latter, I do have a personal preference for ad orientem), rather we should remind ourselves continuously that what we are doing is for the glory of God and it should appear such.