Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The Three Last Anti-Liturgical Heresies
[Taken from here - Emphasis The Catacombs]

10. The assault on the Papacy

Dom Prosper Guéranger was under no illusion about the Protestant attitude to the Papacy: it was not simply a question of objecting to the corruption of certain Prelates or to ecclesiastical malpractice in the 16th century, but the annihilation of the office of the Papacy and the spiritual authority of the Pope. He provided evidence that up to the 19th century Lutheran liturgical services used hymns containing scurrilous verses vilifying the Roman Pontiffs as enemies of Christianity, thus providing an official seal of approval for their denunciation in a liturgical setting.

Both Progressivists & Protestants are turned toward the destruction of the Papacy

Dom Guéranger gave as an example a verse from a 16th-century German hymn book, still used in his day, which placed the Pope on the same level as the anti-Christian Turks of the Ottoman Empire:

“From the murderous wrath, calumny, violent fury and savage ferocity of the Turk and the Pope, deliver us, O Lord.”1

This hymnal, entitled Geystliche Lieder (Spiritual Songs), was published by Valentin Bapst in 1559 with a Preface by Martin Luther, and became a staple of Lutheran hymnody for many generations. Its influence continued to be felt over the centuries through multiple reprints and new materials. A conspicuous feature of the Preface is its virulently anti-papal stance and its malevolent tone, judging by the blasphemous curse inserted by Luther:

“Inasmuch as this edition of Valentin Bapst is prepared in fine style, God grant that it may bring greater hurt and harm to that Roman Pope.” 2

No greater hurt or harm could have been visited on the Papacy than that accomplished by the Vatican II Popes themselves. It was the Council’s doctrine of Collegiality which resulted in a complete reconfiguration of the Petrine Office, to the detriment of the principle of Unity, the first of the Church’s defining characteristics.


11. The destruction of the priesthood

Dom Guéranger showed how Protestants, in rejecting the Petrine Office, necessarily rejected the Catholic priesthood:

“The anti-liturgical heresy needed, in order to establish its reign for ever, the destruction in practice and in principle of all priesthood in Christianity. For it felt that where there is a Pontiff, there is an altar, and where there is an altar there is a sacrifice and, therefore, the performance of a mysterious ceremonial.” 3

Instead, the Protestants adopted Luther’s principle of the “priesthood of all the baptized” which recognized no essential difference between ordained priests and laity, no spiritual powers unique to the ordained, no higher status of priests over the people.

Under the influence of the New Theology adopted by Vatican II, the wheel has come full circle and the “anti-liturgical heresy” of Lutheranism has taken up right of residence in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Theological innovators have, with impunity and sometimes official approval, succeeded in reducing the ordained members of the Church to the same level as all Christians. Anyone who upholds the traditional concept of the sacramental priesthood is declared guilty of “Clericalism.” 4


12. Papal authority replaced by secular institutions

Here Dom Guéranger explained the outcome of the 12th and last on the list of his “anti-liturgical heresies.” Once the Papacy has been debased and devalued in practice, and the Pope’s spiritual power has been relegated to oblivion, the final goal of the “anti-liturgical heresy” will have been reached. For loss of spiritual control by the Papacy leads inexorably to the increase of secular control in ecclesiastical affairs, whether it be in the liturgy, educational establishments, seminaries, marriage tribunals etc.

Paul VI at the United Nations in 1965

This is exactly what the Protestants – and their neo-modernist counterparts at Vatican II ‒ aimed to achieve through the medium of Religious Liberty. It is hardly surprising that, in the aftermath of Vatican II, every aspect of Catholic life formerly considered sacred and inviolable underwent a process of secularization in the sense of becoming imbued and tainted with the values of the world. Even before the Council came to a close, Paul VI entrusted the Catholic faithful to the tender mercies of the United Nations – which is opposed to the rights of God in society – as a global government that, he imagined, would impose laws and values to guarantee world peace in place of conflict.


Vatican II & the return to neo-Gallicanism

In order to see the broader implications of Dom Guéranger’s work and how this applies to the Vatican II reforms, it is necessary to place his “anti-liturgical heresy” in its historical context.

The term “neo-Gallican” 5 designates the liturgical books used in the majority of French Dioceses from the 17th to the 19th centuries, which supplanted the Tridentine rites issued under the authority of Pope St. Pius V. Even though these “neo-Gallican” Breviaries and Missals retained some features of the Roman rite, Dom Guéranger severely criticized them both for their “honteuses et criminelles mutilations” (shameful and criminal mutilations) and their innovations. 6

Dom Alphonse Guépin, successor of Dom Guéranger as Abbot of Solesmes

Dom Guéranger’s immediate successor as Abbot of Solesmes, Dom Alphonse Guépin, summed up the situation in words that have a familiar ring to them in our day:

“The situation descended into complete anarchy as the liturgical books were constantly being updated to suit the local conditions and changing sensibilities of the people, with the result that the clergy lost their sense of Tradition and the faithful their attachment to the traditional Roman rites which they no longer understood. The absence of fixed rubrics enforced by the competent authorities gave rise to frequent profanations. The duty to enact the public prayer of the Church was neglected; and the Faith itself suffered from these disorders which went uncorrected.”7

It would be difficult to find a more accurate prophecy of the chaos produced by the Vatican II reforms which encouraged liturgical diversity, creativity and endless options in performing the rites, active participation by the laity, adaptation of the liturgy to local customs and constant updating to fit in with the spirit of the times.

If these were the conditions that had prevailed in France, against which Dom Prosper Guéranger launched an unrelenting campaign for their abolition, there can be no sense in the claim that he was the “grandfather” of the Liturgical Movement whose members collectively influenced Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy and its subsequent liturgical reforms along almost identical lines.


To be continued


1. Prosper Guéranger, Institutions Liturgiques, vol I, p. 404. Dom Guéranger referenced it simply as Lutherische Gesangbuch (Lutheran Hymnal), Leipzig, p. 667, but the correct reference is Valentin Bapst, Geystliche Lieder, Leipzig, 1559, p. 667.
2. “Gottgebe das damit dem Romische Bapst…grosser abbruch und schaden geschehe. Amen,” Valentin Bapst, op. cit., p. v. We note that in the Preface Luther made use of a word game with the rhyming pun on Bapst and Papst (the German word for Pope).
3. Pr. Guéranger, Institutions Liturgiques, vol.I, p. 405.
4. A thoroughly researched and detailed account of the false charge of “Clericalism” is provided in this series, especially from the articles 118 to 122
5. They are called “neo-Gallican” to distinguish them from the ancient Gallican rite which developed in Gaul at the beginning of the 6th century and remained in use in most of what is now called France, until it became fused with the Roman rite under Charlemagne.
6. P. Guéranger, Institutions Liturgiques, vol. 2, p. 100.