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

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

Vigil of Pentecost Suppressed in 1956 Reform

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The ravaging of the liturgical patrimony of the Roman Rite under Pius XII was not confined to the reform of Holy Week but, as the 1948 Commission had planned, (1) extended into other areas of the liturgy as well.

The Vigil of Pentecost was cut from the liturgy in the 1956 Reform

It is still commonly believed that when the Decree Cum nostra hac aetate of March 23, 1955, purged about half of all the vigils in the Roman Calendar, the Vigil of Pentecost was “spared.” But that would be only a half-truth, for, as we shall see, it was suppressed, cast aside and, then, forgotten within the space of one generation.

All that was left virtually intact was the Vigil Mass which, in an Orwellian feat, retained its historic title in the Calendar, so that future generations would not realize what exactly they had lost.

And so it came to pass, with the not-too-unpredictable result that traditionalists today are generally unaware that while their 1962 liturgy is still formally called the Vigil of Pentecost, it has not much left in it that is traditional.

Here we will be considering the fate of the Vigil of Pentecost in the 1956 reforms, but first a few pertinent facts are needed to provide a background picture of the kind of thinking that gave rise to this particular reform.


No Sound Reason for Suppression

When the Commission appointed by Pius XII in 1948 drew up plans for the general reform of the liturgy, it decided to jettison most of the Church’s Vigils and Octaves without, as it turns out, any reasonable justification for such radical surgery.

The official reason given by the Congregation of Rites in its decree of March 23, 1955, was for the sake of “simplification.” But, the underlying motivation for the excision of Vigils was revealed in the Commission’s “Memo” to be the reformers’ lack of appreciation and even hatred of the traditional liturgy: Bugnini and his colleagues wanted rid of them on the following pretext:

“In sum, the institution of vigils gradually lost its authentic character and became a type of lifeless liturgical formality.” (2)

This biased and unwarranted assumption became the driving force of the Commission’s determination to suppress most of the Church’s ancient Vigils. The progressivist reformers considered that, just as dead wood has to be cut away to save the plant, “simplification,” i.e., excision, was deemed necessary to obviate the “harm” that the “lifeless” traditional rites can do to the common good.

Fr. Antonelli, who was one of the Commission’s most influential members, gave a more detailed explanation of the 1955 decree:

"Actually the true purpose of the much-desired simplification of the rubrics is not at all, as some may have thought, to reduce the public prayer of the Church to more limited dimensions. It is rather to free it from all those formalistic and complicated elements, usually of late origin, which have become a burden to the ‘sacrifice of praise’ and have gradually changed the original sobriety of its structure.

“In practice, these formalistic complications have become an annoyance and a hindrance to that living participation, which the whole liturgy of its nature demands. Thus, the purpose in eliminating them is not to pray less but to pray better. That is the spirit of the decree.” (3) [Emphasis added]

But, what sort of reform presumes that all “formalistic and complicated” structures are unauthentic and “lifeless”? Here is the clearest possible indication that the Commission condemned the traditional rites on the assumption that they were not only ineffective and unproductive, but also positively harmful, an obstacle to true participation (and hence to the reception of the graces necessary for salvation).

Could any greater calumny or unjust reproach be conceived against the traditional Roman liturgy, described by Cardinal Ottaviani as “the most complete monument of the Faith,” which for centuries has nourished the souls of countless Catholics and produced an abundance of Saints?

In their deprecation of the traditional rites, the progressivists failed to appreciate that the purpose of having rigid formulas and complex rubrics was, as Cardinal Ottaviani pointed out, to act as “theological ramparts erected for the protection of the rite” and as a “formidable barrier against heresy,” in order to ensure stability of doctrine down the centuries.

As subsequent developments have shown, the razing of these bastions of orthodoxy gave rise to many deviations in the lex orandi, chief among them the Novus Ordo, which led the people away from the true Faith.


The Traditional Vigil

From the earliest centuries of the Church, Pentecost had a Baptismal Vigil similar in form to that of Easter. We can see evidence of the baptismal character of these rites in the liturgies of the early Sacramentaries, which record how the Vigil was celebrated as far back as the 7th century and earlier. (4)

When Pope St Pius V codified the Roman Missal in 1570, the Vigil of Pentecost contained texts and ceremonies handed down from previous centuries, including the following:

• 6 readings from the Old Testament (Prophecies) and 3 Tracts, all taken from Holy Saturday;
  
• 6 Collects on the theme of Baptism;
  
• Recitation of the Prophecies by the priest while another minister chanted them;
  
• Procession of the clergy to the font;
  
• Blessing of the font;
  
• Administration of Baptism;
  
• Singing of the Litany of the Saints;
  
• Use of folded chasubles before the celebration of the Vigil Mass.
  

A 12th century Baptism font in San Frediono Basilica, Lucca, Italy

The most noticeable feature of this ensemble of rituals was that they echoed parts of the Holy Saturday liturgy as it had been celebrated in the great cathedrals of Christendom long before Pius V codified the Roman Missal.

The traditional Pentecost Vigil, therefore, had a specific purpose and design: to commemorate the beginning of the Church’s saving mission in the world when the Apostles added about 3,000 souls to the Church at Pentecost through the means of Baptism. (Acts 2:41) To eliminate these rituals is to destroy the very identity of the Pentecost Vigil and its historic connection to Holy Saturday.

We can regard the two great Baptismal Vigils – of Easter and Pentecost – as two almost identical ornamental bookends on a shelf enclosing the 50 days of the Easter Season. Together, they formed an artistically balanced showcase to highlight the splendor of one of the most important seasons of the Church’s Liturgical Year.


Wanton Vandalism

But Bugnini, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, damaged the first and smashed to smithereens the second of these beautifully crafted ornaments.

The progressivists razed the ramparts of orthodoxy that had protected the Church's rites for centuries

The venerable texts and rituals of the Vigil of Pentecost were doomed to extinction by the 1948 Liturgical Commission. Asked whether it would be appropriate to abolish these ceremonies, all three consultors – Jungmann, Capelle and Righetti – agreed unanimously that they should be excised. (5)

And so, the axe of the Commission’s arbitrary liturgical standards was once more swung against the Church’s ancient traditions. As early as 1952, all of these ceremonies of the Vigil of Pentecost were prohibited in any church where the experimental Easter Vigil was celebrated. Then, in 1956, they were universally suppressed, with the approval of Pius XII, for the entire Roman Rite.

In the next section, we will examine closely the “fallout” of this reform as it manifested itself in the 1962 Missal.


Continued


1. The minutes of all the meetings that the Commission held from its inception to 1960 when it was absorbed into the Central Preparatory Commission are reproduced as an appendix in N. Glampietro, Il Card. Ferdinando Antonelli e gli sviluppi della riforma liturgica dal 1948-1970, Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1998, pp. 278-388.
2. See Carlo Braga, ed., La Riforma Liturgica di Pio XII: Documenti: I. La Memoria sulla Riforma Liturgica, 1948, Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 2003, n. 117.
3. F. Antonelli, from the Preface to A. Bugnini, The Simplification of the Rubrics, trans. L.J. Doyle, Collegeville, MN: Doyle and Finegan, 1955, p. 7.
4. See the 7th century Gelasian Sacramentary, Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae, pp. 110 ff.
5. Memoria, Supplement II, 1950, n. 80, p. 79.

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

A Smashing Progressivist Victory

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

We have seen how the Vigil of Pentecost was twinned with the Easter Vigil, thus forming part of the balance and harmony that is characteristic of the Roman Rite. As such, it had long stood proudly aloft in the Calendar as a monument to the Faith, but it was brought crashing down in 1956, its shattered remains quickly swept under the carpet lest any trace should be left for posterity.

Fr. Gromier: The Vigil of Pentecost was ‘massacred’

If a monument of sorts still remains in the 1962 Missal in the form of the Mass which survived unscathed, it is not so much as a reminder of Tradition as of the revolution that brought the Vigil down.

Mgr. Leon Gromier’s knowledge of the Roman Rite was legendary, (1) and his love and respect for the ancient traditions were unsurpassed. So, his assessment of the reform of the Pentecost Vigil (which he described as having been “massacred”) is eminently worthy of credibility:

“The [reformed] Vigil of Pentecost is stripped of its baptismal character, and has become a day like any other and makes the Missal undermine the truth in the Canon.” (2)

Let us look into each of these points in order.


The Liturgy Impoverished

To celebrate the Pentecost Vigil without preparing for it with full Baptism-related rites – except in churches without a font (3) – was just unthinkable to our forefathers in the Faith. Historically, these preliminary ceremonies constituted a joint service with the Mass, the latter being the culmination of the whole Vigil. The two were regarded as inseparable, which explains why the Church ordered that both functions should be discharged by the same celebrant. (4)

Even though Baptism itself was not administered on every occasion, the associated ceremonies – Prophecies, procession, blessing of font and water, and litany – were, in fact, considered to be theologically more appropriate to Pentecost than to Easter. That is because they evoke the relationship between Baptism– “the re-birth” – and the Coming of the Holy Ghost, “the giver of life” (Nicene Creed).

So, cutting dead the baptismal rites of Pentecost deprived the Vigil at a stroke of a vital element of the Faith that had been given liturgical expression from the early years of Christianity.


Pentecost Vigil Slighted

Even though the Vigil kept its title as a liturgical day of the first class, it nevertheless suffered a demotion in its dignity when it lost its baptismal ceremonies, as these had entitled it to a rank in the Calendar equal to the Easter Vigil.

A manuscript illustrating the baptismal character of Pentecost

With the loss of its distinctive shape and rich theological content, the Pentecost Vigil suddenly became, as Mgr. Gromier remarked, “a day like any other.” What a comedown for a liturgical solemnity that had long enjoyed the highest honor of twinship with the Vigil of Easter, the “Queen of Feasts”!

Let us not forget that this only came about because of the Liturgical Commission’s prejudice against Vigils in general, understood in the traditional sense of a full liturgical day, penitential in nature, usually observed by fasting in preparation for a great Feast. As such, they no longer exist in the Novus Ordo. (5)

What happened to the 1962 Vigil of Pentecost was but the first step in this process of eliminating traditional Vigils from the Calendar. It was replaced in 1969 by an optional evening Mass with newly composed texts.


The Importance of Vigils in Church History

As a very ancient institution, the penitential Vigils were considered sacrosanct by the early Church Fathers, e.g., St. Jerome and St. Augustine, and were protected from arbitrary suppression by the juridical codes of canon law operative in the first millennium.

It was to the authority of these canons that St. Peter Damian appealed in the 11th century against those who objected to the penitential nature of Vigils. He called these carnally-minded contemporaries the “enemies of holy Vigils, these destroyers of time-honored fasts.” (6)

Significantly, it was only in the 20th century that the carnally-minded were allowed to prevail and to obliterate virtually all of the Church’s holy Vigils and “time-honored fasts”.


Another Bugnini Botch

When Pius XII’s Commission of “experts” interfered in the liturgy of the Pentecost Vigil, the result was a typical bureaucratic bungle.

Mgr. Gromier’s remark about the Canon of the Mass reveals the level of the Commission’s incompetence. He was referring to the prayer Hanc igitur, which has its own Proper in the Pentecost Vigil and is used, moreover, throughout the Octave. Existing evidence from the 8th century Gregorian Sacramentary shows that the words of this Hanc igitur were directly linked to the Vigil’s baptismal rites. (7)

Francis and a charismatic leader pray at a novus ordo ‘Pentecost vigil’ at the Circus Maximus in Rome

But the focus and meaning of the prayer was lost when its referent (the baptismal rites preceding the Vigil Mass) was expunged from the Roman Missal. The result, horribile dictu, was that the words of the celebrant no longer corresponded with the Church’s own lex orandi as it had been practised since the 5th century.

The result was a jarring disconnect with Tradition that compromised the Church’s public witness to the Faith in her liturgy – that there is but one Baptism for the remission of sins, and that those wishing to be saved must be re-born “from water and the Holy Ghost.”

The reformers scoffed that the Hanc igitur had already become a meaningless vestige because, since the early Middle Ages, the number of catechumens baptized at the Pentecost Vigil declined. They did not seem to realize that its true meaning was not strictly limited to either time or place.

For, in this part of the Canon, the priest mentions all who have been baptized in the ceremonies of that day throughout the universal Church, irrespective of whether the Sacrament itself had been administered before that particular Mass. It was also an act of solidarity with the catechumens of the early Church, who were baptized on the Vigil of Pentecost by means of the same rites. Thus, these rites affirmed the Catholicity of the Church throughout the world and down the ages.

These points, however, were not addressed by the Commission, whose members were already sharpening their knives for the next round of cuts to the traditional liturgy. But what are the chances of anyone in authority today addressing these issues with a view to rectifying the injustices suffered by Catholics deprived of their rightful heritage?

Continued

1. As the author of the Commentary on the Ceremonial of Bishops (1959), Mgr. Leon Gromier was recognized – and feared – in the Vatican and beyond as the 20th century’s pre-eminent expert on the Roman Rite.
2. “La Vigile de la Pentecôte n’a plus rien de baptismal, devenue un jour comme un autre, et faisant mentir le Missel dans le Canon.”
3. This was the case, for example, for the Dominicans with the rare exception of those who ran parishes. Nevertheless, minus the blessing of water, the Dominican Rite retained, with minor variations, all the other features of the Pentecost Vigil observed by the traditional Roman Rite.
4. This is explained by Fr. Nicholas Gihr, a traditional historian of the Mass, in The Holy Sacrifice Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, Freiburg: Herder, 1902, p. 382.
5. With the exception of Christmas and Easter, Vigils were either deleted from the 1969 Calendar or reduced to an optional evening Mass.
We must also distinguish between the “Mass of the Vigil” in the traditional Calendar and the so-called “Vigil Mass” of the Novus Ordo, which is an “anticipated” Mass of the following day. Canon 1248 §1 permits Catholics to miss the Mass of Sundays and Feasts by attending it on the previous evening. So much confusion has been generated over this issue – especially as new Vigil Masses have been written and various “options” have been introduced – that the whole concept of a Vigil of preparation eludes most Catholics today.
6. Peter Damian, Letter 118, apud The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation, vol. 5, The Letters of Peter Damian 91-120, CUA Press, 1989, p. 342.
7. The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great, p. 77. Here, the Hanc igitur is specifically included among the Propers of the Vigil Mass celebrated “post ascensum fontis” (after the administration of Baptism).

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

Abolishing 15 out of 18 Octaves of Feasts

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

If Vigils were treated badly under Pius XII, Octaves fared even worse. In fact, they were specifically mentioned as one of the first items targeted by the 1948 Commission for excision from the liturgy in the interests of “simplification.” (1)

From the Vigil Mass, Day 3, in the Octave of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul

Of the 18 Octaves in use in the Tridentine Missal, (2) only 3 – those of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost – survived the 1956 reform. The Feasts deprived of their Octaves were:

• Epiphany;
  
• Nativity of St John the Baptist;
  
• SS. Peter & Paul;
  
• St. Lawrence
  
• Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
  
• Nativity of Our Lady;
  
• All Saints;
  
• Immaculate Conception;
  
• St. Stephen;
  
• St. John the Evangelist;
  
• Holy Innocents;
  
• Solemnity of St Joseph;
  
• Ascension;
  
• Corpus Christi;
  
• Sacred Heart.
  

It is obvious from this list that Octaves were a key mainstay of the Liturgical Year throughout its different Seasons. While Vigils had the function of preparing the faithful for the Church’s great festivals and helping them to participate more effectively in them, Octaves functioned by allowing room or breathing space for the “special graces” of each Season to be assimilated and applied to their everyday lives. Without these practical aids to the spiritual life, the Church’s Feasts are more likely to be treated as transient occurrences with little expectation of long-term effects.

What reason, then, did Pius XII’s Commission give for the demolition of so many pillars of the lex orandi whose removal would make the whole structure of the Liturgical Year unsafe and unstable?

The official reason was the old chestnut of “simplification,” to prevent Octaves from overlapping other Feasts. But the Church already had tried and tested methods for dealing with this eventuality, which did not involve abolishing Octaves. (3)

The real reason, expressed by the Commission members in their “Memo,” was to have the Liturgy “freed from certain accretions, which obscure its beauty and diminish in a certain sense its efficacy.” (4) That was one way of saying that the growth of Octaves was a useless and unwanted addition and an ugly excrescence on the face of the Roman Rite.


Destruction of the Octave of the Epiphany

What was so unacceptable about the Octave of the Epiphany (which was even older than that of Christmas) that it had to be expunged from the Church’s Calendar in 1956? The answer was not readily apparent to contemporary Catholics, who were understandably mystified by its loss.

However, if we look ahead to the 1969 reforms, we can see with hindsight what was missing from the Epiphany Mass of the Novus Ordo but had been included in the traditional Feast and Octave. One major omission was the constantly reiterated references to the homage due to the King of Kings by “all the kings of the earth” (5) in the traditional Epiphany Mass and its Octave prayers.

This theme of the extension of Christ’s Kingship to the whole world could hardly be allowed to survive in the age of Religious Liberty ushered in by Vatican II. The Octave had to disappear so that its message would not to clash with Bugnini’s “recycled” Epiphany Mass, which would be specially written in 1969 to reflect the new progressivist outlook.


Effects of the reform

The abolition of the Octave of the Epiphany (which, incidentally, before the 1956 reforms, had outranked that of Christmas), (6) was not without repercussions. It gave rise to two innovations in the 1962 Missal, albeit tentative ones, but which would reach their full flowering in the Novus Ordo.

The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles was undermined by eliminating the Epiphany Octave

First, the final day of the Octave, 13th January, was renamed by Pius XII the “Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord.” This was a pure innovation – there had never been a precedent for such a Feast Day in the Roman Rite. (7) Nor was there a longstanding popular devotion to this aspect of Christ’s Divinity (as there had been, for example, to the Sacred Heart) (8) to justify this addition.

In the Tridentine Missal, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan was only narrated in the Gospel of the day as a second Manifestation of His Divinity, so as not to detract from the pre-eminence of the first Epiphany, which was being celebrated in the Octave.

The significance of this innovation was lost on most Catholics before Vatican II because they could not have realized where it was leading. For, at that time, only the members of the Liturgical Commission and their close associates knew the answer, and they were keeping it a secret.

But, the crunch was yet to come. It transpired that Pius XII’s initiative was a kite-flying exercise to prepare the faithful for the next stage of the reform. Having made the faithful swallow the new title, the reformers invented and served up a new Feast to correspond – the Baptism of the Lord – which entered the Roman Calendar in 1969.

The long-term effect of this reform was to undermine the immemorial custom in the West of thinking of the Epiphany specifically as the Feast of Christ’s Manifestation to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. (9) Nevertheless, it was incorporated into the 1962 Missal by Pope John XXIII.

Hollywood-inspired images for the new Baptism of Christ feast in the 1st Sunday after January 6

Only with hindsight can we see the connection between Pius XII’s reform and that of Paul VI who extended the Christmas Season to the first Sunday after the Epiphany (the newly minted Baptism of the Lord). By conflating the two Manifestations of Christ (His Birth and Baptism), the reformers obscured the defining characteristic of the Epiphany – Christ manifesting himself to all people as their Divine King, to Whom all rulers owe subservience – a doctrine utterly abhorrent to the progressivist mindset.

Even a small child can grasp that notion when looking at the crib figures with the Three Kings bowing down to the Christ Child. Now, as a result of the Novus Ordo, most adults know less about the Faith than the children of previous generations.

Second, in 1956, the period of the Liturgical Year after 13th January (Pius XII’s “Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord”) was renamed “the time per annum before Septuagesima.” Few people at the time would have spotted this time-bomb planted in the 1962 Missal, set to detonate in 1969, or even suspected that this innocuous-sounding change in nomenclature spelt doom for the traditional arrangement of seasons and feasts in the General Roman Calendar. (10)

For, the term “time per annum” was later adopted in the Novus Ordo to designate the revolutionary concept of “Ordinary Time,” invented solely to obliterate the “Sundays after the Epiphany,” the “Sundays after Pentecost” and the whole Septuagesima Season. And, sure enough, all were blown sky-high when the bomb went off.


Continued


1. 1948 Memoria, chap. 1, n. 5.
2. This number does not include the Octaves for local Feasts such as the dedication of a church or cathedral, for the titular of a church, or for the Patron Saint of a religious order, diocese or nation, all of which were abolished by Pius XII.
3. The rubrics of the Missal dealt successfully with the problem of “occurrence” (i.e., when two Feasts coincided) in a variety of ways, including commemorating the lower-ranking Feast in the Mass of the day, translating it to the next free day, inserting it into a Local Calendar or celebrating it at a different altar from that of the main Mass.
4. 1948 Memoria, n. 7.
5. This reference, taken from Psalm 71:10-11, has also been entirely removed from the Novus Ordo Epiphany Mass.
6. In the General Roman Calendar of 1954, the two Octaves were classified respectively as of second and third rank.
7. Any objections to the reform were brushed aside on the irrelevant grounds that the Baptism of Christ was celebrated by Eastern Rite Christians on the Epiphany.
8. Although the Octave of the Sacred Heart had only been added in 1929, this was not an innovation, but an enhancement of the Feast promoted by successive Popes since its institution in 1765. In fact, the cult of the Sacred Heart long pre-dates that year. As Dom Guéranger observed, there was a custom dating from the early Doctors of the Church and many Saints of regarding the Wound of Jesus’s Side pierced by the lance as “the source of all graces.”
Moreover, to atone for the sins of nations, which had violated the rights of Christ in the public sphere, Pius XI ordered that, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, an Act of Reparation should be made in all the churches of the world.
9. The other two Manifestations of Christ – the Baptism of Christ and the Marriage at Cana – were mentioned in the Gospels of the 13th January and the Second Sunday after the Epiphany respectively. They reflected the themes of illumination (Baptism) and power (to work miracles) contained in the Epiphany Feast.
10. The 1962 Saint Andrew Daily Missal, for example, provides an explanatory note in order to familiarize its readers with the concept of “time per annum.” With reference to the Sundays after the Epiphany and Pentecost, it states that “instead of being arranged to portray the progressivist development of the mysteries of Christ, the prayer and teaching of the Church are given for their own sake, independently of any feast or particular occasion.”

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

Destroying the Octave of Pentecost

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Although the extremely ancient Octave of Pentecost, dating back to the 4th century, survived the 1956 reforms, the decision to abolish it had already been made by Pius XII’s Commission in February 1950. (1) In fact, from 1948, when the Liturgical Commission put forward a proposal to “courageously abolish the Octave,” (2) its days were numbered, in more ways than one.

Paul VI in 1969, the year he erased the Pentecost Octave from the liturgy

It was, therefore, always a “racing certainty” that this would be accomplished, if not under Pius XII, then at the first available opportunity. The Octave was given a stay of execution until 1969, when Paul VI erased it completely in order to accommodate the Novus Ordo “Ordinary Time,” which starts immediately after Pentecost Sunday.

There was, thus, no time for fond farewells or lingering leave-taking of this mighty Feast that was pivotal for the whole Liturgical Year, no time to savour its message or meditate on the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in Whose honor the Octave was instituted.

Having been deprived both of its Vigil and Octave, the Feast of Pentecost was suddenly reduced to an ordinary Sunday. It was turned into a stand-alone Feast and made to look like a one-day wonder, after which the liturgy was unceremoniously hustled from Red to Green and disconnected from the theme of Pentecost.


Wheeling, Dealing & Stealing

The ethicality of this reform is brought into question when we consider how it was pushed through by Bugnini alone amidst a welter of confusion and without either the informed consent or clear agreement of anyone else. Regarding the suppression of the Octave of Pentecost, Bugnini later admitted that there was much disagreement and shilly-shallying among the Consilium members and that the matter was never fully resolved:

“Here again there was disagreement. The suppression was accepted with the expectation that the formularies of the Octave would be used during the nine days of preparation for Pentecost. On this point again there were changes of mind, but the decision of the Fathers finally prevailed… [However], it subsequently caused confusion and second thoughts.” (3)

No doubt the “second thoughts” came when they realized – too late – that Bugnini’s prevarications had made it difficult for them to figure out precisely how they had been deceived into accepting an unequal trade-off between one of the highest-ranking Octaves and a concocted Novena of preparation for Pentecost. (4)


The Traditional Octave of Pentecost

Medieval illumination of Pentecost

As with the Vigil of Pentecost, the Octave had also been closely connected with that of Easter. Both shared the distinction – unique in the Tridentine Calendar – of being classified as Octaves of the first rank.

As Dom Guéranger observed: “The mystery of Pentecost holds so important a place in the Christian dispensation, that we cannot be surprised at the Church's ranking it, in her liturgy, on an equality with her Paschal solemnity.”

Great would have been his surprise had he lived to see the abolition of the Octave, not to mention the Vigil, of Pentecost whose liturgy had entitled it to parity of esteem with the Easter celebrations.

Let us consider the astounding artistry and aesthetic beauty of this part of our spiritual patrimony, which Bugnini had been planning to destroy from 1948.


Distinctive Features of the Pentecost Octave

Each Mass of the Octave had its own special character, celebrating one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost in ascending order, to illustrate the successive steps of the soul towards increased likeness to Christ. (5) Why abolish the extension of Pentecost, a Feast in which, as Pope St Leo the Great taught, the Holy Ghost dispenses His Gifts “ditior largitate” (in more generous measure)? (6)

At each Mass the Veni Sancte Spiritus with its Alleluia was sung or recited to reinforce the “outpouring of the Holy Ghost” at Pentecost. Formerly known as the “Golden Sequence,” it was widely appreciated as a masterpiece of liturgical poetry, yet its flowing rhythms, its clarity and simplicity made it appeal to the masses.

Another notable feature of the Octave was its three Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) with fasting and partial abstinence – an obvious no-no for Bugnini who had just abolished Septuagesima and tried, unsuccessfully, to do the same to Ash Wednesday. (7)

What distinguished these Ember Days from all the others in the Liturgical Year was their position within a season of jubilation, which made them a bitter-sweet time, partaking of both fasting and feasting.


A Purely Subjective Reform

Even the progressivist theologian Fr. Louis Bouyer, a key player in the Liturgical Movement, expressed his shock and horror at this reform, which he considered both senseless and arbitrary. He delivered this broadside against his fellow progressivists:

“I prefer to say nothing, or virtually nothing, of the new Calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed, with no good reason, Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints who knows where, all based on notions of their own!” (8)

What exactly were these “notions of their own”? A brief examination of the rationale for the abolition of the Pentecost Octave will show that it was carried out in flagrant repudiation of the principles of liturgical development. For, as we shall see, Bugnini failed to apply any standards of rational evaluation of the existing tradition.

1. The rationale for the abolition of the Octave rests on Bugnini’s iron-clad theory that the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost should be a hermetically sealed unit, and that to extend the period by another few days is tantamount to destroying the unity of the Easter Season:

“The Easter season lasts 50 days, beginning with the Easter Vigil and ending with Pentecost Sunday. This is attested by the ancient and universal tradition of the Church, which has always celebrated the seven weeks of Easter as though they were a single day that ends with the feast of Pentecost. For this reason, the octave of Pentecost, which was added to the 50 days of Easter in the 6th century, has been abolished.” (9)

But, the premise is logically irrelevant to the conclusion, having no bearing whatsoever on whether the Octave should be abolished. Besides, there is simply not enough solid evidence about the liturgical practices of the first centuries to state with certainty that there were never any days of extended festivities after Pentecost. (10) And even if there were not, it would not entitle the reformers to wipe out over 1600 years of ancient and universal tradition and throw the Octave of Pentecost into the flames.

Incredibly, this 50-day-and-no-more argument (11) was enshrined in the 1969 Calendar by the Congregation of Rites and signed by its Secretary, the future Cardinal Antonelli.

The old liturgical calendar was completely unraveled by the reform

But, the reason given in that document for the abolition was spurious, being based on words purportedly written by St. Athanasius that the 50 days were celebrated “as one feast day, indeed as one ‘great Sunday.’” (12) But it can be easily verified that St. Athanasius did not write the words attributed to him in the quote. (13) Absurdly, the Bishop of Alexandria is now regarded as the champion of an Octave-less Pentecost, even though he never opposed the concept of an extended Feast.

Not only was the Pentecost Octave not a diminution of Easter, but it was eminently fitting as a vehicle of greater honor to the Holy Spirit, which was the entire purpose of the Pentecost celebrations. How could the same Spirit be pleased with the abolition of a liturgy that owed its inspiration to Himself ad majorem Gloria Dei?

2. The reformers complained that the Octave was defective because its last day was missing, overlapping with Trinity Sunday. (14)

But, this is demonstrably untrue. For, according to the Roman Missal, the Octave of Pentecost, like that of Easter, starts on the Vigil and ends the following Saturday. (15)

3. They claimed that the Octave contained a self-contradictory feature: fasting and feasting in a week of joyous celebration.

But, the purpose of fasting during the Pentecost Ember Days was not penitential. That is why the liturgical vestments were red rather than purple, while the folded chasubles – the quintessential garment of priestly penitence – were not used. Here, fasting was meant as a spiritual limbering up exercise to imitate the Apostles who, as Pope Leo the Great explained, having been sent by the Spirit, prepared themselves with “holy fasts” for their missionary service in the world. (16)

The whole basis of this reform was fundamentally flawed.

Continued


1. Memoria, Supplement II, 1950, p. 23, n. 76. Of the 3 “experts” consulted by the Commission, Dom Capelle stated that the Octave should be retained, but he was outnumbered by Frs. Jungmann and Righetti who voted to abolish it.
2. The same source reveals that this was exactly the same 2:1 outcome for the proposal to abolish the Octave of the Ascension and replace it with a pre-Pentecost Novena. Interestingly, Capelle stated that “no sufficient reason” was given for this change, and that it was “unheard of in any liturgical rites.” (“Sufficiens ratio non datur cur traditionalis octava mutetur in Novenam, quod inauditum est in usibus liturgicis”).
3. “Rinunciare corragiosamente all’octava”, Memoria, 1948, §79, p. 79.
4. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 307, n. 9; p. 319, n. 38.
5. Bugnini had already planned this strategy in 1950. See Note 1.
6. Sunday: Fear of the Lord; Monday: Godliness (Piety); Tuesday: Knowledge; Wednesday: Fortitude; Thursday: Counsel; Friday: Understanding; Saturday: Wisdom. Dom Guéranger explains the logic of the order: the first five gifts are the graces needed for the active life of the faithful in the world; the rest relate to the contemplative life and our mystical union with Christ.
7. Leo I, Sermo LXXVII, Chapter 1, ‘De Pentecoste III.’
8. Mgr. Pierre Jounel, whom Bugnini appointed to the Consilium, stated that they wanted to scrap Ash Wednesday and have Lent begin on its first Sunday. See ‘L'Organisation de l'année liturgique,’ La Maison-Dieu, 100 (1969), pp. 147-148.
L. Bouyer, Mémoires, Paris, Editions du Cerf, 2014, pp.199-200. Fr. Bouyer did not mention any names, but the Editor of the Mémoires (Note 29, pp. 303-304) conjectured that at least one of them was Mgr. Pierre Jounel who was in charge of the Temporal Cycle of the Calendar.
9. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 319.
10. At least in the Eastern liturgical heritage there was always a post-Pentecost week dating back to the early Fathers. This was called an “Afterfeast” instead of an Octave. And a document relating to the 3rd and 4th centuries speaks of a post-Pentecost week of festivities: “Therefore, after you have kept the festival of Pentecost, keep one week more festival.” (Apostolic Constitutions, Book V, Chapter XX)
11. This, incidentally, was the same type of specious argument Bugnini used to justify the abolition of the Septuagesima Season, which allegedly overstepped the 40 days of Lent: “there should be a simplification. It was not possible to restore Lent to its full importance without sacrificing Septuagesima, which is an extension of Lent”. Ibid., p. 307, n. 6)
12. General Norms of the Liturgical Calendar, 1969, (§ 22, n. 12, Athanasius, Epistula festalis 1).
13. See here.
14. Memoria, 1948, §79, p. 79.
15. This is confirmed by Dom Guéranger in The Liturgical Year: “the Pentecost solemnity began on the Vigil, for the neophytes at once put on their white garments: on the eighth day, the Saturday, they laid them aside.”
16. Pope Leo I, Sermon 78, On the Whitsuntide Fast, I.

[Stone]

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

‘Active Participation’ Revisited

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

We began this study with the theme of “active participation” (actuosa participatio in Latin). As a catch-phrase, it rose to prominence in the Church within the Liturgical Movement in the mid 20th century, having sprung fully formed from the new “theology of the liturgical assembly,” like Venus from the sea, and soon gave rise to its own mythology.

'Active participation' rises fully formed in the Church like another Venus from the sea...

Before that, it was customary to describe the faithful as “assisting at Mass” (understood as “being present” at the Holy Sacrifice), “hearing Mass” in silence while the priest “said” the Mass, or “receiving the Sacraments” at the hands of the priest. There was no question of the laity having the responsibility of actively “celebrating” these ceremonies along with the priest.

That was something entirely new in the Church.

It was only when Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution promoted “active participation” as the primary goal of the liturgy (“the aim to be achieved before all else”) (1) that this hitherto relatively unknown quantity ricocheted around the world. Even before the invention of the internet, within a short time it achieved viral status.

The expression was on the lips of liturgical reformers throughout the Church, soon becoming etched into the collective imagination as the defining characteristic of the reform. The infatuation with “active participation” proved itself to be boundless. No aspect of the liturgy was immune to its influence, for all the reforms, including those of Pius XII, were specifically devised with the “active participation” of the faithful in mind. One could say that the Vatican II liturgical reform has “active participation” running through it like the letters in a stick of rock. (2)

It is now time to recapitulate the main points of this new principle which revolutionized the whole of liturgical life. We will be addressing the following questions:

• Where did the expression come from?
  
• What was its precise meaning?
  
• Was it really necessary?
  
• How was it received by the laity?
  
• What effects did it produce?
  

A Phrase of Dubious Provenance

It says something about the standards of reliability in the Liturgical Movement that everyone took it for granted that “actuosa participatio” came from the pen of Pius X, without making any serious effort to investigate the truth of the claim. Such insouciance about the authenticity of provenance would not be considered acceptable in the world of fine arts, archaeology, commerce, scientific experiments and many other areas of public life. For, provenance is the determining factor in distinguishing between what is genuine and what is fake, and in deciding what information is to be trusted.

The original Latin document of the Saint never used the word actuosa (active)

Who would give a large sum of money to a dodgy dealer in the antiquities market for an artefact with no identifiable origin? So, why should we entrust the infinitely greater value of our souls to the machinations of liturgical progressivists when many of their ideas have been exposed by modern researchers as based on fiction?

As for the expression “active participation,” when we consider the question of the authenticity of its provenance, we touch on the moral issue of the reform which includes honesty and integrity. Did Pius X actually use the word actuosa (active) or did he not?

True, the Italian version of Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio contained the word attiva (active) in connection with lay participation in the liturgy. Nevertheless, the only authentic and authoritative document that faithfully reproduces his words is the Latin version, and an attentive reading of that document would show that the word actuosa is entirely missing.

Like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story (3) who didn’t bark in the night, it is the absence of the epithet actuosa that clinches the argument against the notion that Pius X intended lay people to perform parts of the liturgy. No further evidence is needed to disprove the claim that Pius X used actuosa in his Latin document.

This is not an insignificant discrepancy between the two documents, for the equivalent of the word “active” in the Italian version would determine the outcome of the whole liturgical reform, whereas the Latin version simply preserved and fostered Tradition. In fact, actuosa participatio was the dominant theme of the reform movement under Pius XII – it made its first appearance in his time – and also colored the outlook of many Bishops and priests of the pre-Vatican II generation. It influenced the creation of the Novus Ordo Mass in which the priest was reduced to being the “presider” over the rest of the assembly’s activities.

Given that the “active” element was the guiding principle of the reform, it is highly implausible that the writer of the Latin version “forgot” to include actuosa or thought it was to be simply taken for granted. It was not there because it was not meant to be there. And it was not meant to be there because it does not “fit” with the traditional lex orandi, being incompatible with the values and culture of Catholic worship.


Contextual Evidence

Let it not be thought that evidence of absence alone is the only argument being adduced. Another factor that is equally important, if not more so, is the contextual evidence of the document. We have seen how the phrase “active participation” did not derive from the Latin text itself, but nevertheless managed to serve the revolutionary agenda of the reformers. It has also been demonstrated that no part of the original Latin document indicates that the Pope envisaged an “active” role for the congregation. See here and here.

Pope Pius X specified he wanted all male, well-trained Scholae for every parish

In the wider context, Pius X had never mentioned “active participation” in any document he wrote on Sacred Music before he became Pope – nor did his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII. Indeed, such a concept was never mentioned in any previous papal document going back in history to the earliest centuries.

There is simply no convincing evidence that Pius X intended the congregation to participate by singing Gregorian Chant, for in his motu proprio he stated that “singers in church have a real liturgical office.” Therefore, he designated the clergy and the all-male choir as the sole legitimate executors of Gregorian Chant. We may infer that the congregation was, by definition, not included in this form of participation.

It is clear, then, that Pius X regarded the laity as listeners, not singers. This is reinforced in another part of the same document where he mentioned two distinct categories of participants in the liturgy: those who sing (the clergy and the choir) and those for whose spiritual benefit the singing is undertaken (the rest of the faithful).

This makes perfect sense only in terms of traditional Catholic worship, as it is the clergy who communicate the divine to the faithful by the performance of the rites. (Conversely, it would make no sense at all to claim that the congregation has a right and a duty to perform the singing along with the clergy and the choir).

Catholic Tradition has preserved the idea that Gregorian Chant is of divine inspiration and is a means of grace for the faithful. In medieval iconography, Pope Gregory the Great is often depicted with a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, whispering the melodies into his ear as he composed them, while a scribe writes them down.

St. Gregory the Great dictates to a scribe melodies sung to him by a dove, representing the Holy Spirit

In § 2 of the General Principles, Pius X referred first to the holiness of Gregorian Chant and the “manner in which it is presented by those who execute it.” Then, he mentioned the efficacy of such music in touching the hearts and minds of those who listen to it (“in animis audientium illam”).

But, in order to produce the desired effect of helping the soul to attain deeper levels of contemplation of the divine mysteries, the singing must “semper optime canatur” (always be sung to the highest standards (4)), and the voices competently trained for that purpose.

That is why Pius X called for Scholae Cantorum to be established in seminaries and religious institutions “for the execution of sacred polyphony and of good liturgical music” (§ 25), and also at parochial level, “even in smaller churches and country parishes.” (§ 27)

Moreover, it is inconceivable that this great anti-Modernist Pope and defender of the priesthood would have officially endorsed an active role for the congregation in the liturgy. As we have seen, this grew out of the subversive claim, espoused by progressivist theologians who were the heirs of the modernists condemned by Pius X, that the laity had both the right and duty to perform parts of the liturgy with the priest.

It was part and parcel of the new “theology of the assembly,” which was not really new because it simply recapitulated old “Reformation” heresies condemned by the Council of Trent and were making a comeback after Pius X had driven the modernists underground.

What is perturbing about this situation is that an expression whose impact was felt throughout the Church has no properly authenticated origin.


Continued


1. Sacrosanctum Concilium § 14.
2. A “stick of rock” is a familiar expression to British people and is associated with seaside resorts, such as Blackpool, Brighton etc. It is a long cylindrical piece of confectionery, usually peppermint flavour, with the name of the town stamped internally throughout its length. In Graham Greene’s novel, Brighton Rock, the character, Ida, says: “It’s like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you'll still read Brighton.”
3. The Adventure of Silver Blaze, a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in which Holmes investigates the disappearance of the eponymous racehorse and the apparent murder of its trainer. Holmes grasped the significance of the guard dog’s silence, for the midnight visitor was one the dog knew well. And, as he explained, “one true inference invariably suggests others,” he soon unravelled the mystery.
4. The self-styled “official” Italian version in the Acta Sanctae Sedis says “sempre bene eseguite” (always well sung), but bene (well) does not accurately translate the superlative adverb optime (to the highest degree) in the Latin version. We have already pointed out several mistranslations in the Italian version.

[Stone]

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

Endless Abuses of ‘Active Participation’

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

It is worth remembering that for ecclesiastic documents – magisterial, liturgical and legal – the Latin version was always the normative one. Only the Latin text of Pius X’s Code of Canon Law, (1) for example, had force of law. The same applies to his motu proprio which describes itself as a “juridical code of sacred music” issued for the universal Church with the “fullness of Our Apostolic Authority” and having “the “force of law.”

Only the Latin texts of documents - e.g. the 1917 Code of Canon Law - had the full force of law

Latin rather than any vernacular version assures accuracy in the transmission and correct understanding of information. It follows that, where there are discrepancies between the Latin and vernacular, the corresponding Latin version predominates.

A rigorous study of Tra le sollecitudini (TLS) would confirm that it is riddled with ambiguities, nuances and concepts not found in the Latin text. So, those unwise enough to rely on the various vernacular interpretations of TLS have only second- third- and-fourth-hand corruptions of the Latin, with each version diverging further from the original.

It is not difficult to envisage how the liturgical reforms have been affected by decades of linguistic misunderstanding on the part of Pastors who had never consulted the normative Latin source, and who were dependent on corrupted translations. They simply relied on whatever the progressivist reformers had told them. As a result, “active participation” was eventually taken for granted by all Novus Ordo priests, despite its capacity to overthrow the objective liturgical tradition and the rubrical framework that held it firmly in place.

Such a system has the obvious potential to be exploited in order to meet the reformers’ perceptions of the “good of the Church” – a phrase used in Sacrosanctum Concilium (§ 23) as an excuse to introduce “innovations.” But without accurate information, how could those responsible for liturgical reforms make sound decisions consonant with the Church’s self-understanding?


Exegesis or Eisegesis?

Reliance on faulty translations was never the practice in any area of ecclesiastical life before Pius XII’s reforms. Traditionally, the Church used a method of interpretation known as exegesis, which draws out of the Latin text the meaning its author meant to convey.

On the other hand, there is the method called eisegesis, whereby the translator introduces his own presuppositions and biases into the text by “seeing” what he wishes to find in it, e.g. “actuosa” (active). This involves reading into the text what is not there.

A medieval manuscript depicts clerics grouped around the Bishop at a holy service

As we have seen, this is exactly what happened to certain passages in Tra le sollecitudini, the most egregious example being the following:

“To restore the use of Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.”

This was the preferred method of the liturgical reformers who set out to “prove” what were really only their own subjective notions and pre-held agenda for “active participation.” Even today, they obsess so much about the word “active” that they miss the whole point of the motu proprio.

It is understandable that actuosa (active) was not used in the Latin version of the motu proprio for the following reasons.

First, because the word lends itself to a vague and general interpretation: Its very fluidity would have made the application of the law not only problematic in its own day, but also subject to a broad interpretation by future lawmakers.

And indeed, as recent history has shown, the range of possible interpretations of “active participation” is limitless and continues to expand exponentially. Nor is it possible to contain or control its expansion without nullifying Article 14 of the Liturgy Constitution, which declared “active participation” to be the overriding goal to which all other considerations are subordinated.


The Principle of Relativism

Second, “active participation” is based on a falsehood, the principle of relativism, whereby the liturgy handed down through the centuries is adapted to the subjective and changing perceptions of the people participating. These vary from parish to parish, from one Novus Ordo Mass to another, depending on how each Liturgy Committee assesses a particular group’s cultural norms and values.

Although few could have realized it in 1963, this was the fundamental import of §19 of the Liturgy Constitution, (2) which, of course, spelt the end for the objective Liturgical Tradition


A Question of Logic

To illustrate the point, we will make use of the Medieval adage, ex falso quodlibet (“from a falsehood, anything follows”), meaning that once a contradiction is admitted as truth, any conclusion, however nonsensical, can logically be derived from it.

As an aside, we can see how this worked in practice as a direct result of the false principles ‒ “opening to the world,” “ecumenism” etc. ‒ introduced by Vatican II in contradiction to the Church’s Tradition. The ensuing toll of destruction speaks for itself.

From the opening comes every aberration, like the beach Mass, above, and its choir, below

When applied to the Novus Ordo liturgy, this principle explains the logical underpinnings of the regime of novelty. Once “active participation” is accepted as an authentic and indispensable method of lay involvement in the liturgy, any activity – no matter how inappropriate, sacrilegious or offensive to morals – flows logically from the false premise.

Even though the logic of the liturgical reforms makes sense within its own terms of reference, its starting point (“active participation”) was wrong. So, its conclusions (the practical consequences as evidenced in the Novus Ordo Masses) were also wrong in spite of the correctness of its logic or, rather, because of it.

The truth of this adage was demonstrated by St. Thomas More in the 16th century in one of his polemical treatises against the Protestant reformers who had rejected the doctrine of the Real Presence and changed their liturgies to suit. When William Tyndale mocked some of the Church’s traditional rituals as superstitious practices, More replied that anyone capable of deriding the way devout Catholics worshipped over the centuries is also likely to disdain the Eucharist Itself. (3)

This principle also explains why so many Churchmen see nothing at all amiss with the routine irreverence displayed during the liturgy, especially to the Eucharistic Presence, and do not “see” the most outrageous examples of profanation, even though they hit you right in the eye. These are the inevitable outcomes of the all-encompassing directive of Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution, which makes “active participation” the primary consideration of the liturgy. Those who enact it are, after all, only obeying the logic of the reforms and are convinced they are perfectly correct.

Thus, the root of the present crisis in the liturgy can be traced to that single word “active,” which was first slipped into the vernacular version of TLS and was reiterated in subsequent magisterial documents. Because it stood in contradiction to Tradition ‒ in fact, it was expressly intended by the progressivists to stamp out the contemplative and devotional dimension of worship that provided a sense of reverence and awe – it had the effect of causing the entire logical framework of the lex orandi to “explode.” (4)

Providentially, there is no such tripwire in the Latin motu proprio of Pius X.


The Logic of True Participation

But the traditional Roman Rite, which had withstood the test of time and was fine-tuned to be quintessentially Catholic, had a logic of its own, which was understood (alas, this is no longer the case) by all practicing Catholics, no matter what century they lived in.

St. Thomas More explained it thus:

“Good folk find this indeed, that when they be at the divine service in the church, the more devoutly that they see such godly ceremonies observed, and the more solemnity that they see therein, the more devotion feel they themselves therewith in their own souls.” (5)

St. Thomas More emphasizes the need for solemnity

That was precisely the logic of Pius X’s motu proprio. In the Introduction the Pope singled out from among his many concerns the one that was of the greatest importance: (6) to promote the “decorum of the house of God” and the solemnity and splendour of the ceremonies. Therefore, he said, nothing should take place that would disturb or diminish the prayer and piety of the faithful who participated by drawing spiritual sustenance from the actions of the priest and his ministers in the sanctuary.

This was the reality of lay participation experienced by countless Catholics for centuries, before the Liturgical Movement discredited the practice and reviled the faithful as “silent spectators.”

Fr. J. D. Crichton, one of the most virulent opponents of silent participation, taking his cue from the Liturgy Constitution, stated: “The Mass does not fully manifest the intention of the Church if the baptized members of the congregation remain silent.” (7)

But then, as far as the liturgical reformers were concerned, the question of fidelity to Tradition was academic. Neither ethics nor truth was required, simply the strong arm of the law.

But, where is the logic in funding one’s own destruction?


Continued


1. The Pio-Benedictine Codex Juris Canonici (1917) was drawn up by Pius X and promulgated by Benedict XVI.
2. “With zeal and patience, pastors of souls must promote the liturgical instruction of the faithful, and also their active participation in the liturgy both internally and externally, taking into account their age and condition, their way of life, and standard of religious culture.” [emphasis added]
3. St. Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, in The Complete Works of St Thomas More, ed. Louis Schuster et al, vol. 8, book 1, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973, p. 111.
4. Ex falso quodlibet is also called “the principle of explosion.”
5. St. Thomas More, ibid., vol. 8, book 2, p. 161.
6. The English mistranslation refers to this concern as “a leading one,” implying that there were others of the same ranking, such as “active participation,” but Pius X had left no room for equivocation: “illa principem tenet locum” (this one holds the highest place).
7. J. D. Crichton, The Church’s Worship: Considerations on the Liturgical Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964, pp. 68-69.

[Stone]

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

Active Participation = Liturgical Abuse

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The first thing that strikes us is the inability of liturgical commentators to agree on what “active,” actuosa in Latin, means in the context of lay participation in the liturgy. It is a classic case of the “equivocation fallacy” when multiple meanings of a single term are conflated and treated as if equivalent.

Progressivists make the word ‘active’ mean whatever they want

Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass springs to mind, where words mean whatever you choose them to mean, in accordance with the “Humpty Dumpty principle” of (re)definition. (1) This is evidently not the wisest route to follow, for we all know what happened to the eponymous Egg.

The progressivists contend that actuosa must be influenced by human values, customs and institutions. In this they are supported by §§37-40 of the Vatican II Liturgy Constitution, which allow the liturgy to incorporate the cultural and social identities of all local communities, including their languages.

But this inescapably turns the decision-making process into a subjective evaluation system, so that no agreed limit can be set on what to include in the liturgy, and no easily identifiable grounds can be found for excluding anything either. (2)

Their more conservative counterparts, however, insist that actuosa means incorporating some traditional customs of genuflecting, making the sign of the Cross etc., with a dash of “dialogue” and congregational singing, plus the odd moment of silence for “contemplation.” The question is: Which of the two sides (if either) is in the right?

Latin dictionaries concur with Paul the Deacon on the meaning of the word

Paul the DeaconIn order to find the true meaning of actuosa – which, as we have seen, Pius X did not use in his 1903 motu proprio – the only reliable method to settle all disputes is to check its etymology. (3) This will show us how we arrived at its present usage, which is the best indicator of what it means today.

True to form, the Latin word has not changed meaning since its use in classical antiquity. Actuosus – to give it its dictionary entry form – meant the same for Seneca and Cicero as it did for St. Augustine, all of whom used the word to describe vigorous activity involving movement of the body. (4) We know this from the work of the 8th century Benedictine monk, Paul the Deacon, an important member of Charlemagne’s court, who recorded its meaning from Roman times for posterity. (5)

And ever since, all authoritative Latin dictionaries have defined actuosus as “very active, full of activity,” i.e., to a greater degree than other Latin words that denote activity, such as activus and actualis.

But Paul the Deacon had done more than provide a historical record. He put flesh on the bones of the word actuosus, showing how it was used to describe, for example, the actions of “saltatores et histriones” (dancers and actors). (6)


Progressivists 1; Conservatives 0

How ironic, then, that those who have introduced into the liturgy elements of the entertainment world such as clowns, jokes, puppets and dancing girls cavorting round the sanctuary, are in line with the true meaning of “actuosa participatio,” while those who criticize these activities as “abuses” have misunderstood it and are, therefore, mistaken!

Into this category falls the former Cardinal Ratzinger who wrote that “it is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy ‘attractive’ by introducing dancing pantomimes … which frequently … end with applause.” (7) But, on the contrary, that is a logical outcome consistent with the very meaning of actuosa. The real absurdity lies in objecting to such pantomimes while encouraging Vatican II’s call for an “inculturated” liturgy based on “actuosa participatio.”


The Martha-Mary dichotomy

Like it or not, the fact remains that actuosus depicts bodily movements of the most energetic kind, including theatrical performances. In classical Roman literature, as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers, it was always used in direct contrast to otiosus which indicates the state of contemplation. Moreover, it was accepted that one precludes the other.

Active participation interpreted here as most vigorous movements of the body...

Nevertheless, there are still some liturgical “experts” desperately trying to square the epistemological circle by maintaining that actuosus means “actual” rather than “active,” while others claim that it means “contemplative.” It is obvious that they are trying to reconcile their bogus claim with the semantic evidence that contradicts it. Yet such evidence is generally suppressed because to admit it would invalidate the very basis of the reform.

This redefinition of actuosus has, generally speaking, been the position of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well as various Heads of the post-Conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship, up to and including Cardinal Sarah. It comes across as an attempt to “sanitize” what they all admitted was problematic for the Church.

However, they stopped short of declaring the reform to have been a terrible mistake. They refuse to accept that the concept of “active participation” is fundamentally flawed, and claim that “abuses” have ruined the principles on which it was originally based. In other words, having set this wild hare running, the Holy See then tries to pretend that it is not responsible for the consequences.


The Central Paradox

So, they are well and truly stuck in a dilemma of their own making: How can a distinction be made between “active participation” and “liturgical abuse,” when “active participation” itself is the key means by which the “abuses” are actually perpetrated?

This may seem a moot point, a mere hypothesis of no practical importance, until we realize that the reformers have made “active participation” the battle-ground on which another of Vatican II’s slogans ‒ “the common priesthood of the faithful” ‒ is fought.

Its rationale was to confer on the congregation the right to perform parts of the Mass that were the purview of the active ministers of the liturgy, i.e., the clergy alone. It follows that, by negating in practice the strict separation that necessarily exists between priests and laity, “active participation” undermines the unique nature of the ordained priesthood.


An Impossible Conundrum

Wherever the Novus Ordo is celebrated, the confusion caused by the new teachings of Vatican II has left the Church in turmoil. If everything is the wrong way round and upside down, (the priest facing the people, the congregation saying/singing the Mass, lay readers and Eucharistic ministers in the sanctuary, Communion in the hand, the sacred vessels handled by anyone etc.) that is because the Novus Ordo reverses the established order of things, upsetting traditional law and logic, to the detriment of the Faith.

A line-up of ministers alongside the priest on an equal basis

Even the Popes cannot solve the conundrum because they themselves promote the basic premise of the reforms. They pay lip-service to the Church’s teaching that the two “priesthoods” (ordained and lay) are neither synonymous nor on an equal footing. But, they also promote “active participation” in the liturgy, which effectively conflates the two, and even raises the profile of the laity above that of the clergy, in accordance with the reformers’ wishes.

Why this conundrum cannot be solved is because “active participation” is an artificially created catch-phrase that does not reflect Catholic reality, and will, consequently, always be incompatible with it.


The Verbal Legacy of Communism

Furthermore, the expression “active participation” is an example of the insidious langue de bois (“wooden language)” – the French term for the bureaucratic lingo that was spoken and written by Soviet leaders and functionaries to hide the true meaning of their political systems.

The solution: Remain with the traditional Mass

Who would have thought that the type of rhetoric that once served Soviet propaganda, based on Marxist-Leninist values, would be made to serve as a model for ecclesiastical discourse?

By ruthlessly imposing “active participation” in every aspect of the liturgy, the reformers have shown themselves capable of perpetrating the same abuse of language and power that has always been associated with totalitarian regimes.

The only way to avoid falling into this liturgical tar pit in the first place is not to adopt the Vatican II wording or its frames of reference. If we wish to avoid such a sticky fate, it would be both practical and prudent, for the good of our souls, to adhere to the Tridentine Rite, which stands unambiguously for Catholic orthodoxy and Tradition.

Continued

1.“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean ‒ neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master ‒ that’s all.”
2. Article 37 states that the Church can admit into the liturgy “anything in these peoples’ way of life which is not indissolubly bound up with superstition and error.” It is left to individual judgement to decide what “indissolubly” entails and which customs are linked to the “spirit of the liturgy” interpreted by reforming liturgists.
But, as Vatican II’s “opening to the world” positively discourages disapproval of secular values, there is precious little scope left for exclusion of “anything in these peoples’ way of life.”
Article 38 indicates that these provisions are not limited to “mission countries” and can apply to any group of people in the world.
Article 40 calls for “an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy” to be implemented where judged suitable by the liturgical reformers.
3. Etymology, the study of the origin and development of words, comes from the Greek etymos (true). It helps us to understand better the true sense of a word as it is used today.
4. They often contrasted it with otiosus, meaning calm, quiet, undisturbed, a state conducive to contemplation.
5. Paul the Deacon transcribed and preserved parts of a lexicon written by the Roman grammarian, Festus, as a contribution to Charlemagne’s library. Paul’s summary, Epitome Festi De Verborum Significatu (Epitome of Festus’s “On the meaning of words”), still survives. According to the Festus Project of University College London, “The text, even in its present mutilated state, is an important source for scholars of Roman history.”
Paul’s entry for actuosus is mentioned in the most authoritative of all Latin dictionaries, the Totius Latinitatis Lexicon compiled by the 18th century Italian philologist, Fr. Egidio Forcellini. Forcellini’s Herculean work, conducted over a period of almost 40 years, formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published.
6. Egidio Forcellini, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, London, 1828, p. 32.
7. Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000, p. 198.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
‘The Faithful Have Consecratory Power’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Who are the “true actors” (1) in the liturgy? Before the Liturgical Movement, the answer was dazzlingly clear from the way Mass was performed by the priest with the assistance of his ministers at the altar, while the congregation, suitably separated from the sanctuary, participated spiritually in prayerful silence.

But the liturgical reformers, who assiduously promoted the notion that the whole assembly performs the liturgy, have used this falsity – borrowed from Protestantism – to impugn the special status that is essential to protect the integrity of the ordained priesthood.

To bring these two positions – Catholic and Protestant – into sharper focus, it will be illuminating to juxtapose two commentaries on lay participation, the first written before the start of the Liturgical Movement by the English Redemptorist, Fr. Thomas Edward Bridgett, (2) who described the Mass as essentially a divine action, and the second by a post-Vatican II priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, Fr. Robert Duggan, who presented it as the work of the people.

First, Fr. Bridgett’s explanation:

“Suppose a ship, filled with a mixed crew of French, Spanish and Portuguese, is being wrecked on the coast of England. A crowd is assembled on the cliff, watching with intense earnestness the efforts being made by the captain and crew on the one hand, and by lifeboats from the coast on the other, to save the lives of the passengers. A great act is being performed, in which all are taking part, some as immediate actors, others as eager assistants. …

"It is a common act at which they assist; it is accompanied by the prayers of all; but they are not common prayers, in the sense of all joining either vocally or mentally in the same form of words.” [emphasis added] (3)

We have to admire the use of this memorable analogy between the action of the Mass and the life-saving work of a rescue operation, insofar as it illustrates who the “true actors” really are.

The captain of the ship is obviously meant to evoke the priest, for on his shoulders alone devolves the whole responsibility for the Mass, while the assisting crew and lifeboat operators represent his ministers in the sanctuary.

The people on the shore, powerless to intervene in the action, represent the congregation in the pews who have no active role in the Mass because they lack the power to re-enact the Holy Sacrifice or officiate at its ceremonies. Nevertheless, they participate spiritually by offering their own heartfelt prayers without, however, any obligation to follow the priest’s prayers either silently or audibly, or to engage in vocal dialogue with him.

'Performers' acting out the Christmas scene in costume at the 'new Mass,' in contrast with the sacrality that was present in the Masses of the past

As Fr. Bridgett explained:

“To join in this act of sacrifice, and to participate in its effects, it is not necessary to follow the priest or to use the words he uses. Every Catholic knows what the priest is doing, though he may not know or understand what he is saying, and is consequently able to follow with his devotions every portion of the Holy Sacrifice. Hence, a wonderful union of sacrificial, of congregational and of individual devotion.”

Of course, there was no need to spell any of this out to Catholics of the 19th century. Fr. Bridgett was writing in defence of the Mass against the prejudices of contemporary Protestants who, ironically, were making the same gibes against Catholic worship as the progressivists of the 20th century would do.

He was addressing the Protestant charges of “clericalism” – that the people were “excluded” from participation in the proceedings because their rightful roles were usurped by the priest; that they were prevented from understanding what was going on by the “language barrier,” and so on and ridiculously on.

What was Vatican II’s response to this “a wonderful union of sacrificial, of congregational, and of individual devotion”?

Its Liturgy Constitution set out to denounce it, in carefully coded terms, as a recipe for alienating the faithful and introduce, instead, liturgical reforms to “rectify” the problem through “active participation.” This “solution” (to a problem, let us remember, that never existed) was presented as if it were an article of faith and the highest state of grace to which the faithful could attain.


‘Active Participation’ Leads to a Misunderstanding of the Priesthood

For our second commentary on lay participation in the Mass, we will fast forward to the post-Vatican II period when the reformers were given a free pass to recreate the liturgy in their own ideological image. Fr. Robert Duggan comments on the role of the faithful at the Mass:

“It is they ‒ just as much as the presider ‒ who must offer the great sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God; it is they ‒ just as much as the presider ‒ who carry responsibility to say the prayers and sing the songs prescribed for them in the ritual texts; it is they ‒ just as much as the presider ‒ who must be channels of the Spirit’s consecratory power, allowing the gift of themselves to be transformed as surely as the gifts of bread and wine are changed into Christ’s body and blood.” (4)

A whole array of ministers assist the priest on the altar

It is obvious that the two ways of understanding the liturgy are poles apart, and even stand in opposition to each other. The Novus Ordo Mass was conceived by the reformers as the “work of the people,” a community act in which all present are equally entitled to their share of “active participation,” without distinction of whether they are clerical or lay.


The Dark Underbelly of the Progressivists’ Dream

This subversive power-to-the-people message is perfectly encapsulated in the teaching of the Liturgy Constitution §28, which states:

“In liturgical celebrations each one, minister or layperson, who has an office to perform, should do all of, but only, those parts which pertain to that office by the nature of the rite and the principles of the liturgy.”

Children in costumes raise their hands with the priest at the offertory

In making such a statement, the reformers revealed their covert plans to Protestantize the liturgy. For, it subtly suggests that Catholic worship is simply and solely a joint enterprise between the priest and the people in which the latter have an essential liturgical office to perform – a proposition condemned by the Council of Trent.

This intention was confirmed by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen in an interview with one of the Council’s Bishops immediately before the final vote on the Liturgy Constitution (1963):

“Bishop Zauner [of Linz, Austria] told me that four important aims or principles were reflected in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. “The first is that divine worship must be a community action; that is, that the priest should do everything with the active participation of the people, and never alone.” The use of the vernacular, he said, was a necessary condition for such participation. [emphasis added] (5)

What could be more calculated to make the priest appear “one of the people” than to have all speak and act in a common enterprise? This had been the cherished aim of the Liturgical Movement from Beauduin to Vatican II and remains the underlying major premise of the Novus Ordo.


‘The Rising Tide Lifts All Boats’

Here we will consider how the reformers’ aim to “narrow the gap” between the clergy and the laity was realized in practice. The revolutionary tide of Vatican II artificially raised all the faithful to the status of “true actors” in the liturgy, giving them equal rights to the clergy, by virtue of their common Baptism, “to perform some particular ministry or function in the celebration.” (6)

But, if all the members of the assembly, including the priest, have their own special responsibility in the enactment of the Mass, there is nothing particularly unique about the status of priests.

As the Grand Inquisitor sang in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Opera, “When everybody’s somebody, then no one’s anybody.” (7) As a result, the only person who is “somebody” in the Mass (i.e. the one who stands in the place of Christ) ends up as “nobody” special in the eyes of the assembly. That would negate the whole point of treating priests as a separate and higher category, capable of exercising power and authority in spiritual matters over the laity.


A Disguised Attack on the Priesthood

However, the Orwellian language of Progressivism has disguised this radical rearrangement of roles as humility and generosity on the part of the modern clergy. They pretend that the Church has been guilty of “clericalism” for most of her History in “excluding” the laity from “active participation,” and that they must make amends for past “injustices.”

Uniquely among all religions, the Mass, the ministerial priesthood and the role of both in the salvation of souls are all indissolubly linked. Attacking any one of these three elements, as Luther knew full well, is to attack Catholicism itself. Thus, with the imposition of the Novus Ordo reform which apes the language and customs of Protestantism, the attack from without was hugely reinforced by the attack from within.


Continued


1. This expression came from a conference given in 2005 by Fr. Carlo Braga, a former member of Pius XII’s Liturgy Commission, to mark the 50th anniversary of Pius XII’s Holy Week reforms. See here.
2. Fr. Bridgett, a convert to Catholicism, was a missionary priest and retreat master who spent most of his life defending the Faith against Protestant prejudices. Among his voluminous writings is Our Lady's Dowry; or, How England gained and lost that title; a Compilation (1875,) in which he defended medieval devotion to the Blessed Virgin and deftly rebutted all the Protestant charges of “idolatry.” (See here)
3. T. E. Bridgett, CSSR, Ritual of the New Testament: An Essay on the Principles and Origin of Catholic Ritual in Reference to the New Testament, London, Burns and Oates, 1878, pp. 112-113.
4. Fr. Robert Duggan, ‘Good Liturgy: The Assembly.’ America Magazine, with an Introduction by Fr. James Martin SJ, 1 March 2004
5. Ralph Wiltgen, SVD, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber: The Unknown Council, New York, Hawthorn Books, 1967, p. 137.
6. General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2010) § 97.
7. Quote from the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, The Gondoliers, which satirizes the promoters of social equality who “abhor kings ... detest rank [and] despise wealth.” The Grand Inquisitor, Don Alhambra, an opponent of social levelling, holds that traditional distinctions between rulers and their subjects, between masters and servants, must be maintained for the proper order of society.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
‘The Mass Should be Ratified by the People’
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

One of the many misunderstandings brought about by the 20th century liturgical reforms is that the choir is simply a section of the congregation, a mixed group of lay people whose role is to lead the rest of the faithful in song. That may be true in Protestant temples, and is certainly the case in the Novus Ordo liturgy, as the post-Vatican II English Bishops explained:

“The choir remains at all times a part of the assembly. It can serve the assembly by leading it in sung prayer and by reinforcing or enhancing the song of the assembly.” (1)

The choir as part of the ‘assembly of God’

But it is completely foreign to a Catholic understanding of the choir as a clerical entity. The various forms of liturgical chant were originally written by clerics for their own use in choir, not for the congregation.

Pope Pius X’s reference in his motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini to the “Choir of Levites” is of the greatest significance in identifying the role of singers as inherently liturgical and, therefore, clerical in nature. It said in a nutshell all we need to know about the distinction between the clergy and the rest of the faithful as far as the duty to sing the liturgy is concerned.

In the Old Testament, the Levites were set apart and consecrated to God, either as priests to offer sacrifice, or as their assistants in various sacral roles, including singing. (2) In the New Testament, the choir was meant to be a separate entity composed of clerics whose role was to assist the celebrating priest in his task of mediating the liturgy to the faithful.

Where there were insufficient clerics available, their numbers could be supplemented by laymen, but only on the understanding, as Pius X explained, that “singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir.” (3)

Pope Pius X wanted to return to choirs of male voices

Might we not find it ironic that the cliché “preaching to the choir” (the seating area once reserved for the clergy in the great cathedrals of Christendom) can no longer be understood in its original sense because the clergy themselves have voided it of meaning?

It is not without significance that the progressivist reformers showed no awareness that the distinction between the clergy and the laity is “by divine institution,” as the 1917 Code of Canon Law stated. (4) Nor did they acknowledge that this divinely appointed distinction must be observed in the liturgy, as in every other aspect of the Church’s life – hence their opposition to the idea that it is the right and duty of the clergy, not the laity, to sing the liturgy.

As their chief spokesman, Mgr. Frederick McManus, wrote in 1956, when explaining the rationale behind Pius XII’s reforms in which he himself was a major player:

“When a choir chants those parts of Holy Mass or other rites that belong to the people, the faithful are not doing what they are appointed by their baptismal character to do ‒ namely, worship God as members of Christ. In the restored Holy Week, the clear directions indicate again and again that the people should not be denied this right.” (5)

Fr. McMannus, second from left, a strong advocate that the Mass ‘belongs to the people’

Every one of these claims is specious, anti-clerical and theologically incorrect. The idea that parts of the Mass “belong to the people” – in the sense that they alone must sing or recite them – was an invention of the Liturgical Movement. (6) The reformers saw everything in terms of a power struggle, with Vatican II representing liberation from the clutches of a dominating clergy and a return to “ownership” of the liturgy by the People of God.

As for the presumed “right” of the laity to active participation by reason of their baptismal character, this illusory principle does not correlate with any Catholic doctrine. It is inadmissible to claim that Baptism empowers lay people to assume the divinely ordained role of the priest who baptized them, as if he were thereby handing them the means to undermine his own ministry.

Yet that is the tacit assumption and inescapable conclusion of §14 of the Vatican II Liturgy Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, which states that “active participation … is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.” Baptism only gives the laity the right to have the Mass and Sacraments made available to them and to participate spiritually in these means of salvation.


‘Active participation’ in the Consecration

As “active participation” was to be a dimension of everything that is done in the liturgy, all members of the congregation are deemed to be wholly involved in every part of the proceedings, including the Consecration. In the Novus Ordo Mass, at the point where the so-called “Institution Narrative” replaced the Words of Consecration, the “people’s portion” is to say or sing a series of “Memorial Acclamations” as part of the so-called Eucharistic Prayers (themselves a replacement for the traditional Canon).

The rationale behind this revolutionary reform was provided by Fr. Yves Congar, the chief proponent of the novel “theology of the liturgical assembly,” who stated with reference to the priest’s power to consecrate the bread and wine:

“This does not mean that he can do it alone, that is, when he remains alone. He does not, in other words, consecrate the elements by virtue of a power which is inherent in him.” (7)

‘Active participation’ favors heresy

According to this “new theology,” which echoes Protestant perspectives, it is the “active participation” of the gathered assembly talking and singing together that makes Christ present in the Eucharist. Consequently, the doctrine that the words uttered by the priest at the Consecration are the unique cause of the Real Presence in the Mass is never made clear in the Novus Ordo Mass. It is obvious that the reformers wanted both the Real Presence and the priest’s unique role in effecting transubstantiation to be ignored and forgotten.

First communicants join the priest to participate at the Consecration, or ‘Institution Narrative’

Under the influence of progressivist reformers, the Vatican II Liturgy Constitution (and all subsequent documents from the Holy See and Episcopal Conferences) adopted the Protestant principle that the vocal responses of the gathered community are essential for the integrity of the liturgy. (8)

Fr. Joseph Jungmann, who was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill liturgist ‒ he actually drafted some parts of the Liturgy Constitution ‒ favored this concept, as we can see from his description of the liturgies of the early Church:

“In the liturgical action the participation of the people was manifested especially by the fact that they did not merely listen to the prayers of the priest in silence but ratified them by their acclamations.” (9) [emphasis added]

Even the Canon of the Mass is not considered to be complete without the people’s Amen at the final Doxology. (10) Bugnini stated with reference to the Eucharistic Prayer: “They are to ratify with their ‘Amen’ what the priest has done and asked in the assembly’s name.” (11)

The use of the term “ratify” as a necessary action on the part of the congregation is most illuminating. It reveals the intention of the reformers who devised the Novus Ordo Mass to embrace beliefs and practices not endorsed by the Church.

Pope Pius XII had specifically condemned those who “go so far as to hold that the people must confirm and ratify the Sacrifice if it is to have its proper force and value,” and added: “It is in no wise required that the people ratify what the sacred minister has done.” (Mediator Dei §§ 95-96)

Yet this was an indispensable requirement of the General Instruction, and was recognized as such by the English Bishops when they mentioned “the profound importance of the assembly’s ratification and acclamation” at the end of the Canon. (12)


Ratification, a Term Suggestive of Heresy

The idea of the assembly’s “ratification” is doubly anomalous, a deviation not only from the millennial lex orandi, but also from the lex credendi. As a term borrowed from legal transactions, it gives the impression that the expressed consent of the people is necessary to make the Consecration officially valid, whereas its validity is ensured ex vi verborum, i.e., by virtue of the words of the priest alone.

The Sacrifice of Christ: ratified only by God in Heaven, not by the people on earth

The Boot is on the Other Foot

Moreover, as only a higher authority can ratify a transaction, the further impression is given that the people occupy a superior plane to the celebrating priest. The agenda to undermine the traditional Catholic priesthood is revealed in this revolutionary model of “active participation” in which the proper relationship between the clergy and the laity has been reversed completely.

But that reversal was precisely the objective of the Liturgical Movement.


Usurping God's authority

It is God Who is meant to ratify the Sacrifice of His Son, as is made clear in the Quam oblationem of the Canon, where the priest requests God to ratify (“ratam facere”) the Sacrifice he is about to offer in persona Christi.

As Dom Guéranger explained: “It must needs be ratified, approved, confirmed in Heaven, as a Thing most truly Good and Fitting. (13)

But then, as the evidence overwhelmingly shows, the Novus Ordo Mass was always a man-centred liturgy in which the People of God take centre stage.


Continued


1. Celebrating the Mass: A Pastoral Introduction, April 2005, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, p. 17.
2. The term “Levite” can cause confusion because, whereas all Old Testament priests from the time of Aaron were Levites, not all Levites were priests. It is generally used to identify the part of the tribe of Levi that was appointed for Tabernacle service and to be servants and helpers of the only authorized priests of Israel, the male descendants of Aaron. Both priest and Levite are mentioned in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
3. Pope Pius X, Motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, 1903, (§12)
4. Canon 107 (1917 Code of Canon Law) states: “Ex divina insitutione sunt in Ecclesia clerici a laicis distincti”. (By divine institution there are in the Church clerics distinct from the laity)
5. Frederick McManus, The Rites of Holy Week: Ceremonies, Preparation, Music, Commentaries, Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1956, p. 32.
6. Pius XII was the first Pope to use this phrase. See De Musica Sacra, 1958, § 31. This document, as we have seen, designates the whole of the Ordinary and the Propers as the “people’s parts.” In the Novus Ordo Mass, some priests omit the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei if the congregation remains silent, while others refuse to proceed with the Mass if no one is willing to bring up the gifts at the Offertory.
7. Yves Congar, Je Crois en l’Esprit Saint, vol. 3, Paris, Cerf, 1980, p. 305.
8. The General Instruction states that the dialogue between the priest and the assembled faithful is necessary “in every form of the Mass, so that the action of the whole community may be clearly expressed and fostered”. (§35)
9. Joseph Jungmann, S.J., Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, p. 236.
10.The General Instruction also states that the final part of the Eucharistic Prayer is “affirmed and concluded by the people’s Amen.”.(§79h)
11. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, Liturgical Press, 1990.
12. Celebrating the Mass: A Pastoral Introduction, April 2005, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, p. 87.
13. Dom Prosper Guéranger, Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Holy Mass, translated from the French by Dom Laurence Shepherd, Monk of the English Benedictine Congregation, Stanbrook:St. Mary’s Abbey, 1885

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Ambiguous Language to Fool Conservatives
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

[See also: Fr. Hewko's Ambiguious Language is the Devil's Quicksand]

In the wake of Vatican II, traditional choirmasters and organists ‒ many of whom were of professional status ‒ wishing to preserve the Church’s treasury of sacred music, were astonished to find that their services were no longer required, and that their field of expertise was flooded by guitar groups and congregational singing.

They immediately found themselves with the impossible task of trying to balance the musical heritage of the Church with the demands of the Novus Ordo liturgy.

The clear message of the reformers was that congregational singing should take precedence over sacred chant sung by the choir, as Mgr. Frederick McManus explained as early as 1956:

“The trained choir may lead and encourage the people ‒ and above all, never seek to restrict the participation of the faithful. If on occasion this means that the responses, for example, may not be sung perfectly, the act of worship on the part of the assembled people will nevertheless be pleasing to almighty God. And the strong and united worship of the whole Church must never be subordinated to technical perfection of music.” (1)

As a result, respect for the magnificent achievements of choirs in masterworks of skill and beauty was lost in the indiscriminate desire to drag standards down to within reach of the people.


Blaming the Victim

Archbishop Bugnini stated that “the people must truly sing in order to participate actively as desired by the liturgical Constitution,” and denounced conservatives who believed that participation could be achieved by listening to the choir. He airily dismissed their earnest concerns with the insult that they “betrayed a mentality that could not come to grips with new pastoral needs.” (2)

As the musicians had little or no leverage in the matter, they largely withdrew from the fray. In his Memoirs, Bugnini describes the 10-year battle royal he conducted against the conservative musicians, (3) from which he emerged victorious. Like a latter day Goliath, and leader of the (liturgical) philistines, Bugnini may have won this battle, (4) but not the war, which is still being fought by traditionalists as a counter-revolution to regain the Church’s full liturgical and spiritual patrimony.


How Conservative Expectations were Violated

The conciliar Liturgy Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium was a document that apparently championed the tradition of Gregorian Chant and the Latin language but which, when examined more closely, contained a number of escape clauses which rendered that tradition inert.

Conservatives are fond of quoting §36.1: “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites,” and demand that the Constitution be obeyed. But, by focusing only on the “positives” of the article, they overlook, or perhaps fail to understand, the caveat in the same sentence: salvo particulari iure (without prejudice to particular law), which came to mean if not prohibited by the diocesan Bishops. (5)

Most of the Council Fathers had no idea in 1963 of the new doctrine of “collegiality” being planned or of the imminent rise of the National Episcopal Conferences which would be granted unprecedented power over the liturgy. (6) They made the fatal mistake of assuming that the Council was in continuity with Tradition. It was an assumption that was rapidly to be confounded.

Bugnini later explained the real intention behind §36.1 (which was mostly unknown to the Council Fathers when they voted):

“When, therefore, the Constitution allowed the introduction of the vernaculars, it necessarily anticipated that the preservation of this “treasure of sacred music” would be dependent solely on celebrations in Latin.” (7)

The significance here is that the deception is based on exploitation of the victims’ assumptions. Everyone assumed that “Latin rites” in §36.1 meant Western rites. But, while Bugnini’s explanation was factually correct, it was part of his stock-in-trade of rhetorical tactics and ploys, a subtle shifting of focus with intent to deceive.

No one suspected that he was making a tautological statement that Latin is to be used in rites celebrated in Latin, or that he was being dishonest while telling the truth. In other words he spoke a truth, but not the one he knew the conservative voters expected.


A Progressivist Victory

Let us now look at other paragraphs in the Liturgy Constitution that deceive the reader into thinking that a statement is more conservative than it really is. This was achieved by the rhetorical device known as “paltering” – the use of truthful information to give a misleading impression.

The Constitution specified that Gregorian Chant “should be given pride of place”; but the point about it is that, instead of safeguarding that mandate, it betrayed it in the same sentence with the qualifier “ceteris paribus” (other things being equal). The unequal factors overriding this stipulation were, as always, “active participation,” the vernacular and adaptation to contemporary cultures.

Two years after the closing of the Council, the Instruction Musicam Sacram (1967), the work of the Consilium to implement the Liturgy Constitution, openly revealed that the “pride of place” clause relating to Gregorian Chant applied only to “sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin.” (§50)

This applies also to the Constitution’s grudging concession that Polyphony is “not excluded.” (§116) However, the reformers made sure that it would have little or no place in the new liturgy which, as events would prove, was unsuited to accommodate in either the spirit or the logistics of the Novus Ordo Mass.

‘What all can’t sing, no one shall sing’

Besides, in what looked like an act of ideological spite, Musicam Sacram, clarifying the Constitution, deprecated and officially cast out of the liturgy the tradition of the exclusive rendering of the Mass Ordinary and Proper by the choir, (8) on the grounds that the people could not join in everything.

Ambiguous language led to the end of trained choirs of clerics and men

So, the “pride of place” reputedly allotted to Gregorian Chant was, in reality, intended all along for the congregation, whose preferential treatment over the choir led to the marginalization and demise of polyphony.

Another escape clause in the Constitution was pro opportunitate (§115), meaning when it is (judged) appropriate, which in practice means that something is merely optional and may be omitted. This expression is often found in the new liturgical books. It was intended to give a certain liberty and flexibility to the rubrics. When taken to its logical conclusion, it allowed for the exclusion of certain traditions such as Gregorian Chant, incense, bells etc.


The Gloves are Off

As soon as the reformers felt their victory secure, they cast aside all pretence of preserving the Church’s musical heritage.

In 1987, the Congregation for Divine Worship stated:

“Any performance of sacred music which takes place during a celebration should be fully in harmony with that celebration. This often means that musical compositions which date from a period when the active participation of the faithful was not emphasized as the source of the authentic Christian spirit (SC n. 14; Pius X Tra le sollecitudini) are no longer to be considered suitable for inclusion within liturgical celebrations.” (9)

Website banner falsely proclaiming that St. Pius X was a Vatican II liturgical precursor

Apart from the absurdity of using Pius X for the destruction of what he held most dear, (10) the virtual disappearance of Chant and Polyphony – deliberately engineered by the reformers themselves – was then used as an argument to justify banishing them from the liturgy.

What, then, became of the Constitution’s statement that the “treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care”? (§114) Two years later, it was relegated to “concert programmes both inside and outside of church,” a decision “deemed necessary in the pursuit of an end of greater importance, namely the active participation of the faithful.” (11)

There could hardly have been a clearer admission of the man-made, man-centred nature of the Novus Ordo liturgy. This shows that the basic struggle underlying the reform was a moral and spiritual one, that is, whether the liturgy exists for the self-expression of the people or, as Pius X taught, primarily for the glorification of God. The essence of the conflict, therefore, was not simply a matter of musical style and personal taste, but about the correct perception of God and how we should worship Him in the liturgy.

The Constitution praised the Church’s musical heritage as “a treasure of inestimable value” (§112), while permitting it to be turned into its own negation. Such hypocrisy makes a mockery of Tradition and is reminiscent of the adage by the Roman satirist, Juvenal: “Virtue is praised then left in the cold.” (12)


Time to Stop Chasing the White Whale (13)

Even among the more conservative Catholics, there are still some who suffer from what might be termed the “Moby Dick syndrome.” They insist on chasing the ever-elusive “correct” form of “active participation.”

Chasing Moby Dick and taking down the others in the boat as well...

But it is a self-defeating exercise: “active participation” was never anything more than a subterfuge to undermine the ministerial priesthood. Why should any Catholic worthy of the name support the fanatical mission of the Liturgical Establishment to destroy its own spiritual heritage?

They fail to grasp that “active participation” has become the law that subverts the law (of prayer). It is a problem inherent in the liturgical reform since the time of Pius XII.

What they do not realize is that their efforts to restore the fullness of Tradition are always going to be thwarted by the Liturgical Establishment which would never allow them fully to defend the Church’s musical heritage.

So, they are left with the choice of either compromising traditional values or bending the Novus Ordo rules to accommodate some forbidden traditional practices.

In such a hostile environment, they may achieve some limited measure of success only to find that, somewhere along the line, Bugnini’s ghost has come back to haunt them.

Continued

1. Frederick McManus, The Rites of Holy Week: Ceremonies, Preparation, Music, Commentaries, Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, , 1956, pp. 33-34.
2. Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 904
3. Ibid., p. 907
4.A parallel to the situation of Bugnini and the traditionalists can be seen in Thermopylae (480 B.C.), one of the most famous battles in European ancient history. It was conducted by the Spartan King Leonidas against the Persian invaders under Xerxes who had set out to conquer all of Greece. Although the Persians won that particular battle, the Greeks achieved a moral victory through their courageous resistance.
Leonidas went down in history as the hero who fought to the death with little assistance against vastly superior numbers, a tactic that allowed most of his army to retreat and avoid certain doom. The survivors regrouped and fought again at Salamis and at Plataea, where the Persian forces were destroyed. Thus, the self-sacrifice of Leonidas saved Europe from invasion by Asia for hundreds of years.
Both ancient and modern writers have used the Battle of Thermopylae as a symbol of courage, illustrating the patriotism of the contingent which defended its native soil in the face of overwhelming odds – surely a metaphor for traditionalists in their struggle to defend their spiritual patrimony.
5. In the new Vatican II structures of collegiality, particular laws are made by the Conference of Bishops at the national level, virtually always rubber-stamped by the Holy See, and imposed on the faithful of each country.
6. §22.2 grants an unprecedented degree of control over the liturgy to “various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops.”
7. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, p. 907.
8. Musicam Sacram (§16c): “the usage of entrusting to the choir alone the entire singing of the whole Proper and of the whole Ordinary, to the complete exclusion of the people’s participation in the singing, is to be deprecated.”
9. Congregation for Divine Worship, Concerts in Churches, November 5, 1987, § 6.
10. As a seminarian, young chaplain, Bishop, Cardinal, Patriarch and Pope, Pius X devoted every stage of his life to promoting Gregorian Chant. In 1911, he founded the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome for the study and practice of Gregorian Chant and Polyphony to ensure their use for future generations..
11. Musicam Sacram (§2)
“Probitas laudatur et alget“ – Virtue is praised then left in the cold – Juvenal, Satires, I, line 74.
12. In Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, Captain Ahab’s fanatical and ill-fated quest to destroy the great white whale led to his own destruction and that of all of his crew members except one – they were dragged down into Davy Jones’ Locker (a nautical idiom for the bottom of the sea).