Stepping Closer to the Reform of the Reform
When Benedict was elected a year ago, dissident Catholic theologian Hans Kung described the cardinals' choice as a "huge disappointment." But he also said he would suspend judgment and wait to see what the new pontiff did. Now, in an interview in La Stampa on April 13th, 2006, he said Benedict XVI may move slowly, but he seemed convinced that change would come, referring confidently to "the surprises of a conservative" for those who might expect little change to come from his papacy. Kung, who had an unexpected meeting with the German pontiff last September, gave no details about what novelties and innovations he saw in store for the Catholic Church under Benedict. "He is the supreme shepherd who proceeds with slow, small steps," the dissident theologian contended. "He takes his time and prefers to promote small changes which trigger other bigger ones."
If media reports are anything to go by, these "surprises of a conservative" may take a direction opposite to the very thing Kung would have hoped for and/or expected. A headline for one, in the daily La Repubblica, a bastion of secularism which may not by any means be suspected of any pro-traditional Catholicism bias: "Church, the battle for the altar, Ratzinger wants to change for the priest to celebrate turning his shoulders to the faithful" (April 22, 2006). This was enough cause for the news agency Adista, normally a mouthpiece of radical Catholic progressive circles, to sound the alarm over the imminent and much-feared restoration of a pre-Vatican II liturgy. "Countermand, brothers: all facing the altar. The debate on the liturgical reform opens up again" (in Adista, May 6, 2006).
But what was all the fuss about? These reactions were unleashed by the Italian launch of the book Rivolti al Signore, the Italian version of Turning Towards The Lord, with a foreword by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This book was written in 2003 by Father Uwe Michael Lang, a young priest and theologian of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in London, who studied theology in Vienna and Oxford and has written several works on patristics. But now that the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has become Benedict XVI, its content is assuming a somewhat different weight and the book is obviously calling fresh attention to the Pope's interest in liturgical "reform of the reform," and particularly in recovering the elements of the traditional Latin liturgy. The book was presented by its Italian publisher, Cantagalli, on April 27 in the Auditorium Augustinianum in Rome, just across from St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on the side of the entrance to the papal audiences in the Sala Nervi, and this in a way also contributed to the event being seen by the media as having some sort of a Vatican or a papal semi-official blessing.
In particular, what then-Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in his foreword is that Vatican II did not require the celebration of Mass with the priest facing the people, nor did the Council abolish the use of Latin in the liturgy. Therefore, in the future Pope's opinion, Father Lang's book provides a valuable opportunity to discuss the liturgical changes of Vatican II, a discussion possibly resulting in the correction of erroneous interpretations of Council documents and a more dignified and reverent liturgy.
As a matter of fact, these were among the topics which were thrashed out during the April 27th presentation, by a panel discussion which included, besides Father Lang himself, also the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don.
"The almost total disappearance of the use of Latin in liturgical celebrations and the orientation of the altars towards the faithful are the two most typical phenomena of the liturgical reform which followed the Second Vatican Council," Archbishop Ranjith said. But these changes may not be considered as having been made once and for all. "In a culture which divinizes man, the temptation to become protagonists of the liturgy is strong," Msgr. Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don went on to explain. "The liturgical theme focused on the orientation of the liturgical prayer is by no means of secondary importance in the ecclesial reflection, since in it the man turns to the Lord and his life changes." Therefore, "It's not by lowering the sense of divine to the human dimension that we are able to somehow grasp the divine mysteries, but by striving to rise to the supernatural dimension," he argued. "The liturgy then is not something decided by man, but what God establishes in him, an attitude of adoration towards his Creator and Lord, freeing him from his enslavements. If this (the liturgy) loses its heavenly and mystic dimension, what will help man to get rid of the mud of his selfishness and enslavement?" In other words, real freedom does not come from a lowering of divine realities, but from raising one's heart and mind to God, he concluded, calling for the "Lord not to be made tangible and regulable by a thought and rituals being made comprehensible only to man" (cf. Il Giornale May 1, 2006).
Moreover, he was also reported in as having made it clear that "regrettably, one can see priests and even bishops who introduce any sort of experiments" in the Mass, so much so that insofar as the liturgy is concerned, in some countries the situation "has become or is becoming dramatic" and as a result "any sense of sacredness" disappears.
Archbishop Patabendige Don was asked if Pope Benedict had ordered a study of the issue or if the congregation was moving in that direction. "For the moment," the archbishop said, "there is nothing, but we listen to the opinions and experience of people who are interested in these questions."
While Archbishop Patabendige Don said he was convinced Catholics need help recovering the sense of mystery and of God's transcendence in the liturgy, careful study is needed on specific ideas. "Things done in a hurry tend not to give the hoped-for results," he said. Above all, the archbishop said, Catholics must engage in study and discussion in a calm, respectful and prayerful atmosphere "without labeling each other" as traditionalists or radicals.
Archbishop Patabendige Don said he does not necessarily agree with people who call for a "reform of the reform" of the liturgy, but he thinks Father Lang's book contains a valid call "at least for a further perfection of the reform." After all, he claimed, no one is in favor of making changes for the sake of change or even for nostalgia. And much less so in such a sensitive matter as the direction that the priest should face during Mass. But the fact remains that, as shown by Father Lang's book, "the orientation of the liturgical prayer in the post-conciliar reforms does not reflect the previous praxis, and this puzzles us."
In this regard another speaker, Msgr. Nicola Bux, professor of religious science at the Oriental Institute in Bari, reminded those present that "the Congregation for the Divine Worship clarified in 2000 that the position of the altar and the orientation of the prayer versus populum (towards the people) is not an obligation, but a possibility. And the emphasis of the pre-Vatican II liturgy was actually on the celebrant and the people both facing the Lord, rather than the celebrant turning his shoulders to the faithful."
The introduction of the Italian-language edition of Father Lang's book drew special notice because the preface highlights the Pope's desire for a "reform of the reform" in the liturgy, at a time when Vatican analysts are still speculating on whether Benedict might issue a document allowing broader use of the old Latin Mass. But to the extent that this reform restores forms and/or practices dating to pre-Vatican II times, this would undoubtedly be a major step in the liturgical counter-revolution and therefore in the right direction.
All the more so if we consider that, as already said, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself made it clear in the foreword to Father Lang's book that with regard to "the disappearance of Latin and the turning of the altars towards the people," the faithful would be "astonished to learn that neither is in fact found in the decrees of the Council." Whereas the relevant Council texts verbatim says that "the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites (Sacrosanctum Concilium 36, I)," the point about turning altars towards the people, he recalled, "is raised only in post-conciliar instructions." In particular, "the most important directive is found in paragraph 262 of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, the General Instruction of the New Roman Missal, issued in 1969," he pointed out. "That says, 'It is better for the main altar to be constructed away from the wall so that one can easily walk around the altar and celebrate facing the people (versus populum)."' Meanwhile, in this regard the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has already warned that it's better to celebrate at an existing major altar than a newly-built one turned to the people.
With Ratzinger as Benedict XVI are we therefore on the eve of a new "revolution" of the altars? This is the question posed by Italy's bishops' conference mouthpiece Avvenire (April 26, 2006 online edition). Not really, is the answer offered by the very newspaper, since even the solution proposed by Father Lang is not so "counter-revolutionary," half-way between a full reinstatement of the old pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo Mass: the adoption of a "two track" celebration, so to say, with the priest and the faithful "dialogically" facing each other during the Liturgy of the Word and the conclusion rites, but both turned towards the altar during the Eucharistic prayers, when wine and bread are turned into the Body and Blood of Christ.
In his review of the English edition of the book in the magazine of the Latin Mass Society "Mass of Ages" (February 2005, pg. 23), traditional-minded priest independent of any particular traditionalist congregation, Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, says that the author should consider the value of common direction also in the penitential rite. "Is it not fitting that both the priest and congregation should turn together to the Lord when they are confessing their sinfulness and their need to be purified?" wonders Msgr. Barreiro, who is in charge of the Church of San Giuseppe a Capo Le Case in Rome for the celebration of the old Latin liturgy. "It stands to reason, using many of the valuable arguments which the author enumerates, that all the prayers should be presented facing the Lord." In fact, as the author himself aptly put it, "when we speak to someone, we obviously face that person. Accordingly, the whole liturgical assembly, priests and people, should face the same way, turning towards God to whom prayers and offerings are addressed in this common act of trinitarian worship." After all, Msgr. Barreiro goes on noting, "if the Mass is principally a sacrifice, the positioning of the priest has to be coherent with a sense of offering." Therefore, again, it likewise stands to reason that "the person who is doing the offering is facing the one who is receiving the offering, thus, he stands before the altar positioned ad Dominum, facing the Lord," (as Msgr. Gamber, the respected liturgist, states)".
Clearly, Gamber himself was in favor of liturgical change and anybody looking to him for an endorsement of the immobilist liturgy of the "Tridentine" era would be disappointed. But the kind of liturgical change recommended by Gamber, as pointed out in the Australian traditional journal Oriens (Winter 2003, Vol 9, No. 1) is a gradual, organic, evolutionary, almost imperceptible development. This middle way between rubricist rigidity and the endless pursuit of vacuous novelty is the mode of change that actually prevailed in the Church throughout the greater part of its history, from its beginnings until the end of the medieval period. "The jettisoning of ancient, well-tried rituals and customs in favor of an unceasing round of innovation and experimentation has produced not only a great deal of silliness," the journal contends, "but real dangers in that constant change in forms of worship tends to instill in the faithful a sense of insecurity which spreads out from the liturgy to the very foundations of the faith itself."
The liturgist Klaus Gamber has convincingly explained in various publications that the celebration versus populum never existed in the Church. Therefore the argument that turning around the altar was the practice of the early Church, and for that reason should be normative for the Church of all time, is devoid of foundation. As Father Lang put it, "The celebratio versus populum in the modern sense was unknown to Christian antiquity."
At the book presentation, Father Lang said his study focused on the history and theology of the priest facing east — the biblically symbolic direction of the Lord in a vivid representation of the rising sun as the rising Christ — and not on the pre? or post-Vatican II liturgy. With his book, Father Lang intends to demonstrate that it's better in itself to celebrate the Mass facing the Lord, using well-researched theological, historical and pastoral arguments.
"The idea of my book is to demonstrate that the priest is not turning his back on the people, but leading the people in prayer toward the Lord", he said. "I think it would be a good idea to reintroduce this idea into the liturgy little by little, without a great revolution", he said, adding that he was speaking only about the moments during the Mass when the priest, on behalf of the people, is praying to God, not when he is addressing the people assembled. And today, Father Lang is convinced, "the intellectual and spiritual climate appears to be favorable to the reinstatement of the sacred orientation in Christendom".
Another and perhaps no less significant dimension to the debate was added by a flamboyant art critic and historian turned MP, Vittorio Sgarbi, former undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Culture, whose worldly excesses would make him an improbable champion of Catholic traditionalism. If secular intellectuals close to the Catholic Church are called "devout atheists" (like Italy's former Senate speaker Marcello Pera), he certainly isn't "devout." Nonetheless he contended that the position of a celebrating priest can be compared with that of an orchestra conductor (see Il Giornale of April 24, 2006). After having noted that traditionally the Catholic priest celebrated Mass for almost 2000 years in Latin and turned his back to the faithful, except for the distribution of Communion and during the homily, the conductor is in a position to produce wonderful music from a podium and turns his back to the people, except for the initial welcoming address to the audience and when he receives ovations. Whereas nobody ever thought to reverse the position of the conductor, who will ever be able to exactly measure the incalculable damages on the art heritage produced by what the art critic calls "appalling mutilations" of internal structures leading to the destruction of churches' integrity?
Interestingly, after all, the above-mentioned instruction spoke of the "main altar to be constructed away from the wall," and not for old ones to be demolished for them to re-orientated or replaced according to the new rules. Probably, it was a measure which could have applied to new churches. The fact remains that, according to Sgarbi, hundreds of churches were devastated by the innovations, from the Cathedral of Padua to that of Pisa, with senseless demolitions and reshapings of magnificent and stately altars dominating gothic, renaissance and baroque apses. Therefore he is particularly grateful to Benedict XVI also for his intention to come back to tradition in this regard, thus hailing him with a resounding "Long live the Pope!"
Alberto Carosa is an Italian journalist and writer based in Rome.
Rediscovering the Soul of the Liturgy
A Talk with the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Archbishop Ranjith
The Church has been opened to the modern world. The relations to other Christian confessions, Islam and Judaism have been reformed. The media world has been approached, and the field of development, peace and social justice is taken care of. Also, the questions of the Church's structure and education, as well as the task of the laity have been answered. All of these things are fruits of the Second Vatican Council. The Church stood there like an airplane that was to take off. But then it never took off. The "altitude flight of the Church" just never happened.
This is how Archbishop Ranjith describes the great defect of the post-conciliar Church. The curial official was born in 1947 in the Indian city of Polgahawela and has been the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship since December last year but primarily has been working in the Vatican's diplomatic services. The fact that Ranjith returned to the Curia five month ago, is due to one of the few personnel decisions Pope Benedict has made. Together with the prefect, Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, Ranjith leads the Vatican dicastery, which is responsible for carrying out possible reforms regarding the liturgy.
The question of the liturgy is a big one in Rome these days. In the past weeks, there have been many discussions about what exact aspect in today's celebration of the Mass may be a thorn in the side of the new Pope. There is even talk about a reform of the liturgical reform. Already, when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Benedict had written much on the issue. Rumors then came to a head last summer, when he received the head of the Archbishop Lefebre-founded Pius X Society, Bernard Fellay. Since then, it can be read on all traditional internet sites that Rome "is moving" towards the admission of the Tridentine Mass. Just before Easter, it was again being rumored that the German Pope would soon clarify the question of the rites and allow the general use of the old Mass book. But nothing happened. Is the liturgy still a subject?
Yes, confirmed Archbishop Ranjith, and in his point of view, in direct connection to his position that the "airplane Church" didn't take off after the Council. Vatican II, said Ranjith, had tried to bring the Church up to the standards of modernity and prepare it to combat secularism. But exactly the opposite happened afterwards — against the will of the Council: secularism broke into the Church and affected precisely the center of that "aggiornamento," which should have been at the center of all reforms and developments: the faith. The faith in the nearness of God, in the supernatural effect of the sacraments, the presence of Jesus Christ in the Mass and the Eucharist.
But what can be done? In order to reach a reform or a renewal of the sacramental character of the liturgy, something like liturgical movements would also be necessary. The renewal of Eucharistic piety cannot be ordered with a motu proprio of a Pope alone. Ranjith's answer is clear: this liturgical movement, which would be needed, would in reality be a new awakening of the faith. For the Indian archbishop it is not a matter of giving this or that group special permission to celebrate the old Mass again, but instead about regaining faith in the presence of God in the Church and especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. And the Pope? What does the Pope do? According to Ranjith, Benedict XVI is a highly intelligent observer who knows the situation of the Church precisely. And, he precisely wants to ignite such a spiritual movement, which will be able to give back to the liturgy its sacramental and supernatural character. The Congregation for Divine Worship, says Ranjith, is ready to follow any orders of the Pope. But at times one has the impression that Benedict is still far from undertaking concrete steps or changes in the field of the liturgy.
On Saturday before Pentecost, Pope Benedict met with the members of more than 130 Catholic movements and new spiritual communities during an evening vigil in St. Peter's Square. The day before, these had gathered in 50 different Roman churches, in order to prepare "the way of the Holy Spirit" in prayer — as it is written in the program of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which is organizing the meeting. Does Pope Benedict hope these new communities may initiate such a new liturgical movement? However, the talk with Indian Archbishop Ranjith has made clear that the Pope has not yet given any orders or changes, but instead is aiming for the substantial: the renewal and deepening of the faith.
— Guido Horst
© Urbi et Orbi Communications
This item 7120 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
