www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall RC Liturgical Movement and Liturgical "Reform"

From an Eastern Christian perspective, the whole phenomenon of Vatican II continues to be an enigma. On the one hand, the RCC showed a significantly greater appreciation for the East and the Eastern Christian tradition than ever before, and on the other, they seemed to show an utter lack of appreciation for their own liturgical tradition.

What really puzzles me about all this, though, is the fact that Abp. Bugnini and his Consilium could never have done what they did if a substantial number of the RC faithful had any real familiarity with the RC liturgy. This, despite the fact that the Liturgical Movement, whose principal goal was precisely this familiarization, had been in existence for nearly 100 years, and had the endorsement of several popes.

So, my question is: how is it that the Liturgical Movement had gained so little headway in all that time? My guess is that most of the RC bishops actually opposed it, but I'm not clear as to why.

Anyone interested in discussing this?


Peace,
Deacon Richard

See if you can find an essay by Father Serge Kelleher called "Whatever Happened to the Liturgical Movement". It's worth the trouble.

It can be found on-line as part of this book [books.google.com] .

Thought this was interesting, applying the notion of development vs alteration to liturgical practices...




Development of Doctrine

Saint Vincent of Lerins



Saint Vincent of Lerins

The Development of Doctrine -- An early church father of the 5th century distinguishes the legitimate growth in understanding of divine revelation from the false alteration of religion and Catholic orthodox dogma in the Church of Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father. This reading on the development of Christian doctrine is taken from St. Vincent of Lerins' Commonitorium (Cap 23: PL 50, 667-668) and is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Friday of the 27th week of ordinary time with the biblical text taken from I Tim 6:1-10.



Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.


Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.


https://www.crossroadsinitiative.co...pment_of_Doctrine_Vincent_of_Lerins.html

Good questions ...

It's not only a question of showing an utter lack of appreciation but it's also downright abuse:

http://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/2012/12/liturgical-abuses-have-to-stop.html

It is sometimes considered as being part of inculturation as the most recent 'show' in Malta confirms:

http://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/2013/09/great-news-from-malta-tridentine-masses.html

GX,

Thanks for posting this; it helps to confirm my suspicion that Pope Paul chose Bugnini to spearhead the reform without *really* knowing Bugnini or what his agenda was.

My initial question was about the Liturgical Movement as it was known from its inception until the 1940s. During that time, the thrust of the movement was one of "championing" the existing liturgical books and fostering a greater appreciation of the rites and ceremonies among both clergy and laity. Then, ~1948, a new "branch" appeared within the movement, calling for varying degrees of changes to the existing rites--Bugnini represented the extreme left wing of this branch.

What I know of Bugnini is mostly from a cursory reading of his monumental work, "Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975," but it certainly left me with the impression that all these things Pope Paul was calling "abuses" were *exactly* what Bugnini was hoping to see. He was a great believer in spontaneity in worship, and he hoped that both the clergy and the laity would realize that the books he produced should *not* be construed as a fixed ritual, but as a framework that would lend itself to all kinds of spontaneous prayer.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

The leaders of the liturgical movement did so, because, as they stated repeatedly, one cannot reform a rite with which one is not intimately familiar. They did not eschew reform of the Roman liturgy per se.


Terms such as left and right are meaningless in this context. There were those who wished a return to the sources, and those on the other hand, who wished to maintain a cleaned up version of the status quo. But a close reading of the liturgical movement's texts reveals that it was apparent to most of its fathers that the Roman rite as it then existed was fatally flawed, and represented a decisive break from, not continuity with, the patristic period. Hence the need for change.

One might challenge the form the change took, but one cannot challenge the underlying basis and rationale for change.

Again, Latin Traditionalists should devote just half the energy they expend on promoting the Tridentine rite on perfecting the Novus Ordo, which would certainly lead to a dramatic improvement in the standard of liturgy in the Latin Church.

Stuart,

Your comments are appreciated, as usual.

I used the term "left wing" to indicate those who wanted nearly everything to be changed.

I have no doubt that Bugnini saw the Roman rite as it then existed as "fatally flawed," but even to a casual observer, that sounds like an extreme judgment.

You've mentioned before, and I have no reason to doubt, that the Roman liturgy was completely supplanted once before--in approximately the 10th century--and the rites that subsequently evolved into the "Tridentine" rite became normative for the Church of Rome at that time. My question, then, would be: what specific elements of the 9th-century Roman rite were lost in the 10th century and restored in the 20th (or should have been)?

Also, one certainly gets the impression that the "Reformed" Roman Liturgy is essentially a pared-down version of the old Roman Liturgy, with a few added elements (Eucharistic Prayers 2, 3 & 4, as well as a number of Prefaces) taken from ancient documents, and a few more (Responsorial Psalm, Memorial Acclamations and Offertory Prayers) "cut from whole cloth." Am I missing something here?


Peace,
Deacon Richard

The addition of multiple Eucharistic Prayers is a true innovation of the Novus Ordo, in that (a) the Roman rite never had more than one (the Canon), with multiple prefaces; (b) some of these new Eucharistic Prayers have an explicit descending Epiclesis, which the Roman rite never had (and therefore did not "remove"); and (c) the choice of which Eucharistic prayer to use on any given day is left to the discretion of the celebrant. Even in the East, which does have a history of multiple anaphora, the choice of which one to use is determined by the liturgical calendar.

One might also add that the reformed lectionary is an innovation, and largely didactic in nature, rather than being keyed to the events of the liturgical year.

Fr Deacon,

It is not a matter of what was lost so much as what was added from the Gallican Rite. Most of the ceremonial that traditionalists love is from the Gallican Rite as the ancient Roman Rite had little of it. A study of the Dominican and Carthusian Uses of the Roman Rite are instructive as these Orders peserved the Roman Rite largely as it was when those Orders were formed.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030222232623/members.aol.com/liturgialatina/dominican/mass_ordinary.htm

http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/rites/carthusian-rite.pdf

The most important and drastic changes to the Roman Rite (in its hybrid Romano-Frankish form) occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the introduction of private Masses in the monasteries, which gradually passed into general use as the Low Mass, until it became the predominant form. As the Liturgical Reform movement tried to point out, the Tridentine reform of the Roman liturgy assumed that the Low Mass, rather than the Pontifical or Hierarchical Mass, was the normative form, and that the "High Mass" as well as the Pontifical, were elaborations upon the Low Mass.

The very idea of private Mass, or of an abbreviated Low Mass in which the role of the people was completely subsumed by the celebrant, would have been viewed with shock and abhorrence by the Fathers, both in the West and the East. Sacrosanctum concilium was directed towards undoing the harm caused by the alienation of the laity from the liturgy, and in restoring the Roman rite to something closer to its "pristine state".

You might say that the reform failed to do so--but the Tridentine reform had the same objective, and failed just as--if not more--abysmally.

I tend to agree in principle with this. The major problem, in my opinion, is that many post-Vatican II ordained priests (in particular those ordained in the 1970-1990ies) feel that they have a carte blanche to experiment ad nauseam with the Novus Ordo. Not to say of the way they dress, etc.

A typical priest of this period is this one:

http://pro-tridentina-malta.blogspot.com/2011/07/karm-debattistas-perspective-on-holy.html

May we not find a more appropriate venue for jeremiads about the 'tridentine mass' vs. the novus ordo? I would have thought that the name of our site "Byzantine Forum" is sufficient to invite such bloggers to go elsewhere!

Some interesting information here. I have often said that the Latin Church is the 500-pound gorilla in the room, as far as Byzantine Catholics are concerned. Granted, Orthodoxy may not care so much what Latins do, but they seem to affect us entirely too much, I think.

Given the extent to which the "spirit of Vatican II" has infected attempts at "reforming" the Byzantine rite in certain Greek Catholic circles, I think it perfectly appropriate to address the issue of the reform of the Latin liturgy, at least to the point of identifying what went wrong and why. At least, we should keep on doing so until the day arrives when a large proportion of our priests and bishops stop slavishly imitating what the "Real Catholic" Church does and thinks, and rediscover their own authentic Tradition.