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In Mass of Ages, February 2009, Fr Gary Dickson argued that post-Vatican II the liturgical life of the Church had been seized by reformers misinterpreting the documents of the Council. In this issue, Mgr Ignacio Barreiro argues that Vatican II must only be understood in the light of Tradition. However, Moyra Doorly examines some of the principles of the twentieth century liturgical movement which influenced the Council and argues that the “rationalised liturgy” of Paul VI was an inevitable and problematic consequence. |
It is sometimes suggested that the liturgical reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council were sprung upon an unsuspecting Church by modernisers who hijacked the Council and misrepresented the conciliar documents in order to promote their own liberal agenda. Implicit in this view is a picture of Vatican II as a singular event through which a small group of determined individuals was able to manipulate the reforms to produce results not intended by the majority of the Council Fathers. Accordingly, it is the biased implementation of Council documents that has caused the current liturgical crisis rather than the principles contained within them.
One problem with this approach is that it doesn’t explain why in the summer of 1962, just a few months before the Council convened, the people of Seattle, USA were not only introduced to Mass facing the people for the first time as part of a Liturgical Week hosted by the diocese, but were also encouraged by a lay commentator speaking in English from a lectern in the sanctuary to join in the responses and in the singing of hymns. Neither can it explain why the Catholics of Hubbard’s Woods, Illinois, had been familiar with Mass facing the people since 1957, when Mgr Reynold Hillenbrand reordered the sanctuary at Sacred Heart Church.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, an increasingly influential Liturgical Movement promoted its ideas for liturgical reform in books, journals, workshops and conferences. In 1940 the first American Liturgical Week was held in Chicago to introduce the reformers’ ideas to the parishes. Meanwhile, similar programmes were also adopted in France, Italy, Ireland, Australia and Canada.
New liturgical forms were also explored. Romano Guardini, author of The Spirit of the Liturgy (1918), established a community of young people at Burg Rothenfels in Germany which continued until the Nazis closed it in 1939. According to one report describing the chapel there, cited by Alcuin Reid in The Organic Development of the Liturgy, “The walls were white; daylight, or candlelight in the evening, provided the main decorative element. The altar was not placed against the back wall...but forward toward the people who sat on small black cubes arranged around it on three sides. The presider was seated behind the altar and so closed the circle.”
Pius Parsch, a canon of the Augustinian monastery at Klosterneuberg near Vienna who is described by Reid as the leader of the Liturgical Movement in Austria, reordered the chapel of nearby Saint Gertrude’s in 1935 to include an altar for celebration versus populam. Reid quotes a description of the Sunday Mass liturgy at Saint Gertrude’s in 1950 which included participatory singing by the people, readings and prayers in German, an offertory procession, and the reception of Holy Communion standing.
The Organic Development of the Liturgy also includes the proceedings of a series of Liturgical Conferences held to develop a programme for liturgical reform. One influential participant at the 1909 Liturgical Conference at Malines was Dom Lambert Beauduin who presented his paper, ‘La Vraie Prière de l’Église’, published as La Piété de l’Église in 1914. At the Maria Laach conference of 1951, the influence of Joseph Jungman was, according to Reid, “considerable...we find a clear articulation of his theory of liturgical corruption and of the impact his principles of antiquarianism and pastoral expedience would have...such rites [e.g. the prayers at the foot of the altar] are corrupt because they are late developments, therefore they must be abolished unless they are currently seen as pastorally expedient.”
Included in the recommendations made at Maria Laach were: “5)...in every Mass at which the people assist the scriptural readings will be done directly and exclusively in the mother tongue...6) The recitation of the Creed should occur much less frequently...11) When holy Communion is distributed during the Mass, the Confiteor and its following prayers should be dropped...12) Mass ought to end with the blessing by the priest without the addition of the last Gospel”
Liturgical conferences were also held at Mont Sainte-Odile in 1952, at Lugano in 1953, at Mont-César in 1954 when the topic of concelebration was raised, and at Assisi in 1956.
Vatican II – event or process?
All of which suggests that at least some of the Council Fathers must have been aware of the nature of the proposals for liturgical reform being made. This isn’t to deny that those in favour of modernisation were extremely determined and influential in promoting the reforms, but instead to suggest that the foundations for the changes to come had been laid long before the Council convened. No doubt the modernising spirit of the times also caught the imagination of some Council Fathers as the liturgical reforms being proposed were hailed as capable of bringing a supposedly moribund Church to life.
The Council documents certainly include references to embracing the modern world and engaging with contemporary culture. According to the 1970 General Instruction on the Roman Missal (Cenam Paschalem), “the Second Vatican Council assembled with the aim of adapting the Church to the needs of today’s apostolate.” The 1965 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) calls on bishops to “prepare themselves by careful study to meet and play their part in dialogue with the world and with men of all shades of opinion…” Gaudium et Spes also states: “Let the faithful incorporate the findings of new sciences and teachings and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and thought, so that their practice of religion and their moral behaviour may keep abreast of their acquaintance with science and of the relentless progress of technology.”
The view of Vatican II as part of a process rather than as a single event is further emphasised by considering the principles influencing the Liturgical Movement itself. In his recent study Looking at the Liturgy:A Critical View of Its Contemporary Form, Aidan Nichols, OP makes a case for locating the roots of the twentieth century Liturgical Movement in the eighteenth century Enlightenment. “The result of the extrapolation of the wider Enlightenment motifs into the liturgical domain was threefold: a demand for the simplification of the Liturgy, an emphasis on its socially useful or community-building character, and the insistence that through as complete an intelligibility or reasonableness as possible it should edify morally those who worshipped by means of it.”
Nichols also cites the influence of Romanticism on recent Catholic liturgical development. He writes, “...early Romanticism contributed such baleful notions as piety without dogma, reflecting the idea that man is a Gefuhlswesen (what really matters is how you feel); a subjectivism different in kind from the Enlightenment’s and more voracious, for anything and everything could be made to serve the production of the Romantic ego; an approach to symbolism that was aestheticist rather than genuinely ecclesial; and an enthusiasm for cosmic nature (Naturschwarmerei) that would see its final delayed offspring in the ‘creation-centred’ spirituality of the 1980s.”
Rational man is therefore encouraged to be liturgically aware and scripturally literate, to reject subservience to priestly ritual and take a full and active role in rites that have been simplified and stripped of the unnecessary complexities and superfluous additions of the centuries. At the same time, Romantic man aims for the simplification of the liturgy so as to loosen its formal and hierarchical structures, while clearing the way for self-expression, creativity and spontaneity to emerge.
Embodying Liturgical Movement ideas
With the convening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962 came the culmination of half a century of endeavour, as reforms proposed by the twentieth century Liturgical Movement [aimed at simplifying the rites by rejecting the superfluous, fostering the laity’s active participation in the liturgy, and rendering the rites more accessible to modern man,] were adopted by the Church and put into practice.
For example, according to the 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), “the rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity. They should be short, clear, and free from useless repetitions. They should be within the people’s powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation.” And, “With the passage of time...there have crept into the rites of the sacraments and sacramentals certain features which have rendered their nature and purpose far from clear to the people of today. Hence some changes are necessary to adapt them to present-day needs...”
As well as this drive towards a simplified and rationalised liturgy, the emphasis in the documents is on the worshipping community celebrating the Eucharist and on the priest as president of that community. According to the General Instruction: “...the celebration of Mass is of its nature a community activity.” And the 1967 Instruction on the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery (Eucharisticum Mysterium) states: “In the celebration of the Eucharist, a sense of community should be encouraged.”
Similarly, the 1965 Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis), states that “...the eucharistic celebration is the centre of the assembly of the faithful over which the priest presides ...” And the 1964 Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (Lumen Gentium) claims: “Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are none the less ordered one to another; each in its own proper way shares in the one priesthood of Christ...The faithful indeed, by virtue of their royal priesthood, participate in the offering of the Eucharist.”
While stressing the need for caution and prudent consideration in implementing the reforms, the Council documents also pave the way for significant changes and variations to be introduced. According to the Constitution, ‘Even in the liturgy the Church does not wish to impose a rigid conformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole community...provision shall be made...for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions and peoples... in some places and circumstances, however, an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed.”
The Constitution also prepares the way for the liturgical experts by advising “the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority” to set up “a liturgical commission to be assisted by experts in liturgical science, sacred music, art and pastoral practice...to regulate pastoral liturgical action throughout the territory, and to promote studies and necessary experiments whenever there is a question of adaptations to be proposed to the Holy See.”
Despite the occasional call for prudence and the retention of Latin, for example, throughout the Council documents there is an emphasis on far-reaching reforms in line with principles promoted for decades prior to 1962. Did the visionaries of the Liturgical Movement impress the Council Fathers, just as Modernist architects persuaded local and national authorities across the world to build new cities for the future? That the reality fails to live up to the dream is a common realisation among those who attempt to sweep away the past and create a new ideal.
As a pastoral and ecumenical council, Vatican II clearly announces in its documents the intention of opening up to the world and creating a rationalised liturgy made accessible to modern man, a stripped-down participation liturgy focused on community and fraternity. The disparity between the Council’s intentions and its implementation has been over-emphasised. A rationalised, community-orientated liturgy such as the Council intended is bound to become desacralised.
Even in the early years of the Liturgical Movement, at Saint Gertrude’s Chapel, the warning signs were there; for as Klaus Gamber describes in The Modern Rite: “...Pius Parsch’s ‘Praying and Singing Mass’ was often transformed into a prayer spoken by priest and people in alternation, and enlivened by a few hymns. Hardly a trace remained of the celebration of a mystery.”
[Taken from "Mass of Ages" May 2009, The Latin Mass Society's quarterly magazine]