Since the Council of Trent the Roman Liturgy has been under the thumb of the Popes - one man among many men, and coming after a venerable tradition - whether he be Vicar of Christ or no. Reform (or ''renewal'', ''organic development'' or whatever) of the Roman Liturgy since then has been questionable at best, deplorable at worst. Questionable - Leo XIII's votive offices. I don't like the idea of a ''Votive Mass'', and I never have. I don't like the idea that anyone can simply interrupt the Kalendar, which is the Church's ''living memory'' (in the Tolkienian sense of Elvish memory, where memory is more like to waking life) of the mysteries both of the Redemption (the Temporale) and the Incarnation (the Sanctorale), even for a grave cause, at their whim. I don't think many people fully appreciate the fundamental importance of the Kalendar - it is the cycle of the liturgical year which gives the Sacred Liturgy meaning beyond ritual. Mass without the Season would be rather pointless in my view. And so Leo XIII's authorisation for secular clergy with many calls to answer to simply supplant the lengthy ferial office with a votive office of their choosing (unless I am quite mistaken) was a mistake, and potentially a grave one, but there are worse evils.
Deplorable - just about everything Pius XII did. I don't have the time or inclination to go through absolutely every abuse that Romish Man of Sin (now in Hell) did to the Tradition of the Church (post-'56 Holy Week and Signum Magnum are among the worst crimes of the Church), but the point of this post is simply to ask an honest, genuine (no barbs attached) question: Why do Traditionalist Catholics blame the Second Vatican Council for the pathetic state of the Roman Liturgy when the problem goes much further back? It is the Papacy that is the sole cause of the problem, not the ''spirit of Vatican II''; it is the Papacy, not subordinates in the Vatican (liturgical periti - poor old Bugnini), which is to blame for Signum Magnum. Take Urban VIII's pseudo-Classical hymnody - hundreds of years before Bugnini was born (and ironically those hymns were only put right because of the Second Vatican Council!); how is this abuse in any way related to Modernist tendencies in liturgical theology in the 1960s? It isn't - and there is such a thing as a liturgical abuse not related to Modernism (Low Mass is such an abuse), because Liturgy can be abused in many ways; although it seems that many people do not (or cannot, being the prisoners of their own vanity, blind obedience and ignorance) connect cause to effect.
Of course Pius XII is now the ''venerable'' Pius XII...put a monstrous Pope on the path to canonization and you make him above reproach (like Pius X, the hero of Tradworld), at least to the sort of riff-raff who come out with such nonsense as Roma locuta est, causa est finita, let the wisdom of Rome look to it etc (I personally have never mistaken centralized bureaucracy for the will of God just because the Vatican assigns some stupid title to the process, such as ''the apostolic,'' or ''the most holy.'' But I have no qualms!
People who might froth at the mouth at the very thought of a pope being in Hell might like to read Canto XIX of the Inferno. Dante, a supreme poet, was very candid about Boniface VIII among other popes...
Of course such honest questions as these go unanswered, and the people who ask are poor heretics for asking.
Mass without the Season would be rather pointless in my view.
ReplyDeleteSo much for the Requiem, then?
Why do Traditionalist Catholics blame the Second Vatican Council for the pathetic state of the Roman Liturgy when the problem goes much further back?
Not all do.
It is the Papacy that is the sole cause of the problem, not the "spirit of Vatican II."
The sole cause?
"Deplorable - just about everything Pius XII did. I don't have the time or inclination to go through absolutely every abuse that Romish Man of Sin (now in Hell) did to the Tradition of the Church"
ReplyDeleteIs this insight and discernment, or puerile vituperation?
I'd just like to know.
You could teach Jack Chick a thing or two about vitriol and hate.
ReplyDelete"Why do Traditionalist Catholics blame the Second Vatican Council for the pathetic state of the Roman Liturgy when the problem goes much further back?"
ReplyDeleteBecause it is convenient and 'safe' to do so. The inherent Ultramontanism is a defining feature of Traditionalists and so the SVC becomes a convenient and easy target. Traddies can pour contempt on the 'wicked bishops', the 'liberals' et al but preserve their view of the papacy.
To acknowledge that the problem is far deeper would mean having to challenge their own identity.
Is it really necessary to presume that Pius XII is in hell?
ReplyDeleteThe Jack Chick swipe is cheap.No effort really there, no exertion.
ReplyDeleteWhy not go back to the cluniac reforms and the work undertaken by Hildebrand? Until and unless the papacy as it is(not as Bellarmine makes it to be, of course) is not replaced in the context of European history and politics, nothing good will be achieved.
Take late antiquity and the dissolution of the roman empire in the West and its persistance in the East. In the West, the papacy replaced or subsumed the decaying the imperial administration as focus of imperial(and increasingly, religious) unity.etc, etc.Between one's claims and one's powers...Why do you need to claim and assert powers which you believe to hold by divine right? Power struggles.
The powers of papacy as they are, to borrow American constitutional notions, derive more from licentious constructionism than originalism. Power more by gradual and arbitrary construction, interpretation, of a different original mandate.
Augustin Fliche's work on Hildebrand and the period is invaluable. But we have to read him with great caution.
Most people do not delve deeply into the less obvious parts of the Sacred Liturgy, and therefore what is obvious is what attracts attention.
ReplyDeleteThe '1962' Missal preserves the basic pattern of the Mass and the language; the 1969 Missal effected an obvious change. The two points are, of course, merely audit points in a process chosen in at least a semi-arbitrary manner - but they have become the obvious rallying points.
The then Cardinal Ratzinger noted that most of the faithful wouldn't notice the difference between an 'eastward' facing Novus Ordo in Latin and the '1962' - having seen both celebrating in the same church, and having spoken to many who don't have the same liturgical geekery I have to agree with His [then] Emminence.
Given that many/most don't distinguish between these two radically different celebrations, those who can easily perceive the far less obvious changes before then are very few.
Add to that, as has been noted, the fervent ultra-montanism of most traditionalists one can see why it took the vernacular (and what a shockingly bad vernacular to boot) and ping-pong table Altars to make them resist the Holy Father.