Thursday, April 9, 2015

Rite of Gricigliano

You have heard of the Rite of Econe. It is the 1962 liturgy with bows toward the Cross, St. Joseph in the Canon, the Confiteor before Communion, perhaps birettas in the sanctuary, and, in some daring places, no kneeling at the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday. This, not the 1962 typical edition, is what most traditionalists use as their base liturgy. But there once existed another usage of the 1962 Roman liturgy, one which was short lived and has since fallen into disuse: the Rite of Gricigliano.

Nowadays the Institute of Christ the King does 1962 with a few tweaks: Tenebrae in the evenings of Holy Week, violet during the Candlemas processions, proper doxologies during former octaves at the little hours of the Office, proper Last Gospels and commemorations, as well as the former ritual for solemn high Mass wherein the priest reads the lessons while they are sung. This is not the Rite of Gricigliano, but the rite of 1962 in the hands of Frenchmen. The Rite of Gricigliano is the old rite in the hands of a German.

When they began in 1990 in Gabon, the Institute of Christ the King was doing the pre-Pius XII Roman liturgy, as were most traditionalists outside of the FSSPX. Indeed, even many of Msgr. Lefebvre's independent allies used the old rite. This continued when they moved to their current house at Gricigliano in Tuscany. Their liturgy professor and master of ceremonies Abbé Franck Quoex assiduously taught and practiced the Roman liturgy with Pius XII's accession as the cutoff date, a praxis confirmed to me by a former rector of the Institute's seminary. The 1962 Missal was in the "hell" section of the library, with all the other books no one ever used. The Pacellian-Johannine book was be withdrawn from hell in case an astute jurist visited from Rome only to be returned swiftly to the folios and flames. Internal politics and the expulsion of a great number of priests caused for some changes within the Institute early last decade (a blog is not the appropriate place to discuss these issues). Around 2003, when a photographer took the photographs of Holy Week on this blog, the Institute ceased to use the old rite.


Rome decided to put all its traditional eggs in one legally uniform basket. The Pope, or those writing with his pen, resolved to place all communities using a pre-Conciliar form of the liturgy under the facies of the indult Ecclesia Dei and the pontifical commission of the same name. Fr. Wach was told to switch to 1962 and most of the Institute did. They were celebrating Holy Week according to 1962 by 2005 in most locations, but a few places held out with the inventiveness and ingenuity of a German priest within the Institute who did not obstruct the liturgical transition, but rather made it a process. Good Friday in many places saw the Gregorian Mass of the Pre-Sanctified celebrated, but with the administration of Communion—reserved on the credence table—during Vespers. Holy Saturday was done at the Pian times and with the Pian lessons rather than the ancient ones. The baptismal font would be blessed rather than a container of water during the Vigil and Pian Lauds replaced ancient Vespers. Thus was born the Rite of Gricigliano, a mix-and-match of the old and transitional forms of the Roman rite, a rite meant to transition from the old to the transitional! This went on for a few years. The oratory in St. Louis last celebrated the Rite of Gricigliano in 2008. I have heard of some celebrations in Europe that lasted as long. 

As more communities reconsider their usages, the larger priestly groups are more entrenched in the Pian and Johannine years because of oversight. A diocesan bishop will neither know nor care about happened in 1956, but the local FSSP rector might! The Rite of Gricigliano lasted less than a decade. Now the Roman options of between the old rite, the middle rite, and the new rite.

19 comments:

  1. Well...I can tell you for a fact two things: in some places the ICRSS does Tenebrae in the mornings, here in 2015.

    And I can also tell you that parts of the Rite of Gricigliano survive also in 2015, specifically in the Easter "Vigil."

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    1. Where are you seeing the Rite still used?

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    2. Chicago is where I have seen. This is all from at least last year, and the two years prior. I did not attend any Holy Week Rites there this year.

      From what I can tell, for ex., the Holy Saturday liturgy goes thusly:

      Fire and Procession follows Pian Rite - one collect, incense already in the candle, candle blessed outside and processed in (no triple reed). Deacon sings Exsultet all the way through.

      Prophecies follows Pius XII Rite - 4 prophecies with Tracts, Collects. Only exception is that Subdeacon chants the Levate.

      The next part seems to basically follow the Old Rite - there is a font inside the Church, near the rear, and everything is done at the font (no bucket blessing) - celebrant changes to Cope, acolyte carries Paschal Candle, Font is blessed with holy oils, etc. Procession comes back to Sanctuary, major ministers change to white. They use the Prayers at the Foot and Last Gospel.

      So it is probably more Pian than your synopsis of the "Rite of Gricigliano," I suppose.

      Off the top of my head, a few other things - Holy Thursday's rite with the second large Host, wrapped Chalice, etc. is followed, and the Mass ends coram sanctissimo. They do a general communion on Friday, so I presume the large Host is placed on top of a number of small hosts, and perhaps that was a ciborium I saw rather than a Chalice; nonetheless it gets the linen veil with ribbon. On Good Friday all the ministers go to the Altar of Repose and the Celebrant does collect the Sacrament.

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  2. Abbe Quoex was really quite a grand liturgist and would be a wonderful person to talk about when it comes to the Liturgy. May he rest in peace.

    Were the Priests of the Institute in the nineties praying the 1962 Office or was Divino Afflatu their Office of choice. As we know, after SP, only 1962 is allowed but it would be great if the Church gave older offices like DA authorization to be utilized as liturgy.

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  3. it is my humble opinion that it is better to just stick with the book, then to DIY

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  4. Meanwhile, there is the budding Rite of Berlin (Berlin, NJ that is)...it's a process, but in reverse from transitional to Traditional.

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  5. btw, i'm no longer a sede so you can stop ignoring me

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    1. Marko, I haven't been ignoring you, just giving you some space ;-)

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  6. Rite of Gricigliano? It was all about fitting square pegs into round holes. I was there from 1990 until late 1992 and still in the Institute until 1995 (I was ordained deacon by Cardinal Palazzini in 1993). We liked Fr Quoëx but many of us were less fussy about the Holy Week rites and had other things to worry about. Apart from tweaks in the Holy Week rites of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, which were compromises, we followed 1962. If things changed after my departure from the Institute in 1995, I have no way of knowing.

    The internal politics were partly between the Quoëx liturgical tendancy and the Mora-Lefebvre-Jayr phalanx, but many men less concerned with the liturgy were also marginalised and pressured to leave. It was a little like Ecône: the via media was a razor edge.

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  7. Victimae: In public recitations and common prayer, the ICRSS uses 1962. In private, many priests use earlier editions, i.e. pre Pius XII. I do not know if anyone uses pre-Divino Afflatu though. When I made a comment about DA in front of an ICRSS priest once, he laughingly cast it off with an "Oh yeah, Pius X was such a modernist too!"

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    1. Thank you for your response, Matthew. Yes, that's the thing. I prefer DA over '62 but if I was a Priest, I must confess I would have some scruple utilizing the former.

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    2. I guess my take-away was, feelings of scruples aside, it would be one thing to say, "yes those reforms have problems but I use DA because I think I have to" versus "to suggest any sort of problem with DA or connection with later reforms means you must think St. Pius X was a modernist which means you are insane!"

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    3. From my understanding, using pre-DA in it's later years is a bit difficult (there was a reason for the 1911 reform after all). It seems the way to go if you wanted pre-DA would be finding a 16th or 17th century Missal and adding a few of the many saints (maybe even adding and "demoting" some of the ones that were clogging the breviary at the time).
      Going after DA is not practical at the moment, but scrapping Pius XII changes is.

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    4. Lord:

      It is difficult insofar as the calendar is absolutely clogged with feasts. Most who do use pre-DA (as I do) do not follow the sanctoral as it stood in 1910, let alone interspersing all of the saints we would wish to consider who have since been included in the universal calendar. I do not know where that would leave a cleric obliged to recite the Office; for me, I pray the sanctoral for Saints who I believe merit being on the Universal Calendar, using the 1570 Sanctoral as a starting point. This is basically what John R (frequent commenter here), who runs Current Tridentine Ordo, does.

      On the note of DA - the text problem is difficult. Rubricarius has pointed to this as a major reason why St. Lawrence publishes a 1939 Missal/Calendar/Rubrics Ordo rather than a 1910 one. I happened upon a late-19th century Diurnale on ebay for about $20 which I use, in concert with Divinum Officium. However, Divinum Officium is riddled with errors when one gets to the pre-DA Offices - i.e. the 1570 still has Urban's hymns most (all?) of the time; both 1570 and 1910 have the DA Temporal antiphons - those are the main things I have caught so far.

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    5. Matthew, yes, the Current Tridentine Ordo (CTO) does exactly what LOB would suggest: 1570 as a baseline with a "do-over" for the additions to the Sanctorale since. Most post-Tridentine saints are not added to kalendar being of local (or now since expired universally) cult. Of course, it is somewhat arbitrary, but I think many of us here agree it is, in principle, the better solution to the 1910 problem. I tried praying 1910 as it was, and after two months of never praying half the psalter and almost memorizing the Common of Confessors, it was tedious and boring, and I had to switch back to DA.

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    6. And this conversation is why I use the Byzantine Office. Get a good version and you're good to go. No assembly required ;)

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    7. LOB:

      Touche, touche. It is hard to argue too much with that. I have considered the daunting task of learning Sarum as well, though that does also not exactly deal with the Saints "problem" either.

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  8. Dear Rad Trad.

    http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?id=36&catname=6

    As regards the Rite of Econe, what do you think of this first hand report?

    It seems to indicate a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants make-it-up-as-you-go-along synthesis of varying elements actualised according to the whim of the celebrant

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  9. You have forgotten the Liturgy of Saint Eugene...in Paris, which is indeed a mixture of Pacellianisms and other things: http://www.schola-sainte-cecile.com/2015/04/04/programme-de-la-vigile-pascale-7/#comments. See in particular the second comment.

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