Msgr. Athanasius Schneider, an auxiliary bishop from Kazakhstan and traditionalist luminary, has recently aired some fresh episcopal opinions about both the 1911-3 and 1955-6 alterations to the Roman liturgy. The old Holy Week was a mere wish list item and the Divino Afflatu changes were absolutely off limits. Now a canonically regular bishop and genuine friend to tradition can look at these changes and clearly see them as a modern frame of thinking filtered into the old rite; much was lost and comparatively little was gained.
This blog has written extensively in advocacy of not only the old Holy Week but also the entire old Office, perhaps with a refreshed kalendar more balanced than those which post-date Trent, so there is little new to say here, but perhaps readers have some ideas.
Kazakhstan Bishop Athanasius Schneider has criticised two liturgical “revolutions” which preceded Paul VI's 1970 disastrous Novus Ordo reform.
Talking to OnePeterFive.com (September 21), Schneider pointed to Pius X's 1911 reform of the breviary. For Schneider it is “an enigma how he could do this”.
Pius X radically changed the distribution of the psalms. The Roman Church had kept this order almost unchanged since or even before Pope Gregory I (+604).
For Schneider it is “reasonable” to return to the former breviary which he calls “the breviary of all ages”.
The second revolution Schneider localises in Pius XII's 1955 failed reform of the rite of Holy Week. According to Schneider a similar thing has "never happened in the entire history of the Church”.
Pius XII replace "the beautiful rites of Holy Week" with a “manufactured” construct, Schneider adds.
The full interview may be found here:
ReplyDeletehttps://onepeterfive.com/society-cruel-chastity-schneider/
I think it's worth reading (and I don't say that only because my son Julian did the interview!)
It is good that Mgr. Schneider has made these observations. It will be interesting to see the reaction to them.
ReplyDeleteHaving been saying the same thing for nearly thirty years my expectations are not high...
It has taken time, and this pontificate, to get people to see the 20th century changes for what they were. This is a small development in that it won’t change anything immediately, but it does signify people with a modicum of knowledge may now speak freely on the subject. The Francis effect has been liturgically liberating at least.
DeleteOn Gloria.TV Louis Tofari (romanitaspress) is again defending the atrocious Holy Week reforms and the Pius X Breviary! A one note man!
ReplyDeleteA flat note too! At least he has not accused Mgr. Schneider of being a 'sede' - that used to be the standard 1962 supporter's argument against the rite proto-traditionalists were using in the 1970s.
DeleteWhy stop there? Pre-Barberini hymns or bust. And restore all the Sequences suppressed by Trent while at it.
ReplyDeleteWere the Barberini hymns mandatory or, like the Bea psalter, something book printers adopted irrespective of how people felt? The canonries of the Lateran and Vatican rejected them and I have heard the older versions of Vexilla Regis and the Veni Creator sung.
DeleteThose excerpts felt like reading a satire piece. I guess it took the trad world around 50 years to apply the same words to earlier reforms...
ReplyDeleteNo doubt you allude to the liturgical tradition of farcing?
DeleteNo, I meant that it really took some time for the same words which were applied to the 60's liturgical reforms to be applied to the liturgical reforms which came prior to that (those mentioned in the article), and also that it took some time to apply the same words by the same people.
DeleteI guess that even you at one point thought that 1962 was the bees knees, but then it took you only a few years (or even a few months) of research or whatever and you reached other conclusions.
So that would mean that individuals, unhindered by certain institutional pressures, can develop much quicker.
I guess the humor was lost in my remark.
DeleteLol sorry, it just flew right over my head :D
DeleteSo if it took this Pope can provoke parrhesia about his predecessors' liturgical fads being visited on the church Catholic, then perhaps the next Pope (the one who will wear a rainbow chasuble on Pride day and write an encyclical called Mutatis mutandis against transphobia) will allow us the freedom of mind to re-assess the un-traditional papal 19th C additions to the dogmas necessary for salvation etc.?
ReplyDeleteAnd if people looked at Rodrigo Borgia would they have been justified in promoting Conciliarism, that the Church ought to be governed by collective committees?
DeleteWe may want thing to be all good and well in our own lives, but, in the words an a Greek Orthodox friend, “modern Christianity is a shit show and there is no where to run.” At the same time the Holy Spirit, who created the liturgy after all, does not cease to work where He is welcomed. If Rome wants to engage in nonsense while not embracing formal heresy, let it; meanwhile, to paraphrase some absurdly modern people, the “Spirit will blow where it will.”
One bishop down, 5,099 to go.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of 20th century changes, on this feast day of Sts. Cyprian and Justina, what do you think of the removal of "non-historical" saints from the calendar and later from the martyrology?
ReplyDeleteHere comes a rabbit hole.... The kalendar should be a stable facet of the liturgy and the veneration of saints that has transpired for centuries should remain. What could reasonably be called into question are blatantly late additions to the legends of saints (ex. the eyes removed from Saint Lucy), but then again only to maintain consistent devotion and honor to a saint as God saw fit to raise him or her.
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