Ratzinger's Private Latin Mass?

Le Barroux, 1995
source: Una Voce, Venice

We kept hearing from wishful thinkers that Benedict XVI either privately celebrated the 1962 Mass or assisted at it in his chapel (cf. Bishop Fellay) when he sat on St. Peter's chair. There was even some aspiration that he might deign to offer the Vatican II Mass is public, which would give traditionalists ammunition to fire upon everyone else and South American bishop license for open schism. It never happened. In fact, did he even celebrate the EF of the Novus Ordo privately? Fr. Lombardi says no, but Thomas Woods says yes.

On the whole it seems extraordinarily unlikely. Joseph Ratzinger was a reformed theologian and "Vatican II man" through and through; his Introduction to Christianity would have had him before the Inquisition in the days of S. Pius V. Ratzinger, however, favored organic liturgical development and also had some modicum of compassion for traditionalists after he botched negotiations with the FSSPX and Archbishop Lefebvre died under canonical interdict. If anything his description of the Pauline Mass as a "banal fabrication" suggests he wished something less mediocre evolved through the traditional means of changing the liturgy, but he still wanted a different liturgy.

His interest in the welfare of traditionalists and in the [impossibly post-Modern concept of] hermeneutic of continuity may have motivated his half dozen or so celebrations of the 1962 missal prior to his papal election, among them with the nascent FSSP, a conference at Fontgambault, at the monastery of Le Barroux, and a few times for diocesan seminarians in Weimar.

Francis is the modern antidote to Ultramontanism, so why weaponize a past papacy?

Too Late?

An article by Msgr. Charles Pope, a priest of the archdiocese of Washington, DC, is now bothering some circles with the empirical realization that wider legal availability of the 1962 Mass has not been met with standing room only congregations. Pope himself reflects that his once-a-month Latin Mass was full in the 1980s, but now only fills a third of the church (as an aside: the neighboring diocese of Arlington has at least one Latin Novus Ordo Mass and numerous old rite Masses every Sunday, which wasn't the case even ten years ago). After Summorum Pontificum old rite Masses doubled in number and attendance at such Masses increased by volume, although not per Mass. Pope's message is that the old Roman Mass will not save the Church in the modern day, and he is right, but I cannot help but think an interesting point has been missed: did Benedict XVI's legislation come too late?

Popularly, traditionalists correlated the replacement of the old Mass with Concilium's concoction to the decline in Mass attendance. Logically, a reversal of this error would revive attendance, a mistake of thought Pope keenly quashes. What if that was true? I believe it was true once. This author cannot recall the year, but he remembers an old issue of the Tablet, England's "Catholic" magazine, which polled believers in that country as to whether or not they believe the new Mass should be replaced by the old. This survey, done in either 1982 or 1984, found nearly a majority favored the old Mass, the next closest had no opinion, and the smallest group liked the new rites. The Tablet took that survey thirty years ago, when the old Mass was within living memory for most Roman Catholics and laity. In 2016 the old Mass has not been the norm in any form for forty-seven years, two generations going on three. One cannot simply "turn the clock back", although that once would have been a reasonable pastoral option, one the bishops would not have heard.

Today spots of genuine growth, unrelated to immigration patterns, center on fonts of orthodoxy and reverence, not of the 1962 liturgy. While Oratories and vibrant churches do occasionally utilize older rites, they thrive because of the impulse to celebrate those rites, not the rites themselves. Traditionalists will doom themselves if they wall themselves into their parishes—inevitably posting dress codes on the door which as the women to dress as characters from Little House on the Prairie—and expect the unbelieving world to come to them. The old Mass could be an effective tool of conversion if only it and its environs were ordinary rather than extraordinary. Today I met a priest who takes an incrementalist approach with his congregation, singing the Agnus Dei and Pater noster in Latin; he hopes to install a genuine altar that can accommodate the "big six" in his parish of 3,000 families. Perhaps if he celebrates the old Mass once a week in his parish a few years down the road he might gain a side congregation; if he celebrated it thirty years ago he would have converted the city; if he did it now he would lose his flock.

The old Roman rite has a place in the restoration of the Latin Church, but it cannot be the only solution.

Interesting Re-Post By Fr. Hunwicke

We boutique liturgical fetishists have long pondered a minor question which, I think, illustrates the liturgical mish-mash discussed earlier in Summorum Pontificum & the Rite of Econe. Is St. Joseph in the Canon of the Mass in the books as SP and the Ecclesia Dei commission want us to use them or is he not?

Fr. Hunwicke mentions the matter a bit and his readers in the comment box below debate the issue of dates. The 1962 Missal was issued mid-year and the addition of St. Joseph, issued in November that year, did not take effect until December 8th. So do those who celebrate under the aegis of SP use the 1962 typical edition or the books that existed by December 31st, 1962?

The video referenced is a Mass demonstration created by a FSSP priest in their church in Rome, where I have had the privilege of hearing Mass. The celebrant does not say St. Joseph's name in the Canon, nor does he observe many other oddities in the 1962 Missal (bowing to the book and not the Cross at per Dominum nostrum, the Holy Name etc., not that anyone observed the suppression of these gestures in 1962 either). Yet there is no Confiteor at Communion nor votive orations and the Gloria is said (the Mass in question is a votive Mass of the Holy Cross). See below around 1:20:

Summorum Pontificum & the Rite of Econe

Today much of the Tradosphere celebrates the issuance of then-Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, which largely deregulated use of the 1962 Roman rite. What is really used is not 1962, I do not think anyone uses 1962 by the book, but what I call the "Rite of Econe," the result of tinkering during the formative years of the FSSPX.

Early on, outside of France, most everyone in the traditionalist movement used pre-Pius XII. Even in France St. Nicolas du Chardonnet used pre-Pacelli until 1984 when the priest in charge of that church died. For some reason 1962 caught on in France. Why? Perhaps during the 1960s priests became gradually more agitated and stopped accepting changes at a certain point. Rather than turning back the clock they refused to go forward. This was the case of Fr. Quintin Montgomery-Wright, who then Sarum-ized the Roman liturgy and recovered the Norman liturgical heritage of northern France. It may also have appealed because of its very sparse and simple Divine Office.*

A man who was a postulant with the FSSPX in Econe "back in the day" once told me that they did 1965—essentially 1962 with the popular parts in vernacular and options for lay people to do readings—with some modifications, among them the Ordinary of Mass in Latin and the Confiteor prior to Communion. At some point they switched to 1962 outright at Econe, meaning all Latin, no lay readers, and recovering the hour of prime. They continued to make alterations—such as the epistle in French, bows to the Cross, and no genuflection for the Jews on Good Friday—until arriving at their current praxis. Do any readers, particularly older ones, know additional details about this development? After all the rite of Econe is the Extraordinary Form.

* = for example yesterday would have been Sunday and the Octave day of Ss. Peter & Paul, warranting nine readings at Mattins (including three from the superseded octave day being read as one long ninth lesson), commemorations at Lauds, Mass, and Vespers. This Wednesday would see Vespers of St. Elizabeth of Portugal followed by Vespers of the Dead, as the Officium Defunctorum is prayed on the first free day of the month in addition to the Office of the season/sanctoral cycle. Lent and Advent are especially involved in the old Office, with the Officium Defunctorum and Requiem Masses in additional to the Lent and Advent liturgy on Mondays. In 1962 Sundays usually have three lessons as opposed to the traditional nine. The difference could be up to 30 minutes of time in private recitation during violet seasons.

Benedict XVI's Liturgical Legacy

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Benedict XVI's historic resignation of the Roman pontificate. I remember waking up unusually early that morning and deciding to check the Drudge Report on my iPhone before returning to sleep. When the first item was a picture of Benedict I read the headline "Pope Steps Aside" and jumped out of my bed.

Josef Ratzinger is a case study in Hegelian philosophy: he is the synthesis of many unusual contradictions. He rejects the concept of fabricated liturgy in favor of organic development, and yet always favored the entirely reformed liturgy on the grounds that it contributed to the Church as a whole. He advised Sigrid Spath against conversion, but made an exceptional vehicle for Anglicans to enter the Church with no questions. He insisted that the old liturgy was for the entire Church's use, but called it a pastoral accommodation in his book-length interview with Peter Seewald, Light of the World. He favored a "hermeneutic of continuity" between the "pre-Conciliar" and "Conciliar" Catholic Church, and yet never took any concrete steps to demonstrating this continuity; liberals, traditionalists, and practical people never signed on to this outlook, but many drew the ire of Ultramontanists who enforced it as an orthodoxy. Perhaps oddest is his Assisi gathering—admittedly far more tame than the previous two—after his predecessor's events in St. Francis' town irked him near resignation.

Much like his 1988 counter-part, Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI is a quilt of unusual tiles which form a whole difficult to discern.

Offering the 1962 rite in Weimar.

Much like Lefebvre he revived use of the 1962 Missal, although, again like Lefebvre, he missed an opportunity to resuscitate a liturgy more reflective of the Roman tradition. Many traditionalists fawned over Benedict's acceptance of the FSSPX thesis that the "Traditional Latin Mass" was "never abrogated." As I have stated elsewhere here, it was never abrogated in the strict sense, but 1962 was certainly not usable after 1964. The result of Summorum Pontificum was two competing conservative elements, the "neo-conservative" Ultramontanists and the Traditionalists with some variation of the FSSPX agenda. The first group wanted to make 1969 and 2009 the same thing while the other wanted to banish anything beyond the halcyon year of 1962.

Still Summorum has its benefits. While SP proliferated occasional celebrations of the rite of Econe it also caused some circle to begin a serious re-evaluation of the liturgical trends of the last century. More priests celebrated the pre-Pius XII Holy Week last year than when Summorum came out of Rome in 2007. Gregory diPippo of New Liturgical Movement and Rubricarius of the St. Lawrence Press have contributed to the popular education of many in the liturgical reform process and, more importantly, in what treasures have been lost over the years. In a recent post Fr Richard Cipolla gloats over Fr Thomas Kocik's capitulation from "reform of the reform" to the "Traditional Latin Mass," assuming it must be the starting point of liturgical reform. Cipolla may think Kocik has had a breakthrough while I think he has only scratched the surface.

Years must pass before we can evaluate whether or not Summorum Pontificum was a net sum positive for the Catholic Church, and it may well be, but we could certainly say at this point that it did not succeed in meeting Pope Benedict's expectations. Personally I think Benedict wanted the revival of the 1962 rite to accomplish two objectives:

1. to create liturgical continuity between the immediately pre-Conciliar praxis and the current praxis
2. to offer a bridge for the Society of St Pius X to return to canonical standing

The continuity objective, the interest of a very narrow group of theologians heavily invested in the changes of the 1960s, ended the moment Ratzinger resigned. The second flopped when talks broke down in 2011, partly because of Rome's constantly changing criteria for re-integration and partly because the extreme elements of the FSSPX caused internal dissidence.

Pope Benedict looking very shiny.

More relevant to the average Church-goer are Benedict's efforts with the Pauline liturgy. This, more than anything else, illustrates his entire papacy: trying to lead by a few public and inconsistent examples and unwilling to back these efforts with legislation. Early in his papacy there had been some chatter of substantial changes to the Pauline Mass concerning the Offertory, the Sign of Peace, and the number of Eucharistic Prayers. In the end all we got was a new translation in one language. His second Master of Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini, found some very shiny old vestments and paired them with enormous baroque mitres. They even put some extra candles on the altar and celebrated ad orientem in the Sistine Chapel once a year.

These gestures, particularly the ad orientem celebrations, garnered international and mainstream interest, but Benedict never took them any further. At his Masses in the Roman basilicas he still sat in a chair in front of the altar, closing it off from the circle of communication for the first half of Mass. He never celebrated ad orientem at World Youth Day or other major events and so people never became accustomed to it. The Sistine Masses encouraged some fellow reformers of the reform, but few else. The Pauline Mass, as practiced in 95% of parishes today, is the same in 2014 and it was in 1984. Even if legislation mandating ad orientem, Communion on the tongue, or the use of the Roman Canon had been ignored, it would still be on the books for a successor to enforce. Benedict made no such moves. Perhaps most maddening is that Benedict's continuity efforts focused on assimilating the 1962 aesthetic with the modern reality, not on assimilating the Roman tradition and the modern reality. Candles and vestments have a point, but would not a choir arrangement during Vespers send a stronger message than a Roman cope? Would not a real Kiss of Peace be more forceful than a fiddleback chasuble?

As the pope of my youth I will always have a soft spot for Benedict XVI. I attended my first papal audience and first Mass in St. Peter's during his pontificate and became familiar with the Roman liturgical tradition as a result of his work. And yet I cannot help but think that, like Marcel Lefebvre, he did some good yet missed the opportunity to do much.

Anti-Semitism in Traddieland?

The Rad Trad somehow stumbled upon this passive-aggressive hit piece on concerns some Catholics, often nervous residents of Traddieland, expressed upon the election of Cardinal Bergoglio as the new Roman Pontiff. One such area of concern was that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio resisted a forthright implementation of Benedict XVI's motu proprio on the 1962 rite. In our age of Ultramontanism, the idea that the Pope was not entirely lock-in-step with the Pope was unthinkable! There were several 1962 Masses in neighboring dioceses, but there was only one in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires. The Mass was a once-a-month affair and a hybrid with the Mass of Paul VI: the 1970 kalendar, the 1970 lectionary, vernacular, and lay readers were employed for the Fore-Mass (or should it be called "Liturgy of the Word"?). The laity became frustrated, according to eyewitness accounts, and attendance dwindled to the point that the Mass was cancelled. So what is the point of the title of this post?

 

Many bloggers exhibited an understandably uncomfortable reaction to this news. The idea that one Pope did not follow the other's program perfectly was problem of which even the greatest Scholastics could not understand in the modern day. Celebrity bloggers suggested that the 1962 Masses in neighboring dioceses should be counted among those in Cardinal Bergoglio's archdiocese, a factually strained attempt at re-constituting continuity between the incoming Pope and his predecessor's liturgical program. For some this was not enough. Enter the above article.

 

Pope John XII: not a pleasant fellow

Many comments about the [no longer] new Pope have been quite distasteful. That said no Catholic is obliged to like the Pope, only to acknowledge his authority. Were John XII still Pope the Rad Trad would become a hermit in order to avoid that scoundrel's scandalous activity. Some bloggers, such as the writer of the first article linked above, did not wish to consider this vital distinction and took the acerbic comments flowing from Traddieland River very personally. Unable to dispute the facts surrounding the 1962 rite within the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires with a higher level of respect than that which was perceived among traddies, the writer basically called the source of the information in the Rorate Caeli piece a Holocaust denier. The evidence? A piece written by Marcelo González in Panorama Católico Internacional. From a cursory glance Panorama seems like a run-of-the-mill traddie blog, only in Spanish. The article referenced by the reactionary blogger, Ms. Eden, is of course in Spanish. Ms. Eden, it seems, does not speak Spanish:

Five months ago, Marcelo Gonzalez announced he had reached the “fixed position” that the “so-called ‘holocaust’” is a media exaggeration. If Google’s translation is correct, he wrote that he prefers to call it “the so-called ‘holocaust’” or, alternatively, the “hollowcaust.”  You can read for yourself his blog entry “Holocaust and Hollowcaust” via Google Translate (or read it here in the original Spanish). It’s disgusting, and as a fellow member of the Mystical Body, I am ashamed.

Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for Ms. Eden, the Rad Trad does speak Spanish, and her borrowing from Google Translate does not help her case, even with the shoddy translation. The actual word used "Holocuento" literally means "Holo-story." The premise of the article is that many people, Catholics included, died as a result of Nazism, but people tend to focus primarily on the plight of European Jews. The suffering of the Jewish people was then utilized politically, the author contends, as a pretext for the foundation of the Jewish state of Israel. I do not think any historian would factually deny these claims, even the latter of them. The Holocaust was certainly the reason the United Nations chartered the state of Israel. If not for the great violence they suffered, why would Jewish people want to leave Europe? González continues in lamenting that political correction, particularly in Catholic-Jewish relations, has become something of a doctrine in the modern day, given once-Pope Benedict XVI's statement that one cannot be Catholic and deny the Holocaust (which a historically insane position anyway). This last point is the crux of the article. No where in it does the author deny the Holocaust or even question death tolls as former FSSPX bishop Richard Williamson infamously did in 2009. The author makes one statement that, when a biased person utilizing an electronic translation encounters it, lends itself to corruption:

"Sabemos que hay intereses políticos, económicos y propagandísticos en esto de fijar cifras millonarias de víctimas y sobre todo en ignorar a las otras víctimas que no fueron judíos."

Ms. Eden

It means "We know there are political, economic, and propaganda interests in fixing the numbers of millions of victims and, above all, in the ignoring of the other victims who were not Jewish." Half the people who died in World War II were not Jewish. Many people, often Catholic political prisoners, found themselves dying in concentration camps prior to the commencement of the Holocaust, which was a systematic extermination process directed against a demographic, not a political party. The shortcoming of this article is that it used the term "Holocaust" to denote anyone who died during World War II in Europe when most are accustomed to hearing it used specifically to denote the 1942-1945 actions against the Jewish populace.

 

Why does all this matter? Catholics attached to the older liturgy have, sometimes by their own faults and sometimes by the faults of others, found themselves isolated from the mainstream. This can lead to internal paranoia and external caricatures. The article suggesting Mr. González is a Holocaust denier fits into the second of these. Ms. Eden approaches the finale in her assault on this maligned Latino with a furious parade of suggestions that traddies ought to speak up now, or forever be put on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate group list:

UPDATE #3: Rorate Caeli commenters have shown their true colors with viciously antisemitic comments to this post. I have allowed some to appear in the comments section here for the record, but the more vicious ones I have forwarded to other concerned bloggers, as I am occupied with schoolwork and do not wish to continue to engage the soft white underbelly of the rad-trad world. You may look for them on Mary Victrix, the blog of Father Angelo Mary Geiger, F.I., who has already written about this post.

UPDATE #4, 4/9/13: Closing comments so that I can get some schoolwork done today and not have to sift through hateful words against my Jewish ancestors and relatives and against those who think the Church has, in fact, continued past 1965. Many more viciously antisemitic comments have come in. I am sending the rest to Mark Shea, who has told me he will have something to say on the matter—oh, I see he just put up a post.

Thanks to the relatively few lovers of the Extraordinary Form who have written with their support. [As of 4/10/13, many more have written. Thank you!] To those who love the traditional Mass and have not commented: If you don’t want the Extraordinary Form community to be dismissed as a bunch of hate-filled, antisemitic cranks, you need to raise your voice in the public square, and not be afraid of what the veils-and-brocade police say about you.

After Mr. González issued a clarification in Spanish and English, explaining what anyone who bothered to read the Spanish version with care or find someone with proficiency in the tongue, would have already known: the article is not about the Holocaust. It is about political correctness and the Catholic Church. Ms. Eden still insists the man is a Holocaust denier:

Gonzalez says in his non-apology apology, “For this reason, I clarify, or rather I reiterate that I am convinced that the Holocaust (that is, the death of millions of Jews in concentration camps or on their way to them during the Second World War) is a fact of uncontested historicity. Other aspects – of which I cannot speak, because I am no historian – remain in the academic sphere.”

Note what he is not saying–that there was a systematic, state-sponsored plan of extermination. In his article, he in fact denies such a plan, offers other reasons why Jews died, and claims that one who accepts that there was a Holocaust “may incur in an historical error of judgment.”

So he is a Holocaust denier–because the Holocaust was nothing if not “a program of systematic state-sponsored murder” of Jews, to use Wikipedia’s current and very apt wording. It is true that the Nazis also targeted millions of others for extermination because of their race, Catholic or Orthodox religion, disability, homosexual behavior, or political affiliation, and it may be legitimately argued that the killing of these populations should be included in the term “Holocaust.” But to cast doubt in any way upon the Nazis’ systematically murdering Jews is outrageous.

Does any of this have to do with the implementation of Summorum Pontificum in Brazil? No, but the Rad Trad does not want to see a man lose his reputation because of a petty political dispute within the Church either. 

Sometimes I think about getting rid of the internet and becoming a monk....

"EF" Mass in 1964

from: Wikipedia.org

A while back, perhaps over a year, New Liturgical Movement published a video of a 1962-Missal solemn Mass sung at St. Louis Abbey in St. Louis, Missouri. The celebrant was Fr. Edward Bunn, S.J., then-president of Georgetown University. The church of the abbey, a hideous house of heteropraxis, is entirely round inside and positions its altar at the center nave. Every Mass therefore would be versus populum, but the low candle sticks and thin, insipid crucifix dissuade one from entertaining the possibility that this is also meant to be ad orientem, in imitation of the ancient Roman basilicas. The tabernacle is directly behind the main—and the Rad Trad thinks, only—altar in the church. This novelty presented a difficulty for the servers and ministers, who at times seemed unsure as to whether they ought to genuflect before the altar or just bow, and whether or not they ought to genuflect before the tabernacle when passing it.

 

Things being done the rite way at St. Mary and the Martyrs (aka the Pantheon)
in Rome, c. 2008
credit: orbiscatholic.blogspot.com

In some ways they did the 1962 Mass differently from today. Note that the missal is transferred to the Gospel (really to the Offertory) position after the celebrant reads the gradual but before the ministers sit down. Today the book is moved when the celebrant rises to give the deacon the blessing for the Gospel reading. It would really be easier to return to the older practice of the celebrant remaining at the altar and reading along himself, but that can be a moot point in 1962-ville outside of some parishes, such as one where the Rad Trad once worshipped, that were doing the Latin Mass before the canonization of 1962 under Summorum Pontificum.

 

Archbishop Edwin O'Hara celebrating Mass at the consecration
of Christ the King parish in Kansas City, Missouri in 1954.
Construction on the parish, and its forward altar, began
in 1952, presumably with episcopal approbation.

From this we can see that the Liturgical Movement had a very powerful presence in the Church before vernacular and versus populum were explicitly expected by Rome or by national episcopal conferences. St. Louis Abbey was founded in 1955 by monks from Ampleforth Abbey in England. In nearby Kansas City Archbishop O'Hara had already celebrated pontifical Mass versus populum. The Jesuits entertained the Liturgical Movement long before it ever came to America, but the Society of Jesus must have felt very confident in the direction of things to have put the president of a major university on television to celebrate Mass facing the people. Although 51 years later we often tell ourselves it was a better time, this era's practices were directed toward the type of liturgy and ars celebrandi we have today. The use of Latin bound the celebrant to the text, but did not bind the architects of the church of the masters of liturgical ceremonies. Without any further delay, the Mass (starts around 18:00):

 

 

 

On the Validity and Legality of the Mass of Paul VI

JohnR, a friend of this blog, recently alluded to something in a comment on the previous post concerning Fr. Anthony Cekada's thesis in The Work of the Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI that the new Mass is invalid. His opinion is ubiquitous in sedevacantist-ville while the opinion that the new Mass is likely valid but certainly illegal was, at least once, popular in SSPX-land. The premises for both these opinions are utterly banal and without theological, historical, or legal merit, yet they exist and the Rad Trad, being in a devious mood, would like to look into them a bit more.

Validity

Fr. Anthony Cekada celebrating Mass very Romanly

Toward the end of Work of Human Hands Fr. Cekada argues on Thomistic grounds that the Order of Mass promulgated in 1969 is absolutely invalid in Latin or vernacular. Some hardline SSPXers used to argue that the common mistranslation of pro multis invalidated the consecration of the chalice; taken to its logical conclusion, there would be no Mass in that case and the consecration of the bread, since the Church does not consecrate outside of Mass, would also be invalid. But back to the more general validity issue. The reason Fr. Cekada gives is that the institution narrative in the new rite is treated as just that: a narrative, as opposed to a consecration formula. The words in the new rite, he says, do not contain the intention to consecrate and hence no consecration is possible, even if a validly ordained priest who intends to consecrate speaks the narrative words with the proper intention. Your eyes are not under the spell of glaucoma. You read it correctly. A validly ordained priest with the right intention speaking the words of consecration, which are the same in the new and old rites, cannot consecrate validly. So, is Fr. Cekada right?

 

His invalidity stance rests on intention within the "form" of the consecration. The old rite gradually builds up the priest's intention, from the sacrificial offertory prayers, through the thanksgiving prayers early in the Canon, transitioning into prayers for the living and dead, and concluding the Canon with an act of offering the Victim to God (Per ipsum....). The new rite certainly lacks this continuous flow, but I think Fr. Cekada would concede that it is not absolutely necessary. His position is specifically concerned with the consecration itself. At this point a little bit of history goes a long way.

 

When does the consecration happen? At Hoc est enim corpus meum and Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei? That has certainly been the prevailing teaching since the Scholastic era in the high Middle Ages, but it is not as clear cut as one may think. Around the 11th or 12th century priests, at the behest of the faithful often yelling from the nave, elevated the host and chalice during the Canon for their benefit and view. Some say this form of piety was a soft substitution for actual reception of the Blessed Sacrament, owing to the infrequency of reception that arose in the Dark Ages and which continued for centuries afterward. It is also at this point when scholars and theologians begin to question the specific moment of the "change." We are so accustomed to seeing those specific words of the priest as the formulation for the change that we read the rest of the Canon of Mass around it. But consider this: five centuries earlier the same Canon was sung, without pause, aloud in the tone of a preface in its entirety. A preface tone indicates that the prayer is concerned with blessing or consecrating something. The various signs of the cross and gestures made throughout the Canon differed diocese to diocese, sometimes greatly. Sarum, for example, has very few reverences (later genuflections) and a very different series of actions at the Per ipsum. For whatever reason at the end of the first millennium priests began to recite the Canon rather than sing it aloud and the gestures flourished as private signs of devotion in a private prayer. A consequence of these gestures was the partitioning of the Canon, in the priest's experience, into varying parts. The institution of the elevation of the elements had the same consequence, making the institution narratives a unique segment of the Canon.

 

Yet, without these gestures and motions we could read the Canon's text straight through and see that that institution narrative may well have been seen in earlier times as just that, a narrative. It is the justification, within the text of the prayer, for why the Church celebrates the Mass. It is hardly a story time, but rather is a public supplication to God on the grounds that we are obeying His Only Begotten Son's precepts. In those days one would of course agree that the change had taken place by the end of the Canon, although today we pinpoint it at the institution narrative. Months ago the Rad Trad published an appendix from an English translation of the Ordo Romanus Primus which contains a replication of what a Paschal Mass celebrated by the Pope may have looked like around the year 800 here. As readers will see the celebrant continues through the Canon unabated, without any special notice.

 

How does this influence our view of Fr. Cekada's thesis? The Rad Trad readily acknowledges that the change, the transubstantiation, happens at the narrative. Why? Two reasons: (1) the priest is given the power to consecrate and he intends to consecrate at this moment and (2) because the Church has agreed for a millennium to treat this particular point as the moment of transubstantiation. What the Rad Trad cannot do, and what the sedevacantist theory does do, is ignore the first ten or eleven centuries when the moment of change is at best vague or a little iffy. The Church, in her kindness and respect for tradition, cannot and does not uproot and ignore the prayers, beliefs, or intentions of previous generations of the faithful. It is for this reason that the Addai and Mari rite is valid. Liturgical historicity takes precedent over, admittedly Church sanctioned, Scholastic theology concerning forms. By ignoring this principle and by ignoring the history of the Canon itself one looks away from a legitimate reading of the narrative as a narrative. Hence the idea that somehow treating this part of the Canon as what it originally was invalidates it on defect of form is myopic.  Also, need the function of the institution words as a narrative and as consecration formula clash?

 

I have never met a priest or lay person who has read the narrative and thought any other intention other than consecration is latent in the words contained therein. One would think someone other than Fr. Cekada had caught on to the structural defects supposedly present in the altered Canon or new Eucharistic prayers.

 

Yes, it is very valid.

Licit?

St. Pius V, Pope of Quo Primum

Part of the fallout within the Society of St. Pius X over Bishop Fellay's failed attempt to give his institution canonical standing was Rome's demand that the Society sign on to the "legitimacy" of the new rite. This sounds odd, but it really just means the legality. In short, was the "new Mass" promulgated in a valid, legal action by the proper authority? Some apparently say no. Others, like one Paul Kramer in his article Legal Status of the Tridentine Mass, argue that since Quo Primum is a dogma of the faith Paul VI avoided going into schism by merely publishing, rather than promulgating, the new Mass.

 

First, we will discuss Quo Primum. Both of these positions are really variations of each other and they rest on the principle that St. Pius V's bull Quo Primum made the 1570 Missal, or at least the Ordo Missae within it, a dogma of the faith that cannot be violated and which guaranteed that it could never be taken away. This is wrong at two levels:

1. Quo Primum is primarily a legal document promulgating use of a certain liturgical book within the Latin Church. As a legal and administrative act it cannot bind a successor of equal status should he take the proper steps to depart from it.
2. Neither Pius V, nor any following pope, thought it was such. Two years earlier the same Pius V published Quod a nobis promulgating a Roman Breviary for general use which contains the same rules of use and prohibitions against alterations and threats of Divine retribution as Quo Primum. Urban VIII did not go into schism or heresy by changing the hymns and no one has suggested the 1911 breviary changes were illegal or invalid (although they were unwise).

Confusion over this point may have been compounded when Benedict XVI wrote that the 1962 Missal was never abrogated, which begs the question: how is any following liturgy legal? Were priests who held out in the 1970s and onward justified in their use of 1962? The Rad Trad, no canonist, does know of one distinction in Canon Law that could serve us well here and which may not, legally at least, justify those who adhered to 1962 after the promulgation of the 1969 Ordo. In Canon Law there is a taxonomy of "derogation" and "abrogation." The former is the partial removal or replacement of the existing law while the latter is its outright suppression. To abrogate the 1962 Missal, Paul VI would have had to issue some sort of legal document explicitly prohibiting use of that Missal. This was clearly never done. The "extraordinary" rite was never abrogated. All well and good? New Mass illegal? Not so fast.

 

The Pauline liturgy was not introduced to the Latin Church by the abrogation of the "traditional" liturgy. For example, John XXIII compressed festal categories into Class I, Class II, and Class III, not abrogating the old calendar entirely, but derogating the ranking system within it in his Rubricarum Instructum. The same holds true for his changes to the breviary lessons, not abrogating the [not so] old Mattins, but derogating the particular way of picking lessons in place in 1955 (both changes were ultimately made by Pius XII, although John XXIII pulled the trigger on the 1960 set). Similarly the 1962 Missal was not abrogated with the publication of the 1965 Missal, but anything in it that differed from 1965 was derogated (use of Latin in readings, the Introibo prayers, the "doubling" of certain texts, ordinary of the first half of Mass in Latin, the communion formula, the Last Gospel, and some other details). 1962 was not strictly "abrogated" but it was by no means usable. The 1967 document Tres abhinc annos introduced further changes by derogating what was different in the 1965 Missal: optional use of a weekday lectionary, optional use of different orations, the Canon was not abrogated but the rubrics governing the priest's actions during it were derogated and replaced, the entire Canon is said aloud, and other alterations; interestingly, IV.17 in that document is the first official instance, to the Rad Trad's knowledge, of a rubric that assumes Mass facing the people could be ordinary and normal outside of a few Roman parishes. On the feast of the Assumption in 1968 the new Eucharistic prayers (2-4) were introduced, again not replacing the entire existing liturgy, but replacing and derogating certain rules and rubrics, this time governing the Canon, therein. A new Pontificale came about that same year.

 

Here comes the 1969 change. Paul VI did not introduce a new Missal or a new Mass in 1969. He introduced what was mostly a new text for the ordinary of the Mass. The Canon and Eucharistic prayers, lectionary, rubrics, calendar, and Divine Office remained unchanged from the previous year. Even some parts of the ordinary itself were unchanged, given the significant alterations in 1964-8. Perhaps the most dramatic different between 1968 and 1969 is the contrasting offertory prayers, but most everything else matches. The Missal introduced by Paul VI in 1970 again did not "abrogate" 1962 or even whatever was used in 1969, but de facto derogated whatever differed from it: the old sacramentary and [again, no so] old lectionary was replaced. Otherwise, 1970 and 1969 match up very closely.

 

The idea that the new liturgy is somehow canonically illegal or that the 1962 liturgy was abrogated relies on the view that the Pauline rites were introduced and imposed instantaneously rather than gradually and under transitional, derogation-based legal auspices.

 

Thank you for reading a such dry and disinteresting post,

The Rad Trad

Roman and Byzantine Triduum

Awareness of the old Holy Week in the Roman rite has grown since then-Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum in 2007, as many eager clergy and faithful sought to understand both the 1962 liturgy and what preceded it. What many do not know, but will in a few moments, is just how close the old Roman Triduum is to the last three days of Great Week in the Byzantine liturgical tradition.

I found this especially jarring when I first realized it, as "restoration" to a more pristine liturgy, as supposedly exists in the East, was often presented as a premise for the Pian and Pauline reforms. It should not be so surprising. Rome and Constantinople are only a few hundred miles apart and were, until the papacy of St. Gregory the Great, under the same cultural and political body. Even after Rome's de facto separation from the Byzantine Empire Constantinopolitan liturgy came to Rome via Milan and via Europe (France and Spain picked up Eastern Roman traditions and practices from North African Christians). The Crusades would have a reciprocal effect centuries later. Contrary to our instinct to view the Rome-Constantinople schism as the compass for liturgy, the two cities probably have more in common than the Byzantine tradition has with the Thomistic Christians of India or the Nestorians or the other various non-Chalcedonian Churches we call "Oriental."

Before we look at the specific rites, let us lay down a few basic principles necessary to understanding the commonality of the two rites:

1. A liturgical day begins the evening prior to the calendar day with Vespers. This derives from the Mosaic tradition (Exodus 29:38-39) of offering sacrifice in the morning and evening. The Temple eventually came to a regular schedule of prayer hours, much like the Divine Office, which is, in most ways, a Christianized version of the ancient Jewish public prayer. Saturday evening Vespers begin Sunday in the Byzantine tradition, as first Vespers begin a feast—and in some sense, Sunday—in the Roman tradition.
2. The celebration of the Eucharist, call it Mass or Divine Liturgy, is integral to the mysteries and prayer of a given day, but does not encompass all of it. The Divine Office and Eucharist together comprise the observance of a feast, Sunday, or feria.

Now, let us look at the Triduum!

Mandy/Great and Holy Thursday

Archbishop Soroka washes feet at Ss. Cyril and Methodius
from: blogs.thetimes-tribune.com

In the Byzantine tradition, dark vestments are used on this day. My parish, which has limited means, uses crimson red. The day begins Wednesday evening with Vespers, with the usual introductory rites and psalm 103 ("Bless the Lord, my soul..."). Psalms 140, 141, and 129 are sung, the emphasis being "crying out" to the Lord. The stichera (hymns), which emphasize Judas' betrayal of the "Creator and Maker of all" to the Jews, are sung thereafter. The emphasis on the guilt of Judas never ceases, which impressed the first time I heard these hymns. All Christians are aware of the great betrayal, but I never thought of singing "the Apostle and Apostate" and the "spawn of the vipers" as a liturgical song. The Evening Hymn is sung, followed by prophecies from Exodus, Isaiah, and Job. This marks a quiet transition into the Divine Liturgy proper, wherein the institution narrative from St. Paul first epistle to the Church in Corinth is read. The Cherubic Hymn is replaced by the normal communion verse "Make me this day a sharer in your mystical supper, Oh Son of God...." (interestingly, this is sung as the communion antiphon this day in the Ambrosian rite) These verses are repeated several times, even after communion. The blessing at the end, which normally speaks of "Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is risen from the dead," instead reflects on the Lord's humility in washing His Apostles' feet and dying for us and them. In the Melkite Church, and presumably the Chalcedonian-Orthodox of Antioch, the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is given between Vespers and the Divine Liturgy proper. In most parishes, but not my small parish, the celebrant washes the feet of twelve men after communion and before the dismissal. If the celebrant is a bishop, he is sure to wash the feet of some clergy. The same goes for an abbot in a monastery. The washing takes place outside of the Royal Doors, in the nave of the church. Mattins on Thursday morning continues the theme of betrayal, which is much stronger than in the Roman rite.

Tenebrae sung at St. Mary's in Norwalk, CT USA, an excellent little parish.

The Roman rite, oddly, does not begin with Vespers, as there are no first Vespers during Holy Week. But it does begin, powerfully, with the Wednesday evening service of Tenebrae—Mattins and Lauds of Mandy Thursday. There are no introductory rites and the psalms are actually ferial, not festal. The lessons from the Book of the Lamentations of Jeremias speak of tragic desolation of a lonely city—quomodo sedet sola civitas. The responsories speak of Christ asking for the cup to pass from Him and of His immanent betrayal. The antiphons on the Mattins psalms speak of fear, silence, disturbance, trembling, and judgment. After each psalm a candle on the hearse is extinguished, eventually leaving the church in darkness. Whereas Mattins and Lauds usually lead us out of the darkness of night into the service of God throughout the day, here we go from day into obscurity and trembling as the Divine Redemption begins to unfold. Lauds begins with psalm 50 and then 89, the antiphon on which says "The Lord was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and He opened not His mouth." The Miserere psalm is repeated again as part of the would-be suffrages and the remaining candles on the altar are snuffed, darkening the church. The clergy take their books and smash them to create an earthquake-like noise, reminiscent of the one following the Crucifixion. Mass is sung after None, in practice in the morning. The introit is Nos autem gloriari and the Gloria is sung, but the rest of the Mass pertains to the Last Supper. The Epistle is the same as in the Byzantine liturgy and the Gospel is St. John's account of Christ washing the Apostles' feet. The vestments are white for the Mass but not for the rest of the day. My own cheesy interpretation of this is that it is like a going-away for a beloved friend who you know you will not see again for a long time; festive, but surreal and sad. In reality this is probably a Roman oddity: Byzantium used dark vestments, Milan used black, and the Gallican and Norman rites used red. After Mass a procession brings the Blessed Sacrament to an altar of repose and the Vespers follows. The altars of the church are stripped and washed. At a side altar, in the afternoon, the celebrant washes the feet of thirteen men, after having repeated the Gospel of the Mass. The priest wears a penitential violet for this ceremony, which many once considered a possible Sacrament.

Good/Holy and Great Friday

A typical epitaphios
from: orthodoxytoday.org

In the Byzantine rite Great and Holy Friday begins with a long Mattins on Thursday evening. The Byzantine rite, which is actually sparse in its Scripture readings compared to the Roman rite, has twelve lessons on this day, beginning with chapters 13-18 of the Gospel of St. John. In some churches twelve candles are lit and gradually extinguish after each reading. A crucifix with an icon-style corpus is placed in the nave and all adore it. A hymn describing Christ as the "Bridegroom of the Church" transfigured by the nails of the Cross  precedes the adoration. After the Little Hours, around 3:00 PM, a Deposition from the Cross service takes place. It is a Vespers service and the Gospel Passion according to St. Matthew, although with interpolations from all the accounts, is sung by the deacon. The reading encompasses Christ's burial in the tomb of St. Joseph of Arimathea. At the end of the service the icon-styled corpus is removed from the Cross and "buried" in an embroidered cloth called the epitaphios, which is placed within a bier. Once again all adore. Compline follows.

In the Roman rite the day once again begins with Tenebrae and the exact same ceremonies as the previous Tenebrae on Mandy Thursday. The last nocturne of Mattins contained excerpts from St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, wherein the Apostle describes the two-edged sword of faith, hopes he maintains his, and emphasizes that faith is a living thing. The versicle before the second Miserere at Lauds adds mortem autem crucis. On Friday, in the morning or around noon, the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified takes place. Structured like a Mass, the celebrant and his deacons wear their normal vestments, albeit the black of Masses of death, and take their places according to Mass ceremonial. A prophecy from Osee and from the book of Exodus are read. The Passion according to St. John is sung, followed by collects for the needs of the Church and then, in three successive and dramatic stages, a Cross is unveiled for public adoration. The clergy and the people "creep" to the Cross in three double-genuflections. A Blessed Sacrament procession brings the Host consecrated the previous day to the altar and a "Mass" begins with the offertory and incensing of the altar. The Host is elevated and a fragment is mixed with the wine in the chalice. The celebrant consumes the Host and the contents of the chalice and purifies his fingers and the vessels as usual. Vespers follows immediately, as yesterday. Compline is sung in the late afternoon. Around 3:00 PM a deposition service takes place, during which the corpus is removed from the Cross and "buried" in a sepulcher created in  side chapel. Some churches in England and Northern Europe will put a crown of thorns and nails in the tomb.

A Deposition service

[Great and] Holy Saturday

A bishop before the change of vestments
source: uocofuse.org

On the last day of the Triduum the story gets really interesting. Great and Holy Saturday starts Friday evening with Mattins (often called "Jerusalem Mattins," as many Byzantine and Roman ceremonies were inspired or transposed from the Church in Jerusalem), a lengthy service with opening rites, six psalms, and then psalm 118 sung with long interpolations praising Christ's adoration by the angels in the tomb and the conquest of Hades. The Canon follows, concluding with the Laudate psalms from Lauds. The message at the end is that the proscription to rest on the seventh day was a prophecy of Christ's Saturday in the tomb, intimating that the eighth day would be a new creation! A litany, dismissal, and Marian hymn conclude Mattins. The Vesperal Liturgy, theoretically something in the afternoon of Saturday, in practice takes place in the morning for pastoral reasons. It begins with, you guessed it, Vespers! Black, or whatever dark color is available, is the color of the day thus far. The stichera begin to anticipate the Resurrection of the Lord ("for you alone manifested resurrection to the world!") and the lamentation of Hades ("my power is destroyed"). Fifteen Old Testament prophecies are read and any converts are baptized. The Canticle of the Three Children segues into the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. Prior to the Gospel, St. Matthew's account of the Resurrection, the clergy change their black vestments for white—quite a sight! A hymn of "silence" and "trembling" replaces the Cherubic hymn. The Hirmos is one of Jesus comforting His Mother rather than the usual "It is truly right...." Bread and figs are blessed at the end.

The deacon awaiting the Paschal fire in the old Roman Holy Saturday liturgy.

The Roman rite parallels strongly. Tenebrae again commences the liturgical day on Friday night. The Vesperal Liturgy starts Saturday after None, in practice mid-morning. Penitential violet is worn. A fire is blessed outside using three collects and the fire is brought into the church by a triple-wicked candle held by the deacon. The Paschal Candle is blessed and lit by the deacon during the Exsultet. Twelve prophecies from the Old Testament (four of which are to be found in the Byzantine rite) are read, telling of the gradual plan of salvation. The baptismal font is blessed and converts are baptized. The place of the baptisms, in a formerly-empty font, after the reading of the prophecies of old anticipating Christ have an un-mistakable purpose: baptism realizes for us the end of the prophecy and the beginning of the actual salvation; as the church is born anew by blessing, fire, and water from Christ, so too are these converted sinners; they are part of God's eighth day of Creation. The Litany of Saints begins and transitions into the actual Mass, taking the place of the Introit. The ministers change from violet to white vestments. At the Gloria bells are rung in joy. At the Gospel no candles are carried, as Christ's Resurrection, liturgically, is anticipated, but has not actually happened yet. There is no offertory chant and the Agnus Dei is omitted after the Canon. After communion a short Vespers with psalm 116 and the Magnificat are sung. A large [and well deserved] meal follows the Mass with Compline in the late afternoon or early evening.

Pascha

from: Huffington Post



Pascha in the Byzantine rite could be said to start with the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great in the morning, but it is most firmly felt on Saturday evening, usually an hour or so before midnight, when Pascha Sunday is about to begin. After the midnight office the epitaphios with the corpus of the Lord is venerated once again. All lights are extinguished save for the trikirion, a small candlestick on the altar. The celebrant invites all to come and receive the "light not overtaken by night." The people congregate outside after lighting their own candles and are met by the clergy. The constantly repeated "Christ is risen from the dead and by His death He has trampled upon death and has given life to those who were in the tombs" is sung. An account of the Resurrection is then sung and the celebrant, with his blessing cross, knocks on the door of the church and announces the "King of Glory" to the poor man pretending to be the Evil One inside. The procession bursts into the church, bathed in light and fully illuminated. Mattins follows. The Paschal Canon is sung in full with the litany and Magnificat at the end. Twice during Mattins a deacon censes the people and gives them the Paschal greeting "Christ is risen! He is truly risen!" At the end the priest reads the Paschal sermon of St. John Chrysostom. The hours are sung in a very abbreviated form, entirely without psalms, and the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom follows. After the Liturgy the faithful venerate an icon of the Resurrection rather than a blessing cross.

In Rome Pascha began with the Gloria during the Holy Saturday rites. On Saturday evening Paschal Mattins and Lauds are sung. Throughout Northern Europe the images in the churches would be unveiled and the Cross would be "raised" from the sepulcher and adored once more, as on Good Friday. A procession would then arrive at the high altar, vested with the best frontal and all candles in the church lit. Mattins is just psalms 1-3 and a sermon of Pope St. Gregory the Great. No canticles or hymns. The celebrant and cantors them vest in the best copes and begin Lauds. The antiphons on the first and third psalms commemorate the angel rolling back the stone on the Lord's tomb and the earthquake that followed respectively—we are clearly re-visiting the Resurrection at this moment! Haec dies... "This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice therein" replaces the chapter and there is no hymn before the Benedictus. The dismissal has a double-alleluia and the Regina coeli finally ends the service.

Worth Noting

After these long, and possibly trivial, descriptions the similarities might be obscured by an overload of information, so let us consider the Triduum day-by-day:

• Thursday: it actually begins Wednesday night, in shadows. The office marks the point of transition between days. The office and Eucharist together form the complete prayer of the Church, as the Mass/Divine Liturgy is limited in what it can say to two readings. Tenebrae contains the full realm of Christ's betrayal, His worries, human fear, darkness, and also the institution of the Eucharist. The same is true in the Byzantine rite, which examines the Agony in the Garden and the betrayal in depth at Vespers. Also notable is that the foot-washing does not interrupt the Mass/Divine Liturgy in either rite and follows the Biblical flow of events by coming after the Eucharist.
• Friday: begins with Mattins on Thursday evening in both rites. A Cross is revealed and adored in both. Vespers precedes the Deposition ceremony in both rites, which are both held when Our Lord has, liturgically, died, at 3:00 PM. The sepulcher and the epitaphios serve the same purpose.
• Saturday: again begins with Mattins the evening prior, although Tenebrae gets shorter as the Triduum progresses whereas Saturday Mattins in the Byzantine rite is very long. In both rites the Resurrection is anticipated, not outright celebrated. The Byzantine tradition emphasizes the Harrowing of Hades directly while the Roman tradition does so implicitly. The Vesperal Liturgy in both rites would presumably be celebrated in the afternoon but for pastoral reasons is celebrated in the morning. Both include Vespers, a large number of prophecies meant to denote the story of salvation leading to baptism and God's new Creation in the Resurrection, and a joyful transition from a penitential service into a joyful Mass/Divine Liturgy.
• Pascha: tomorrow still begins tonight! The Cross/epitaphios is venerated one last time and the church is illuminated for Paschal Mattins and Lauds.

The Rad Trad hopes his readers got something out of this lengthy piece. The crossover between the two is significant and should give Roman liturgists who flirt with the "East" some reason to re-evaluate how we have done our Triduum in the last few decades.  Heck, maybe the Latin Mass Society or Una Voce could start doing the old Holy Week on the grounds of ecumenism....

Reasons for the Reform of the Roman Rite Part I: Feasts

Since Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which declared the liturgy of 1962 available for near-unrestricted use, interest has increased in the Roman rite as it existed before 1962, both to understand the nature of the 1962 liturgy and also the transition process to the liturgy of Pope Paul VI, who introduced his rite of Mass in 1969 and his Divine Office in 1975.

Many today believe the Roman liturgy was pristine before 1962, while the reformers then believed it totally corrupted. Conservatives tend to think that Archbishop Annibale Bugnini infiltrated the Vatican, possibly with Masonic motivations, and thrusted a new rite upon the Roman Church without precedent. This is folly. Bugnini and his Concilium did create the new Roman rite, but he and his commission were products of their time and of the problems in the Roman rite. I wish to draw attention to what those problems were. From there we can understand the evolution of the Roman liturgy in the twentieth century a bit better.

This series will examine the following problems in the Roman liturgy as it existed in the twentieth century, specifically the issues St. Pius X, Pius XII, and John XXIII attempted to address, namely:

1. The inflation of Double-ranked feasts in the post-Tridentine Roman Church
2. The "low Mass" culture which replaced sung Mass and public observation of the Divine Office in most churches
3. Devotionalism
4. The separation of liturgy and doctrine
5. The left-turn of the Liturgical Movement
6. Centralization

In this first post I will address the inflation of Double feasts. A little background information is necessary to see the problem. The Mass is the observation of Christ's order "Do this in memory of me," which He gave at the Last Supper according to St. Paul first epistle to the Corinthians and the three Synoptic Gospel accounts. Separate, but no less important, is the Divine Office, the praying of the psalms—mixed with scriptural and patristic readings and some hymns, which is the public prayer of the Roman Church. Indeed, it is no mistake that every Apostolic church has a Divine Office. The Divine Office and the Mass combine to form a regular schedule of prayer for the Roman rite called its liturgy. In the Roman rite the Mass was unique to Sundays, major feast days, and a few other feasts. Otherwise, the Mass was taken from either the previous Sunday or it was taken from a general formula called a Common. The Office, on the other hand, had different psalms every single day, unless a feast day occurred, on which certain prescribed psalms and hymns were sung. The way in which Mass and the Divine Office was observed was determined by rank of the day. In ancient days the ranks were three:

• Ferial day: the psalms, hymns, and scriptural readings for the Divine Office are of those given for the day of the week and season of the year. Intercessory prayers in a versicle form are said at most hours of the Office. The Mass is that of the previous Sunday (except during Lent, during which every day had a unique Mass).
• Simple day: the Divine Office is that of the Ferial day, but a local Roman saint is celebrated at Mass. Most local Roman saints' Masses were from a "Common" formula.
• Double feasts: the psalms, hymns, and scripture are unique to the feast given. The intercessory verses are omitted. The Mass is of a major event in the life of Christ, His Mother, or of some other universally important saint. The psalms demanded for these days are mostly, but not entirely, those of Sunday. Moreover, the psalms at Mattins, the hour dedicated to readings, are organized into three groups of three psalms called "nocturns." On Simple and Ferial days, twelve psalms were sung straight through at Mattins. These Double feasts began with Vespers the night before and ended with Vespers that night.

During the Middle Ages a new type of feast called "semi-Double" developed, in which a universal, but not universally important, saint would be observed. These feasts would use the psalms and hymns of a Double, and have first Vespers, but also have the versicle prayers and votive prayers of a Simple or Ferial day. These were the most loathsome of days.

St Pius V

By the end of the Middle Ages certain patterns had developed in the observation of semi-Double and Double feasts. Vespers for most any Double feast would include psalm 109 and 112—with many male saints having 110, 111, and 116 and many females having 121, 125, and 147. These psalms would be said at first and second Vespers. Mattins had a similar pattern. Lauds, Ferial or feast, varied very little from day to day. The "little hours" (Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Compline) were meant to be said any time of day, particularly on break from work, so their psalms never changed from day to day. Days within octaves, eight day celebrations of feasts, would basically use the feast day psalms every day.

St Aloysius Gonzaga

When St. Pius V promulgated his Roman Breviary in 1568 and his Missal in 1570, essentially a trimmed version of the 1474 liturgy used by the Papal court, there were 149 feasts that contained the word "Double" in the title, meaning the use of those certain psalms. By the papacy of St. Pius X in 1907 that number had nearly doubled to 280! Why? And why do we care?

There were two reasons why this, insane, inflation of Double feasts occurred. First, was a hyper-emphasis on Counter-Reformation era saints. Saints such as Aloysius Gonzaga were no sooner canonized than they were given Double feasts, liturgically the most important in the Church. St. Aloysius was a wonderful priest and chaplain, but he ought not have a feast on par with Mary Magdalen and Gregory the Great!

The second matter was the Double feasts were simply easier than Simple or Ferial days. They involved fewer psalms, had no versicle prayers, and could supersede the Sunday liturgy (which had a whopping 18 psalms at Mattins, rather than the Double-ranked nine). There was no one moment when Double feasts were printed en masse, like a central bank can do with money. Popes just kept adding these feasts out of popular devotion and to ease the prayer life of the clergy.

This was bad. As a result, outside of Lent, the weekly psalms were almost never said. By the time St. Pius X reformed the Divine Office in 1911, I doubt one could go three days without reciting psalms 109 and 112. The Office, slackened for the sake of convenience, had become monotonous. Sadly, the solution of Pope St Pius X was not an elegant one.

St Pius X, perhaps reading his new Divine Office?

Papa Sarto's solution to repetition in the Office was to toss the entire psalter out of the window and create a new schedule for the psalms which would somewhat preserve the old psalms on Sundays and the most important of Double feasts, but not for the rest of the week. Part of his re-distribution of the psalms involved cutting them into parts, i.e. splitting longer psalms into roughly equal 15 verse portions. Now one long psalm was two small ones. If a priest told you to say two prayers at penance in confession, would you cut the Hail Mary into halves and say that it counted as your penance? Except for the highest ranking Doubles, the psalms in a given day would be of the new psalter and the hymns and variable prayers would be of the saint of the day. This made for a strange, strange division in the Office. Also, the ancient system whereby the "little hours" would remain constant from day to day, for the sake of familiarity, was axed, as they too were made variable.

This had a poor effect on prayer, splitting single prayers into parts. Moreover, if meant that, if pastoral reason permitted the right authority to do so, the most ancient prayer systems could be changed at a whim. St Pius X certainly had no evil intentions in doing what he did. Like later reformers, he was something of a product of his age, but was his decision prudent? I am inclined to say it was not. He could have saved the old psalter, and himself a lot of work, just by lowering the feast rank of those Counter-Reformation era saints to Simple. But he did not do this. Instead we got a new Office, and more importantly, a new precedent. The Pope did not guard the liturgy. He guarded it, but could also create it.

What do you think? Did the Pian Office fix the problem? Was it a cause or a symptom of the problems in the Roman liturgy? Are we ready to blame someone else other than the members of Concilium group 10?