The Catacombs

In the pre-1956 liturgy, the blessing of the baptismal water took place in the baptistery, the part of the church (or even a separate building) where the font was traditionally located. The clergy would process from the sanctuary to bless both the font and the water it contained, while the choir chanted the relevant section of Psalm 41, Sicut cervus.

As with the Paschal Candle, this procession was also a clear and shining example of theology in motion. Those who approach the font are compared to the hart in Psalm 41, which yearns for the fountain of living water. It would be useful to keep this visual metaphor in mind when we come to examine the reformed version.


Liturgical Havoc

As a result of the invidious schemes drawn up by the 1948 Commission, what happened next put another blot on its already sullied record. True to form, the Commission played havoc with the part of the Easter Vigil liturgy following the reading of the Prophecies, turning what was one of the most ancient and supreme works of Catholic Tradition into what can only be described as a scene of total disorder and confusion.


As we shall see, this section of the Easter Vigil was radically reconfigured, and became a farrago of structural and ritual changes peppered with inconsistencies and quirks.

Instead of blessing the water and administering Baptisms in the designated place where the font is traditionally located, these actions were performed in the sanctuary while the priest faced the people (“coram populo”). This necessitated the use of a bucket or other receptacle for the baptismal water while the font, which had been in continuous use for 16 centuries, was suddenly made redundant and its symbolic importance consequently diminished.

Mgr. Léon Gromier pointed out at the time the effects of dislocating the symbolism of the font from its liturgical context:

“Baptismal fonts, baptismal water and Baptism go together as one. A spectacular innovation that deliberately separates them, installing substitutes for the font in the sanctuary and baptising in them, then using this receptacle for transferring the baptismal water to the font is an insult to history, to discipline, to the liturgy and common sense.” (1)

He was vilified by the liturgical establishment for daring to criticize the Holy Week reform. It is richly ironic that he was regarded as having lost his wits, when it was the authors of that reform who appear to have lost their liturgical compass. The revised ceremony of the baptismal water did indeed fly in the face of logic and common sense.


Mismatch between Text & Ritual


To begin with, it made nonsense of the metaphor of the thirsty deer in Psalm 41 that symbolizes those who approach the font longing for the waters of Baptism. But in the reformed rite this symbolism is rendered incoherent because the Psalm is sung after the blessing of the water and conferral of Baptism, in other words after the deer has slaked his thirst.

To add to the confusion, the Psalm is sung while the procession is heading towards a completely dry font whose role in the ceremony is merely functional – to be the receptacle for the remaining contents of the baptismal bucket.


Mismatch between Architecture & Ritual

Secondly, with the relocation of the ceremony away from font (traditionally placed near the entrance to the parish church), the architectural symbolism of Baptism as the janua Sacramentorum (the gateway to the Sacraments and the beginning of a new life in the Church) was lost.


Confusion between Clergy & Laity

Thirdly, and worst of all, is the use of the sanctuary as a makeshift baptistery. It was a radical departure from Tradition because it involved the intrusion of lay people (the not-yet-baptized and their sponsors) into the sanctuary, the place set apart for the clergy.

This was arguably worse than the foot-washing ceremony of Holy Thursday, which allowed laymen to enter the sanctuary. For if, in the reformed Easter Vigil, even the unbaptized were given the same privilege as those in Holy Orders - i.e., of entering the sanctuary - the impression is given that Original Sin can safely be ignored as of little consequence. That was, of course, precisely what happened in the Novus Ordo.


A Distracting Interruption

Fourthly, the progressivist reformers broke the liturgy free from its accepted context and logic in yet another way.


In the pre-1956 rite, the Litany of the Saints was sung integrally after the blessing of the water and the administration of Baptism. But in the reform the Litany, which was deemed to be too long and repetitive, was split in two, with a medley of ceremonies sandwiched between the two parts – the blessing of the water, the administration of Baptism, an entirely novel “Renewal of Baptismal Promises” and the procession to the font.

The original symbolism was a clear indication that the newly baptized were incorporated into the Communion of Saints. But this connection was lost by the structural ambiguity of the two disjointed fragments of the Litany. When the chanting suddenly stops in mid stream and the scene shifts to “active participation” in the sanctuary, only to be resumed later, it is questionable what exactly is in the forefront of the people’s minds at any given point. One could call this reform a weapon of mass distraction.


From Rational Order to Plain Chaos

Before the reform of Holy Week, both architecture and rite had functioned symbiotically as a sort of map that could be “read” to show the hierarchical nature of the Church and the road to Heaven. Liturgically, everything was “in its place” for a good reason – to symbolize the constitution of the Church and the unity of the Faith. A Catholic identity was made manifest.
When the map was modified in 1956 – it would be torn up completely a few years later – confusion as to the basic sense of Catholic order and certitude was bound to set in. The disorderly combination of elements devised by the reformers resulted in identities lost and distinctions blended.

Why this shifting of landscapes, this rearranging of the furniture of the church building and even its internal geography?

In an article written straight after the reform, Fr. Antonelli provided the answer in a nutshell: “To bring the faithful back to active and conscious participation” in the liturgy. Echoing the “grand narrative” of the Liturgical Movement, he said that in recent centuries the faithful had become “no more than silent spectators” divorced from the “liturgical action”; this had become exclusively the preserve of the clergy who were separated from the congregation by a “closed sanctuary.” (2)


A Toxic Innuendo

Fr. Antonelli’s remarks contain underlying assumptions and biases, drawn from the Liturgical Movement, which entail a slow poisoning of the mind against a true appreciation of lay participation. There is no evidence that the laity felt in the least disadvantaged vis-à-vis the clergy at not being allowed to enter the sanctuary. Yet Fr. Antonelli presented the reform as a means of enabling them finally to enjoy the privilege that they had supposedly long been denied by the clerical patriarchy.

It was on the basis of this fabricated pretext that the Commission introduced the idea, which was to revolutionize the whole of liturgical life, that the Church had a duty to redress the injustice done to the laity and change a system that was deemed inimical to them. And it was on that basis that the progresivists were prepared to break with the accepted forms, symbolism and logic of immemorial tradition to craft a new rite for the Easter Vigil and promote a new paradigm, that of “active participation” for the laity.


A Symptom of Decay

This is incontrovertible evidence that the reformed Easter Vigil was the first act in the tragedy that would be played out in the Novus Ordo reforms. It set in motion a dynamic of discontinuity with Tradition that would prove impossible to stop, not excluding the 1962 Missal.

For, it was the precondition for the reshaping of the entire liturgy that would progressively destroy the Church’s immemorial traditions. No wonder the progressivists were so keen to make a start on it in 1951.

Continued

1. Mgr. Léon Gromier, “The ‘Restored’ Holy Week,” A Conference given in Paris in July 1960, published in Fr. Ferdinand Portal’s magazine, Opus Dei, n. 2, April 1962, Paris, pp. 89-90.
2. Ferdinando Antonelli, “The Liturgical Reform of Holy Week, its Importance, Achievements and Perspective,” La Maison-Dieu,n. 47-48, July 1956, p. 230.

It is noteworthy that, before 1956, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises was never part of the official liturgy of the Roman Rite, but only a semi-private “para-liturgy” conducted among special groups in retreats, missions, anniversaries of one’s Baptism and at the First Communion of children. An important factor is that these ceremonies were introduced on the initiative of individual pastors at the local level. Not all of them were performed in church. There was no set formula of words. And as their occurrence was only sporadic, they did not constitute anything approaching a universal custom.


When the Renewal of Baptismal Promises was first introduced experimentally at the Easter Vigil in 1951, it was presented as an ancient liturgical tradition that had fallen into disuse and needed to be restored. But, like so many of the reformers’ spurious claims of liturgical “restoration,” the historical basis for this claim is tenuous and lacking in contextual detail.

Historically, the Catholic Church had always discouraged attempts to give the Renewal of Baptismal Promises a place in the liturgy. One brief but indicative example was when Erasmus proposed a ritual in 1522 for adolescents to renew their baptismal vows; his suggestion was censored by the foremost Scholastic theologian of the day, Noël Beda, (1) and his book placed on the Index by Pope Paul IV in 1559. (2)

It was, therefore, a major innovation when Pius XII, acting at the behest of his 1948 Commission, (3) suddenly imposed the rite by force majeure on the whole Church in 1956. It was also something of a coup for the Liturgical Movement, which had been agitating for its inclusion in the liturgy. (4)

Only one of the consultors of the papal Commission, however, had misgivings about the appropriateness of this rite in the Easter Vigil. Dom Bernard Capelle, to grant him his due, was opposed to this reform and expressed his disagreement in forceful terms:

• Its introduction was unnecessary (“nulla habetur necessitas”);
  
• It gave primacy to the theme of Baptism over the Resurrection, thus compromising the theological meaning of the Vigil;
  
• It was a total novelty (“ex toto novorum”) lacking any historical claim to liturgical usage;
  
• It should not be used at the Easter Vigil as a substitute for Baptism. (5)
  

But his objections were brushed aside, and the new Vigil went ahead on an experimental basis in 1951 with the approval of Pius XII, before being imposed universally in 1956.


A Rite Inspired by Protestantism

As a liturgical rite, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises emerged from the “Reformation”; it was first recorded in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (6) as part of the Protestant “confirmation” rite. (7)

The ritual is conducted in both the Protestant and revised Catholic liturgies on similar lines. The Bishop or priest faces the people, gives a short address and conducts a “dialogue” in the vernacular with the whole congregation. It is not surprising, therefore, that this ceremony, alien to any Catholic concept of the lex credendi, would clash egregiously with the lex orandi. This is glaringly obvious both in its outward form and in its ambiguous theological import.

This was the first time in the History of the Church that a ceremony of Protestant inspiration and ethos was officially incorporated into the liturgy, but, as the Novus Ordo would amply demonstrate, it was not the last.


Muddying the Waters of Baptism

Fr. Antonelli explained that the Renewal was among those practices “to be restored if their reintroduction would truly render the rites more pure and more intelligible to the minds of the faithful.” (8) But, how intelligible is it? And what exactly is renewed?



We need to consider and ask: In what sense can one “renew” permanent vows as distinct from temporary vows that can be renewed periodically? To do so liturgically could easily give the impression that Baptism is ephemeral, as if the original vows had passed their expiry date and needed to be, as it were, “topped up” for another year.

It makes sense to recall our baptismal vows, to ponder how far we have fallen short of them, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent recommended, (9) to reaffirm our adherence to the Faith, and to renew our efforts to progress in the spiritual life with the aid of the Mass and the Sacraments.

That much is crystal clear. What is not so clear is the term “Renewal” of Baptismal Promises. It may be interpreted in the traditional sense outlined above, but it is potentially dangerous in its lack of precision, rendering it unsuitable for inclusion in the liturgy. For, Baptism is the renewal, whereby one goes into the church unbaptized and comes out a Christian. One can never be in that unique position again and, although baptismal grace can be lost, the force of the original vows remains unchanged. They cannot, therefore, be said to stand in need of renewal.

In the next instalment, we shall see how the new ritual further destabilized the Easter Vigil by changing its theological focus from Christ to the people, all for the sake of their “active participation.”

Continued

1. Noël Beda was head of the Theology Faculty in Paris and used Scholastic theology to defend the Faith against the errors of the nascent Protestant “Reformation.” Erasmus, on the other hand, had little regard for precision in religious matters and held Scholasticism in contempt.
2. The book, entitled Parafrasi sopra S. Matteo (Paraphrase on St Matthew’s Gospel), was specifically named in the Index. See here, p. 132
3. In 1948, the Commission included in its “Memo”, n. 74, a proposal for the Renewal of Baptismal Promises to be elaborated by a sub-commission and submitted to the Pope for his approval.
4. As early as the 1920s, Dom Virgil Michel, O.S.B., reputedly the “father of the Liturgical Movement in the USA," had designed a ritual for the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, which he described in ‘Baptism Consciousness,’ Orate Fratres, 1, 1927, pp. 309-313; Dom Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., further promoted the ceremony during the First National Liturgical Week at Chicago 1940.
5. B. Capelle, Memoria, Supplemento II, 1950, pp. 21-22.
6. Paul F. Bradshaw, New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, SCM Press, 2002, p. 52.
7. The 16th century Protestants had refused to recognize Confirmation as a Sacrament, and their followers devised the Renewal of Baptismal Promises for their own “confirmation” ceremony. Vatican II ordered this to be adopted in the Catholic Church. Sacrosanctum Concilium stated: “The rite of confirmation is also to be revised in order that the intimate connection of this sacrament with the whole of Christian initiation may stand out more clearly; for this reason it is fitting for candidates to renew their baptismal promises just before they are confirmed.” (SC, § 71)
8. Memoria sulla reforma liturgica: Supplemento II – Annotazioni alla “Memoria”, n. 76, 1950, p. 9.
9. The Catechism of the Council of Trent reassured priests administering Baptism that the faithful would be edified by witnessing the rite: “Thus each person, reading a lesson of admonition in the person of him who is receiving Baptism, calls to mind the promises by which he had bound himself to the service of God when initiated by baptism, and reflects whether his life and morals evince that fidelity to which every one pledges himself, by professing the name of Christian.” (Baltimore, 1829, p. 113)

It is an unfortunate fact that most Catholics today, even among traditionalists, have no conception of the true nature and extent of the 1956 Holy Saturday reform. There is still virtually no grasp of what was at stake: the intended subversion of the traditional rite by progressivist reformers through the medium of “active participation.”


The Perfect ‘Insider Job

While virtually the whole Church was peacefully following the Roman Rite under Pius XII without evincing the least dissatisfaction, the Congregation of Rites was enthusiastically stirring the pot that would later be served up at Vatican II.


That this was originally the work of the 1948 Commission is obvious from the fact that the 1955 Decree Maxima Redemptionis was signed by Card. Micara in his dual capacity as Pro-Prefect of the Congregation of Rites and President of the Commission. Fr. Löw was not only a member of the Commission but, as Vice-Relator of the Congregation of Rites, he was also responsible for editing and presenting the Commission’s ideas to the rest of the Congregation.

Another leading Commission member, Fr. Antonelli, would soon be appointed as Relator-General to the Congregation of Rites (1956), prior to becoming Secretary of the Conciliar Commission for the Liturgy (1962) and Secretary of the Congregation of Rites (1965).

This means that the papal Commission was effectively given the power to dictate the reforms on the basis of nothing more than their own prejudices and, furthermore, that Pius XII allowed the inventions of the reformers to take precedence over the rights of the faithful to their own Tradition.


The New Governing Principle: Activities for the People

Fr. Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., a key member of the Liturgical Movement, noted in 1953:

Quote:“Especially noteworthy is the eagerness of the Holy See to encourage the intelligent and active assistance of the congregation. It is for this reason that most of the changes have been introduced: all are to receive and hold the flame from the Easter Candle; all are to join in the responses and in the Litany [of the Saints]; all are to hear and understand the readings; all are to renew their baptismal promises; the services are so arranged in the sanctuary that all may see, etc.” [emphases added] (1)

It is obvious that this was an overarching, “totalizing” program of reform, leaving no member of the laity unaffected, no individual immune from moral coercion or even harassment. Its implications went far beyond the practicalities of whether to stand or sit, light a candle, use Latin or the vernacular.

It was fundamentally about a new ecclesiology, what kind of Church was being planned for the future – one, as it turned out, in which the whole idea of the sacramental Priesthood was to be merged seamlessly into that of the People of God actively engaged around the altar.


Liturgical Gimmickry

In the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, the people engage in “active participation” by re-lighting their candles – which they had lit and extinguished only a short while earlier – passing the flame on to others in the congregation, balancing a book in one hand and a burning candle in the other, supervising one’s children precariously holding lighted candles, listening and responding to the priest in a “dialogue” and joining him in the communal recitation of the Our Father (as on Good Friday).

Juggling so many balls in the air and jumping through various hoops takes the soul, mind and body away from the necessary focus on Christ and from contemplative prayer. One may well ask: Where did the Mystery go? For while the mind is concentrating on these sundry distractions and novelties, and while the people are busy thinking of themselves, the whole focus of the Easter Vigil – contemplating the Death and Resurrection of Christ – is pushed aside.


An Admission of Failure

Even the liturgical pioneer, Fr. Clifford Howell, who enthusiastically welcomed the Holy Week reforms, could not fail to notice the superficiality of the Easter Vigil novelties including the innovative Renewal of Baptismal Promises and their inability to move the soul. He expressed his concern about what would happen when the initial effects had worn off:


“It may well be that the people have been delighted with the novelty, with its picturesqueness, with the thrill of having something interesting to watch and to do, with the impressiveness of the gradual spread of the candle flames in the darkened church. They have been captivated, indeed: but perhaps, as yet, only with the externals...

"It is imperative, therefore, that the appreciation that the faithful now have of this ceremony should be deepened; they must be helped to penetrate through these externals, and to achieve that renewal of mind and heart and will, which alone constitutes the genuine good of their souls.” (2)

In other words, in spite of the pyrotechnics (huge, leaping bonfires lighting up the night sky, the plethora of flickering candles in a darkened church), the effect could hardly be described as a flood of illumination into the soul.

But, what we do know, however, is that the Church had been remarkably successful throughout the centuries in providing for the sanctification of the faithful in the Mass and the Sacraments, as evidenced by the countless saints and pious souls who had received their spiritual sustenance thereby. For, the traditional lex orandi was the single most effective vehicle ever devised for achieving that goal – which raises the question as to why the reform was considered necessary in the first place.

Yet, these innovations, despite their manifest flaws, were given exclusivity and predominance over the tried and tested rituals of Tradition.


A Meaningful Reform?

The 1956 Renewal of Baptismal Promises was not without inherent problems in comprehensibility, notwithstanding the use of the vernacular, which was supposed to make the liturgy easier for the people to understand.

The fundamental problem is the corporate nature of the so-called Renewal in which the people respond in the plural, “we do / we believe,” when asked if they renounce Satan and accept certain articles of the Faith.

To begin with, no one can confess another’s faith, for no one ‒ apart from God ‒ knows what all the others actually believe. What one believes may be different from what the person next to him believes, so that “we” may not always be of one mind.

Similarly for the promises: as they presuppose the full consent of the individual will, no one can vouch for others in the congregation who shout out promises they may or may not sincerely mean.

Clearly, then, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises raises problems of an epistemological nature, which illustrate the incoherence of the reformers’ avowed intention to create a “more meaningful” liturgy to enable the “intelligent participation” of the laity. It also highlights the futility of giving the congregation a vocal role in the liturgy.


The Battle of ‘I’ versus ‘we’

Ever since 1956, and right up to the present day, a controversy has been raging over whether to use “I” or “we” in the liturgy, with the progressivists favoring the latter because of its “communitarian” significance. (3)

Some traditionalists, wishing to continue the 1956 reforms while at the same time realizing the spurious nature of these community-based activities, switched to the use of “I” instead of “we.” But they do so on their own initiative, for the plural forms in Latin ‒ abrenuntiamus (we do renounce) and credimus (we believe) ‒ are contained in the 1962 Missal.

It is noteworthy that the response abrenuntiamus – a six-syllable tongue-twister that many people could only pronounce with difficulty and after much practice, while some could not manage to do so at all – can hardly be said to lend itself to congregational participation. But this was of little concern to the reformers, however, who were aiming for a vernacular liturgy.

Continued

1. Godfrey Diekmann, The Easter Vigil: Arranged for Use in Parishes, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1953, p. 3.
2. Clifford Howell, Preparing for Easter, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1957, p. 6
3. They tried to justify their choice of pronoun by a return to the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), which issued Creeds using “We believe.” But they failed to distinguish between a historic formulation for catechetical instruction to combat heresy, and its use in a liturgical ceremony; or to take into account that the liturgy of the early Christians used “I believe.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 167) typically equivocates with a have-it-both-ways “solution” in which no firm guidelines are given: “The Church, our mother, teaches us to say both ‘I believe’ and ‘we believe.’”

It is an unfortunate fact that most Catholics today, even among traditionalists, have no conception of the true nature and extent of the 1956 Holy Saturday reform. There is still virtually no grasp of what was at stake: the intended subversion of the traditional rite by progressivist reformers through the medium of “active participation.”


The Perfect ‘Insider Job

While virtually the whole Church was peacefully following the Roman Rite under Pius XII without evincing the least dissatisfaction, the Congregation of Rites was enthusiastically stirring the pot that would later be served up at Vatican II.


That this was originally the work of the 1948 Commission is obvious from the fact that the 1955 Decree Maxima Redemptionis was signed by Card. Micara in his dual capacity as Pro-Prefect of the Congregation of Rites and President of the Commission. Fr. Löw was not only a member of the Commission but, as Vice-Relator of the Congregation of Rites, he was also responsible for editing and presenting the Commission’s ideas to the rest of the Congregation.

Another leading Commission member, Fr. Antonelli, would soon be appointed as Relator-General to the Congregation of Rites (1956), prior to becoming Secretary of the Conciliar Commission for the Liturgy (1962) and Secretary of the Congregation of Rites (1965).

This means that the papal Commission was effectively given the power to dictate the reforms on the basis of nothing more than their own prejudices and, furthermore, that Pius XII allowed the inventions of the reformers to take precedence over the rights of the faithful to their own Tradition.


The New Governing Principle: Activities for the People

Fr. Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., a key member of the Liturgical Movement, noted in 1953:

Quote:“Especially noteworthy is the eagerness of the Holy See to encourage the intelligent and active assistance of the congregation. It is for this reason that most of the changes have been introduced: all are to receive and hold the flame from the Easter Candle; all are to join in the responses and in the Litany [of the Saints]; all are to hear and understand the readings; all are to renew their baptismal promises; the services are so arranged in the sanctuary that all may see, etc.” [emphases added] (1)

It is obvious that this was an overarching, “totalizing” program of reform, leaving no member of the laity unaffected, no individual immune from moral coercion or even harassment. Its implications went far beyond the practicalities of whether to stand or sit, light a candle, use Latin or the vernacular.

It was fundamentally about a new ecclesiology, what kind of Church was being planned for the future – one, as it turned out, in which the whole idea of the sacramental Priesthood was to be merged seamlessly into that of the People of God actively engaged around the altar.


Liturgical Gimmickry

In the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, the people engage in “active participation” by re-lighting their candles – which they had lit and extinguished only a short while earlier – passing the flame on to others in the congregation, balancing a book in one hand and a burning candle in the other, supervising one’s children precariously holding lighted candles, listening and responding to the priest in a “dialogue” and joining him in the communal recitation of the Our Father (as on Good Friday).

Juggling so many balls in the air and jumping through various hoops takes the soul, mind and body away from the necessary focus on Christ and from contemplative prayer. One may well ask: Where did the Mystery go? For while the mind is concentrating on these sundry distractions and novelties, and while the people are busy thinking of themselves, the whole focus of the Easter Vigil – contemplating the Death and Resurrection of Christ – is pushed aside.


An Admission of Failure

Even the liturgical pioneer, Fr. Clifford Howell, who enthusiastically welcomed the Holy Week reforms, could not fail to notice the superficiality of the Easter Vigil novelties including the innovative Renewal of Baptismal Promises and their inability to move the soul. He expressed his concern about what would happen when the initial effects had worn off:


“It may well be that the people have been delighted with the novelty, with its picturesqueness, with the thrill of having something interesting to watch and to do, with the impressiveness of the gradual spread of the candle flames in the darkened church. They have been captivated, indeed: but perhaps, as yet, only with the externals...

"It is imperative, therefore, that the appreciation that the faithful now have of this ceremony should be deepened; they must be helped to penetrate through these externals, and to achieve that renewal of mind and heart and will, which alone constitutes the genuine good of their souls.” (2)

In other words, in spite of the pyrotechnics (huge, leaping bonfires lighting up the night sky, the plethora of flickering candles in a darkened church), the effect could hardly be described as a flood of illumination into the soul.

But, what we do know, however, is that the Church had been remarkably successful throughout the centuries in providing for the sanctification of the faithful in the Mass and the Sacraments, as evidenced by the countless saints and pious souls who had received their spiritual sustenance thereby. For, the traditional lex orandi was the single most effective vehicle ever devised for achieving that goal – which raises the question as to why the reform was considered necessary in the first place.

Yet, these innovations, despite their manifest flaws, were given exclusivity and predominance over the tried and tested rituals of Tradition.


A Meaningful Reform?

The 1956 Renewal of Baptismal Promises was not without inherent problems in comprehensibility, notwithstanding the use of the vernacular, which was supposed to make the liturgy easier for the people to understand.

The fundamental problem is the corporate nature of the so-called Renewal in which the people respond in the plural, “we do / we believe,” when asked if they renounce Satan and accept certain articles of the Faith.

To begin with, no one can confess another’s faith, for no one ‒ apart from God ‒ knows what all the others actually believe. What one believes may be different from what the person next to him believes, so that “we” may not always be of one mind.

Similarly for the promises: as they presuppose the full consent of the individual will, no one can vouch for others in the congregation who shout out promises they may or may not sincerely mean.

Clearly, then, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises raises problems of an epistemological nature, which illustrate the incoherence of the reformers’ avowed intention to create a “more meaningful” liturgy to enable the “intelligent participation” of the laity. It also highlights the futility of giving the congregation a vocal role in the liturgy.


The Battle of ‘I’ versus ‘we’

Ever since 1956, and right up to the present day, a controversy has been raging over whether to use “I” or “we” in the liturgy, with the progressivists favoring the latter because of its “communitarian” significance. (3)

Some traditionalists, wishing to continue the 1956 reforms while at the same time realizing the spurious nature of these community-based activities, switched to the use of “I” instead of “we.” But they do so on their own initiative, for the plural forms in Latin ‒ abrenuntiamus (we do renounce) and credimus (we believe) ‒ are contained in the 1962 Missal.

It is noteworthy that the response abrenuntiamus – a six-syllable tongue-twister that many people could only pronounce with difficulty and after much practice, while some could not manage to do so at all – can hardly be said to lend itself to congregational participation. But this was of little concern to the reformers, however, who were aiming for a vernacular liturgy.

Continued

1. Godfrey Diekmann, The Easter Vigil: Arranged for Use in Parishes, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1953, p. 3.
2. Clifford Howell, Preparing for Easter, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1957, p. 6
3. They tried to justify their choice of pronoun by a return to the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), which issued Creeds using “We believe.” But they failed to distinguish between a historic formulation for catechetical instruction to combat heresy, and its use in a liturgical ceremony; or to take into account that the liturgy of the early Christians used “I believe.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§ 167) typically equivocates with a have-it-both-ways “solution” in which no firm guidelines are given: “The Church, our mother, teaches us to say both ‘I believe’ and ‘we believe.’”

So, what exactly was the point of the Renewal of Baptismal Promises in the Easter Vigil?

All modern commentaries concur that it is “very important” to renew liturgically our baptismal vows, but it is remarkable that not a single valid reason has been adduced as to why – which is hardly surprising, since there was no need for it in the first place, as Dom Capelle had stated.


More False Rationalizations

So, in the absence of a reason, a rationale had to be invented.


This was provided by one of the Commission members, Fr. Joseph Löw. Using an expression taken directly from Dom Virgil Michel, he stated that the purpose of the reform was to “stir up again a proper Baptism-consciousness” so as “to restore the full significance of Easter” by “bringing the feast of Easter to life again in its totality.” (1)

The clear implication of these words is that the true meaning of the Easter Vigil had been obscured and mutilated in the liturgy since the time of the first Christians – and it would be the task of the Commission to bring the Church back to those early centuries.


A Grotesque Smear

Quite apart from the insinuation that the Church’s ceremonies, prayers, readings and chants for Holy Saturday had been deficient, even moribund, for over 1600 years, these words, written in 1953, reveal something more sinister about the Commission.

Here we can discern the dim outline of that hermeneutic of discontinuity with Tradition that was being planned, whereby the very forms used from generation to generation were judged to be dispensable. Thus, the radical reconstruction of the Easter Vigil and the abolition of some of its ceremonies were the precondition for that control-by-committee, which would be the hallmark of all future developments in the liturgy.


Interrupting Traditional Patterns

In all the preceding centuries, the Easter Vigil was regarded as the culmination of Lent, a long period in which the faithful focused intensely on sin, penance and personal conversion as a preparation for the spiritual renewal associated with Easter. This is why the custom arose of making a “good Confession” on Holy Saturday evening.

The main point of the Easter Vigil was, therefore, always understood to be a penitential preparation for receiving the graces of Christ’s Resurrection.

Not so, however, in the parallel universe of the 1948 Commission. In Chapter 3 of the “Memo,” Fr. Antonelli explained that they made the theme of Baptism the centre of the Easter Vigil. Fr. Löw stated that Baptism was “the most important part of the Vigil celebration” and that our Renewal of Baptismal Promises was, “above all,” its highlight. (2)

But, it was never the intention of the Church, even in early Christian times when large numbers of catechumens were baptized at the Easter Vigil, to give the theme of Baptism prominence over the Resurrection. In the pre-1956 Missal, the administration of Baptism during the Vigil was simply an option. (3)


Discouraging Confession at the Easter Vigil


Before the 1956 reforms, long lines of penitents were a familiar sight in every church on Holy Saturday evening, and priests devoted 6 or 7 hours to hearing their confessions, sometimes until midnight. Changing the Easter Vigil ceremonies to the evening hours, therefore, gave rise to a major problem of the Commission’s own making: how to stem the great influx of people into the churches for Confession on the holiest night of the year.

When the Congregation of Rites issued a Decree in 1952 renewing the experimental Vigil for another three years, its regulations explicitly ordered that parish priests should advise the faithful to choose other days instead. (4)


The Politics of Hypocrisy & Cynicism

It was only a derisory solution. Traditionally, the other days of the Triduum were fully occupied either with liturgical services or popular devotions related to Holy Week. Fr. Löw assured the faithful that they could go to Confession on Holy Saturday morning, which, in the new dispensation, would be free. (5)

But, this conflicts with his previous assertion a few lines earlier that the Vigil was moved to the evening because “the hours of morning are in the case of many Catholics impossible for church services” on account of their work schedules. (6)

What exposes the hollowness of his principles is the fact that he was even prepared to leave the majority of penitents stranded without Confession, as priests would no longer be available to minister to them. What is “pastoral” about preventing people from accessing the Sacrament of Confession at a time that was most convenient for them?

So much for the “pastoral” concern behind the reform. Fr. Löw airily dismissed the problem on the grounds that “through proper instruction and training of the faithful” they would be made to accept the new ways.


More Traditions Broken on the Wheel of Progressivism

A new set of expectations was now in place: The people were to renew their baptismal promises instead. Fr. Löw described the new rite as “the best condition for a good spiritually fruitful celebration of Easter Sunday.” (7)


But what about the Sacrament of Penance which, according to Tradition, was considered the optimal means of preparing for Holy Communion at Easter? It was totally eclipsed by a mere novelty, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises; and its importance was diminished in the eyes of priests and faithful by being relegated to a random sometime/anytime framework. Once again, as we have so often observed, a living bond connecting the faithful to their past was dangerously frayed.

The same treatment was meted out to the many long-standing traditions and customs, too numerous to mention here, through the wholesale disruption of the timing of the Triduum services in the Holy Week reform. The hostility of the reformers to these customs is evident from Fr. Antonelli’s disparaging remark that “there were too many popular customs especially in connection with Holy Saturday.”(8)

A notable example was the blessing of homes by the parish priest on Holy Saturday evening. This was done on that particular night of the liturgical year in memory of the Old Testament “Passover” or passing of the angel in Egypt and the signing of the door-posts with the blood of the sacrificial lamb.

In spite of its biblical symbolism and the obvious analogy with the true Paschal Lamb whose death enabled mankind to “pass over” from death to eternal life, the Instruction accompanying Maxima Redemptionis (1955) ordered it to be carried out on any day except Holy Saturday evening. (9) Thus, the intrinsic significance of this custom was destroyed.


Continued


1. Fr Joseph Löw, ‘We must celebrate the Easter night,’ Worship, March 1953, pp. 7, 10, 11.
2. Ibid., pp. 4, 15.
3. After the Blessing of the Font, the rubrics state: Si aderunt baptizandi, eos baptizet more consueto (If there are any candidates for baptism, let him [the priest] baptize them in the customary manner).
4. “Studeat parochus fidelibus suadere … ad confessiones … in diversis diebus distributis.” (The parish priest must advise the faithful coming to Confession [on Holy Saturday evening] to do so on any other days”). Sacred Congregation of Rites, AAS, 11 January 1952, p. 52.
5. Fr. Joseph Löw, ‘We must celebrate the Easter night,’ p. 5.
6. Ibid., p. 4.
7. Ibid., p. 12.
8. La Maison-Dieu, n. 47-48, 1956, p. 238.
9. AAS 47, 1955, p. 847.

How many people in the Church today, whether clergy or laity, ever saw or heard of the clerical vestment known as the “folded chasuble” (planeta plicata)? Precisely.

So, first, a few words about its use and significance are needed to put the reader into the picture. The folded chasuble acquired its name from the ancient custom of shortening the fore part of the chasuble by folding it upwards and pinning it in place. It was worn only by the Deacon and Subdeacon during penitential seasons, including Holy Week, in place of their usual dalmatic and tunicle, as a symbol of penance. (1)


If hardly anyone today has any knowledge, let alone experience, of this liturgical vestment, it is because Fr Bugnini had done such a thorough job in erasing it from the collective memory. “No one will miss the folded chasuble,” (2) he said breezily in 1956 while cavalierly tossing aside an item of clerical apparel, which, as Mgr Léon Gromier explained in his 1960 lecture, could hardly have been more ancient or more Roman:

“Folded chasubles are one of the oldest characteristics of the Roman Rite; they go back to the time when all the clergy wore chasubles, and were the expression of austere penance. Their abolition makes nonsense of the painting in the Catacombs – an immense loss and an outrage to history. [emphasis added] (3)


Early Sign of Decline in the Penitential Spirit

The Commission’s decision in 1956 to eliminate this symbol of penance is a sad, though unsurprising, indictment of the direction in which the reform was heading. Its disappearance from Holy Week, the season quintessentially dedicated to the Passion and Death of Christ, heralded its disappearance from all other penitential days of the liturgical year – at least what was left of them after the Novus Ordo reforms.


In 1960, Pope John XXIII issued a new Code of Rubrics for the Roman Missal stipulating that the folded chasuble is no longer used. (4) This, of course, applied to the 1962 Missal.

It would be difficult, to put it mildly, for almost any Catholic priest today, if told about the folded chasuble, to imagine the immensity of this loss to which Mgr Gromier referred. He would almost certainly look upon it as a tendency to “de lana caprina rixari” (quarrel over trifles). (5) As they would say about the maniple (6) which suffered a similar fate at the hands of the reformers: “why so much fuss over a strip of cloth?”

Those who maintain this position merely demonstrate the moral blindness in which the reform was conceived. A matter should be considered insignificant only if it can be demonstrated to be trivial and inconsequential. But how trivial was the abandonment of the folded chasuble, and what were the consequences of its suppression?

When we look at precisely what that tradition sought to protect, we will see that the subject at the heart of this matter could not be less trivial.


Importance of the Folded Chasuble

Such was the profound significance of the folded chasuble that it was linked in the mind of the Church to the divine precept of penitence which is especially incumbent on priests – more so than on the laity – as they are more closely conformed to Christ through the sacred character of their Ordination.

It was once common knowledge that this liturgical garment expressed the priestly identity in clear and unambiguous terms: as an alter Christus, the priest is closely linked with the “Man of Sorrows” Who wrought our redemption from sin. Penitence was, therefore, intrinsic to the nature of the ordained priesthood.

The necessity for performing works of penitence – which was also the urgent and recurring theme of Old and New Testament figures (7) and, in more recent times, of Our Lady of Fatima – was made perceptible to the priest (and to others) by a visible outward sign, the wearing of the folded chasuble.

One could even say that the folded chasuble was an external reminder to the priest of his commitment to celibacy, interiorly assisting him on his penitential road to holiness.


Effect on the Clergy

Where the “immense loss” was most evident, then, was among the clergy, as many would cast off the spirit of penitence together with their folded chasubles. This loss marked the beginning of the radical shift that eliminated the old rules and regulations about fasting, abstinence and penance understood as ascetical exercises.

History has shown the extent to which the clergy would gradually lose any understanding of, or attachment to, the Church’s traditional discipline.


Why is it that the immemorial custom of the folded chasuble, which had been received and approved by the Church throughout the centuries, came to an abrupt end in the mid 20th century? How come that a tradition which made such a prodigious contribution to the spiritual lives of the clergy suddenly became an item of the Church’s ancient past?

As many incidents in the Protestant Reformation and in recent Catholic history have shown, liturgical symbols were suppressed in an attempt to stamp out or minimize the beliefs they stood for.

Here we can see the underlying reason why Bugnini was so keen to ensure that the folded chasuble made its way out of liturgical history. The new liturgy that was being planned by the reformers would have no place for the emphasis on sin, penance and the unworthiness of man that prominently featured in the traditional liturgy.

Such “negative” concepts would soon be in full retreat as a necessary consequence of the advance of the new “positive” view of the goodness of man ushered in by Vatican II. Indeed, the very concept of penitence was made largely irrelevant by Vatican II’s emphasis on the joys of being “liberated” from the so-called “prophets of doom” who preached about the guilt and shame associated with sin.

Therefore, the folded chasuble would be viewed as an anachronism in the “renewed” liturgy where the spirit of penance and asceticism, so repugnant to modern man, would be played down, while the discipline of fasting would be relaxed almost to vanishing point. It is not surprising that both penance and sacrifice have been obscured in the Novus Ordo.


Continued


1. Furthermore at appropriate points in the liturgy, the Deacon would lay aside the folded chasuble and don the “broad stole” (stola largior) in its place, worn in bandolier fashion. It too has been eliminated. See note 4.
2. “Nessuno…sentirà la mancanza delle ‘pianete piegate’” (no one…will feel the loss of the folded chasuble), in A. Bugnini and C. Braga, Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae instauratus commentarium, Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae, Sectio Historica 25, Rome, Edizioni Liturgiche, 1956, p. 56, note 28.
3. L. Gromier, ‘La Semaine Sainte Restaurée’, in Opus Dei, 2, 1962, p. 80.
4. Pope John approved the new Code of Rubrics in his motu proprio Rubricarum instructum, of 25 July 1960, and imposed its observance on all who used the Roman Rite as from 1 January 1961. It mentions that folded chasubles and the broad stole are no longer relevant: Planetae plicatae et stola latior amplius non adhibentur. See AAS, 52, 26 July 1960, §137, p. 621. But, given that this is more an observation than a command, the question remains as to whether the immemorial custom was actually prohibited.
5. Horace, Epistles, Book 1, Epistle 18, line 15. The literal meaning of the adage is to quarrel over goat’s hair. In ancient times, goat’s hair, being too coarse for making into garments (except the hair shirt), was used for such items as sacks, horse belts and fodder bags.
6. In the Holy Week reform of 1956, the maniple was no longer used for Good Friday. The obligation to use it in the rest of the liturgical year ceased in 1967 with the Instruction Tres abhinc annos §25: “Manipulus semper omitti potest” (The maniple can always be omitted). The wording leaves the question open as to whether it was actually prohibited.
7. Beginning with Noah who was the first preacher of penance, the Prophets were constantly crying out to the people to do penance for their sins. St John the Baptist preached the same doctrine which was reiterated by Christ on His own authority. The Apostles carried on the same theme as soon as they received their mission. From those times until our modern era, penance was a fundamental theme of all the Councils and of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. It was also preached from every pulpit until the Vatican II era.

To sum up: the ancient tradition of folded chasubles disappeared officially from the liturgy in Holy Week 1956 (1) and from the rest of the Liturgical Year in 1960.

Before their suppression, folded chasubles had enjoyed a high profile in the liturgy, being worn for a considerable portion of the Liturgical Year:

• The Sundays and ferias of Advent and Lent (except Gaudete and Laetare Sunday and Christmas Eve);
  
• Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and the rest of Holy Week (except on Maundy Thursday and during the blessing of the Paschal Candle and the Mass of Holy Saturday);
  
• The Vigil of Pentecost before Mass;
  
• Ember Days (except those in the Octave of Pentecost);
  
• Candlemas during the blessing of candles and the procession. (2)
  

This requirement applied not to only to cathedrals and collegiate churches, but to larger parish churches and the chief churches of religious orders where a solemn penitential liturgy was performed with the assistance of a deacon and sub-deacon.

In an interesting aside, the liturgical historian, Fr. Josef Braun, S.J., noted in 1914 that folded chasubles first went out of use among some deacons and sub-deacons in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. (3) In other words, Germany, the seed bed of the Liturgical Movement, led the way in abandoning them.


A Dropped Stitch

The excuse given for discarding the folded chasuble was that the Church could drop “outmoded” symbolism so as to set free the “inner spirit” of penance and make it more accessible to modern man. But destroying outward forms that had been consecrated by centuries of Tradition, far from liberating the spirit that inspired those forms, caused both loss of form and spirit – as a visit (not recommended) to a modern day Novus Ordo would amply confirm.

By its deliberate decision to abandon the folded chasuble, Pius XII’s Commission pitted itself not only against the authority of Tradition, but also against a symbol of those core values to which priests during many centuries had given their allegiance. Its abolition by Pius XII in the 1956 Holy Week reform was only one strand in a far wider fabric of measures, which would later be adopted by the reformers to eliminate traditions that made visible and apparent key concepts of the priesthood. Like a dropped stitch in a knitted garment, the loss of the folded chasuble caused some essentials of priestly spirituality to begin to unravel.

From this, we can see the gravity of discarding a tradition that had for centuries been a significant element in the Roman Rite. The fact that both Mgr. Gromier himself and the folded chasubles about which he spoke with great pride are now regarded as curious remnants of the Church’s ancient past, and of no importance to modern times, is a telling example of the long-term effects of the Holy Week reforms.


The Priest's Role Fades

It was a startling innovation when the 1951 Ordo instructed the priest to sit and listen to the reading of the Prophecies at the Easter Vigil rather than perform the traditional role of reciting them himself at the altar while they were being chanted by other ministers. This was, initially, only optional and ad experimentum.


But the most potent blow was struck by the new ruling in the 1956 Ordo, issued by the Holy See on the Pope’s authority, extending the suppression of the priest’s role to all the scriptural readings during the solemn celebrations of Holy Week. (4) This meant that no priest of the Roman Rite could perform, as celebrant, his centuries-old obligation of reading the Lessons, Epistle or Gospel (the Passion) during Holy Week when there were other ministers available to undertake the task.

The duplication of Scripture readings – read quietly by the celebrant while chanted simultaneously by other ministers – was, and still is, regarded among progressives with horror as at best a “useless repetition” and, at worst, “illogical.”

But that is because their sensus catholicus has been negatively influenced by the liturgical reforms insofar as they no longer understand the fundamental doctrinal principle underlying the custom of “duplication,” which involves the nature and purpose of the biblical readings in the liturgy.


A Forgotten Reminder

Before 1956, the obligation for the celebrant to read the Scriptures in the liturgy was a symbolic reminder that he was not (as commonly thought today) conducting a Bible reading session for the instruction of the faithful. He wore a chasuble (discarded in the reformed rite) because the biblical readings, including the Easter Vigil Prophecies, were a part of the Mass of which he was the celebrant.

His proximity to the altar was an outward sign that the words he was reading came from the Word, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who is made present on the altar at the Consecration. The point of the symbolism was, therefore, to visually reinforce the correlation between Scripture and the Eucharist and, crucially, the priest’s interconnecting role in both.


As such a principle could only make sense in a Catholic liturgy, why did Pope Pius XII suppress this hallowed custom in Holy Week?

For an answer, we need look no further than the demands of the Liturgical Movement to foster a more “communitarian” approach to the liturgy in which all present are considered to be celebrants. A consistent theme at all the major Liturgical Congresses of the 1950s, from Maria Laach to Assisi, (5) was that the first part of the Mass should be conducted in choro, i.e., with the priest away from the altar, and that he should not “monopolize” all the readings.


A New Liturgical Principle Established

Where this reform was heading - towards the "communitarian" concept of the liturgy enshrined in the Novus Ordo - is now clear with the benefit of hindsight. In fact, Fr. Carlo Braga C.M., an early collaborator with Pius XII's Liturgical Commission who acted as Bugnini's right-hand man from the 1950s, (6) revealed the Liturgical Movement's aim to make all the faithful become "true actors in the celebration". (7)

Pius XII's legislation to deprive the priest of his traditional role and re-allocate it to other ministers for the Holy Week ceremonies may seem of little significance in the wider scheme of things. But to dismiss that reform as unworthy of concern is to overlook the elephant in the sanctuary.

That this reform was the start of a systematic encroachment of the priest’s ministerial role in the liturgy, and was accompanied by a steady escalation of lay “active participation”, is evident from what it brought in its train. For, this early deviation from tradition established a new principle that would receive its ultimate affirmation in the adoption of a Protestant-style “Liturgy of the Word” in the Novus Ordo. Here, the priest is permanently detached from the altar in the first part of the Mass, while the readings are done at a lectern in the vernacular, preferentially by anyone except the celebrating priest.


Continued


1. This was further confirmed by the contemporary reformer, Fr. F. McManus, in his Ceremonies of Holy Week, 1956, p. 48, note 4. The suppression applied to the folded chasuble and, by inclusion, the broad stole in both of its traditional colors: violet for penitential days and black for Good Friday.
2. See A. Fortescue, Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 1920, p. 254.
3. Josef Braun, “ln Allemagna la planeta plicata non si usa più.” in I paramenti sacri : loro uso, storia e simbolismo (Sacred Vestments: their use, history and symbolism), translation G. Alliod, Torino, Marietti, 1914, p. 96.
4. Ordo Sabbati Sancti Quando Vigilia Paschalis Instaurata Peragitur, ‘De Lectionibus’, 1956, n. 15 “Celebrans et ministri, clerus et populus, sedentes auscultant” (The celebrant and his ministers, the clergy and the people, sit and listen).
5. See Part 21: "Liturgical Anarchy Increases under Pius XII"
6. Although Fr. Braga did not become a member of the Commission until 1960, he had been actively assisting Bugnini's work from the 1950s. In January 1964, he was appointed Undersecretary of the Consilium which produced the Novus Ordo, working directly under Bugnini.
7. Carlo Braga, 'Maxima Redemptionis Nostrae Mysteria: 50 anni dopo (1955-2005)', Ecclesia Orans (an international journal published by the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant'Anselmo in Rome), n. 23, 2006, p. 18. The article contained the text of a conference given by Fr. Braga in 2005 to mark the 50th anniversary of Pius XII's Holy Week reforms.

Almost immediately after the 1956 Holy Week changes, a chain of reforms was paraded out in quick succession, each one containing a revolutionary breach with tradition, and each decreasing the role of the celebrant while greatly promoting the “active participation” of the laity.


1958: Pius XII - De Musica Sacra – Instruction on Sacred Music

The Instruction was touted as “the last act of the great Pope of the Liturgy on behalf of the Liturgical Movement.” (1) This description by one of the key proponents of 20th century liturgical reform was not just an example of empty rodomontade or a propaganda exercise. Pius XII’s document was, in fact, foundational for the creation of the Novus Ordo in ways that will be analyzed below.

For the first time in the History of the Church, the lay faithful were given, by official decree, a direct and active role in the performance of the liturgy. The following references from De musica sacra show that members of the congregation could henceforth, “by right,” perform the following:


At Solemn (Sung) Mass:

§ 25a: Sing the liturgical responses to the priest.

This was only the lowest of several graded steps of increasing complexity for the “active participation” of the congregation;


§ 25b: Sing the parts of the Ordinary: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus, Agnus Dei.

But Pope Pius X had taught that these were the province of the clergy and the choir. Contrary to majority opinion, he had given no directives for “congregational singing” of liturgical texts; (2)


§ 25c: Sing some of the Propers of the Mass.

This was an astoundingly radical innovation. There is no historical precedent for congregational singing of the Propers. These had been sung by specially trained choirs since at least the 7th century.


§ 13b, c: Sing liturgical texts in the vernacular with special permission.

Pius XII had already conceded this to the German Bishops in 1943. (3) This practice of replacing Gregorian Chant and Polyphony with vernacular hymns, strictly forbidden at Solemn Mass, soon became widespread as more Bishops requested the same permission. It would inevitably undermine the preservation of the Church’s treasury of Sacred Music;


§ 14a: Add some popular vernacular hymns with permission from the local Bishop.

This was only the tip of a very large iceberg. For, as Bugnini revealed, the original intention was that “the principle of songs in the vernacular is to be extended to the entire Church in the reformed Roman Missal. (4) Already in 1958, permission was available for the faithful to sing their favorite number in the vernacular during solemn Mass.


§ 27c: Recite the three-fold Domine, non sum dignus together with the priest before receiving Communion.


§ 96: A Commentator (who may be a layman) could exercise a liturgical ministry by standing in front of the congregation and audibly explaining the different parts of the Mass.

Apart from causing a distraction to contemplative prayer, the potential for indoctrinating the faithful with “new perspectives” on the Mass is obvious;


§ 96a: Women were accorded the right to “lead the song and prayers of the faithful.”

This had always been the established practice in Protestant liturgies;


§ 100: Women and girls were permitted to join “mixed” choirs or form their own all-female choir to sing the liturgy.

Yet Pius X had authoritatively stated the traditional teaching that women cannot be admitted to liturgical choirs. (5)



At Low Mass:

§ 31a, b: Make the liturgical responses to the prayers of the priest, “thus holding a sort of dialogue with him.”

This included all the responses said by the server, including the Confiteor;


§ 31c: Say aloud with the priest all the parts of the Ordinary as at Sung Mass noted above.

Nothing could be more calculated to destroy the atmosphere of the “Quiet Mass” than an incessant stream of audible responses from the congregation.


§ 31d: Recite together with the priest the parts of the Propers: Introit, Gradual, Offertory, Communion.


§ 32: Recite the Pater Noster, including the Amen, in unison with the priest.

This innovation was first introduced in the 1951 Easter Vigil and Good Friday reforms. The communal recitation of this prayer is found in Protestant traditions. In the traditional Catholic liturgy, it has always been a sacerdotal prayer and was neither said by the server nor sung by the choir.




§ 31b: Recite the triple Domine non sum dignus together with the priest before receiving Communion.

This particular point of the Mass, traditionally reserved for quiet reflection on one’s own unworthiness, was now “exteriorized” for all to hear.


§ 14b: Sing popular hymns or say aloud some prayers in the vernacular.

Thus, Pius XII rewarded the disobedience of innovators who had, against the rubrics, been promoting vernacular hymns and prayers in the Mass. For this purpose, Fr. Pius Parsch had devised the Betsingmesse (“Pray-Sing-Mass”) in the 1920s, which rapidly spread throughout the German-speaking lands and became the model for liturgical reformers in other countries.

An official approval was given in § 14b of the so-called “4-hymn sandwich,” interspersed among all the talking parts for the laity, which became ingrained in most parishes and still survives in the Novus Ordo.


 § 14c: A Lector could read the Epistle and Gospel to the faithful in the vernacular while the priest was reading them in Latin.

The point of the exercise was for the Lector (who could be a layman) to effectively “voice-over” the priest. This practice had already been popularized by Fr. Parsch’s Betsingmesse. A future step would be to have vernacular-only readings, for which the liturgical reformers had long been clamoring.

Unlike the Holy Week reforms, these reforms were only permissive rather than prescriptive, which explains why users of the 1962 Missal do not always follow them. Yet their effect was unfavorable to Tradition.

The 1958 Instruction was approved by Pius XII “in forma specifica,” indicating his personal involvement in the preparation of these revolutionary reforms. Henceforth, traditionally-minded priests were placed on the back foot, as it were, with the onus on them to provide a rationale for their continued use of the Church’s traditions.


1960: John XXIII – Rubricarum Instructum – New Code of Rubrics

Whereas the “sit-and-listen” ruling for the celebrant previously applied only to the Scripture readings in the 1956 Holy Week services, this was extended to all sung Masses from January 1961, when the New Rubrics came into effect. Here it was stipulated that “In sung Masses, all that the deacon, or subdeacon, or lector sing or read by virtue of their office is omitted by the celebrant.” (§§ 473, 513-514)


1964: Paul VI – Inter Oecumenici – Implementation of the Liturgy Constitution

Archbishop Piero Marini, who had worked under Bugnini in the secretariat of the Consilium (the Commission that designed the Novus Ordo), described this Instruction as “a victory for the Consilium’s approach to liturgical reform.” (6) It is not difficult to see why.


This document takes John XXIII’s ruling a step further. Even in non-solemn Masses, a “reader or the server may read the Lessons and Epistles with the intervening chants” while the priest “sits and listens.” (§ 50) It tightened the reformers’ grip on the priest by imposing a sort of ecclesiastical “gagging order” on his recitation of certain prayers in the Mass:

“The parts belonging to the choir and to the people [Partes quae ad scholam et ad populum spectant] and sung or recited by them are not said privately by the celebrant.” (§ 32)

In this reform, which could be aptly termed Bugnini’s “Operation Switcheroo,” the celebrant becomes the “mute spectator” while the people become directly responsible for proclaiming parts of the Mass that had traditionally been invested in the celebrant.

However, as a sort of consolation prize, Inter Oecumenici condescendingly granted that “The celebrant may sing or recite the parts of the Ordinary together with the congregation or choir” (§ 48b), i.e. as if he were an ordinary member of the assembly.


Continued


1. J.B. O'Connell, Sacred Music and Liturgy, London, Burns and Oates, 1959, p 13.
2. See here and here.
3. In 1943, Pius XII capitulated to the German Bishops’ demands and allowed the High Mass (Deutsches Hochamt) to be sung in German by the congregation. The congregation sang most of the Mass texts in translation or paraphrase, even though this was strictly against the rubrics and the prescriptions of Canon Law. See here
4. Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 903.
5. Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini, 1903, § 13.
6. Piero Marini, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, 1963-1975, Liturgical Press, 2007, p. 81.

Anyone who sets out to consider the reforms of Pius XII in their historical detail cannot fail to notice the sequence of events linking them to the Novus Ordo Missae.

In the Instruction De musica sacra (1958), the “community Mass” was, to the delight of the progressivist reformers, given explicit approval by the Pope, down to the finest detail of lay “active participation.” The Instruction laid the foundation for the final creation of the Novus Ordo Missae insofar as it gave the laity an integral role in the enactment of the Mass:

Quote:§ 21: “Everything which the liturgical books prescribe to be sung, either by the priest and his ministers, or by the choir or congregation, forms an integral part of the sacred liturgy.” [emphasis added]

For something to be an integral part of the liturgy, it must be an intrinsic element of those activities of which the liturgy is composed, necessary for its completeness, and one which the principal actor (the priest) cannot properly function without.

Of course, § 21 meant that the prescribed texts must be sung in their entirety. Nevertheless, the impression is conveyed, through elliptical wording, that when the laity sings the liturgical texts, their “active participation” is as integral to the liturgy as the singing of the priest, his ministers and the choir. But that is a Protestant, not a Catholic, viewpoint: It was Luther who made the congregation and the choir equal in importance and held that the singing of the congregation was no less integral to the service.

If we wish to know the authentic Catholic position that guided the Church throughout History, it was expressed by Pope Pius X:

“The Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful.” (1)


In the context of this two-tier system, it is of the greatest significance that the choir was traditionally considered a class apart from the congregation because its function of singing the liturgical texts belongs to the Bishops and the clergy. In other words, the choir is essentially a clerical entity.

It follows, therefore, that choir members – even though they may be laymen – exercise “a real liturgical office,” for which purpose it was laid down that they should “wear the ecclesiastical habit and surplice.” (2)

As for the other category of persons included in the “multitude of the faithful,” no specific directives were given to them by Pius X, from which we can infer that they were under no obligation to sing the liturgical texts. This is indisputably clear in his explanation that, apart from the singing of the “celebrant at the altar and the ministers,” “all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir.” (3) [emphasis added]

The ordinary faithful were, therefore, by definition not included among the singers performing liturgical functions. So, there are no grounds for believing that Pius X had a congregational rendition in mind when he issued his motu proprio on Sacred Music in 1903.

Even before he became Pope, when he was Bishop of Mantua and Patriarch of Venice, the future Pius X issued documents on Sacred Music. (4) It is interesting that while they are all practically identical in wording and content to the 1903 Latin motu proprio, none of them mentioned “active” participation of the laity – or even broached the subject of congregational singing.


Contrast with Pius XII

Very different was the approach of Pius XII under the influence of the Liturgical Movement. He not only exhorted communal singing of the Mass, but issued a positive mandate for its accomplishment:


“Every effort must be made that all the faithful throughout the world learn to sing these parts [of the Mass]” (De musica sacra § 25 a and b)

There is nothing comparable in any of the documents signed personally by Pius X, either before or during his papacy. He had always promoted the formation of male-voice choirs, [5] particularly among seminarians, and the instructions he issued in his motu proprio for training in Gregorian Chant were directed exclusively to clergy, seminarians and choirs. The only “active participation” he promoted for the laity was in the temporal sphere which they must infuse with Christian principles.

As we have seen, mandatory rubrics for lay activism in the liturgy were an invention of Pius XII, and first appeared in the 1956 Ordo for Holy Week. This innovation was later developed in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy, which stipulated that when the liturgical books were revised, they “must carefully attend to the provision of rubrics also for the people’s parts.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium § 31)


The Pre-Eminent Assembly Displaces the Celebrating Priest

When the General Instruction of the Novus Ordo was produced in 1969, Cardinal Ottaviani noted its “obsessive references to the communal character of the Mass,” adding that “the role attributed to the faithful is autonomous, absolute – and hence completely false.”



The blame for this deviation from Tradition can be laid at the door of the “new theology” espoused by the Liturgical Movement – and later adopted by Vatican II – which rejected the clearly defined two-tiered clergy-laity paradigm and redefined the Constitution of the Church as a homogeneous “communion” of all the faithful.

The liturgical innovators reduced the priest to the same level as the laity on the basis of their “common priesthood,” the only discernible difference being the functions allocated to them in the liturgy. Thus, the sacramental priesthood was dissolved into Luther’s “universal priesthood of all believers.”

From this fundamental error, which disguises the difference in essence between the baptized faithful and the ordained priesthood, came the novel concept that the congregation had both the right and duty to sing or recite liturgical texts formerly reserved to the clergy.

How did such a startling distortion of the clergy-laity distinction, reminiscent of Luther’s abolition of the priesthood, begin to take hold in the Church?

Pius XII incubated the early stages of the process by conceding many of the desiderata of the reformers in the realm of “active participation” of the laity. If, as De musica sacra § 21 states, everyone’s singing of the liturgical texts is integral to the liturgy, there is basically only one celebrant: the assembly. (6)

And all who exercise the role of singer – celebrant, clergy, choir, soloist, the congregation – do so as members of the assembly. The song of the assembly becomes ipso facto more important than that of any individual, including the priest celebrant.

However, few today perceive the ideological nature of the engine pulling the Liturgical Movement’s train, or realize the deeper and more subversive issue for the Church – the diminution of the celebrant’s role in the Mass and the ease with which lay people could take over the ministry of priests. For, what was being impugned by the progressivist reformers from Beauduin to Vatican II was the right of the clergy to sing or say Mass – which is their divinely appointed role – without the people muscling in on the liturgical action.

The inevitable consequence of the new liturgical theology was the declericalization of the liturgy to focus on the primacy of the assembly.


Continued

1. Pius X, Vehementer nos, 1906, § 8.
2. Pius X, Tra le Sollecitudini, 1903, §§ 13, 14.
3. Ibid., § 12. We must briefly mention the popular reports of a letter, bandied around the internet, allegedly written by Pius X, before he became Pope, to Bishop Callegari of Padua. In it, he is quoted as favoring congregational singing in the liturgy even above polyphony. There are several different versions of the letter, each purporting to be the original text, and these are put forward as “proof.” But no archival source is given with which to verify the authenticity of the letter.
Further research reveals that the letter originated from Pius X’s early biographers who each added their own creative interpretation to support their subjective idea of what the Pope must have said, so that the final telling is, as in the children’s game of Chinese Whispers, a complete distortion. Thus, a false “authority” is created to support an ideological position.
4. These are the 1888 Synodal Decrees in Mantua, the 1893 Votum (Report) in reply to Leo XIII’s questionnaire on Sacred Music, and the 1895 Pastoral Letter to the clergy of Venice. See http://wwwtraditioninaction.org/HotTopic...ogue_7.htm
5. From the beginning of his priestly ministry – as curate in Tombolo, parish priest in Salzano, Bishop of Mantua and Patriarch of Venice – he formed choirs of boys and men, and personally trained them in Gregorian Chant.
6. This is the “new theology” of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) which states that: “In a liturgical celebration, the whole assembly is leitourgos [the celebrant].” § 1188

From the beginning of the 20th century, the Catholic priest had become the target of bitter denunciation – not just by Protestants and atheists as one would expect – but by a growing army of Catholic liturgists, virtually all of whom were fellow priests, within the ranks of the Liturgical Movement.

The basic charge concerned the role of the celebrant and his right to perform the whole of the Mass himself. So, priests who had been doing precisely that – and their numbers were legion throughout centuries of the Church’s History – were accused by 20th century progressivist reformers of monopolizing the liturgy and were declared guilty of “clericalism.”

They further charged that since the early Middle Ages the celebrant’s role had grown so overweening that it unjustly deprived the other baptized members of the Church of full active participation in the liturgy.

Many in the Liturgical Movement have spoken of “closing the gap between the priest and the laity” with the aim of making the whole assembly responsible for co-performing the liturgy – a camouflage for doctrinal confusion and a liturgical free-for-all.


Struggling against ‘clerical elites’

Dom Lambert Beauduin, Fr. Pius Parsch and Fr. Josef Jungmann were among the earliest reformers to object that the liturgy had become the exclusive preserve of the clergy. (1) Jungmann added that the Roman Rite was “no longer a Liturgy of the faithful” but only “a rich, empty façade.” (2)

In 1922, as part of this laity-clergy power struggle, an anonymous priest made a plea to his fellow clergy in the American Ecclesiastical Review to follow the slogan “The Liturgy for the People!” He called for a “concerted movement” to ensure the “people’s vocal prayer” in the liturgy and root out “the mania for new devotions” to which they were addicted. (3)


No sooner had Pius XII issued his 1958 Instruction on Sacred Music than Msgr. J.B. O’Connell published his commentary in which one can sense the animosity to Catholic Tradition bubbling just beneath the surface:

“The priest celebrated ‘his’ Mass at the altar, taking no account of anyone except the server; and the people ‘heard’ their Mass, while, for the most part, saying their private prayers, or just saying and doing nothing at all, being physically present with the minimum of attention and intention demanded by the moral theologians to fulfil the obligation of ‘hearing Mass.’” (4)

It is significant that this kind of obloquy, aimed at discrediting Tradition, was endemic only in progressivist circles, among those who despised the traditional Mass and wanted to replace it by something of their own creation.

While these progressivist liturgical leaders and their followers were busily vilifying the traditional role of the priest and deriding it as a form of “clericalism,” the Liturgical Movement was gradually gaining the ear of the Popes from Pius XI onwards. It took upon itself the mission to “restore” to the faithful a sense of “ownership” of the liturgical action, claiming that they had been deprived of it for centuries by a dominating clergy. (5)

It is well-known which historical figure promoted the idea that “ownership” was “in the hands of the few” as a catalyst for revolution. But Marx’s influence was not limited to the political sphere.

One of its entry points into the Church was via the Liturgical Movement. (6) There it spread like a parasitic infection, whipping up resentment against the privileges of the clergy in the liturgy, and inciting the laity to ever more demands for “active participation,” “equality” and “access.”

Henceforth the beleaguered clergy would have to defend their patch against an advancing tide of hostility from progressivist reformers in the Liturgical Movement.


Policy over Principle

With Pius XII we can see the development of a new, liberal policy towards liturgical reform, the single most important element of which was to promote “active participation” of the people. The flip side of this policy, however, was to introduce legislation that effectively discriminated against the recipients of Holy Orders, making it easier for the non-ordained to usurp clerical roles.

These twin objectives were, as we have seen, apparent in the rubrics of the new Order of Holy Week (1956) and the Instruction on Sacred Music (1958) which made the clergy share with the congregation their privileged worship space, liturgical roles and even their responsibility for performing the liturgy.

Here we can see the flaw in the reformers’ argument, which posits a fundamental equality between clergy and laity in the liturgy by virtue of their common Baptism. They conclude from this premise that no one is superior or inferior to anyone else in the liturgy, and that any perceived differences arise purely from the variety of functions allocated to each of the participants in the assembly.


‘Preferential Option for the Laity’

This was, at root, the basis of the “horizontalism” that characterizes Novus Ordo liturgies. For, progressivist reformers give no consideration to the Sacrament of Ordination by which the priest is raised ontologically to a higher level than the recipients of Baptism alone, enabling him to accomplish supernatural acts in persona Christi. Although this was the perennial teaching of the Church, it was ignored by the liturgical reformers, who had an ideological interest in tarring the Church with the dreaded label of “clericalism.”


Indeed, to subscribe to the view of the Catholic priesthood as nobler and loftier is to invite howls of protest from the progressivits as a violation of the rights of the laity to full “active participation” in the liturgy.

So, a whole range of coercive measures were put in place, designed to protect the laity from the alleged harm inflicted on them by so-called “clericalism” and prevent the priest celebrant in particular from supposedly “lording it” over the rest of the assembly. This image goes hand in hand with the reformers’ desire to uproot and destroy the liturgy that had been handed down throughout the centuries.

We have seen enough evidence to know that the new legislation was grounded in the prejudice of reformers who wanted to introduce an idea, which would revolutionize the whole of the Church’s worship – that the congregation at large had the right and duty to co-perform the liturgy with the priest.


The Priest, the Real Target

Starting on a restricted scale in Holy Week under Pope Pius XII, and continuing under his successors, increasingly stringent legislation was enacted to prevent the priest celebrant from performing many of his traditional liturgical roles. These reflected the true identity of the priest as an alter Christus and were rooted in the history, language, texts and musical heritage and culture of the Roman Rite.


As preventive legislation is only used with the intention of eliminating threats to the common good – as in anti-terrorism strategies, pest control or the curtailing of infections etc. – we may reasonably infer that the traditional priesthood was similarly viewed as a danger to the success of the “new liturgical theology.” So, it too had to be eliminated along with the traditional structures that had protected the priesthood from the incursions of Protestantism and secularism.

It is no coincidence that the era that comes closest to the Liturgical Movement’s ideal liturgy is the Protestant Reformation. Nor is it surprising that the priest of the Novus Ordo ended up losing his privileged status in the liturgy and becoming a mere 'presider' over the assembly’s activities. Small wonder, then, that the post-Vatican II Church is suffering from a crisis of identity among priests, and seminaries are being closed down in great number.

The decline of the priesthood has already helped undermine and enfeeble the Church’s mission of salvation in the world, leaving it vulnerable to the encroachments of secular ideologies. And the more the true Mass and priesthood have been eroded, the more the Church has allowed itself to become entangled in a web of ecumenism, yielding increasing ground to false faiths and to secular ideologies, which threaten to destroy the Church’s historic identity. But where is the preventive legislation against that?


Continued


1. See here; see also, P. Parsch, Le renouveau liturgique au service de la paroisse. Sens et portée de la liturgie populaire, Mulhouse, Salvator, translated from the German Volksliturgie. Ihr Sinn und Umfang (The People’s Liturgy. Its Meaning and Scope), Würzburg, 1940, p. 24; J. Jungmann, Mass of the Roman Rite, 1951.
2. J. Jungmann, “Liturgy of the Eve of the Reformation,” in Worship vol.33, n. 8, 1958-1959, pp. 508, 514.
3. Amator Liturgiae (Pseudonym), “Letter to the Editor,”, American Ecclesiastical Review, vol. 66, January 1922, p. 67.
4. J. B. O’Connell, Sacred Music and Liturgy: The Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites September 3rd, 1958, Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1959, p. 46
5. See here.
Other examples of Marxist-inspired revolution in the Church are Liberation Theology, the Worker Priests’ Movement and various lay-led organizations such as the Catholic Worker Movement, all connected with liturgical reform.