The only true unity is for those outside the Church to renounce their errors and return to the Church, as Pope Pius XI discussed in Mortalium Animos in 1928, which every Catholic living today should read.
This very important document has to be read along with Ut Unum Sint and with the Ecumenical Directory.
Firstly, St. Francis was not a Priest, so I would be surprised if he eliminated Gregorian Chant from the Mass.
You are correct. He was not a priest. He was the Superior General of his Order and the Superior General of a Religious Order has authority over ordinary matters within his order. He does not have to be a priest to have this authority. He cannot change the rubrics of the liturgy, only the Church can do that. But the music is not part of the rubrics.
Another thing that Francis introduced into the liturgy was the sermon in the vernacular. He was the first known preacher to preach in the language of the poeple. Sermons were in Latin in the Middle Ages.
Before you ask, yes Francis was a preacher as are many of his Brothers to this day. His order, along with several others, still have what is called Pontifical Right. The Major Superior has the legal authority of a bishop, not the sacramental authority. That’s different.
That’s why bishops cannot interfere in their affairs. Only the Pope can. Pope Honorius deliberately put a Papal Bull on Francis’ Rule so that it could not be tampered with by anyone except another Pope. Not even the friars can change it. Once it became a Regula Bulata, even Francis had no power to change it.
He did not want his Brothers to use the Gregorian chant because at the time, religious orders were all monastic. Gregorian Chant was the traditional way that they celebrated mass and the Divine Office. But those who could not perform complicated Gregorian chant could not enter these orders. The Carhusians still mainain this rule today.
Francis wanted to open his order up to as many as possible. This is why he takes the Greogorian chant our othe liturgy in his friaries and where his Brothers celebrated mass. They used either plain chant or Laudas.
Laudas were songs that Francis wrote in Italian with Italian music for worship and praise of God. It came from the Italian “Praises”. The most famous Laudas is The Canticle of Brother Sun. To this day, the friars do not use Gregorian chant. The use plain chant, local music or they recite the psalms and ommit the hymns.
If you go to the writings of St. Francis you will find a list of the Laudas that he wrote. In English they are also known as Praises.
If you read his biography you will see where he uses them at liturgy. No one knows the exact year when he began this, as I said before. But an estimated guess is that it must have been between 1221 when he founded the order and 1226 when he died.
He also introduced the Live Nativity into the Midnight Mass and the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.
Secondly, what is laudas? If you mean lauds, that has nothing to do with the Mass. Lauds is the morning prayer payed by Priests and religious communities (and some lay faithful).
No. Lauds is one of the hours of the Liturgy of the Hours. But that is not a Lauda.
The last point is that Vatican Ii expressly stated that Gregoria Chant is to be retained in the Mass. Therefore, anyone living today who seeks to eliminate Gregorian Chant is rejecting Vatican II.
These disciplines are for the universal Church. However, they have exceptions. As I said above, if you belong to a religious order of Pontifical Right, you go by the exceptions and indults granted to your order.
For example, the Dominicans did not follow the Tridentine form in the strict sense. St. Dominic got permission for a Dominican Rite. It was very close to the Tridentine, but had some differences. Mass in this rite can only be celebrated by Dominican Friars of the First Order. It is rarely used today, because the Dominican General Chapter authorized the friars to us the NO sometime after Vatican II. Dominicans are also an Order with Pontifical Right
Since the Council of Trent, a priest could not say mass alone. There had to be at leas one other person. There weren’t always enough acolytes to assist at mass. If a parish did not have an acolyte, they used an altar server.
St. Bruno dispensed with this practice for the Carthusians. He could do this, because he was a Superior General with ordinary powers and the Carthusians have Pontifical Right. St. Bruno also forbade his monks from celebrating mass for the public. They do not do it to this day. Each monk celebrates mass in his hermitage. After Vatican II, they allowed concelebration, so the monks get together on Sundays to concelebrate a community mass. If you’re a lay person visiting their house you can attend. But they never go out to celebrate for the laity, nor do the Cistercians of either order. They’re not allowed to have public masses, even though the Church teaches that mass is public worshiip and that the faithful have the right to attend mass.
Some monasteries now make it a practice to open their chapel to their neighbors. But it’s really up to the Abbot.
As you see, there are rules, encyclicals and rubrics, but there also are exceptions which are very old and still in effect.
Not everything disappeared with Vatican II. Religiouis of Pontifical Right follow those rules that the Pope explicitly says they have to follow, the moral laws of the Church, the rubrics and dogmas. If you recall, Major Religious Superiors had to attend Vatican II by order of Pope John XXIII.
Every order of Pontifical Right has a Cardinal Protector in the Vatican to protect them from tampering by other bishops and laity.
JR
