Are the arguments for superiority of the TLM based on the dreaded emotionalism of the charismatics?

[Lazerlike42]

There is nothing wrong with “adding” to the traditions of the church. That has happened throughout the history of Catholicism. However, legitimate development is always organic… there is no “rupture”. When one studies the development of the liturgy prior to V2, it is clear that the development of the liturgy was indeed organic.

Was the creation of the OF of the Mass an “organic development?”

I’ll defer to Cardinal Ratzinger:
“What happened at the Council was something else entirely: in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living, process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it - as in a manufacturing process - with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.”
-From the preface to the French edition of “Reforms of the Roman Liturgy Its Problems and Background” 1993

I’m not saying that the OF is inherently corrupt, however, its celebration in the average North American Parish is so far removed from the liturgical traditions of the Church, that one could scarcely call it “Catholic.”

Therefore, the Church’s Liturgical tradition is more accurately expressed in the EF. In this way, the EF is certainly superior.

This is a misinterpretation of the Cardinal which ignores the greater context of his writing. I don’t blame you for this… you may just be buying in to the lie that groups such as the SSPX have put forth. Here is what the Cardinal has to say about the Pauline Liturgy:

**Hence those who cling to the “Tridentine Missal” have a faulty view of the historical facts. **Yet at the same time, the way in which the renewed Missal was presented is open to much criticism. We must say to the “Tridentines” that the Church’s liturgy is alive, like the Church herself, and is thus always involved in a process of maturing which exhibits greater and lesser changes. Four hundred years is far too young an age for the Catholic liturgy - because in fact it reaches right back to Christ and the apostles and has come down to us from that time in a single, constant process. The Missal can no more be mummified than the Church herself. Yet, with all its advantages, the new Missal was published as if it were a book put together by professors, not a phase in a continual grown process. Such a thing has never happened before. It is absolutely contrary to the laws of liturgical growth, and it has resulted in the nonsensical notion that Trent and Pius V had “produced” a Missal four hundred years ago. The Catholic liturgy was thus reduced to the level of a mere product of modern times. This loss of perspective is really disturbing. Although very few of those who express their uneasiness have a clear picture of these interrelated factors, there is an instinctive grasp of the fact that liturgy cannot be the result of Church regulations, let alone professional erudition, but, to be true to itself, must be the fruit of the Church’s life and vitality.

***Lest there be any misunderstanding, let me add that as far as its contents in concerned (apart from a few criticisms), I am very grateful for the new Missal, for the way it has enriched the treasury of prayers and prefaces, for the new eucharistic prayers and the increased number of texts for use on weekdays, etc., ***quite apart from the availability of the vernacular. But I do regard it as unfortunate that we have been presented with the idea of a new book rather with that of continuity within a single liturgical history. In my view, a new edition will need to make it quite clear that the so-called Missal of Paul VI is nothing other than a renewed form of the same Missal to which Pius X, Urban VIII, Pius V and their predecessors have contributed, right from the Church’s earliest history. It is of the very essence of the Church that she should be aware of her unbroken continuity throughout the history of faith, expressed in an ever-present unity of prayer.

• from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Feast of Fatih: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy

Peace and God bless

 

[SJP]

This is a misinterpretation of the Cardinal which ignores the greater context of his writing. I don’t blame you for this… you may just be buying in to the lie that groups such as the SSPX have put forth. Here is what the Cardinal has to say about the Pauline Liturgy:

• from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Feast of Fatih: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy

Peace and God bless

How have I misinterpreted Cardinal Ratzinger? I provided a direct quote, and then proceeded to argue that the development of the liturgy should be organic.

Do you deny that Cardnial Ratzinger is the author of the quote? Or do you deny the principle of organic development?

 

[SJP]

This is a misinterpretation of the Cardinal which ignores the greater context of his writing. I don’t blame you for this… you may just be buying in to the lie that groups such as the SSPX have put forth. Here is what the Cardinal has to say about the Pauline Liturgy:

Peace and God bless

Perhaps we should take a closer look at the Cardinal’s writings, so as to ensure that we don’t “misinterpret” him.

**Cardinal Ratzinger . . .

Blames Church Crisis On Liturgical Collapse**

by Paul Likoudis

The unprecedented manner in which Pope Paul VI imposed the Novus Ordo of the Mass created tragic consequences for the Roman Catholic Church, says Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in his new autobiography.

Not only did the banning of the old Mass represent a severe departure from tradition, but the revolutionary manner in which the new Mass was imposed has created the impression that liturgy is something each community creates on its own, not something which “is given.”

Rather than being a force for unity in the Church, the new Mass has been the source of liturgical anarchy, dividing Catholics “into opposing party positions” and creating a situation in which the Church is “lacerating herself.”

Formally imposed after a six-month period of “liturgical experimentation” in which anything —and everything—did go, the Roman Catholic Mass has never attained a universality, stability—or even an element of predictably—for most Catholics around the world; but instead has been a stimulus for never-ending innovations—from altar girls to dancing girls to women priests.

While the Missal of Paul VI “brought with it some authentic improvements and a real enrichment,” the banning of the old Mass caused some “extremely serious damages for us,” he wrote in La Mia Vita, released in mid-April in its Italian translation.

“I was dismayed by the banning of the old Missal,” he wrote, "seeing that a similar thing had never happened in the entire history of the liturgy…

"The promulgation of the banning of the Missal that had been developed in the course of centuries. starting from the time of the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, has brought with it a break in the history of the liturgy whose consequences could be tragic… The old structure was broken to pieces and another was constructed admittedly with material of which the old structure had been made and using also the preceding models…

"But the fact that [the liturgy] was presented as a new structure, set up against what had been formed in the course of history and was now prohibited, and that the liturgy was made to appear in some ways no longer as a living process but as a product of specialized knowledge and juridical competence, has brought with it some extremely serious damages for us.

"In this way, in fact, the impression has arisen that the liturgy is ‘made,’ that it is not something that exists before us, something ‘given,’ but that it depends on our decisions. It follows as a consequence that this decision-making capacity is not recognized only in specialists or in a central authority, but that, in the final analysis, each ‘community’ wants to give itself its own liturgy. But when the liturgy is something each one makes by himself, then it no longer gives us what is its true quality: encounter with the mystery which is not our product but our origin and the wellspring of our life…

"I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us.

“But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?,” he asked.

Too often, Ratzinger lamented, “the community is only celebrating itself without its being worthwhile to do so.”

The book’s German title translates to: From My Life: Remembrances 1927-1977.

On at least two other occasions, Cardinal Ratzinger has criticized specific liturgical abuses, while on other highly publicized events, such as the Ordinations of seminarians into the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, he has praised the beauty of the old Mass.

But his newly released autobiography is the first prolonged lament over the wholesale replacement of one liturgy with another.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI issued his General Instruction of the Roman Missal, revising the Order of the Mass and related prayers. The old Mass rite was to be banned, with few exceptions, after a transition period of several months.

Although the Mass had undergone evolutionary changes through the history of the Church, there was always a sense of “continuity,” Ratzinger wrote. Even Pope Pius V, who reworked the Roman Missal. in 1570 following the Council of Trent, allowed for the continued use of some liturgies with centuries-long traditions.

**
Cardinal Ratzinger said there "is need for a new liturgical. movement to call back to life the true heritage of Vatican Council** II.

“For the life of the Church, it is dramatically urgent to have a renewal of liturgical. awareness, a liturgical reconciliation, which goes back to recognizing the unity in the history of the liturgy and understands Vatican II not as a break, but as a developing moment.”

Pope Paul VI’s new Mass has been a contentious issue in the Church since its introduction in 1969, not only fueling a bitter Church dispute involving the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in 1988, but prompting millions of Catholics to question the legitimacy—not only of the Mass, but of the Pope who approved it.

Even after Pope John Paul in his 1988 apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei called on his bishops to be “generous” in giving Catholics access to the Tridentine rite, in a compassionate gesture aimed at healing some of the divisions and discontent over the Novus Ordo, many bishops, and even cardinals, notably Detroit’s Adam Cardinal Maida, have refused to accommodate the desires of Catholics for the old Mass.

Some Reactions

For many Catholics, Cardinal Ratzinger’s public acknowledgment that the Novus Ordo created a “crisis” for the Church was a long-overdue admission on the part of the Holy See.

“Publicly admitting that suppressing the 1962 Missal was a mistake, and then restoring it, would be a good first step toward liturgical renewal,” said Chicago Catholic Rich Freeman, who posted the announcement on his Catholic Internet service as soon as it was reported in the Italian press.

“The modernists have always known that they couldn’t win a fair fight with tradition . . . that’s why they had to take the extraordinary step of suppressing, or attempting to suppress, the Mass that has an unbroken lineage of tradition back to ‘that first Eucharist before He died’,” he said.

A clerical reaction came from Fr. Joseph F. Wilson, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Tablet, after its editor commented negatively on the Ratzinger admission. Fr. Wilson stated:

". . . The effectiveness of the current liturgy is something many people are discussing—Cardinal Ratzinger is not a lone wolf howling in the wind on this one.

"Within the last two and a half years, two separate organizations were founded in the United States to address the question of the liturgy. Indeed, if memory serves —I wish I could be more exact in referring to this—there was a meeting within the last two years of liturgists in Chicago to observe the anniversary of Vatican II’s liturgy constitution. The theme of the gathering was What Has Gone Wrong—why has the early promise of the liturgical renewal not come to fruition?

"It is unfair to cast this as a question of loyalty to Vatican II. Return to your copy of the documents and read the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. You simply will not find described there what we presently do at Mass. The postconciliar commission on the implementation of that constitution went well beyond the prescriptions of the council fathers, and every liturgist will admit that freely…

"In your article you say: a) American Catholics have embraced the revised liturgy; b) we understand it much better today; c) we understand that it is the central act of the Church; d) our better understanding is due to the changes in the liturgy.

"I wish that I could say that you do not specify which planet you refer to. You actually say you’re talking about America. How do you reconcile these assertions with the results of two different well-known polls (which were reported in your paper) that only one-third of Mass-goers recognized the orthodox Catholic doctrine on the Real Presence as being an expression of their faith, the other two-thirds happily opting for Zwinglian and Lutheran formulations? And how on earth can you reconcile these assertions with the fact that Mass attendance has dropped by perhaps as much as 60% in 30 years?. . .

"I think the most serious thing which can be said about the way we worship in the Roman rite is that it is in tone, in spirit, utterly different from any of the other rites of the Catholic Church. The Roman rite was always different from all of the eastern rites, of course, but the sense of the transcendence of God, which once marked our liturgy strongly, seems rarely to find expression in our worship today. And we trashed, just trashed, a glorious tradition of liturgical music which the council fathers at Vatican II explicitly commanded be fostered. We replaced it with . . . On Eagles’ Wings.

“You also ask: ‘Does he really think that in the midst of the relevancy revolution of the 1960s, people would have continued to flock to a ceremony at which they couldn’t understand a word?’ (That’s part of my point. Most of them didn’t continue to flock!! We just stopped caring about them. They were the unrenewed. We just kept talking about how renewed we were, ignoring the declining numbers).”

 

[SJP]

Cardinal Ratzinger on Contemporary Liturgy

"A young priest said to me recently, ‘What we need today is a new liturgical movement.’ His was the expression of a wish that cannot be ignored or minimized except by someone of a deliberately superficial spirit. What is important for that priest, is not a stride for new and bold freedoms… He feels the need for a new beginning, sprouting forth out of the deep core of the liturgy itself, just as was the intention of the early liturgical movement, when it was at its true high point; that is, when the liturgists were not busy making up texts and inventing new actions and forms, but rather, were busy rediscovering the living core and penetrating the actual liturgical tissue, so that the renewal of the Liturgy would come forth out of its very own substance.
The liturgical renewal in its concrete application is straying ever further away from its origin. The result is not renewal, but devastation."
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Foreword to Monsignor Klaus Gamber’s book ‘‘La Reforme’’ (1992)]

“What happened at the Council was something else entirely: in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living, process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it - as in a manufacturing process - with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.”
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: Preface to the French edition of “Reforms of the Roman Liturgy Its Problems and Background” (1993)]

"The promulgation of the banning of the Missal that had been developed in the course of centuries, starting from the time of the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, has brought with it a break in the history of the liturgy whose consequences could be tragic …

**The old structure was broken to pieces and another was constructed, admittedly with material of which the old structure had been made and using also the preceding models … the fact that [the liturgy] was presented as a new structure, set up against what had been formed in the course of history and was now prohibited, and that the liturgy was made to appear in some ways no longer as a living process but as a product of specialized knowledge and juridical competence, has brought with it some extremely serious damages for us. **

In this way, in fact, the impression has arisen that the liturgy is made, that it is not something that exists before us, something given, but that it depends on our decisions. It follows as a consequence that this decision making capacity is not recognized only in specialists or in a central authority, but that, in the final analysis, each community wants to give itself its own liturgy. But when the liturgy is something each one makes by himself, then it no longer gives us what is its true quality: encounter with the mystery which is not our product but our origin and the wellspring of our life …

I am convinced that

the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today
depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy,

which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur:

as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists
and whether He speaks to us and listens to us.

But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?"
[Cardinal Ratzinger: “From My Life: Remembrances 1927-1977” (1997)]

"The Liturgy cannot be compared to a piece of equipment, something made, burt rather to a plant, something organic that grows and whose laws of growth determine the possibilities of further development. In the West there has been, of course, another factor involved. This was the Papal authority: the Pope took ever more clearly the responsibility upon himself for the liturgical legislation, and so doing provided a juridical authority for the forthsetting of the liturgical development. The stronger the papal primacy was exercised, the more the question arose, just what the limits of this authority were, which of course, nobody had ever before thought about.

After the Second Vatican Council, the impression has been given that the Pope, as far as the Liturgy goes, can actually do everything that he wishes to do, certainly when he was acting with the mandate of an oecumenical council. Finally, the idea that the Liturgy is a pre-determined ‘given’, the fact that nobody can simply do what he wishes with her, disappeared out of the public conscience of the Western Church.

In fact, the First Vatican Council did not in any way define that
the Pope was an absolute monarch!
On the contrary, that Council sketched the Pope’s role
as that of a guarantee for obedience to the Revealed Word.
The papal authority is limited by the Holy Tradition of the Faith,
and that regards also the Liturgy. The Liturgy is no ‘creation’ of the authorities. Even the Pope can be nothing other than a humble servant of the Liturgy’s legitimate development and of her everlasting integrity and identity."
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: “Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy” (2000)]

"The various phases of the liturgical renewal have given the impression that the liturgy can be changed when and how one wishes. If there is one unchangeable element in the Mass, so they think, then that would be nothing else than the words of consecration: all the rest can be altered. Then the following idea seems logical: If the Central Authority can do it, then why shouldn’t the faithful also not be able to do the very same? Surely they should be able to express themselves in the liturgy and see their own style recognizably present.

After the rationalistic and puritanical trend of the 1970’s and 80’s, people have had enough of ‘liturgies’ that are only just lots of words; they long for ‘liturgies’ that they can experience, and quickly come to adopt New-Age styles and chase after liturgical ‘highs’, ignorant of the ‘rationablis oblatio’, of which St. Paul, and the Roman Liturgy with him, speak [Rom. 12,1]."
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance. Christian Belief and World Religions (2003)]

"The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law, but is the guardian of the authentic Tradition, and thereby the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and is thereby able to oppose those people who for their part want to do what has come into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile.

Anyone like myself, who was moved by… the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council,
can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for."
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: Preface to the second edition of “The Organic Development of the Liturgy”, Dom Alcuin Reid (2nd Ed 2004)]

 

[Lazerlike42]

SJP,

I disagree only that Cardinal Ratzinger considers the Pauline Missal to be an inorganic development. In the quotation I provided, he said not only that he is very grateful for it, but that it is nothing more than a renewed form of the same Missal that has been used for at least 1600 years. He says that it was presented as if it were something new, when in fact it is not.

I agre with everything he says about the problems with the world being from the collapse of the Liturgy, but this is not a matter of the substance of the Pauline Missal. This is a matter of the celebration of the Liturgy falling into abuse and simply away from proper reverance, and as Cardinal Ratzinger said, being considered to be new. His words are unequivocal and clear: the “new” Missal is not new at all, it needs to be made clear that this is the case, and those who “cling to the Tridentine Missal” are in error (NOT because there is anything wrong with prefering the Tridentine Missal, but because they consider it to be somehow more traditional to cling to it than to celebrate the Pauline Missal).

His point is that the way it was presented gave the impression that the post-Vatican II Liturgy was a new, created thing, as if Liturgy were under the dominion of man and could be manipulated as we choose. The reality is that the Liturgy is something which we have inherited from the Lord and which has developed under His Providence. That is problematic because it gives the impression that we can do what we would like with the faith and that we are not bound to what has been given us no matter what it is - that we are free to change anything, from the Liturgy to the moral commands of God.

When the Pauline Missal is represented as “the new Mass,” something that was put together by a bunch of rally smart guys, rather than something which is an integral part of the Liturgical history of the Church and is the very same Missal as has been used all throughout history, this is the impression that is given. He considers the Pauline Missal to be the same Missal as was used by Pius X, Urban VIII, and Pius V, simply renewed, just as each of those popes renewed the Missal themselves. His words could not be more clear.

Peace and God bless!

 

[SJP]

SJP,

I disagree only that Cardinal Ratzinger considers the Pauline Missal to be an inorganic development. In the quotation I provided, he said not only that he is very grateful for it, but that it is nothing more than a renewed form of the same Missal that has been used for at least 1600 years. He says that it was presented as if it were something new, when in fact it is not.

I agre with everything he says about the problems with the world being from the collapse of the Liturgy, but this is not a matter of the substance of the Pauline Missal. This is a matter of the celebration of the Liturgy falling into abuse and simply away from proper reverance, and as Cardinal Ratzinger said, being considered to be new. His words are unequivocal and clear: the “new” Missal is not new at all, it needs to be made clear that this is the case, and those who “cling to the Tridentine Missal” are in error (NOT because there is anything wrong with prefering the Tridentine Missal, but because they consider it to be somehow more traditional to cling to it than to celebrate the Pauline Missal).

His point is that the way it was presented gave the impression that the post-Vatican II Liturgy was a new, created thing, as if Liturgy were under the dominion of man and could be manipulated as we choose. The reality is that the Liturgy is something which we have inherited from the Lord and which has developed under His Providence. That is problematic because it gives the impression that we can do what we would like with the faith and that we are not bound to what has been given us no matter what it is - that we are free to change anything, from the Liturgy to the moral commands of God.

When the Pauline Missal is represented as “the new Mass,” something that was put together by a bunch of rally smart guys, rather than something which is an integral part of the Liturgical history of the Church and is the very same Missal as has been used all throughout history, this is the impression that is given. He considers the Pauline Missal to be the same Missal as was used by Pius X, Urban VIII, and Pius V, simply renewed, just as each of those popes renewed the Missal themselves. His words could not be more clear.

Peace and God bless!

I agree with a great deal of what you have said, however, it’s incorrect to assert that then Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) did not, at least in some ways, view the new missal of Pope Paul VI as an inorganic development.

Consider the words of Monsignor Gamber in The Reform of the Roman Liturgy
“Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful” (p. 100).

Consider also, the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the preface to the French-language edition of The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, endorsing Monsignor Gamber’s work and commending the author to readers worldwide. It must surely be licit to hold this opinion, therefore, for otherwise the cardinal – now pope – would never have endorsed such a book or author.

Finally, consider the observations of Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Breaking with the Past

Ratzinger’s third major criticism of the liturgical reform was that whatever its virtues, the new missal, both in particular sections and in its entirety, leaves the impression of a rupture with the past, and can seem contrived. It resembles more a compilation by a committee of professors than the organic development of a truly living liturgy. “In the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy,” Ratzinger wrote. “We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it – as in a manufacturing process – with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.”

Again Ratzinger faulted the liturgical books themselves, and not merely their clumsy implementation. “Even the official new books, which are excellent in many ways, occasionally show far too many signs of being drawn up by academics and reinforce the notion that a liturgical book can be ‘made’ like any other book.” The new missal “was published as if it were a book put together by professors, not a phase in a continual growth process. Such a thing never happened before. It is absolutely contrary to the laws of liturgical growth.”

Ratzinger cited the reform of the liturgical calendar as an example of “the armchair strategy of academics, drawing up things on paper which, in fact, would presuppose years of organic growth.” This approach was “one of the weaknesses of the postconciliar liturgical reform.” Those responsible, he said, simply “did not realize how much the various annual feasts had influenced Christian people’s relation to time. In redistributing these established feasts throughout the year according to some historical arithmetic – inconsistently applied at that – they ignored a fundamental law of religious life.”

For decades, Catholics have been told that the new Mass is the traditional Mass – that its promulgation by Church authority made it ipso facto traditional. The chaplain at a well-known Catholic university recently rebuked traditionalist students who asked for the traditional Latin Mass with precisely this brand of legal positivism: the Novus Ordo is the traditional Mass, he insisted. Benedict (and great liturgists like Monsignor Gamber) will have none of this nonsense: The old rite is the old rite, the new rite is the new, and they are not and never have been the same.
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
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