Discipline and Tradition

[Atreyu]

Hey guys, I need your help. I have managed to get myself into a discussion with a Traditionalist about the mass of 1970, which he calls the NOM (I’m still not sure whether or not it is appropriate to call it that). Somewhere down the line, I completely lost what I was trying to show, but there are a few points we have discussed that I need some clarification on.

First of all, he claims that both the NOM and the TLM are valid. I agree with this, but it is my claim that the NOM obrogated (superseded) the TLM as the normative mass of the Roman rite. I have claimed that the jurisdictional rights of the pope in matters of discipline are sufficient to alter the order of the mass, even unto novelties and deletions. My interlocutor (have I used this word right here???) claims that tradition supersedes these jurisdictional rights. He said:

We must follow Tradition which means the earlier teachings and major disciplines in time that have stood the test of time - not novelties invented at a later date. Hence I attend the TLM not the NOM.

He claims that when a certain pope contradicts an earlier pope, even in matters of discipline, that we must follow tradition. To the question, “which of these popes would you follow?” I answered:
For me, the answer is indeed that we follow the pope of the time; the latest decision.
to which he responded:

Then you adopt the Rawlsian liberal view of law - a view which is, I must tell you, incompatible with Catholicism.

From my statement:
By the very nature of possessing the charism of “binding and loosing”, this means the popes have the ability to change what has happened before.
he responded:

Only in a limited sense. They do not have the right to uproot Tradition - indeed, they have the obligation to preserve it. Your view is a modern, Western, Rawlsian, secular view of the law not that of a natural lawyer. The Rawlsian view is incompatible with Catholicism.

Some other comments of his:

You unwittingly prefer Rawls to Aquinas and the natural lawyers.

You, yourself, can readily study the changes made by the various popes and you will readily see that the earlier changes were cosmetic save those made by Bugnini.

Me:
You also seem to be taking for granted that each and every revision of the liturgy throughout time has also been “largely cosmetic” as it were. On the contrary, I claim that the liturgy has undergone many radical changes - as radical as the reforms of Paul VI himself.
him:

If you think that then you are not in good company - no liturgical scholar that I am aware of would agree with you. Not Parsch, Jungmann, Fortescue, King, Gelineau, Gamber, Reid or any that I am aware of. Indeed, your view is extraordinary to the point of perversity.

More:

The question is: “Do popes have the unlimited right to make changes? Can they overturn Tradition?”.

The question is NOT: “Is the decree on female altar servers a disciplinary decree or a doctrinal decree?”.

And the question is not answered by merely repeating it in another guise.

and

If the Pope ordered the Catholic world to stop using the Rosary would you pocket your conscience and obey that command, too?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Verbum]

Hi Atreyu,

Others will give you answers to these statements, but, right off the bat, your friend sounds very much like the schismatical SSPX.

Verbum

 

[Atreyu]

Hmmm, I’m not sure he is. By the way, the status of SSPX is more complicated than that, I think (but let’s not turn this thread into an SSPX thread…).

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

First of all, he claims that both the NOM and the TLM are valid. I agree with this, but it is my claim that the NOM obrogated (superseded) the TLM as the normative mass of the Roman rite. I have claimed that the jurisdictional rights of the pope in matters of discipline are sufficient to alter the order of the mass, even unto novelties and deletions. My interlocutor (have I used this word right here???) claims that tradition supersedes these jurisdictional rights.

The NO did not actually superceded the TLM officially.

He claims that when a certain pope contradicts an earlier pope,

even in matters of discipline, that we must follow tradition. To the question, “which of these popes would you follow?” I answered:For me, the answer is indeed that we follow the pope of the time; the latest decision.
A current pope does not contradict a prior pope on matters of discipline because the current pope has the power to change matters of discipline.

to which he responded:

From my statement:By the very nature of possessing the charism of “binding and loosing”, this means the popes have the ability to change what has happened before. he responded:

Some other comments of his:

Me:You also seem to be taking for granted that each and every revision of the liturgy throughout time has also been “largely cosmetic” as it were. On the contrary, I claim that the liturgy has undergone many radical changes - as radical as the reforms of Paul VI himself.
The history of the Roman Liturgy shows this very clearly, when the Gloria was inserted, the Our Father and the Creed added, the Kiss of peace moved, a new Saint added to the Eucharistic prayer, Etc. The most radical was when they started celebrating both parts (Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist) in the same location, one right after the other.

 

[Atreyu]

The NO did not actually superceded the TLM officially.

Is there a normative order of the mass?

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Is there a normative order of the mass?

I don’t find in any Church documents where it is said that the TLM is no longer to be celebrated? Now maybe I missed something.

 

[Atreyu]

I don’t find in any Church documents where it is said that the TLM is no longer to be celebrated? Now maybe I missed something.

That’s not what I asked. I asked if there is a normative order of the mass (in the latin rite of the Catholic Church). Maybe this would be better stated by asking, is there a normative missale romanum, Roman missal. The very nature of the word “normative” implies there is something non-normative. Therefore what I am asking is this: is the mass of 1970 missale romanum the normative mass of the latin rite of the Catholic Church, such that the TLM can still be celebrated (possibly under certain conditions)?

 

[thistle]

The TLM is not freely permitted so it being the case that the TLM is allowed under indult only surely it follows that the NO Mass is the normative Mass.

 

[Atreyu]

The TLM is not freely permitted so it being the case that the TLM is allowed under indult only surely it follows that the NO Mass is the normative Mass.

Do you know of any authoritative church document that states this thistle?

edit: Actually I just found Quattuor Abhinc Annos 1984 and of course, Ecclesia Dei 1988. Is there anything else?

 

[thistle]

Do you know of any authoritative church document that states this thistle?

edit: Actually I just found Quattuor Abhinc Annos 1984 and of course, Ecclesia Dei 1988. Is there anything else?

I thought there was another doc but I can’t think what it is. Maybe I’m wrong.

 

[Atreyu]

He sent me this today:
Atreyu’s problem is fairly typical of all too many people today. They are legal positivists instead of natural lawyers. Legal positivism is the dominant legal philosophy in the secular West, particularly since the domination of post-Protestant cultures like the British and the American became complete.

The secular West’s view of law is that of a Rawlsian (from John Rawls) liberal, deriving from proto-liberals like John Locke, and is incompatible with Catholicism. It is, briefly put, the view that the law is right because it is the law and whatever the legislator says must be right. This, of course, is entirely circular: I am right because I am not wrong.

Natural lawyers say that there is a natural law which must be followed by all legislators and that the remit of human positive law cannot gainsay the natural law or else it is no law. Within its own competence, human positive law must be followed but not if it purports to overturn the natural law because the natural law “outranks” it.

Thus, for example, the human legislator who legalises murder makes no law but a species of criminal anarchy. Such a law is no law and need not be obeyed.

Legal positivism applied to the Church is no better.

Atreyu, not surprisingly, is affected by the dominant thinking of his culture which is legal positivism and so tends to think that a law is right just because the legislator says it is. Alternatively, he thinks that the law must be followed simply because the legislator has declared it law, which amounts to the same thing. But, as with all things, there is a hierarchy, here a hierarchy of laws, and the lower cannot outrank the higher: natural law is higher than human positive law, just as a colonel outranks a lieutenant and a king outranks a knight.

Similarly, the law of Tradition in the Catholic Church is higher than the positive law of any single pope, so that no pope can abolish Tradition. However, just as the natural law allows much scope to human positive law provided it does not infringe the natural law, so too, does the law of Tradition allow scope to papal positive law provided it does not infringe the law of Tradition.

Thus John XXIII can move a few feasts around or St Pius V can abolish rites less than 200 years old but no pope can abolish or radically strip out the Roman rite.

Our ancestors would have had no trouble understanding this. But modern man is a legal positivist and cannot get his head round it.

Atreyu, at least in this respect, is unwittingly sharing the error.
Do his comments have any merit? Or is he unfairly mixing Discipline up with Tradition?

 

[USMC]

Here are a few quotes from Cardinal Ratzinger that you may want to consider:

**Cardinal Ratzinger: ** "After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, **the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. **

"In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope’s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not “manufactured” by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity… The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. Still less is any kind of general “freedom” of manufacture, degenerating into spontaneous improvisation, compatible with the essence of faith and liturgy. The greatness of the liturgy depends — we shall have to repeat this frequently — on its unspontaneity" (The Spirit of the Liturgy).

So that the next quote from Cardinal Ratzinger makes sense, let us recall the changes introduced into worship by the heretics of the 16th century, and what the Council of Trent said when it condemned them:

1.) The heretics employed communion in the hand, and under both species. Against this the Council declared:

Council of Trent: “If anyone says that the Holy Catholic Church was not moved by just cause and reasons to give Communion under the form of bread only to laymen, and even to clerics when not consecrating, or that she has erred in this, let him be anathema” (Session XXI Canon 2)

2.) The Priest (or minister) began to face the people (rather than God), and began to pray all of the prayers out loud. They also changed the language from the universal language of Latin to the vernacular. Against this the Council declared:

Council of Trent: “If anyone says that the rite of the Roman Church, according to which a part of the canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low tone, is to be condemned; or that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular only… let him be anathema” (Session XXII Canon 9).

Council of Trent: “If anyone says that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular only… let him be anathema” (Council of Trent, Session XXII Canon 7).

5.) They also replaced Gregorian chant with a more secularized music. Against this the Council declared:

Council of Trent: “They shall also banish from the churches all such music which, whether by the organ or in the singing, contains things that are lascivious or impure…”.

Considering these external changes, which were employed by Luther and the other heretics of the 16th century, and which are now found in the Novus Ordo Mass, we can understand why Cardinal Ratzinger would say the following:

Cardinal Ratzinger, July 200: “A sizeable party of Catholic liturgists seems to have practically arrived at the conclusion that Luther, rather than Trent, was substantially right in the sixteenth century debate; one can detect much the same position in the post-conciliar discussions on the priesthood.”

“It is only against this background of the effective denial of the authority of Trent, that the bitterness of the struggle against allowing the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal, after the liturgical reform, can be understood. The possibility of so celebrating constitutes the strongest, and thus (for them) the most intolerable contradiction of the opinion of those who believe that the faith in the Eucharist formulated by Trent has lost its value.” (July 2001 conference on the Liturgy at Fontgombault).

This is extremely dangerous, since, as the old Latin goes, “the way we pray (Lex orandi) determines the way we believe (lex Credendi)”. Commenting on the changes of the 16th century heretics, Pope Leo XIII wrote:

Pope Leo XIII: “They knew only too well the intimate bond which unites faith with worship, ‘the law of belief with the law of prayer’(lex orandi, lex credendi), and so, under the pretext of restoring it to its primitive form, they corrupted the order of the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators (reformers)” (Apostolicae Curae).

In Cardinal Ratzinger’s opinion, what would the result of these and other changes be upon the Chuch?

"I am convinced" said Cardinal Ratzinger, “that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy…”.

 

[Atreyu]

Cheers USMC. Any other comments?

 

[USMC]

Cheers USMC. Any other comments?

Many more comments. Here’s just one:

L’Osservatore Ramono (The official newspaper of the Vatican) “Liturgical reform has taken a notable step forward on the path of ecumenism. ** It has come closer to the liturgical reforms of the Lutheran Church**”. (October 13, 1967)

 

[jmcrae]

He sent me this today:
Atreyu’s problem is fairly typical of all too many people today. They are legal positivists instead of natural lawyers. Legal positivism is the dominant legal philosophy in the secular West, particularly since the domination of post-Protestant cultures like the British and the American became complete.

The secular West’s view of law is that of a Rawlsian (from John Rawls) liberal, deriving from proto-liberals like John Locke, and is incompatible with Catholicism. It is, briefly put, the view that the law is right because it is the law and whatever the legislator says must be right. This, of course, is entirely circular: I am right because I am not wrong.

Natural lawyers say that there is a natural law which must be followed by all legislators and that the remit of human positive law cannot gainsay the natural law or else it is no law. Within its own competence, human positive law must be followed but not if it purports to overturn the natural law because the natural law “outranks” it.

Thus, for example, the human legislator who legalises murder makes no law but a species of criminal anarchy. Such a law is no law and need not be obeyed.

Legal positivism applied to the Church is no better.

Atreyu, not surprisingly, is affected by the dominant thinking of his culture which is legal positivism and so tends to think that a law is right just because the legislator says it is. Alternatively, he thinks that the law must be followed simply because the legislator has declared it law, which amounts to the same thing. But, as with all things, there is a hierarchy, here a hierarchy of laws, and the lower cannot outrank the higher: natural law is higher than human positive law, just as a colonel outranks a lieutenant and a king outranks a knight.

Similarly, the law of Tradition in the Catholic Church is higher than the positive law of any single pope, so that no pope can abolish Tradition. However, just as the natural law allows much scope to human positive law provided it does not infringe the natural law, so too, does the law of Tradition allow scope to papal positive law provided it does not infringe the law of Tradition.

Thus John XXIII can move a few feasts around or St Pius V can abolish rites less than 200 years old but no pope can abolish or radically strip out the Roman rite.

Our ancestors would have had no trouble understanding this. But modern man is a legal positivist and cannot get his head round it.

Atreyu, at least in this respect, is unwittingly sharing the error.
Do his comments have any merit? Or is he unfairly mixing Discipline up with Tradition?

He seems to be saying that there’s actually something the matter with doing as we’re told because the person telling us has the God-given authority to tell us to do it.

Am I wrong?

(What would be wrong with that? This “attitude” seems to be supported by the 5th Commandment, which teaches us to show respect to those in the “parent” role in our lives - I’m not sure how much more “traditional” we could get than the Ten Commandments.)

 

[Atreyu]

Many more comments. Here’s just one:

L’Osservatore Ramono (The official newspaper of the Vatican) “Liturgical reform has taken a notable step forward on the path of ecumenism. ** It has come closer to the liturgical reforms of the Lutheran Church**”. (October 13, 1967)

I want to make it clear that I’m not interested in whether or not the Roman Missal of 1970 is good or not. What I’m interested in is the scope of which the Pope and the Magisterium can change the liturgy. It is my contention that the order of the mass is a matter of discipline, and as such it is mutable and the Magisterium of the time is the agent that controls the order. I don’t know how to reconcile this with your comments from then Cardinal Ratzinger though. My other contention is that the Roman Missal of 1970 (or 1975 perhaps?) is the normative order of the mass in the Roman rite of the Catholic Church, with the Traditional Latin Mass (aka the Roman Missal of 1962) as a valid form of the mass that can only be undertaken licitly with the approval of the diocesan bishop. Apparently the indult that I have heard is coming (or has come?) from the Magisterium changes this slightly so that the TLM may be celebrated unless forbidden by the diocesan bishop. Personally I think this is a positive step, but how I feel is irrelevant. What I’m interested in is how the authority of the Magisterium works with the liturgy.

 

[USMC]

Here’s another quote to consider.

Before the Novus Ordo Mass was imposed upon the Church, another Mass, called the “Normative Mass” was submitted for review to the Synod of Bishops who were meeting in Rome. This Mass was almost identical to the Novus Ordo and was flatly rejected.

Then two years later the Novus Ordo came out. At that time, a group of Roman theologians prepared a detailed study of the Novus Ordo Mass. This study was signed by two Cardinals and submitted to the Pope. One of the Cardinals was Cardinal Ottaviani, who had previously been the head of the Holy Office under three Popes. The Holy Office is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is what Cardinal Ratzinger used to be the head of.

The following are a few quotes from that study of the New Mass. Keep in mind, this study is of the New Mass on paper, in its most prestine state, with no abuses:

Cardinal Ottaviani Intervention: “In October 1967, the Synod of Bishops which met in Rome was asked to pass judgment on an experimental celebration of what was then called a “standard” or “normative” Mass. This Mass, composed by the Committee for Implementing the Constitutions on the Sacred Liturgy (Consilium), aroused very serious misgivings among the bishops present. With 187 members voting, the results revealed considerable opposition (43 Negative), many substantial reservations (62 Affirmative with reservations) and four abstentions. The international press spoke of the Synod’s “rejection” of the proposed Mass, while the progressive wing of the religious press passed over the event in silence. A well-known periodical, aimed at bishops and expressing their teaching, summed up the new rite in these terms: “They wanted to make a clean slate of the whole theology of the Mass. It ended up in substance quite close to the Protestant theology which destroyed the sacrifice of the Mass.”

“**Unfortunately, we now find that the same “standard Mass,” identical in substance, has reappeared as the New Order of Mass **(Novus Ordo Missae) recently promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum (3 April 1969). …

“… New Order of Mass was already rejected in substance at the Synod, since it was never submitted to the collegial judgment of the national bishop’s conferences, and since the faithful (least of all in mission lands) never asked for any reform of the Mass whatsoever, it is impossible to understand the reasons for the new legislation - legislation which overthrows a tradition unchanged in the Church since the 4th and 5th centuries. Since there are no reasons, therefore, for undertaking this reform, it appears devoid of any rational grounds to justify it and make it acceptable to the Catholic people.

“…A point-by-point examination of the Novus Ordo reveals changes so great that they confirm the judgment already made on the “standard Mass” - for on many points it has much to gladden the heart of even the most modernist Protestant.” …

“[T]he Novus Ordo Missae… represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent. The ‘canons’ of the rite definitively fixed at that time erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which might attack the integrity of the Mystery…”

“It is obvious that the New Order of Mass has no intention of presenting the Faith taught by the Council of Trent. But it is to this Faith that the Catholic conscience is bound forever. Thus, with the promulgation of the New Order of Mass, the true Catholic is faced with a tragic need to choose…”

“To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, and to replace it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division – a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith – is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an incalculable error” (The Ottaviani Intervention).”

 

[Atreyu]

He seems to be saying that there’s actually something the matter with doing as we’re told because the person telling us has the God-given authority to tell us to do it.

Am I wrong?

(What would be wrong with that? This “attitude” seems to be supported by the 5th Commandment, which teaches us to show respect to those in the “parent” role in our lives - I’m not sure how much more “traditional” we could get than the Ten Commandments.)

Hmmm. Personally I thought that the “natural law” was a law of morals, and therefore has no scope in the liturgy. I guess I’m not really sure what he’s getting at here.

 

[Ender]

Similarly, the law of Tradition in the Catholic Church is higher than the positive law of any single pope, so that no pope can abolish Tradition.

I don’t think your traditionalist friend quite realizes that there are two types of tradition in the Church with very different natures. Regarding Sacred Tradition, his comments would be correct: no pope can override it. With regard to traditions, however (like using bells during the consecration), not only can popes institute changes on their own but bishops have some (specified) authority to make individual decisions regarding the form of the mass.

Before claiming that a pope has no authority to change tradition he really needs to demonstrate that the change is to Sacred Tradition and not just to tradition.

Ender

 

[USMC]

I want to make it clear that I’m not interested in whether or not the Roman Missal of 1970 is good or not. What I’m interested in is the scope of which the Pope and the Magisterium can change the liturgy.

I will give you a few quotes to consider. The first is another quote from Cardinal Ratzinger and the second is the Papal Coronation Oath taken by Pope Paul VI:

Cardinal Ratzinger: "… I was dismayed by the prohibition of the old missal, since nothing of the sort had ever happened in the entire history of the liturgy. The impression was even given that what was happening was quite normal.

"[It was supposed that] The previous missal had been created by Pius V in 1570 in connection with the Council of Trent; and so it was quite normal that, after four hundred years and a new council, a new pope would present us with a new missal. But the historical truth of the matter is different. Pius V had simply ordered a reworking of the Missale Romanum then being used, which is the normal thing as history develops over the course of centuries.

“Many of his successors had likewise reworked this missal again, but without ever setting one missal against another. It was a continual process of growth and purification in which continuity was never destroyed. There is no such thing as a “Missal of Pius V”, created by Pius V himself. There is only the reworking done by Pius V as one phase in a long history of growth. The new feature that came to the fore after the Council of Trent was of a different nature. The irruption of the Reformation had above all taken the concrete form of liturgical “reforms”. It was not just a matter of there being a Catholic Church and a Protestant Church alongside one another. The split in the Church occurred almost imperceptibly and found its most visible and historically most decisive manifestation in the changes in the liturgy.”

The part of importance is that which is in bold, but I wanted to include the last part for you to consider as well. As we saw from the underlined and bolded portions of the quote, “the Mass of Pius V” is not really the Mass of Pius V. In other words, St. Pius V did not create a new Mass like Paul VI did, but merely unified Catholic worship by eliminating the slight variations found in the Mass throughout the Western Rite. He reworked the Missal so that all would have one unifying missal, which eliminated the possibility of those with heretical leanings from adapting their Mass to any of the reforms of the heretics, which was a danger in those turbulent times. After the promulgtion of the Missal of Pius V, it was then the official Missal that all were to use (aside for the few exceptions allowed for missals more than 200 years old). What Pius V did makes perfect sense: He unified Catholic worship in a time of turmoil and confusion, and thereby set up a boundary of protection for the Mass. Pope Paul VI, on the other hand, created a completely new Mass, which he called a “new Rite” and gave the impression that the old was now forbidden.

With that in mind, let us consider the Oath taken by Pope Paul VI upon being elected Pope:

Papal Coronation Oath:

**"I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation **therein;

To the contrary: with glowing affection as her truly faithful student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort;

To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, should such appear; to guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the divine ordinance of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support, being subject to severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all that I shall confess; …

I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline and the rite of the Church. I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I.

If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on the dreadful Day of Divine Justice.

Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest excommunication anyone – be it Ourselves or be it another – who would dare to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic Tradition and the purity of the orthodox Faith and the Christian religion, or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with those who undertake such a blasphemous venture."