"Even If"...The Pope Knows What He is Doing

[Antonius_Lupus]

Even if Summorum Pontificum marks the end of 500 years of Roman Rite unity…even if the misconceptions & falsehoods about the Ordinary Form become common belief…even if the Extraordinary Form once again becomes the primary usage of the Roman Rite…even if the liturgical principles given by the Holy Spirit at Vatican II are completely ignored…even if the restored Roman Missal is destroyed…The Pope knows what he is doing. And I will trust him.

But I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt.

I spent years of my life in study and research to finally come to the conclusion that the Ordinary Form represents one of the greatest expressions of the Patristic and traditional Roman Rite. Now Pope Benedict is pushing the expansion of the Extraordinary Form and my own pastor wishes to bring this medieval, Gallican Missal to my parish.

What am I supposed to do? It was the Ordinary Form that I have loved and served God in, and now it seems that all the fruits of it are going to be swept away before it even has a chance to blossom.

The Pope has, IN PRACTICE, split the Roman Rite in two.

Am I the only one who sees this? Am I the only traditional Roman Catholic left who sees the Ordinary Form for what it really is: a restoration of the ancient Roman Rite?

Or am I just wrong?

But he is the Pope…and all I can do is trust that he knows what he is doing.

But it hurts like hell to see the Roman Rite, so long united as one, be divided by the very liturgy that gave it its unity.

WHY?!?!?!? :banghead:

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

Have I been led astray??

Was the Second Vatican Council truly wrong in Sacrosanctum Concilium?

Is my research showing that the Ordinary Form is closer to the ancient Roman Mass than the Extraordinary Form incorrect?

Is my belief that Vatican II’s work on the liturgy being a restoration false?

Tell me…what am I to believe after Summorum Pontificum? What IS the Roman Rite truly now that two VERY DIFFERENT expressions are being celebrated side by side???

Are we really going to keep up the charade of “One Rite with Two Expressions” non-sense??? We are dealing with TWO rites…sheer liturgical study is proof of that.

Or are we going to simply destroy both and create some hybrid EF and OF mix???

What is the Pope doing and how could his actions POSSIBLY be in keeping with the Second ECUMENICAL Council of the Vatican??

Someone PLEASE explain this to me so I can be at peace in the midst of this liturgical division and madness!!!

 

[YoungTradCath]

For the record, the Tridentine mass actually brought together and unified the Latin Rite. Before this, there were various other usages of the Rite. Definitely way more than two.

If you look at it that way, this is what our history is: various usages of the Latin Rite for ~1500 years, then (for the most part) one usage of the Rite for 400 years, and now, we have two usages of the same Rite. From your perspective (I assume you favor the Ordinary Form), what do you see wrong there? I’m not implying that I agree with you by asking that, I’m just wondering. For most of our history, we have had multiple usages of the same Latin Rite. There was only a 400-year stint in our history in which we had (generally) one usage of the Latin Rite, and that was from 1570 to 1970. I shall remind the readers of this thread that the Tridentine mass was never abrogated, and Summorum Pontificum never “brought it back.” Summorum Pontificum simply recognized the state of the mass as it already was, which was that it was perfectly valid and that it never was invalidated when the 1970 Missal was promulgated by HH Paul VI, and removed the fear that some priests had who wanted to celebrate it.

And, HHBXVI has stated that he wishes for the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms to act upon one another, in the anticipation of a “unified” Rite in the future. Obviously, he is not satisfied with the state of things.

So… “even if…” even if what?

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

For the record, the Tridentine mass actually brought together and unified the Latin Rite. Before this, there were various other usages of the Rite.

I am not only aware of that, but I alluded to it in my OP…

So… “even if…” even if what?

You did read the OP, right?

 

[TrueLight]

I spent years of my life in study and research to finally come to the conclusion that the Ordinary Form represents one of the greatest expressions of the Patristic and traditional Roman Rite. Now Pope Benedict is pushing the expansion of the Extraordinary Form and my own pastor wishes to bring this medieval, Gallican Missal to my parish.

Don’t worry. There are plenty of Bishops who also don’t want to see this “Gallican Missal” come to their parishes and are fighting it tooth and nail.

The Pope has, IN PRACTICE, split the Roman Rite in two.

Or he is restoring the mass to what it once was, little by little.

I respect your anguish, but how do you think a large group of people felt when the mass was completely changed to something that was foreign to them?

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

If you look at it that way, this is what our history is: various usages of the Latin Rite for ~1500 years, then (for the most part) one usage of the Rite for 400 years, and now, we have two usages of the same Rite. From your perspective (I assume you favor the Ordinary Form), what do you see wrong there? I’m not implying that I agree with you by asking that, I’m just wondering. For most of our history, we have had multiple usages of the same Latin Rite. There was only a 400-year stint in our history in which we had (generally) one usage of the Latin Rite, and that was from 1570 to 1970.

The problem with the above notion is that it ignores that the variations between the rites in the 1400 years of diversity wasn’t as great as that between a Patristic rite like the Ordinary Form and a medieval, Gallicanized rite like the EF. So that argument in favor of “two” usages is not going to fly. The two expressions are deeply different because the EF is the result of a Gallicanized Roman Rite. The OF is an attempt to restore a pure Roman Rite…and it was quite a good restoration by all comparisons.

And, HHBXVI has stated that he wishes for the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms to act upon one another, in the anticipation of a “unified” Rite in the future. Obviously, he is not satisfied with the state of things.

Do cite where HE (i.e. the Pope HIMSELF) stated this. The concept of a “unified rite” which mixes the purified Roman Rite given to us by Ven. Paul VI with the Gallicanized Roman Rite of the “Tridentine” form is simply disgusting to me.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I am not only aware of that, but I alluded to it in my OP…
You did read the OP, right?

The only reason I made that statement is because you make it seem that what the Pope has done is…out of line or something. I was trying to get you to see that what is happening right now is not something that is foreign to the church.

Yes, I did read the OP.

I can sympathize with you. I respect your piety, and your concern. I LOVE the Extraordinary Form. I’m sure you can say the same about the Ordinary Form. Can’t we just be friends?

Do cite where HE (i.e. the Pope HIMSELF) stated this. The concept of a “unified rite” which mixes the purified Roman Rite given to us by Ven. Paul VI with the Gallicanized Roman Rite of the “Tridentine” form is simply disgusting to me.

Looking furiously.

 

[TrueLight]

Do cite where HE (i.e. the Pope HIMSELF) stated this. The concept of a “unified rite” which mixes the purified Roman Rite given to us by Ven. Paul VI with the Gallicanized Roman Rite of the “Tridentine” form is simply disgusting to me.

Purified OF
Gallicanized Roman Rite
Disgusting

You started well, but now I see you intended to bash the EF all along.

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

The only reason I made that statement is because you make it seem that what the Pope has done is…out of line or something. I was trying to get you to see that what is happening right now is not something that is foreign to the church.

Yes, I did read the OP.

I can sympathize with you. I respect your piety, and your concern. I LOVE the Extraordinary Form. I’m sure you can say the same about the Ordinary Form. Can’t we just be friends?

But do you not see the great tragedy? The Extraordinary Form UNIFIED the Roman Rite, and now it is ensuring its division. All the work of Vatican II in giving us a restored Roman Rite to meet the needs of our current age is being allowed to exist beside a Gallicanized, medieval rite that should have been displaced just as the pre-Tridentine Rites were displaced by Trent. Now it is being treated as though it is just as useful for our modern age as the Ordinary Form is…why indeed have Sacrosanctum Concilium if the Extraordinary Form is satisfactory??

It smells a lot like those who argue that the restorations of Vatican II were wrong…

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

Purified OF
Gallicanized Roman Rite
Disgusting

You started well, but now I see you intended to bash the EF all along.

You really think that’s why I am here??

I am here so someone can explain to me how the reassertion of the EF is in anyway a part of the future of the Roman Rite as expressed in the Second Vatican Council. Tell me how I can rest in peace knowing that these two very different rites are going to exist side by side in harmony.

It looks to me like what the schismatic Romans wanted all along…

 

[YoungTradCath]

Do cite where HE (i.e. the Pope HIMSELF) stated this. The concept of a “unified rite” which mixes the purified Roman Rite given to us by Ven. Paul VI with the Gallicanized Roman Rite of the “Tridentine” form is simply disgusting to me.

OK, not a direct quote from the Pope himself. But, a Cardinal conveys the Pope’s message: catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1101922.htm Second paragraph.

I’m pretty sure he’s not lying or anything.

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

Or he is restoring the mass to what it once was, little by little.

What do you mean by restoring it to what it once was…much of that has already been done for him by his predecessor. What Rite is he trying to restore it to???

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

OK, not a direct quote from the Pope himself. But, a Cardinal conveys the Pope’s message: catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1101922.htm Second paragraph.

I’m pretty sure he’s not lying or anything.

That’s the problem. So much is coming out of Rome these days I don’t know what to believe about the Roman Rite! It is frustrating beyond expression because it’s like there is some secret plan that’s in motion…

How am I to know what to believe when everyone BUT the Pope seems to be talking. I want to trust HIM, but I can’t hear his voice over the din. Show me where he has spoken so my heart can rest at ease.

I don’t understand what he is doing, and it’s driving me crazy! Even Summorum Pontificum and the recent letter from him don’t REALLY clear up all the issues…

 

[YoungTradCath]

But do you not see the great tragedy? The Extraordinary Form UNIFIED the Roman Rite, and now it is ensuring its division. All the work of Vatican II in giving us a restored Roman Rite to meet the needs of our current age is being allowed to exist beside a Gallicanized, medieval rite that should have been displaced just as the pre-Tridentine Rites were displaced by Trent. Now it is being treated as though it is just as useful for our modern age as the Ordinary Form is…why indeed have Sacrosanctum Concilium if the Extraordinary Form is satisfactory??

It smells a lot like those who argue that the restorations of Vatican II were wrong…

I do not see tragedy where you do, no. I have a talent of allowing myself to see, with great detail and respect, where other people come from in their arguments, and also WHY they argue what they argue. But I do not agree with you. At the same time, I respect your view and I sympathize with you, and if not for anything else, simply because of the passion you have for it.

I reject the notion that every few hundred years, the church must “revise” its liturgical rites to, as you say, “meet the needs of our current age.” That’s an ENORMOUS statement. Do you know why? Because it very plainly screams that somehow our spiritual needs change. They do not. People are people. We are the same as the people who walked this earth 500 years ago. Our technology and society is different, but we still have the same physical, emotional, and spiritual needs that they did. That’s what makes us human. To say that we need to change something so intrinsic to our spirituality implies that we change intrinsically, but we do not.

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

Look: for those who think I’m some sort of anti-EF troll or something, I apologize. That’s not why I am here.

I want HELP in understanding why the Pope is doing this. It is so odd when looked at from a liturgical historical and it only becomes even more disturbing when word of a “unified/hybrid rite” is spoken of in the shadows.

I feel so alone, and I wonder if my research was all wrong…and I don’t know who to trust about the future of the rite. What the Pope is doing doesn’t make sense in light of Sacrosanctum Concilium and other movements of His Predecessors and the understanding of the Council when understood through a hermeneutic of continuity. If the Holy Spirit truly spoke at Vatican II, as St. Francis de Sales would have us believe about Ecumenical Councils, then what real use is there is splitting the Roman Rite in two and allowing the pre-conciliar rite to live in the same vigor that it did in times past…if not more so!

WHY!!!

 

[Antonius_Lupus]

I reject the notion that every few hundred years, the church must “revise” its liturgical rites to, as you say, “meet the needs of our current age.” That’s an ENORMOUS statement.

BUT this is EXACTLY what Sacrosanctum Concilium says, LOL. That is why I am so baffled by the Pope’s move!!

Not only that, it is the general pattern of the Roman Liturgy’s development through the centuries: every few centuries, the Roman Rite is renewed and often changed. The the EF is hardly the “Mass of All Ages” as some tout it to be. Hardly…

Or am I just misled…maybe it is? That is why I am anguish.

 

[YoungTradCath]

That’s the problem. So much is coming out of Rome these days I don’t know what to believe about the Roman Rite! It is frustrating beyond expression because it’s like there is some secret plan that’s in motion…

How am I to know what to believe when everyone BUT the Pope seems to be talking. I want to trust HIM, but I can’t hear his voice over the din. Show me where he has spoken so my heart can rest at ease.

I don’t understand what he is doing, and it’s driving me crazy! Even Summorum Pontificum and the recent letter from him don’t REALLY clear up all the issues…

Maybe we’re not supposed to know everything.

Maybe we just need to submit to the power of those who have power.

Again, I sympathize with you completely. But I don’t agree with you. One of the things that has come about in the past forty or fifty years is this unease about accepting what cannot be changed by we the laity. I know how frustrated you must feel. If not because I agree with you, then because I have felt the same way in certain situations. Let the Pope deal with what is his charge.

 

[YoungTradCath]

BUT this is EXACTLY what Sacrosanctum Concilium says, LOL. That is why I am so baffled by the Pope’s move!!

Then either the Pope does not agree with Sacrosanctum Concilium, or your interpretation of it is wrong.

The Pope is free to be at odds with this document. I’m not saying he is, but it is not an infallible document, and he can disagree with it. Again, I’m not saying he is, but he may be.

Or, like I said, you may have interpreted it wrong. I don’t know. I have not read this document in its entirety.

 

[Corki]

But do you not see the great tragedy? The Extraordinary Form UNIFIED the Roman Rite, and now it is ensuring its division. All the work of Vatican II in giving us a restored Roman Rite to meet the needs of our current age is being allowed to exist beside a Gallicanized, medieval rite that should have been displaced just as the pre-Tridentine Rites were displaced by Trent. Now it is being treated as though it is just as useful for our modern age as the Ordinary Form is…why indeed have Sacrosanctum Concilium if the Extraordinary Form is satisfactory??

It smells a lot like those who argue that the restorations of Vatican II were wrong…

Don’t blame the Pope. Blame the Bishops and priests who ignored Vatican II and treated the Mass as their own playground. If we didn’t have to tune into EWTN to see a reverent OF Mass I doubt you would have seen SP. Even the current translation (not the new one) ignores some of the key principles of Vatican II. We shouldn’t have to go to an EF Mass to hear the prayers in Latin - that was actually required by Vatican II but almost 100% of the priests and bishops ignored it. We shouldn’t have to go to an EF Mass to experience reverent silence which was called for in numerous documents since VII. Maybe SP was bitter medicine to some. But it is medicine to treat a deadly disease.

 

[At_Trent]

Even if Summorum Pontificum marks the end of 500 years of Roman Rite unity…

The EF is the Mass of the Ages, never abrogated, unmatched in it’s richness of doctrine, and in fact, the Highest Prayer of Holy Mother Church. (RCC)

Quotes below from before the SP

In his book Demain la Liturgie (The Liturgy Tomorrow), Fr Gelineau observes: “Let those, who, like myself have known and sung a Latin Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists (Le Rite Romain tel que nous l’avons connu n’existe plus). It has been destroyed (il est détruit)” (pages 9-10).

Monsignor Klaus Gamber agrees with Fr Gelineau that the Roman Rite has been destroyed. Monsignor writes: “[A]t this critical juncture the traditional Roman Rite, more than one thousand years old, has been destroyed” (The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, page 99).

Father Kenneth Baker SJ, who is editor of the Homiletic & Pastoral Review, concurs with Fr Duggan that the liturgical changes have been revolutionary. Lamenting the numerous changes imposed on the people which they scarcely had time to digest, Fr Baker wrote: “We have been overwhelmed with changes in the Church at all levels but it is the liturgical revolution which touches all of us intimately and immediately” (February 1979).

Cardinal Ratzinger claims that our ecclesial malaise is attributable, at least in part, to the condition of the Liturgy. He writes: “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the Liturgy” (Milestones, page 148).
ad2000.com.au/articles/2005/feb2005p15_1853.html

Not sure why you say the SP marks the end of 500 years of Roman unity, when in fact the codified Gregorian Rite was responsible for nearly 400 years of true unity in the liturgy. Same Mass, same language, all over the world.

“In recent times, even in materialist North America, the growth of the Church was magnificent with the liturgy being kept in Latin. The attempts of the Protestants have failed, and Protestantism uses the vernacular. We ask again: Why the change, especially since changes in this matter involve many difficulties and great dangers? All of us here at the Council can recall the fundamental changes in the meaning of words in common use. Thus it follows that if the Sacred Liturgy were in the vernacular, the immutability of doctrine would be endangered.
The introduction of the vernacular should be separated from the action of the Mass. The Mass must remain as it is. Grave changes in the liturgy introduce grave changes in dogmata.”
James Cardinal McIntyre addressing the Second Vatican Council.

I began serving the “old Mass” as an altar boy in 1927. I am now 88 years old, 62 years as a priest. As a lad, knowing the perfect recitations of all the Latin Mass responses, I dealt with priests of every age and devotion and I do not recall any who deliberately mumbled their prayers. The churches were not air-conditioned in those days and in the hot summer days it was not uncommon to omit the sermon; Low Mass might last for only 20 minutes, and Communions were much fewer in those days. Now with the Novus Ordo, I have attended Mass in 10 minutes. A possible scandal.

The only scandal I can recall in the old days was people sleeping during the sermon. Nobody complained about the Eucharistic fast from midnight; nobody complained about Communion on the tongue or about the Latin. In fact, we were proud of the Latin we knew. Non-Catholics marveled at the piety and the reverence of the congregation and the head-coverings of the women. Those were the glory days of the Church when our Catholic faith was a family thing, a treasure we prized. Our faith was so much a part of our life that it colored our moods, shaped our social activities, influenced our style of dress, and flavored our conversation. How many families can make the same claim today?

Last Sunday I experienced what perhaps was the greatest joy of my priesthood. I could scarcely contain myself. Indeed, my cup runneth over. I celebrated the Tridentine Latin Mass with a congregation of two hundred people. It was like a repetition of my First Holy Mass 56 years ago. It was a Missa Cantata — those sacred Gregorian melodies so fitting for worship: the solemn Trinity Preface, the solemn Pater Noster, the Holy Gospel, and the Orations.

My daily vernacular Mass has been a joy in my life, but there was always something about this Tridentine Latin Mass that went beyond all telling. I’ve found something that I had lost some 35 years ago. All those years my heart ached for the Latin Mass that I had lost, always hoping that some day, please God, I would find it. Last Sunday I found it. And like the widow of the Gospel who found her lost coin and who called in her neighbors to rejoice with her, now I was the one who wanted to call in the whole world to share in my joy. It was like being away from home all these years and always hoping that some day the permission for me would arrive to return home and share again with my dear ones the joys of long ago. It was home sweet home again. My joy knows no bounds.

My humble and ineffable thanks to our good Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, the Good Shepherd who went out looking for all those abandoned sheep to lead us back home again — to Rome, sweet home.

Would I go back to the new Mass? No way!

Rev. Charles Schoenbaechler, C.R.
Louisville, Kentucky

God Bless H.H. Benedict XVI

http://sspx.org/images/SSPX persons/bishop_fellay_w_pope_benedict_xvi_29_aug_05-castel_gandolfo.jpg