pius parsch

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I found a book at my library by Fr. Parsch, Liturgy of the Mass. I really want to learn more about the history and celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. Has anyone read any of Fr. Parsch’s work? I looked him up online but couldn’t find too much about him.
 
I’ve got his five volume set on the traditional liturgy. It’s excellent. He was a brilliant scholar of the liturgy.
I believe he was very influential in the Liturgical Movement and he contributed to Pope Pius XII’s encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei.
 
reggieM said:
I’ve got his five volume set on the traditional liturgy. It’s excellent. He was a brilliant scholar of the liturgy.
I believe he was very influential in the Liturgical Movement and he contributed to Pope Pius XII’s encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei.
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What exactly is the Liturgical Movement and Mediator Dei?
 
The Liturgical Movement was a group of scholars who followed the lead of Dom Gueranger and Pope Pius X in the early part of the 20th century, putting the focus on improving the offering of Mass and helping the faithful participate more fully at Mass. Pius Parsch, Josef Jungmann and Romano Guardini are some of the biggest names in the Liturgical Movement – these were scholars who looked carefully at the roots of the Roman Rite and proposed ideas for some reforms of the Mass.

Pope Benedict was heavily influenced by the Liturgical Movement and his book *The Spirit of the Liturgy *talks about that. In fact, he took the title from Romano Guardini’s great book of the same name. This movement emerged in Germany and France mainly. There were some theologians and liturgists in Germany, especially, who propsed different ways for the faithful to participate in the Latin Mass. Pope Benedict experienced some of this in his youth.

Basically, these scholars recognized some areas where the traditional Latin Mass needed reform, and eventually, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical addressing some of this – and also warning about taking liturgical reforms too far. His Mediator Dei was important and lead to the revision of the Holy Week ceremonies for the Roman Missal.

Probably the most direct result of the Liturgical Movement was the 1965 Roman Missal reform. Some scholars say that the 1965 Missal is what Vatican II really called for – a very minor revision of the traditional Latin Mass (1962 Missal). But that didn’t last long because an entirely new Roman Rite was promulgated only a few years later.

For me, the key point is that the best liturgists in the Church, going back to Dom Gueranger and including some superb theologians like Romano Guardini and Pius Parsch, recognized the need for liturgical reform, decades before Vatican II.

There is no way they would have accepted or tolerated things like altar girls, clown Masses and lay preaching (or whatever list of liturgical abuses we have today) – so it is not correct to tie those things to the legitimate work of those liturgical scholars.

But at the same time, they had the 1962 Missal already (actually the pre-1956) and were looking for the kind of reforms that Pope Benedict wants to implement now.

This can be a controversial topic among the many Catholics who are rightly devoted to the 1962 Missal since it might seem that the Liturgical Movement was leading to a deformation of the liturgy, of the kind Pope Benedict decries.

I take a different opinion on that, but I am sympathetic and supportive of those who do not want to see any further liturgical changes also.
 
Thank you for your answer. I had heard vaguely of the Liturgical Movement but didn’t know much about it and had never heard of Fr. Parsch.
 
Fr. Parsch was a very important member of the Liturgical Movement, as was Fr. Jungmann, a Jesuit who published several very good books. Dom Garanger and his multivolume work on the Liturgical year is a wonderful set. There were other greats, Fr. Louis Bouyer, who was a Lutheran Minister who converted to the Catholic Church, Archdale King, a former Anglican Clergyman, who became Catholic and remained a layman. Romano Guardini also wrote and continues to have in print good works on the spiritual aspects of the Mass. As Fr. Freney, who’s book on the Spirituality of the Mass in the Light of Thomistic Theology, is a classic, when you can find it.
 
Filioque said:
Fr. Parsch was a very important member of the Liturgical Movement, as was Fr. Jungmann, a Jesuit who published several very good books. Dom Garanger and his multivolume work on the Liturgical year is a wonderful set. There were other greats, Fr. Louis Bouyer, who was a Lutheran Minister who converted to the Catholic Church, Archdale King, a former Anglican Clergyman, who became Catholic and remained a layman. Romano Guardini also wrote and continues to have in print good works on the spiritual aspects of the Mass. As Fr. Freney, who’s book on the Spirituality of the Mass in the Light of Thomistic Theology, is a classic, when you can find it.
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Thank you for the recommendations.
 
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