The new post Vatican II liturgical movement of the new millennium promotes the most important liturgical task today is for both traditionalists and progressives to come together to affirm that there exists now two forms of the one Roman Rite.
Today, we have 20/20 hindsight about how a corrupt ideological version of Vatican II was implemented by progressive liturgists in the most pre-Vatican II authoritarian way. The only way for these corrupt liturgists to imposed from on high the "new" Mass was to rid the world of the older one, the 1962 Missal. These ideologues said that the old Mass was no good and even harmful, and that the new and so-called improved Mass would replace the old and useless one by authoritarian fiat or their own edict which of course they had no authority to do so, none whatsoever!
Of course no pope has said that the 1962 Liturgical patrimony was to be suppressed and that the fabricated liturgy was completely perfect and wonderful for the Church to include Pope Paul VI who lamented time and time again the abuse of the new Roman Missal as implemented by corrupt liturgists. He did not repress the 1962 Missal altogether either. Older priests were allowed to continue celebrating it and England very soon after the Council was given a special indult to maintain the older, traditional liturgy in certain places.
Pope St. John Paul II expanded the indult for the 1962 Missal worldwide and encouraged bishops worldwide to allow this Mass to those who requested it but still under the tight ideological control of local bishops often beholden to corrupt liturgical theologians.
Then of course Pope Benedict expanded the use of the 1962 Liturgical patrimony almost unrestricted and gave the authority to celebrated directly to priests themselves by placing it on par with the so-called new and improved Mass and liturgies that flow from it. This was breathtaking in scope and destabilized the progressive liturgical ideologues with their gestapo-like authoritarianism in maintaining an exclusive death grip over how the new Mass would be celebrated and the older one suppressed.
Pope Francis who will, with the help of God, fully reintegrate the SSPX back into the full canonical status with the Church shows by His Holiness' solicitous concern for this ecclesial community on the periphery of the Church, his willingness to allow the two forms of the Latin Rite to coexist with the Ordinary Form ecclesial communities of the Catholic Church, just as the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church do with their elaborate eastern liturgies. And of course in continuity with the desires of Pope Benedict toward disaffected former Anglicans/Episcopalians, Pope Francis has authorized the first truly new Roman Missal since Vatican II, "Divine Worship, the Missal" which includes not only some Anglican liturgical patrimony consistent with Catholic liturgical doctrine and tradition, but also wonderful recovered elements of the 1962 Roman Missal!
The divisiveness of progressive liturgists who tried to suppress the 1962 Missal after the 1970 one was issued, created the divisions we have now, not what Pope Benedict did in being truly and authentically liberal in allowing both forms to coexist. If this had been allowed in the first place, we would be in a much different place today.
There is no going backwards to 1970's authoritarianism about the reformed liturgy being superior to the one that preceded it. Today they are co-equal. To denigrate either form properly celebrated by saying the black and doing the red is divisive to say the least and not suitable for today's truly post-Vatican II new liturgical renewal!
Elevating the horizontal, sociological aspect of the liturgy to an idol and making it more important than what the Mass is meant to do and every valid Mass does which is to new in an unbloody, palatable way the One Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for our salvation. The Sacrifice and Banquet of Word and Altar are present in the Church's two forms of the one Latin Rite and this is the foundation that cannot be overwhelmed with silly ecclesiological items that make the Church a self-referential community closed in on itself by a liturgy that sees active participation and laity doing this that and the other as the basis on "good Liturgy!" Poppycock! It is Christ who is the center of the Liturgy and opens a vista to our salvation and gives us grace to strengthen our faith and good works in the world!
Pope Benedict makes very very clear that it isn't either/or when it comes to the two forms of the one Latin Rite, but BOTH/AND! And this is what is truly Catholic!
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Here is an update from Breitbart.com that the Indian Roman Catholic priest who was taken by ISIS on March 4th in Yemen and shot and killed 4 nuns in the back of their heads was tortured and crucified on Good Friday according to the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schonborn during his homily in Vienna. All five worked in an home for the elderly whether Muslim or Christian, it was run by Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity. This is from the religion of "peace" my friends this is truly horrific indeed and will not end soon.
The story is also being reported on Drudge, I truly hope and pray the MSM will report this EVIL, surely the MSM cannot ignore this story, I know they are in love with Islam but my God how can they not report the crucifixion of a Roman Catholic priest?? Do the liberals which include gays, feminists, environmentalists, pop stars, actors, Democrats, atheists, understand they would be the first people to DIE under Sharia Law, I never understood why of all people the above listed are not protesting the loudest against Islamic radicalism?
"Elevating the horizontal, sociological aspect of the liturgy to an idol....". Unfortunately, Father, that was already happening in the 1962 Missal. The idea of active participation of the priesthood of the laity in the liturgy had really caught on by the second world war and the 1962 Missal saw a lot of changes from its previous incarnation. John XXIII made a lot of changes in addition to inserting the name of St Joseph into the Roman Canon, an act that itself opened up the way to making the radical changes of 1970 possible. The 1962 Missal differs quite a bit from the pre-1955 Missals going back to the 8th century on this point of active participation, that sociological aspect of the liturgy.
I don't know what to make of the Liturgical Movement any more. Its original intention of teaching the wonders of the Sacred Liturgy so everyone could spiritually participate more fully in it sounds good in theory. But practically speaking, who besides intellectuals would really appreciate doing this? The solution for active participation was to change the liturgy so anyone of any intellectual ability could participate more fully in it. Simplification became a convenient tool for this. But there was more: ideological blindness.
Take as example the 1955 changes to the Paschal vigil. These tried to make the "show" more palatable to an audience as opposed to offering God one's devotion. But in doing so, we find that the changes were also anti-women, anti-ecumenical, imported the secular style of Broadway experimental shows of the times where the audience becomes part of the performance, and the worst, it made the Paschal candle into an idol for worship. With a few minor changes, these were imported directly into 1970 Missal. It is unbelievable how this was allowed to happen. But that name that keeps popping up through all this is the "despicable Bugnini", more of a manipulator that a scholar according to Bouyer. It is amazing that he did not succeed in removing the Exsultet and Roman Canon from the Roman liturgy.
When Benedict talked about 'two forms' of the one Latin Rite, the Ordinariate Missal, which sneakily inserted elements of the Tridentine Rite under the cover of 'Anglican patrimony'(!), had not yet appeared. So what we have here is a mixing of 'forms', which presumably is licit, as opposed to a mixing of 'rites', which is not. The Roman Rite in its 1962 form and the 1970 Novus Ordo are in fact as distinct as rites as it is possible to get, and Benedict deliberately concocted the novel term 'forms' for good reasons.
Ironically, the Novus Ordo is capable of so many different interpretations as to 'ars celebrandi' as well as allowing a babel of tongues which may or may not be accurate renditions of a Latin 'Urtext' that any sense of universality as regards liturgy exists in only the most tenuous form. It doesn't just vary from country to country, it varies from parish to parish to a bewildering extent. There is a sort of 'mean of mediocrity' since priests of a certain age had a similar liturgical formation; when I drive past a Catholic church I have some idea of what its Sunday Mass will be like and I am not tempted to go there.
To expect a Vatican dicastery to bring order out of this chaos is wildly unrealistic. Bugnini in his memoirs boasted how easy it was to outmanoeuvre the Sacred College of Rites from 1948 onwards and that body, unlike its modern counterpart, was reputed to have had teeth. Sorry, Cardinal Sarah - anything you say will simply be ignored, as your predecessor Cardinal Arinze discovered with Redemptionis Sacramentum twelve years ago.
Pope Paul VI ... did not repress the 1962 Missal altogether either
But he did suppress the old liturgy nearly completely. In my view, he did not have the authority either to create a Novus Ordo nor to suppress the old Mass--as Pope Benedict more or less said, the pope can't just do whatever he wants. But Paul thought he could, and very few bishops stood up to him. Thank goodness for Lefebvre.
As for JPII, I think it's fair to say that when it came to the liturgy he didn't 'get it'. In his indult he spoke with some surprise of 'the problem' of attachment to the old rite. I suspect that behind the Iron Curtain there were more important things to worry about--just like in the Middle East today (with a nod to the first 2 comments). I was surprised how few people there were when I attended an EF Mass in Krakow Cathedral 2 years ago. Poles had bigger worries than we did.
It took Benedict, himself a peritus at VII, to re-open the doors to tradition and continuity. I might add here that another peritus, none other than Hans Küng, has gone on record as saying those who want to worship with the old Missal should be allowed to. But there remains a hard core of 'progressives' who are determined to prevent people from being able to do that.
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