WHAT DID CARDINAL RATZINGER TEACH ABOUT THE SACRED LITURGY PRIOR TO AND AFTER BECOMING POPE BENEDICT XVI

Pope Benedict XVI took pains to explain to the world’s bishops that Summorum Pontificum emphasized their role as primary liturgists to supervise the modern and Ancient usage of the one Latin Rite to make sure there is unity between the two and divisions in parishes and the church not take place over the liturgy and the various forms of it. 

Unfortunately, bishops since the promulgation of the 1970 Roman Missal allowed divisive abuses to run rampant and even approved liturgical abuses once renegade priests promoted them, with the help of liturgical theologians in the late 60’s and into the 70’s. If bishops had disciplined priests who changed the words of the Mass or made up new ones, who allowed girl servers, communion in the hand and homemade bread and wine, which affected not only licitness but validity. We also saw improper vestments, the paraphrasing of the sung parts of the Mass, the substitution of a Scripture reading with a secular poem or something else. We heard secular songs at Mass and music completely inconsistent with what Vatican II specifically asked to be maintained. 

Pope Benedict did not want to micro manage bishops as Pope Francis does, but wanted to enable them to supervise both forms of the Mass and make decisions that assure the unity between the two forms in terms of following rubrics and reverence. 

 This is an excerpt of Pope Benedict’s letter to the world’s bishops which accompanied Summorum Pontificum. The full letter is found HERE. 

It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.

I now come to the positive reason which motivated my decision to issue this Motu Proprio updating that of 1988. It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to unable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew. I think of a sentence in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul writes: "Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return … widen your hearts also!" (2 Cor 6:11-13). Paul was certainly speaking in another context, but his exhortation can and must touch us too, precisely on this subject. Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.

In conclusion, dear Brothers, I very much wish to stress that these new norms do not in any way lessen your own authority and responsibility, either for the liturgy or for the pastoral care of your faithful. Each Bishop, in fact, is the moderator of the liturgy in his own Diocese (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22: "Sacrae Liturgiae moderatio ab Ecclesiae auctoritate unice pendet quae quidem est apud Apostolicam Sedem et, ad normam iuris, apud Episcopum").

Nothing is taken away, then, from the authority of the Bishop, whose role remains that of being watchful that all is done in peace and serenity. Should some problem arise which the parish priest cannot resolve, the local Ordinary will always be able to intervene, in full harmony, however, with all that has been laid down by the new norms of the Motu Proprio.

Helen Hill Hitchcock wrote the following after Summorum Pontificum in 2007:

In October 1998, at a conference held in Rome to observe the tenth anniversary of Ecclesia Dei adflicta, then-Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out persistent difficulties and divisions: some regarded “attachment to the old Liturgy” as disruptive, he said, while others continued to have “reservations” about the Council itself and about “obedience towards the legitimate pastors of the Church”. 

To overcome such difficulties, Cardinal Ratzinger stressed the importance of continuity. He told his audience of “traditionalist” Catholics that the “old Mass” had “never been abolished” by the Council, and that the liturgical abuses that arose following the Council were the result of “lack of obedience to the Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium”. 

“It is very important to observe the essential criteria of the Constitution on the Liturgy” Cardinal Ratzinger said, “including when one celebrates according to the old Missal! The moment when this Liturgy truly touches the faithful with its beauty and its richness, then it will be loved, then it will no longer be irreconcilably opposed to the new Liturgy, providing that these criteria are indeed applied as the Council wished”. 

Cardinal Ratzinger also strongly emphasized, in this 1998 address, the continuity between the two forms of the Liturgy:

Different spiritual and theological emphases will certainly continue to exist, but there will no longer be two contradictory ways of being a Christian; there will instead be that richness which pertains to the same single Catholic faith. When, some years ago, somebody proposed “a new liturgical movement” in order to avoid the two forms of the Liturgy becoming too distanced from each other, and in order to bring about their close convergence, at that time some of the friends of the old Liturgy expressed their fear that this would only be a stratagem or a ruse, intended to eliminate the old Liturgy finally and completely.

Such anxieties and fears really must end! If the unity of faith and the oneness of the mystery appear clearly within the two forms of celebration, that can only be a reason for everybody to rejoice and to thank the good Lord. Inasmuch as we all believe, live and act with these intentions, we shall also be able to persuade the bishops that the presence of the old Liturgy does not disturb or break the unity of their diocese, but is rather a gift destined to build-up the Body of Christ, of which we are all the servants.

The stress on continuity and unity is consistent with Pope Benedict’s more recent observations — in his Apostolic Letter, Sacramentum Caritatis, of February 22, 2007, for example. In the introduction, he emphasizes the unity and continuity of the Liturgy:

If we consider the [2000-year] history of God’s Church, guided by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. From the varied forms of the early centuries, still resplendent in the rites of the Ancient Churches of the East, up to the spread of the Roman rite; from the clear indications of the Council of Trent and the Missal of Saint Pius V to the liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council: in every age of the Church’s history the Eucharistic celebration, as the source and summit of her life and mission, shines forth in the liturgical rite in all its richness and variety…. The Synod of Bishops was able to evaluate the reception of the renewal in the years following the Council. There were many expressions of appreciation. The difficulties and even the occasional abuses which were noted, it was affirmed, cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities (SC 3).

In Sacramentum Caritatis Pope Benedict repeatedly refers to this continuity of the “immense patrimony” of the Church — the great heritage transmitted throughout her 2000-year history by the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy.