HE JUST MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE TO IGNORE HIS CONCERNS AND OBSERVATIONS

From the National Catholic Register:

Verona’s Faith and Culture Conference Focuses on Catholic Tradition

Posted by Sol�ne Tadi� on Saturday Dec 7th, 2019 at 10:46 PM

Msgr. Nicola Bux, a former collaborator of Benedict XVI, delivers an uncompromising diagnosis of the current situation of the Catholic Church and reaffirms the necessity to protect its traditions.

You strongly support maintaining tradition within the Church, especially with regard to liturgy. Why is it so important for you?

When we talk about tradition, we speak about the process of transmission of the faith, which started with Christ, with Revelation, and comes to us through the Apostles. Liturgy is one of these places of transmission of the faith. It is not something at our disposal, subject to whatever we can or want to do, because liturgy then would no longer be sacred. It would become our own liturgy, entertainment or something else.

So, this is why liturgy belongs to the driving [force behind] the transmission of the faith. So true is it that the Fathers of the Church used to say that the rule of the faith and the rule of prayer are interdependent. Today, I could say that I can understand what you believe from the way you pray. If the way you pray changes, it means that even the way you believe has changed.

Sacred liturgy is something very delicate. But we have been through a time of desecration in which it seems that the sacred dimension has been overshadowed by new fashionable dimensions. There is the prevailing impression that everything should be desecrated, secularized.

Young people seem more and more attracted to traditional liturgy nowadays. How do you explain that? 

Several studies confirm that. I see it all the time, especially among young men. And I also want to note that today the participants in this Fede e Cultura gathering [whose sensitivity is openly traditionalist] was mostly made of men — which does not diminish the female presence, of course.

But these tendencies are symptomatic. Because Christianity has a masculine liturgy. It is not feminine in the sense of a sentimental approach. However, nowadays liturgy is often reduced to emotions, to feelings. So, clearly, how could men recognize themselves in this?

Liturgy, by its very nature, is masculine, objective. Liturgy doesn’t fall within the ambit of emotions. Liturgy must gather objectively all the human beings’ states of mind, maintaining such feelings on a low level, because at this very moment, we are worshiping God, not ourselves.

You were a consultant in four different Vatican congregations during Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate. How have these congregations changed in the last few years? 

I believe they are affected by some of the new orientations that are being given to them … it is something I have noticed, especially at the Congregation for the Cause of Saints.

For example, recently, some processes were opened or even concluded with great ease, even though some of them were very questionable — something that wouldn’t have happened a few years ago. I think this was the case for Argentinian Enrique Angelelli, to name one. It ends up generating a great sense of confusion among the faithful.

Historically, the modalities for such processes have always been extremely rigorous. The Church always used to ask for miracles — two for beatification, and at least two others for canonization. This requirement means that the final declaration, even if it cannot be totally infallible, has a very limited margin of risk. But unfortunately, it has become relative.

Relativism has also reached this congregation in other ways too. I believe things have become more political now. We are trying to promote a “martyrdom of charity.” What does this mean? Martyrdom has always been suffered in odium fidei, which means that the person is killed because of Jesus’ name. When a priest or a lay person is killed because he showed solidarity, he certainly is a hero, but not a martyr. If he gets killed because his charity is a direct expression of the faith he professed, then he really is a martyr. But these things are no longer clear enough.