A REAL HEAD SCRATCHER FROM ARCHBISHOP ROCHE…

 Praytell has a summary of an interview of Archbishop Roche conducted by the UK’s version of the National Catholic Report, The Tablet, aka, the Bitter Pill. 

You can read the full article at Praytell, but here are two paragraph that are truly head scratchers:  

“Long before Francis limited the use of the pre-Vatican Council liturgical books, small traditionalist communities had become centres of resistance to this pontificate. The combination of opposition to the Pope, the calling into question of an ecumenical council, and the promotion of the old rite as an alternative liturgical way of life – sometimes even presented as the only truly Catholic form of the liturgy – represented a serious challenge. Roche stressed that the Pope’s intention was to ‘bring unity’ to the Church, and to end the suggestion that there are two different Churches with two different liturgies.”

My comment: I have been warning readers here that a Catholic cannot disregard an ecumenical council oR higher forms of papal teachings. And I said it was a pipe dream to think the older liturgical books would eclipse the newer ones. I do believe, with proper episcopal oversight, any elitism on the part of neo-traditionalists could be kept in check and the older liturgical books used in an extraordinary way, not in an ordinary way, the exception rather than the rule. And I do believe that the principles of active participation of the laity can be brought to the older liturgical books and papal adaptations to the older liturgy, such as some vernacular for the Scriptures and changing parts to the Mass could be allowed. 

But, Archbishop Roche makes me laugh when he declares the need “to end the suggestion that there are two different Churches and two different liturgies.” He needs to get real and to realize that is already the case between Germany and the rest of the Catholic world and much more schismatic than anything from traditionalists and as it regards the Modern Vernacular Mass, it is as different as it could be not only from diocese to diocese, but parish to parish and different Masses in the same parish are different. There is no liturgical unity in the post Vatican II Church and the addition of the older liturgical books isn’t the problem. 

Roche points out that Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, shifted away from a model of the Church as a ‘perfect society’ to the biblical notion of the Church as the pilgrim People of God.

“In the former, Roche says, it was the priest who ‘represented the intentions of the people’ and took that to God in the liturgy. Vatican II changed that. ‘With the understanding of the priesthood of all the baptised it’s not simply the priest alone who celebrates the Eucharist, but all the baptised who celebrate with him,’ Roche explains. ‘That surely has to be the most profound understanding of what ‘participation’ means. That we’re not just reading, we’re not just singing, we’re not just moving things around in the sanctuary or coping with children or whatever it is, but we’re actually entering deeply into the divine life, which has been made manifest to us in the Paschal mystery…the liturgy is not incidental to our identity…the liturgy is the womb of the Church, which gives birth to Christians and which nourishes the Christian life.'”

My comments: Archbishop Roche is muddled in his thinking. The Catholic priest is absolutely essential for the valid celebration of the Mass and can celebrate the Mass alone or with others. That has not changed nor can it. The pastoral emphasis on the baptismal priesthood of the faithful in no ways detracts from the ministerial priesthood of the ordained. And yes, the laity should be able to verbally participate in the parts that pertain to them. Or is Archbishop Roche suggesting that we return to the experimentations of the 1970’s where the laity recite out loud the Eucharistic Prayer along with the priest? Ultimately what he writes above is so inane that one could say the laity could effect the Eucharist by themselves since they are a priestly people. 

God save us from the 1970’s and those who are stuck there! That is the worst kind of retro.