A very sad chapter in Pope Francis papal history is that he called for dialogue and inclusivity but shut it down when it didn’t go his way.
Two areas that are a disgrace are the way that Pope Francis treated the dubia cardinals. I presume the four cardinals who presented the five dubia, Cardinals Burke, Brandmuller, Caffarra and Meisner attempted a private answer to their questions but were ignored by the pope who would not engage in a dialogue with them and thus they made their dubia public.
Cardinal Burke suffered the most for his prophetic complaints against the lack of clarity and coherence coming from some of the things Pope Francis said and did as well as wrote.
Thanks be to God, that Pope Leo isn’t talking about dialogue but doing it.
The other area where great concern has been raised is how Pope Francis treated and marginalized not only cardinals who questioned him but those who embraced Pope Benedict’s liturgical magisterium and genius, not only reform in continuity but also Summorum Pontificum and did so in a faithful, orthodox way, not a schismatic divisive way.
God willing that Pope Leo and Cardinal Burke spoke and dialogued about what they have in common:
1. A love for canon law, order, clarity and preciseness
2. Marginalizing Catholics who embrace the faith and morals of the Church and embracing those who want to change everything about the Church in order to create a different “church”
As everyone knows, I think Summorum Pontificum must be restored but bishops should be more engaged with pastors and priests who celebrate it to make sure that the normal, ordinary form of the Mass and those who appreciate it and want a vernacular Mass are not trampled upon or have a completely Latin Mass imposed upon them. Priests must accept the modern Mass as the normal/ordinary Mass and the older form of the Mass as an exception in normal parish celebrations. Perhaps personal parishes should be set up for the TLM.
But something that Cardinal Burke recently said about the Modern Mass is fascinating to me and I think it is the way to go. He accepts the validity of the new Mass, as we all know. But he complained about the stripping away of so much that contributed to the awe, wonder and reverence of the Mass.
If the modern Mass were reformed in continuity to the TLM, while still allowing the TLM to flourish—there would be less divisiveness and the sense of the faithful will be in harmony who either prefer one to the other or both.
Thus the TLM would stand as it is in the 1962 Missal and the other sacramental forms of that era.
But the new Mass would maintain the order and rubrics of the TLM, although in the vernacular.
The new Mass would allow lay readers and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, male or female, (gender confused individuals would not be eligible). The same with altar servers.
The reform of the modern Mass would allow for ad orientem as in the TLM and kneeling for Holy Communion.
Thus I pray that Cardinal Burke’s dialogue with Pope Leo will help Pope Leo to continue Pope Benedict’s great liturgical magisterium and genius.
17 comments:
I had a vernacular Mass imposed on me that I did not ask for! What about my rights, my feelings?
I once had an anti-TLM zealot complain that trads are causing problems for the Catholic Church that, say, Episcopalians have. I pointed out that Episcopalians were allowed a sort of bifurcated liturgy, Rite I and Rite II, that--while I am no expert--could be loosely analogized to the TLM and NO, respectively.
I further pointed out that, unlike the higher-church Protestants who, arguably rather prudently, determined that completely upending their liturgy in favor of forcing a "banal, on-the-spot production" on their congregations with no other permissible options would cause more problems than not, the Catholic Church, from the pope starting on the 1960s on down, attacked anyone who opposed the changes as lazy, slothful, schismatic, disobedient, etc., etc., etc.
Now, this is not to say that the Protestant churches don't have this problem. Just to explain that the Catholic Church in the 1960s handled changing the liturgy about as badly as you can manage--though admittedly not as badly as Patriarch Nikon.
So, Fr. AJM, your proposal is an interesting one. The only change I might add is an allowance for the pre-1955 Holy Week in the TLM, and maybe some calendar tweaks.
Nick
Cardinal Burke "complained about the stripping away of so much that contributed to the awe, wonder and reverence of the Mass."
Pope Leo has lamented this, as well:
"We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in [the Eastern Catholic] liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty!"
It's hard to give this a construction other than Pope Leo thinking that the modern, "irreversibly reformed" liturgy of the Western Church fails to "engage the human person [entirely,]" express "the beauty of salvation[,]" or "evoke a sense of wonder at . . . God's majesty[.]" Now, this doesn't necessarily mean he thinks the TLM is the answer (but hopefully it doesn't mean he thinks creating an inculturated missal for everyone but trads is the way to go), but this certainly does seem like a "cancellation" of one of Desiderio Desideravi's more execrable portions, the one praising the new liturgy for lacking the "sense of mystery" that the old one had. I can't deny the lack, but it's laughable to say that that lack is praiseworthy.
Nick
What underlies the liturgical situation in your church is theological and has to do with ethos.
Just as in the Eastern Church, the continuous liturgical practice is an expression of theology and ethos, the older version of the Mass expresses the post-800’s theological developments and the accompanying ethos that eventually culminated with the Council of Trent.
And again, the new mass embodied the post-Vatican II theology and ethos of the Catholic Church.
So from this standpoint, it makes little sense to bring back liturgical expressions that are no longer expressing your updated theology and ethos. To address the situation, you’d need to firmly decide which version of your teachings you want to follow — and that has radically changed over the centuries and even more radically in the last few decades.
Marc, you are correct to a certain extent, but recent developments, some already corrected, are based not on Vatican II but its ever changing spirit. Certainly the new Mass embraces an ecclesiology that emphasizes the dignity of all the baptized in terms of participating verbally or by chant, the parts of the Mass once reserved for altar boys and/or the choir. Opening the Mass up to more lay ministries, such as lector, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, male and female is a part of that too. It was/is about intelligibility and tearing down the clericalism caste system. But the other spirit, more pernicious, is moving away from a very high Christology to a Low Christology, from high Church liturgical tradition to a low Church liturgical tradition. Much of that borrowed from Protestantism to appease them a facilitate ecumenism and an eventual reunion with Protestantism, even if loosely designed. Interestingly enough Anglican, Lutherans and some Presbyterians had a liturgical renewal after Vatican II taking from it what Rome was doing. A recovery of High Christology is necessary and the TLM was and is the way to do that.
I think that’s the tension I have in mind when I talk about ethos. The newer movements you have are a manifestation of the ethos that is now totally prevalent in Catholicism, and that is radically different from what things were like before. So using an old liturgy that expresses that different ethos is problematic.
The reform of the modern Mass would allow for ad orientem as in the TLM and kneeling for Holy Communion.
These are allowed now!
In regard to the dubia:
Cardinal Burke's interview with The Remnant's Michael Matt confirmed that which many folks had pressed upon Pope Francis (requiescat in pace): That is, Pope Francis had been set up to respond to the questions in the manner in which the "dubia Cardinals" had planned.
Otherwise, as Cardinal Burke had acknowledged, the preposterous plan would have involved Pope Francis' "errors" having been "corrected."
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Here is Cardinal Burke having let the proverbial cat out of the bag:
Michael Matt: "So, is it even possible for you to envision a scenario whereby you suddenly discover that you've missed something, that the Four Cardinals are misinterpreting it, and that you'd have to concede you were wrong?
"I mean if that’s not possible, then what is the point of the dubia?
"Don’t you already know the answers to your five questions?"
Cardinal Burke: "Certainly we do."
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Again, Pope Francis had been set up to respond to the dubia in the manner in which the Cardinals in question had concocted...otherwise...goodbye, Pope Francis. He would have been schooled by the dubia Cardinals.
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"...what is the point of the dubia? Don’t you already know the answers to your five questions?"
"Certainly we do."
Pope Francis was too smart to have fallen into the trap in question.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Agree the Dubai was an insincere attempt to trap Poor Francis and he was smart to completely ignore it. Although to be fair to Francis he did respond indirectly to them in his catechesis.
Cardinal Burke no longer has a Curial role so should return to the USA freeing up a Vatican apartment for rent.
you are pretty officious aren't you?
Well there are too many redundant bishops and cardinals in Rome.
You do the job then you go home when finished!
https://mikelewis.substack.com/p/cardinal-burke-and-the-magisterium
The main problem with Cardinal Burke’s words and actions is not his "criticism" of Pope Francis, but his obstinate rejection of the fundamental principle of religious assent laid out in Lumen Gentium 25.
In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."
(from Lumen Gentium 25)
If Burke dissented from the papal magisterium his duty was to submit those concerns privately to the CDF not publicly.
I didn’t know that poor Mike Lewis also had a “substack” and i did not know about substack until recently. I agree that those who disagreed with the agitating papacy of Pope Francis should have brought their concerns directly to the pope and not in the external forum. I wonder, though, and I have no inside information other than intuition and having watched and listened to Pope Francis, if he provoked Burke and others into the external forum as he would not dialogue with them as a good pope should have and in the internal forum. And that he didn’t answer the dubia with five points submitted by the 4 dubia cardinals could have diffused the situation rather than escalate the agitation that Pope Francis provoked. As for Mike Lewis, he is so wet behind the ears and has no sense of what was happening in the Church from 1964 until Pope Francis was elected. He’s so young and naive that the only pope he actually has any recollection of is Pope Francis. I had three popes within my first two years of major seminary and I went to the most liberal seminary in the country from 1976 to ‘80!
He’s not wet behind the ears, he’s well read and informed, plus not so young! What he says about Burke’s dissent is fair comment!
He’s not wet behind the ears at all, he’s well read and rationale.
Well didn’t do you any harm!
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