Summorum Pontificum Five Years Later

Let's-All-Join-In-and-Use-Our-Own-Baked-Bread Mass

In December 1969, a new Mass was introduced to the Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI.  This was the first time in 1500 years that this happened in the Catholic church  Up to that time, the Church had basically celebrated the same Mass, now known as the Traditional Latin Mass, from the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great in the 6th Century.  This Mass produced probably millions of saints down through the centuries.  It had organically evolved over time, but was for the most part the same Mass celebrated  through the ages. 

Dancing-Girls Mass

But after Vatican II, some in the church thought the Mass had to be made more "relevant" to the people, that the lay people needed a more "active role" in the Mass.   Disregarding even the teachings of Vatican II, Latin was thrown out.  Gregorian chant became a thing of the past as lay people actually invaded the Sanctuary and guitars, drums and dancing became part of the New Mass.  People turned away from the altar and turned to each other.  The emphasis of the Mass was no longer one of Sacrifice but had become a "communal celebration." 

Gymnasium Mass

What was the result?  People left the church in droves.  Weekly attendance went from 75% of Catholics to less than 20% in many places in the US, and down into single digits in Europe and other parts of the world.  The number of priests, nuns and other religious dropped drastically.  Catholics began to pick and choose what they wanted to believe, e.g., artificial contraception, abortion and homosexuality.  The majority of Catholics even stopped believing in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  Participation in the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of confession, became a thing of the past (although ironically enough, for those who did attend Mass, everyone received Communion - in the hand, of course).  Prior to this time, most churches had daily confession before Mass, and they all had weekly confession, with a couple of hours Saturday afternoon, again on Saturday night for a couple of hours, and once more before Sunday Mass.  The lines were long and continuing.

Confession Line - a rare sight in the Catholic Church today

Since the introduction of the New Mass, however, long lines to the confessional are rarely seen in the Catholic Church.  According to a recent survey done by Georgetown University:

Three-quarters of Catholics report that they never participate in the sacrament of Reconciliation or that they do so less than once a year.

How often, if ever, do you participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession?

                                                2005                            2008
Once a month or more                 2%                                2%
Several times a year                   10                                 12
Once a year                                14                                 12
Less than once a year                 32                                 30
Never                                           42                                 45

About one in eight Catholics (12 percent), participate in Reconciliation once a year and an identical proportion do so several times a year. Two percent report that they participate in Reconciliation at least once a month.

Many people in the Church, at least among traditional Catholics, believe the root of the Church's problem is Vatican II.  Although there were many problems at Vatican II, and there is no doubt there were subversive elements who attended Vatican II, I don't believe this council alone can be blamed for the problems in the Catholic Church.  I remember the time between Vatican II and the introduction of the Novus Ordo Mass.  The Church was still strong and Mass attendance and participation in the sacraments was high.  It was only after the introduction of the Novus Ordo Mass that we began to truly see the smoke of Satan, as described by Pope Paul VI, become apparent in the Church.  I think that while it is true that the Novus Ordo Mass would not have been created without Vatican II, the Novus Ordo Mass is apart and separate and, I believe, at the real root of the church's problems.  The Mass, which is the re-presentation of the saving Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is the salvation of the church and the world, and the destruction, or attempted destruction, of the Mass is at the heart of the problems of both the church and the entire world.

Archbishop Lefebvre

In 1969, when the New Mass was instituted, it was close to impossible to find the Traditional Latin Mass anywhere.  But there was a good number of people who threw all their effort into saving the Traditional Latin Mass against seemingly insurmountable odds, the Society of St. Pius X being at the forefront.  Many feel that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the SSPX,  is the one individual who can truly be said to have saved the Mass.  By founding the society, which says only the Traditional Latin Mass, he ensured that the Mass would never disappear.

In 1984, 15 years after the institution of the Novus Ordo Mass, Blessed John Paul II granted permission for use of the 1962 Roman Missal.  There continued to be widespread and strong opposition to use of the 1962 Missal, and in 1988,  with the added pressure from the then schismatic SSPX, Pope John Paul II issued a moto propio stating the following:

To all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations. In this matter I ask for the support of the bishops and of all those engaged in the pastoral ministry in the Church. 

Despite this Moto Propio, many bishops still resisted the wishes of those who asked for the TLM, and on July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI, despite much opposition, issued his Summorum Pontificum in which he stated that the TLM could be said without restriction and without need of the local bishop's permission.  The faithful would only need to say they wanted what was now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, and the priests and bishops must comply with those requests.  From the Apostolic Letter issued by Pope Benedict XVI:

Art. 5. § 1 In parishes, where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, and ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.

There is still tremendous opposition to this most beautiful Mass, and as noted in the following article from catholicnews.com, many of those who love the Mass and wish to preserve it are often still fighting to implement it.  Fortunately, the Vatican is on the side of those who wish to preserve the Mass of the Ages.

For Cardinal Burke, restoring tradition is a work in progress  

 
Cardinal Burke in the chapel of his residence at the Vatican. (CNS/Paul Haring)

By Francis X. Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Five years after Pope Benedict XVI lifted most restrictions on celebration of the Tridentine Mass, a senior Vatican official says that much work remains to make the traditional liturgy fully accessible to the faithful, and to bring its influence to bear on the form of the Mass most Catholics attend. 

"There's no question that there remains in certain places a resistance to what the Holy Father has asked, and that's sad," says Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and a former archbishop of St. Louis. "It's sometimes even an expression of disagreement with the Holy Father's discipline and even an expression that this is harmful for the church."   

 With his apostolic letter "Summorum Pontificum," issued July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict allowed priests to offer the Tridentine Mass without special permission from their bishops. The decree also provided for the establishment of "personal parishes" dedicated to the traditional liturgy, which had passed out of use amid the modernizing changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965.

"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," the pope wrote at the time in a letter presenting his announcement to the world's bishops.  [How could a Mass that is responsible for helping to create millions of saints over 1500 years suddenly become harmful to the Church?]

Pope Benedict made it clear that he was acting in part to promote reconciliation with the disaffected traditionalists of the Society of St. Pius X, who had broken from Rome to protest some of the teachings of Vatican II and subsequent changes to the liturgy.   [God bless our wonderful Holy Father]

Last month, following three years of on-again, off-again talks, the Vatican announced that the traditionalists had been offered formal terms of reconciliation. Though the SSPX has warned of persistent "doctrinal difficulties" that could prolong negotiations, Cardinal Burke has told Catholic News Service that he believes a reunion will ultimately take place.  [From the Cardinal's lips to God's ears.  The reunion of the SSPX and the Vatican is vitally important to the restoration of the Mass.] 

But satisfying the demands of the traditionalists was not Pope Benedict's only purpose in issuing "Summorum Pontificum." The pope wrote that he acted in order to "preserve the riches which have developed in the church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place."

New Mass

In the same letter, the pope also affirmed that the older and newer versions of the Mass could be "mutually enriching." For Cardinal Burke, such mutual enrichment is part of the so-called "reform of the reform," the process of repairing the deficiencies of the liturgy introduced under Pope Paul VI.

Old Mass

The reform of the Roman Missal in the period following Vatican II was "too radical," and "went beyond, and in some senses perhaps not completely coherently with, what the council fathers had set forth," the cardinal says.  [My feelings exactly.  If the Church had stayed true even to the Vatican II council, we would not have the problems in the Church that we are presently facing.]

Creative Liturgy - Soon to be a thing of the past?

"There was a stripping away, a changing of the form of the rite that in my judgment was too much," he says. "You can't take a living reality, the worship of God as God has desired that we worship him, and tamper with it without doing violence and without in some way damaging the faith life of the people."  [Here the Cardinal is confirming that the crisis of faith in the Church can be directly linked to liturgical abuse]

The use of Latin was far from the most important loss, the cardinal says, noting that even the newer form of the Mass is still regularly celebrated in the church's universal language. 

Can we please put a stop to this kind of travesty?

Among the other elements of tradition that Cardinal Burke hopes the church eventually will restore to the Mass in its newer version are the opening prayers at the foot of the altar, which he says provide an "immediate tie-in" to the liturgy's Jewish heritage: the psalms once sung by the high priest in the temple in Jerusalem. 

Prayers at the foot of the altar

Other features of the Tridentine Mass that the cardinal would welcome in the newer liturgy include the priest softly reciting the prayers before Communion, a period of near-silence that, he explains, "draws our attention to this most sacred part of the Holy Mass"; and the closing recitation of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John, a "hymn to the redemptive incarnation" that "sets in your mind once again the great reality which you have encountered and in which you have participated." [All of the constant talking in the Novus Ordo Mass makes it almost impossible to pray.  We are at the foot of the cross during Mass, there should be silence so that we can prayerfully meditate upon that.  And why did we ever dispose of the Last Gospel, which is the first chapter of the book of John?  It completely and thoroughly explains who Jesus Christ is and His mission to this world.  It is a beautiful way to end the Mass.] 

Consecration in the Traditional Mass

 On the other hand, Cardinal Burke says, the practice of reading scriptural passages in modern languages has been a "tremendous gift" of the post-Vatican II liturgy that should be incorporated in the Tridentine Mass. [But can we stop the laity from doing the readings (especially the women) and have only servers and clergy in the Sanctuary during Mass?]  And he says that the newer version of the Mass, in which the priest typically faces the congregation, can encourage a deeper appreciation of the "transparent devotion" with which priests should celebrate both forms of the liturgy.   [Here I have to disagree with the good Cardinal.  As our Holy Father himself has said, with the priest and people facing each other, it creates a closed circle.  I think it is much more edifying and prayerful to have the priest and people both facing the altar.] 

Of course, for the two forms of the Mass to enrich each other, both must be available. But after half-century of neglect, the cardinal notes, there is a shortage of priests with any knowledge of Latin, not to mention experience with the older liturgy, a problem which he says calls for revising seminary curricula.

In the meantime, the cardinal counsels patience to traditionalists who feel "embattled" when well-meaning bishops cannot satisfy their demands quickly enough.

"It would be improper and even offensive to our Lord," he says," to have someone offering the Mass who doesn't know what he's saying or doesn't even know how to say it."  [True enough, Your Eminence, but let's be honest, that is not always the reason why the bishops try to stop the Traditional Latin Mass]

This interview with Cardinal Burke gives me great hope for the future.  I must admit that it is actually painful for me when I attend a Novus Ordo Mass.  I find it very difficult to pray and to even concentrate on the fact that this is a re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary.  It gives me hope that the Vatican realizes the spiritual vapidness that has occurred as a result of this Mass of the 20th Century. 

The times they are a changin' (finally!)

From the SSPX: We Are In 2012 With Pope Benedict XVI

Are we seeing the reunification of the
SSPX and the Vatican?

I have posted below a wonderful article written on May 11, 2012, about the potential, and seemingly imminent, reunification of the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican. The article is written by Father Michel Simoulin, who has been an SSPX priest for 35 years. Father Simoulin speaks very respectfully of Pope Benedict XVI and of the Vatican, which I find very encouraging. He says very plainly in this article that the SSPX, of and by itself, is not the Church, that the Church is the Vatican. As he says in his article: "The Society is not an army raised up against Rome, but an army formed for the Church."

He also explains that the initial split between Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican came about not because of doctrinal differences between the Society and the Vatican, but because the Vatican would not allow the Archbishop to ordain his own bishops.  This led Archbishop Lefebvre to fear that, by relinquishing his authority to Rome, adversary forces in Rome would step in and destroy the SSPX.  Knowing the contemporary history of the Church and the many forces inside and outside of Rome who hate anything that promotes traditional Catholicism, specifically and especially the Latin Mass, one can only conclude that Archbishop Lefebvre was most probably correct in his fears.

I find this article to be very enlightening and encouraging.  Father Simoulin is basically trying to encourage members of the SSPX to trust their bishop, the Holy Father and God himself to do what is right.  This viewpoint and attitude can only be applauded.  I long for the moment when I can come here and joyfully give the news that the SSPX and the Vatican have reunited.  As I have previously posted, the Church desperately needs the spiritual strength and resolve of the SSPX, and they need to be reunited with Vicar of Christ. 

5-11-2012

Editorial from L’Seignadou on the relations with Rome, by Fr. Michel Simoulin (May 2012)

Fr. Michel Simoulin, chaplain of the Fanjeaux community wrote this editorial for Seignadou (Sign from God). He served alongside Msgr. Ducaud Bourget at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet from 1980 to 1983, was rector of the University of St. Pius X, director at the Econe seminary, prior at Lyon, France, and SSPX District Superior of Italy. read at DICI >

I do not know what the situation will be at the time of the publication of this bulletin, but I think that it is useful to reflect together on the current events. I do not speak about this “republican” masquerade we are living through [the elections in France], but about our relations with Rome.

Recently, somebody sent me a text with this question: “When will we return to the fundamentals of our Society? When will we have the humility to respect the heritage of its founder?”

I believe that I know a little our Society – of which I have been member for 35 years – and thus to have the right to remind all that our “fundamentals” are engraved in golden letters in our statutes:

the goal of the Society is the priesthood and all that refers to it and only what relates to it, i.e., such as Our Lord Jesus-Christ wanted it when He said: Do this in memory of Me. [The SSPX is all about the priesthood]

Bishop Fellay with newly ordained priests

Such is the heritage of our founder, such are our “fundamentals”; we do not have any others, and we do not want to have others. The Society is not an army raised up against Rome, but an army formed for the Church. [The SSPX is completely and wholly Catholic and has never been anything but that.]

Then, allusion is made to Archbishop Lefebvre’s refusal to follow the path towards an agreement in 1988. And the Archbishop is quoted: “With the protocol of May 5th we would have died soon. We would not have lasted a year…” All this, of course, intended to warn us and to invite us to refuse any Roman offer, something that we should do “under pain of death”. [The protocol of May 5, 1988 was an agreement between Archbishop Lefebvre and then Cardinal Ratzinger. According to an SSPX website, the following was written on July 28, 1988: "For Archbishop Lefebvre, the essential problem with the May 5 Protocol was its failure to promise a bishop for the Society of Saint Pius X with unobstructed power to protect the faithful from modernist influences. On the contrary, the Protocol offered, for mere psychological reasons, a single bishop purposely lacking this power. In over a decade since its foundation the Society of Saint Peter still does not even have one traditional bishop, powerless or otherwise."  Father Simoulin is warning that there are those who are using the situation from 1988 to refuse to work with Rome in 2012.  Father goes on to show that everything has changed since 1988.]

Yet another echo reaches me: “in Rome serious things are happening, very serious… but I cannot tell you more!” Not that this [is] of much help for me! [Making general ominous statements only adds to confusion and fear.]

Then, let us be reasonable. To do so, it will be good to remember a little the events of 1988. After having signed the draft of an agreement on May 5th (which was not yet an agreement, but was nonetheless a very imperfect and even dangerous text, and which did not let Archbishop Lefebvre sleep in peace), on the morning of May 6th the Archbishop wrote a letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, not to retract his signature -

Yesterday, with a real satisfaction, I put my signature to the protocol prepared on the previous days. But, you noted yourself a deep disappointment at the reading of the letter that you gave me with the answer of the Holy Father about the episcopal consecration

 - but to urgently require that this consecration could take place on June 30th, in order to be certain of having a bishop to continue his work. This letter of May 6th is entirely and exclusively concerned with this one point:

If the answer were to be negative, I would find myself obliged, in conscience, to proceed to the consecration, based on the approval given by the Holy See in the protocol for the consecration of a bishop member of the Society.

Thus, the reason for stopping the process was neither a doctrinal question nor the statute offered to the Society, but the date of the consecration of the bishop that had been granted. [According to Father Simoulin, Archbishop Lefebvre felt that if he was not allowed to consecrate a bishop from within the Society who could lead it when he, Archbishop Lefebvre died, the society would be destroyed by the forces in Rome who were lined up against it.  This is not relevant in 2012.] And it should be noted that the rupture of the relations was decided then, not by Archbishop Lefebvre, but by Cardinal Ratzinger, who refused this episcopal consecration for June 30th.  

If, indeed, Archbishop Lefebvre had accepted that the protocol of May 5th were not to have been followed by this episcopal consecration, then, yes, “with the protocol of May 5th we would have died soon. We would not have lasted a year…”, because without a bishop, we would have been delivered to the good (or bad) pleasure of Rome and the bishops.  

After our Jubilee [pilgrimage] of the year 2000, Rome took the initiative of new relations. Today, the same cardinal become Pope has told us that the Tridentine Mass was never abrogated (July 7, 2007):

It is thus allowed to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass according to the standard edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated;

he rehabilitated our four bishops (January 21, 2009); he accepted that we hold doctrinal discussions during two years… all things that Archbishop Lefebvre did not require in 1988. It is not exaggerated to say that Bishop Fellay obtained more than what Archbishop Lefebvre required, without however having the same prestige or moral authority. Then, must we be even more demanding than Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Fellay? [Father Simoulin is stating here that more healing of the differences between the Society and Rome has occurred under the leadership of Bishop Fellay than even Archbishop Lefebvre required for unification.  To demand more than Archbishop Lefebvre required is unreasonable and nonproductive.] 

Whatever the state of Rome is, whatever still remains worrisome in Rome, simple good sense and honesty should lead us to consider the current situation with different eyes than in 1988! [The good Father here is stating that circumstances are much different than 1988, and the threats faced by the SSPX in 1988 are not relevant to 2012] To take up the formula of one of our bishops, we should not fall into “eighty-eightism!” [Fr. Simoulin makes reference to Bishop Williamson’s warning about the dangers of getting stuck into “1950ism,” that is, into a particular period of the history of the Church.]

We are no longer in 1975 with Paul VI nor in 1988 with John Paul II, but in 2012 with Benedict XVI. [This is truly a positive and hopeful statement coming from the SSPX!] You can tell me as much as you want that the state of the Church is still very alarming, that our Pope has a sometimes strange theology, etc… we have said it enough, it seems to me, but you cannot tell me that the state of things is the same as in 1988 or even worse. To do so would be contrary to reality and to the truth, and can only be the effect of a more or less secret refusal of any reconciliation with Rome, perhaps even of a lack of faith in the holiness of the Church, composed of poor sinners but always governed by her head, Jesus-Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost.  [Father is stating here that those who say nothing has changed since 1988 would seem to have a secret desire not to unite with Rome under any circumstances, and this even exhibits a rebellious attitude and lack of faith]  The SSPX is not the Church  and it can “respect the heritage of its founder” only by preserving his spirit, his love for the Church and his desire to serve her as a loving son, in fidelity to the founding blessings.  [I cannot applaud this statement enough.  This should remove any suspicion of Sedevacantism among the SSPX leadership]

I do not know if all realize the weight of this decision, which belongs only to Bishop Fellay, a decision that was entrusted to him again last October by our Superiors meeting in Albano, a decision considered together with his assistants: What does the Church expect from the Society in 2012? How must the Society answer to the “needs” of the Church today?  

This requires a highly supernatural virtue of prudence, to a degree that none of us has the grace to reach, because it does not pertain either to our abilities or to our responsibility. Only Bishop Fellay and his assistants have, by definition, the totality of the information required to judge rightly about the current situation. The question that each one must rather ask himself refers to our benevolence towards authority and, especially, to our trust in that authority. For twelve years Bishop Fellay has been arguing with Rome, with ups and downs, to finally arrive at the results quoted above, and even to an amazing result that perhaps nobody has even noticed: these doctrinal discussions, which did not make any noise in the market place, have enabled us to say to Rome what we think… to the point of making the discussions end abruptly! [Father is telling us that Bishop Fellay and the SSPX have been talking with Rome, and Rome has been listening for the past 12 years.] 

And yet, what hasn’t been said about the silence of the superiors around these discussions and about the documents exchanged these last months, and about their great discretion out of respect for Rome and the Holy Father? [Notice that Father Simoulin refers to Pope Benedict XVI as the Holy Father, showing his deep respect and acknowledgment of the office of Pope.] It has all been interpreted as a form of dissimulation, and even the beginning of a compromise. How can anyone doubt the uprightness of our superiors in such a gratuitous and arbitrary way?  

No one knows yet the conclusion that Benedict XVI will want to give to these twelve years of slow work, of searching for a better understanding, and to the prayers and rosaries accumulated. The time is now for prayer, as we were asked by Bishop Fellay, and for trust in the Church. The Immaculate Virgin, who we will particularly honor during this month of May, will obtain for us all the necessary graces, if we want nothing other than the victory of Her Son and of the Church.  [This statement shows the completely sincerity and purity of Father Simoulin's position.  With this kind of attitude, we can only expect good things to happen with the reunification of the SSPX and the Vatican.]

Father Simoulin has given us a beautiful explanation of just how different circumstances are in 2012 than they were in 1988.  He shows great respect and reverence for Pope Benedict XVI and feels that the Holy Father's actions - removing all restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, removing the excommunication of the SSPX bishops and engaging in a a continuing dialog with the SSPX for the past 12 years - show that he can be trusted to do the right thing.  This is an article written by a member of the SSPX who virtually says there is no reason for there not to be a reunification between the SSPX and the Vatican. 

This gives me the greatest hope and optimism I have felt yet.  We are told that that Pope Benedict XVI will make the final decision by the end of May.  I feel beyond hopeful that we will all be celebrating and welcoming back our brothers and sisters of the Society of St. Pius X.