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Cardinal Bacci on the vernacular

We have remarked before that one of the major problems that confronts Catholics who want to know more about the Second Vatican Council is the relative unavailability of crucial documents. Certainly, the conciliar constitutions, decrees, and declarations are all freely available on the internet in many modern languages. But the working documents for the Council remain hidden away in obscure volumes, usually in Latin. Most important among these documents are the Acta Synodalia—the floor debates, as it were, of the Council. Matthew Hazell has been making digital copies of the Latin Acta available, slowly; however, for those without Latin, that is not a huge improvement.

Translator Timothy Wilson, however, has made an important contribution to the discussion by translating Antonio Cardinal Bacci’s October 24, 1962 intervention, De lingua latina in sacra Liturgia, into English. The introduction to the translation, which is published at Rorate Caeli, reminds the reader that Cardinal Bacci was one of the sponsors of the Short Critical Study on the New Order of Mass—the so-called Ottaviani Intervention. (The Dominican Guérard des Lauriers—who advised Pius XII on the dogma of the Assumption and who would himself become the subject of some controversy in time—was one of the key authors of the Short Critical Study, in point of fact.) Somewhat strangely, the introduction omits to mention that Cardinal Bacci was one of the preeminent Latinists in the Church when he gave his address to the Council, having served nearly thirty years as the secretary for briefs to princes in the Curia, which meant that, under Pius XI, Pius XII, and John XXIII, Bacci was responsible for the Latin text of the more solemn papal documents and statements. At any rate, Wilson’s translation gives us a window into the thinking of an influential Latinist, recognizing, in large part, the harms that would befall the Mass once the vernacular was introduced into it.

Read the whole thing there.

Some background on “Vultum Dei quaerere”

We wrote a couple of days ago about Vultum Dei quaerere, the Holy Father’s new apostolic constitution addressing female contemplative life. We remarked that, frankly, the document was a little mysterious to us; it seemed very specific, but ultimately obscure in its specificity. Ann Carey, at the National Catholic Register, has answered some of our questions with a lengthy, detailed background piece. Carey’s sources present Vultum Dei as a necessary update to Pius XII’s 1950 apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi, addressing particular concerns that have cropped up among cloistered religious since then:

For example, formation was a topic stressed by Pope Francis in the new document, and Sister Gabriela noted that formation had been “a major concern” that religious voiced to the CICSAL in response to the questionnaire.

“Contemplative life is so special and so demanding that it demands good formation specific to the life,” she said.

The prayer and liturgical life of the nuns also was stressed in the document, and this is related to formation as well.

“Our life will depend on our spirituality,” she said, “and the depth of our spirituality determines how well we are going to live our vocation. Cloistered life doesn’t make any sense if you don’t have a deep prayer life. It’s our relationship to Our Lord that makes the life, that demands the enclosure.”

Sister Gabriela explained that this need for good formation, plus the difficulty for modern young people to make a commitment and trust authority, no doubt prompted a change in which the Pope raised the required number of years in formation before final vows from a minimum of six years to nine years.

(Emphasis supplied.)

We still have some questions about Vultum Dei quaerere, but Carey’s informative piece has cleared up some of the mystery. Read the whole thing.

Pope Francis, Cardinal Sarah, and the “reform of the reform”

The news has been making the rounds today that Robert Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has called on priests to begin celebrating Mass ad orientem beginning on the first Sunday of Advent this year. In and of itself, this is fairly interesting, and the usual sources have gone ballistic at the suggestion. However, Cardinal Sarah said something else that is even more interesting: the Holy Father has asked him to study the so-called reform of the reform, which was a major topic between 2005 and 2013. Matthew Hazell, at New Liturgical Movement, has some good coverage of Cardinal Sarah’s whole speech. According to the story, Cardinal Sarah said:

When I was received in audience by the Holy Father last April, Pope Francis asked me to study the question of a reform of a reform and of how to enrich the two forms of the Roman rite. This will be a delicate work and I ask for your patience and prayers. But if we are to implement Sacrosanctum Concilium more faithfully, if we are to achieve what the Council desired, this is a serious question which must be carefully studied and acted on with the necessary clarity and prudence.

(Emphasis supplied.) Given the scanty information in Cardinal Sarah’s comment—and recalling what the Holy Father thinks of commissions and “studies”—it is hard to offer much commentary; however, we recall Cardinal Sarah’s essay in L’Osservatore Romano from about this time last year, in which he suggested that the penitential rite and offertory from the Forma Extraordinaria might one day make their way into the Missale Romanum as an appendix or option.

Following up on Brexit

We note, as a quick follow up to our piece today about Brexit, that The Josias ran, almost exactly a year ago, an excerpt from Henri Grenier’s Thomistic Philosophy regarding supranational government, which came to the conclusions subsequently identified by St. John XXIII and Benedict XVI. As Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., pointed out in his introduction, the Holy Father also took up this question in Laudato si’.

Notable analysis of the Pan-Orthodox Council situation

Gabriel Sanchez, well known to readers of Semiduplex for his excellent blog, Opus Publicum, has a must-read piece at First Things about the status of the Pan-Orthodox Council. He provides a good summary of the situation as it stands, including the main points of contention. A selection:

What is all the fuss about? There are several agenda items covering intra-Orthodox ecclesiastical governance that in theory should not be terribly concerning, but that nevertheless reveal deep divisions within Orthodoxy along ethnic and national lines.

For instance, the question of the so-called “Orthodox diaspora” is fraught with difficulties. Many Orthodox living in the West would prefer to remain under the wing of bishops in their historic homelands, rather than coalesce around an autocephalous (self-governing) local church. Tied to this issue is the question of who decides when a newly established local church becomes self-governing and under what conditions. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has long asserted this right for himself; other patriarchal churches in world Orthodoxy remain unenthused about his claim.

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlinks in original.) Read the whole thing there.

A comment on the SSPX

Elliot Milco has a very good, very lengthy reflection on the current situation of the Society of St. Pius X, especially the events of 1975-1976. (A fuller history of these events may be found, of course, in Michael Davies’s Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre, which is still freely available on the internet.) Milco observes:

Lefebvre loved the Pope, but he rejected the changes he saw destroying the Church he had served all his life.  He embraced the authoritative teaching of Vatican II, but rejected its ambiguous expressions and inversions, which he believed paved the way for abuse and error.  Ultimately he loved Christ and the Truth, and would (like any good missionary) have rather died than abandon either.  Despite all these virtues, a decade and more of ostracism, injustice, and (occasionally) outright dishonesty from Vatican officials left Lefebvre extremely distrustful of the Vatican.  While a million abuses and heresies were permitted and even encouraged throughout the Church, Lefebvre’s little seminary was being targeted and suppressed.

(Emphasis supplied.) Of course, the events of 1975-1976 were overshadowed by the events of June 1988, and one could be excused for thinking that 1988 was the sole relevant year for relations between the Society and Rome.

However, it is perhaps providential that Pope Francis is reigning on the fortieth anniversary of the initial conflict between Lefebvre and Rome. The Holy Father has made the resolution of the SSPX a major priority for his pontificate, and he has been willing to overlook technical issues in favor of dialogue and reconciliation. Recently, in an interview with La Croix, the Holy Father observed:

In Buenos Aires, I often spoke with them. They greeted me, asked me on their knees for a blessing. They say they are Catholic. They love the Church.

Bishop Fellay is a man with whom one can dialogue. That is not the case for other elements who are a little strange, such as Bishop Williamson or others who have been radicalized. Leaving this aside, I believe, as I said in Argentina, that they are Catholics on the way to full communion.

During this year of mercy, I felt that I needed to authorize their confessors to pardon the sin of abortion. They thanked me for this gesture. Previously, Benedict XVI, whom they greatly respect, had liberalized the use of the Tridentine rite mass. So good dialogue and good work are taking place.

(Emphasis supplied.) For his part, Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the Society, in a lengthy and wide-ranging interview with Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register, noted:

The Pope’s harshest criticism always tends to be directed to the “doctors of the law” and whom he views as pharisaical. Some would argue that he’s talking about, among others, the Society. What do you say to that, that he seems to be most angry towards people like yourselves?

I asked some people in Rome, who is he aiming at? They didn’t know, they didn’t know what to say. They said “maybe you, but…”. The answer I most got was: “Conservative Americans”! So really, frankly, I don’t know. He definitely dislikes people who are too ideological. That’s very clear. And I think he knows us enough from Argentina to see that we care about people. Yes, we may have a very strong position on the doctrine, but we care. So we show a genuine, so to say, action following this doctrine and I think what he’s reproaching is not that. Certainly he doesn’t agree with us on these points on the Council which we are attacking. Definitely he doesn’t. But for him, as the doctrine is not so important, man, the people, are important, and there we have given enough proof that we are Catholics. That’s the approach that he has.

(Question in italics and emphasis supplied.)

When one thinks on the events of 1975 and 1976—the disastrous “meetings” of February 21 and March 3, 1975, the peremptory decision of the Commission of Cardinals of May 6, 1975, and the Bishop of Lausanne’s irregular suppression of the Society itself—the attitude of the Holy Father is astonishing. Recall the clever technical maneuvers of the Commission of Cardinals and Cardinal Villot, then the Secretary of State, which were anything but clear. Were the meetings between Lefebvre and the Commission mere discussions or a canonical trial? Did the Bishop of Lausanne have the authority of the Holy See to suppress the Society? Did the Holy Father approve the acts of the Commission in forma specifica? If so, when?  Were some of the Commission’s actions, in fact, reviewable by the Apostolic Signatura? Pope Francis, on the other hand, makes his distaste for such lawyerly straining at gnats clear: dialogue is the important thing, not technicalities, and he is willing to make concrete gestures to further this dialogue. He meets with Bishop Fellay at Casa Santa Marta, he concedes the Society faculties for the Jubilee Year, and he makes it clear that the Society is on the path to full communion.

It is, in a sense, the exact reversal of the attitude of the Roman authorities in 1975-1976.

You’ll remember you belong to me

At First Things, George Weigel has decided that what America really needs is a return to authentic Catholic social teaching (he has also decided that the voters have made a colossal mistake, but we could have guessed that):

It’s become a cliché to say that “no candidate and no party fully embraces the vision of Catholic social doctrine.” True enough. But previous election cycles gave Catholic voters a prudential choice between candidates who embodied at least some of the major themes of the social doctrine. What is the thoughtful Catholic voter to do when neither of the presidential candidates is even minimally committed to human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, as the social doctrine understands those concepts? When one party has elevated lifestyle libertinism to the first of constitutional principles (and is prepared to kill unborn children, jettison free speech, and traduce religious freedom in service to hedonism), while the other is prepared to nominate a fantasist who spun grotesque fairy tales about an alleged connection between an opponent’s family and Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before he closed the deal?

(Emphasis supplied.) However, Weigel’s point would be more interesting, we suppose, if we were not pretty sure that by “Catholic social doctrine,” Weigel means, more or less, pre-Trump Republican orthodoxy.

Remember Weigel’s March statement against Trump in National Review (co-written by Robert George and co-signed by all the best Catholic Republicans)? The one where he said:

In recent decades, the Republican party has been a vehicle — imperfect, like all human institutions, but serviceable — for promoting causes at the center of Catholic social concern in the United States: (1) providing legal protection for unborn children, the physically disabled and cognitively handicapped, the frail elderly, and other victims of what Saint John Paul II branded “the culture of death”; (2) defending religious freedom in the face of unprecedented assaults by officials at every level of government who have made themselves the enemies of conscience; (3) rebuilding our marriage culture, based on a sound understanding of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and (4) re-establishing constitutional and limited government, according to the core Catholic social-ethical principle of subsidiarity. There have been frustrations along the way, to be sure; no political party perfectly embodies Catholic social doctrine. But there have also been successes, and at the beginning of the current presidential electoral cycle, it seemed possible that further progress in defending and advancing these noble causes was possible through the instrument of the Republican party.

That possibility is now in grave danger. And so are those causes.

(Emphasis supplied.) We pause, of course, to note that religious freedom and subsidiarity-as-limited-government are perhaps not the most traditional causes at the center of Catholic social concern, not least because, well, religious freedom remains a live controversy and John Paul’s notion of subsidiarity departed in some interesting ways from Leo XIII’s and Pius XI’s. But those are discussions we have had elsewhere. The point is that Weigel plainly identifies Catholic social teaching with policies that are entirely consonant and compatible with mainstream Republican orthodoxy.

Our question (comment?) is this: what if Catholic social teaching is not entirely consonant and compatible with mainstream Republican orthodoxy? What if it’s not even a little compatible? 

Then Weigel (and the other neocon, neo-Cath thought leaders) are in real trouble.

Countering the consensus against St. Joseph the Workman

At Opus Publicum, Gabriel Sanchez has an interesting comment about the feast of St. Joseph the Workman, which begins, in relevant part:

The author’s latest target is the Latin feast of St. Joseph the Worker (San Giuseppe Comunista!), a mid-1950s invention which most traditional Catholics today regard as either imprudent or unnecessary. Those who have been exposed to the Gregorian hymns for this occasion know full well that they fall pretty darn short of “the mark” when it comes to the beauty and richness of the Roman Rite and some of the propers are not exactly inspiring. However, to howl on about the feast being a “modernist invention” is a bridge too far, particularly when one understands that the primary intent and purpose behind the feast was to dislodge May Day as an exclusively secularist (and communistic) holiday. Did it work? Well, of course not, but not because the liturgical texts themselves are riddled with theological error or bumped the feast Ss. Phillip and James (a feast many Catholics have all but forgotten about). Let’s not forget, however, that the feast was introduced during a period of time when the great 19th and 20th century popes took it upon themselves to speak forcefully on matters concerning labor, economics, and society, with stern reminders being issued by the likes of Leo XIII, St. Pius X, and Pius XI on the justice due to laborers. In fact, this teaching is captured nicely in the feast’s introit: “Wisdom rendered to the just the wages of their labors, and conducted them in a wonderful way: and she was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night, allelúja, allelúja.”

(Emphasis supplied and quotation marks reformatted.) And the author Sanchez discusses is not the only author to criticize at great length the feast of St. Joseph the Workman. Fr. John Hunwicke, for example, has had several lengthy posts in the last couple of weeks, mostly directed to the fact that the new feast of St. Joseph the Workman replaced the feast of Ss. Phillip and James. (Or, more precisely, displaced, since Phillip and James were moved to May 11.) And Fr. Hunwicke is not alone in his distaste for St. Joseph the Workman. Part of the low regard in which the feast is held is, we think, a function of the fact that a broader sense is emerging that the liturgical reform that culminated in the Novus Ordo really began in earnest under Pius XII. (Though that attitude fails to take into account that the Breviary was reformed almost constantly from the moment Quod a nobis was signed.) And St. Joseph the Workman is seen as part and parcel of that reform.

But Sanchez makes a point that—we confess—had not occurred to us before; that is, the feast of St. Joseph the Workman fits into the broader context of the great pronouncements of Leo XIII and Pius XI on social-justice issues. And, aside from the twin pillars of Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno, these issues were very much in the Church’s mind in the first half of the twentieth century, the two world wars notwithstanding. The Church’s developing social teaching was very much present in Pius X’s Notre Charge Apostolique, though that encyclical was directed to more concrete circumstances in France. And, of course, Pius XII himself made significant contributions to the Church’s social teaching with his radio address, La solennità della Pentecoste, some of which found its way into his document on migrants, Exsul Familia Nazarethana. All of this is to say that the question of workers and justice for workers was very much a live question for the Church in the first half of the twentieth century. And, certainly, one cannot remove Pius XII from this context. And, therefore, it makes sense, as Sanchez suggests, that Pius XII would introduce a major feast addressing in a liturgical way the issues that he and his immediate predecessor had grappled with.

Now, it is an open question whether the implementation of St. Joseph the Workman was well done. One of the comboxers at Sanchez’s site points out that the readings at Matins are not uniformly hugely edifying. And it is true that one of the three nocturns consists of the acta of Pius XII regarding the implementation of the feast, though the other two nocturns seem more or less okay, especially the readings from Genesis. But, setting that to one side, is the office of St. Joseph the Workman worse in any objective sense than the offices of any of the important saints whose third-class feasts consist of the psalms and antiphons of the day, the usual hymns, chapters, and antiphons from the common, and one reading at Matins unique to the saint (with the bulk of Matins being given over to the occurring readings)? We have a hard time seeing that it is, especially since, when one gets into a long run of confessors-not-bishops as one is apt to do in tempus per annum, the offices blend together. One does not necessarily excuse the other, of course, but let us not, out of condemnatory zeal, act as though St. Joseph the Workman is a blight on an otherwise traditional Breviary. By 1960 the trajectory toward Pope Paul’s Liturgia Horarum, with its horror of repetition and its strong (almost unalterable) presumption in favor of the occurring psalmody, was largely marked out.

With the chummy relations between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X, we are, of course, hopeful that full canonical regularity will be established, ideally in the form of a personal prelature or some other juridical structure that preserves, insofar as possible and desirable, the independence of the SSPX. But one of the issues that will have to be addressed at some point is the question of the liturgical books. Lefebvre’s choice of the 1960/1962 books was not necessarily a deeply ideological decision, as we understand it, and there may well be little reason to cling to them once the SSPX is regularized. Perhaps at that time, with so much in the air, a complete overhaul of the calendar would be in order. The differences between the 1960/1962 calendar and the current calendar are especially acute on this subject: St. Joseph the Workman is not a solemnity in the new calendar (having been drastically downgraded to an optional memorial), and Ss. Phillip and James are no longer celebrated on May 11, but May 3.

Read Sanchez’s whole post. A couple parts we did not quote are well worth thinking about.

 

A problem confronting the builder of bridges

News has broken in the last several days that Fr. Franz Schmidberger, former superior general of the Society of St. Pius X and rector of the Society’s “Herz Jesu” seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany, has written a lengthy memorandum for the consideration of other Society leaders regarding the (increasingly likely) prospect of full regularity in its relations with Rome. (We say “full regularity” for lack of a more euphonious term: it is plain that the Holy Father does not view the SSPX as schismatic, though he acknowledges some canonical irregularity.) Richard Chonak, at New Liturgical Movement, has prepared a translation of Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum. While Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum was originally prepared as a private brief, Chonak’s translation has been approved by Fr. Schmidberger. Rorate Caeli has provided the French original.

There has already been some media coverage of Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum. At the National Catholic Register, a news story notes that Fr. Schmidberger’s memorandum comes in the wake of Archbishop Guido Pozzo’s extraordinary recent interview, in which the secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei suggested in very strong terms that complete acceptance of the various documents of the Second Vatican Council was not a precondition for full union. And, of course, Bishop Fellay recently met privately with the Holy Father in Rome. Plainly, things are happening.

For our part, the collapse of negotiations in 2012 was a bitter event, not least since full union—or full regularity—between Rome and the Society was plainly a project of immense personal significance to Benedict XVI. However, it certainly appears that Pope Francis has picked up where his predecessor left off, and made a commitment this time to take concrete steps to regularize the Society one way or another.

We were particularly struck by a couple of points that Fr. Schmidberger made, which seems especially apt in the wake of Amoris laetitia, and the reactions in some quarters to some responses to that exhortation. First, Fr. Schmidberger emphasizes the distinction between the papacy as a divinely ordained institution and any particular pope:

The Church is infallible in her divine nature, but she is led by human beings who can go astray and also be burdened with failings. An office should be distinguished from the person in it at a given moment. The latter holds office for a certain time and then steps down—either through death or through other circumstances; the office remains. Today Pope Francis is the holder of the papal office with the power of the primacy. At some hour that we do not know, he will step down and another Pope will be elected. As long as he occupies the papal throne, we recognize him as such and pray for him. We are not saying that he is a good Pope. On the contrary, through his liberal ideas and his administration he causes much confusion in the Church. But when Christ established the papacy, He foresaw the whole line of popes throughout Church history, including Pope Francis. And nonetheless He permitted the latter’s ascent to the papal throne. Analogously, the Lord instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar with the Real Presence, although He foresaw many sacrileges over the course of history.

(Emphasis supplied.) Setting to one side the tricky question of the extent to which the Holy Spirit participates in the selection of a particular man as pope at a particular time, Fr. Schmidberger’s second point there (or the second point we emphasized) is something that traditionally minded Catholics should repeat to themselves whenever they are troubled by this or that coming out of Rome. Fr. Schmidberger went on to note:

We have already pointed out the necessary distinction between office and officeholder. No doubt the current Pope has the God-given task of showing everyone plainly what the Council really was and what its ultimate consequences are doing to the Church: confusion, the dictatorship of relativism, setting pastoral concerns above doctrine, friendship with the enemies of God and the opponents of Christianity. But precisely because of this, people here and there are coming to understand the errors of the Council and to infer the cause from the effects. Furthermore, those who relied too much on Benedict XVI personally, instead of putting the papal office first and its holder second, were left out in the rain by the resignation of the Pope emeritus. Let us not make the same mistake again of relying too much on the specific person, instead of on the divine institution! Maybe, too, Pope Francis is precisely the one who, with his unpredictability and improvisation, is capable of taking this step. The mass media may forgive him for this expedient, whereas they would never ever have forgiven Benedict XVI. In his authoritarian, not to mention tyrannical style of governance, he would probably be capable of carrying out such a measure even against opposition.

(Emphasis supplied.) This, too, is a point that ought to be considered very seriously, especially as traditionally minded Catholics seem to be looking to other prelates than the Holy Father for guidance and reassurance.

New developments on the SSPX situation (Updated)

Rorate Caeli reports that the Holy See Press Office has confirmed that the Holy Father received in audience Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior-general of the Society of St. Pius X, at Casa Santa Marta on Friday, April 1.

UPDATE:

The SSPX has released a communique covering the meeting. The SSPX communique reads, in full:

Pope Francis received Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, accompanied by the Society’s Second General Assistant, Fr. Alain-Marc Nely, at Domus Sanctae Marthae, at 5 p.m. on Friday, April 1, 2016.

Bishop Fellay did not have an opportunity to meet Pope Francis since the Holy Father’s election in March 2013, other than exchanging very brief salutations at Domus Sanctae Marthae, on December 13, 2013 (see DICI no. 296 of 5-16-2014). However, some priests of the Society were previously received by the Supreme Pontiff, regarding certain administrative difficulties in the Society’s District of Argentina (see DICI no 314 of 4-24-2015).

Pope Francis had wanted a private and informal meeting, without the formality of an official audience. It lasted 40 minutes and took place under a cordial atmosphere. After the meeting, it was decided that the current exchanges would continue. The canonical status of the Society was not directly addressed, Pope Francis and Bishop Fellay having determined that these exchanges ought to continue without haste.

The next morning, Saturday, April 2nd, Bishop Fellay met with Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, in keeping with the normal relations of the Society with this commission following the 2009-2011 doctrinal discussions and the visits of several prelates in 2015-2016. (See DICI no. 307 of 12-19-2014 and no. 311 of 2-27-2016)

(Emphasis supplied and hyperlinks in original.)

Originally, it had been reported—at least, we thought it had been reported—that the meeting took place on Low Saturday. We noted that there were several important Curial officials who had been received on Low Saturday. The updated reporting seems to be that the Holy Father met with Bishop Fellay on Friday, April 1. The meeting does not show in the official list of audiences for April 1, though.

While the official list of Saturday’s audiences does not show Bishop Fellay, it does show a very busy morning for the Holy Father: Cardinal Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Cardinal Sarah, prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship; and Cardinal Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Religious.