Posted on 06/20/2008 1:01:00 PM PDT by NYer
The prolific author writes in the pages of Newsweek (to which he is a regular contributor) of how he thinks Pope Benedict XVI is working to implement the "reform of the reform":
Is Pope Benedict XVI determined to restore the Latin mass that many Roman Catholics thought had been consigned to the dustbin of history? The answer, in short, is both yes and no. But neither the "yes" nor the "no" quite fits the conventional speculations in several recent media reports following off-the-cuff remarks to a small Catholic association in Great Britain by a Vatican official. In unraveling this, it helps to begin at the beginning.
As he reminds us in his memoir, "Salt of the Earth," the young Joseph Ratzinger was deeply influenced, both spiritually and intellectually, by the mid-20th-century movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church's public worship--a movement that helped pave the way for the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Father Ratzinger was a peritus, a theological expert, at the council, and like many others, he welcomed the council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: here was a ratification of the liturgical reform movement he had long supported and a blueprint for further organic development of the celebration of mass. In the immediate aftermath of Vatican II, however, Ratzinger became convinced that organic development had been jettisoned for revolution, the liturgical Jacobins being a cadre of academics determined to impose their view of a populist liturgy on the entire Catholic Church.
In the decades between Vatican II and his election as Benedict XVI, Ratzinger became a leader in what became known as "the reform of the reform": a loosely knit international network of laity, bishops, priests and scholars, committed to returning the process of liturgical development in the Catholic Church to what they understood to be the authentic blueprint of Vatican II. Seeing a Gregorian chant CD from an obscure Spanish monastery rise to the top of the pop charts in the 1990s, they wondered why much of the church had abandoned one of Catholicism's classic musical forms. Finding congregations that seemed more interested in self-affirmation than worship, and priests given to making their personalities the center of the liturgical action, they asked whether the rush to create a kind of sacred circle in which the priest faces the people over the eucharistic "table" might have something to do with the problem.
And they reminded the entire church that Vatican II had not mandated many of the things most Catholics thought it had decreed: for example, the elimination of Latin (and chant) from the liturgy and the free-standing altar behind which the priest faced the congregation.
Do read the entire piece, as the most interesting stuff follows the excerpt above. Sure to stimulate some interesting discussion, I'm guessing.
Along these very same lines: Reform or Return? An Interview with Rev. Thomas M. Kocik, author of The Reform of the Reform? | Carl E. Olson | July 14, 2007
Geoge Weigel, Catholic theologian and one of America's leading public intellectuals - EWTN Live 8pm
Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur....
Deo gratias!
CORPUS DOMINAE NOSTRI JESU CHRISTI CUSTODIAT ANIMAM TUAM IN VITAM AETERNUM.
Hec Acedum Zambonis!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMen!!!!
BTTT!
Did he coin the term “liturgical-industrial complex” (used to describe the professional liturgist lobby) hinmself?
(Q: What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? A: You can negotiate with a terrorist.)
>>”Will this Benedictine reform-of-the-reform mean that every Catholic parish will soon have at least one Sunday celebration of mass in Latin, using the Missal of John XXIII? It seems unlikely, not least because very few priests today are competent Latinists.”<<
I think much of the Church is still laboring under the faulty premise that a priest has to be a fully accomplished Latinist to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Missal. A priest need not be an expert in Latin, he just has to know what he is saying.
We celebrate as saints some priests who were actually quite inept with Latin and had to struggle. One famous example is SAINT JOHN VIANNEY, patron saint of diocesan priests.
I heard a story that he was so poor at Latin that his instructor had him memorize a prayer in Latin to the Virgin Mary and to say it every day so that she would help him finally pass Latin. When the final exam came, his instructor asked him to recite the prayer, and he passed.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the popular misconception that a priest has to be an expert in Latin to celebrate the Mass would exclude SAINT JOHN VIANNEY from celebrating it. Sounds a bit ridiculous to me.
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