Posted on 11/29/2002 5:00:21 PM PST by Loyalist
An Open Letter to the Church Renouncing my Service on I.C.E.L.
Father Stephen Somerville, STL.
Dear Fellow Catholics in the Roman Rite,
1 – I am a priest who for over ten years collaborated in a work that became a notable harm to the Catholic Faith. I wish now to apologize before God and the Church and to renounce decisively my personal sharing in that damaging project. I am speaking of the official work of translating the new post-Vatican II Latin liturgy into the English language, when I was a member of the Advisory Board of the International Commission on English Liturgy (I.C.E.L.).
2 – I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto, Canada, ordained in 1956. Fascinated by the Liturgy from early youth, I was singled out in 1964 to represent Canada on the newly constituted I.C.E.L. as a member of the Advisory Board. At 33 its youngest member, and awkwardly aware of my shortcomings in liturgiology and related disciplines, I soon felt perplexity before the bold mistranslations confidently proposed and pressed by the everstrengthening radical/progressive element in our group. I felt but could not articulate the wrongness of so many of our committee’s renderings.
3 – Let me illustrate briefly with a few examples. To the frequent greeting by the priest, The Lord be with you, the people traditionally answered, and with your (Thy) spirit: in Latin, Et cum spiritu tuo. But I.C.E.L. rewrote the answer: And also with you. This, besides having an overall trite sound, has added a redundant word, also. Worse, it has suppressed the word spirit which reminds us that we human beings have a spiritual soul. Furthermore, it has stopped the echo of four (inspired) uses of with your spirit in St. Paul’s letters.
4 – In the I confess of the penitential rite, I.C.E.L. eliminated the threefold through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, and substituted one feeble through my own fault. This is another nail in the coffin of the sense of sin.
5 – Before Communion, we pray Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst (you should) enter under my roof. I.C.E.L. changed this to ... not worthy to receive you. We loose the roof metaphor, clear echo of the Gospel (Matth. 8:8), and a vivid, concrete image for a child.
6 – I.C.E.L.’s changes amounted to true devastation especially in the oration prayers of the Mass. The Collect or Opening Prayer for Ordinary Sunday 21 will exemplify the damage. The Latin prayer, strictly translated, runs thus: O God, who make the minds of the faithful to be of one will, grant to your peoples (grace) to love that which you command and to desire that which you promise, so that, amidst worldly variety, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are found.
7 – Here is the I.C.E.L. version, in use since 1973: Father, help us to seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world. In our desire for what you promise, make us one in mind and heart.
8 – Now a few comments: To call God Father is not customary in the Liturgy, except Our Father in the Lord’s prayer. Help us to seek implies that we could do this alone (Pelagian heresy) but would like some aid from God. Jesus teaches, without Me you can do nothing. The Latin prays grant (to us), not just help us. I.C.E.L.’s values suggests that secular buzzword, “values” that are currently popular, or politically correct, or changing from person to person, place to place. Lasting joy in this changing world, is impossible. In our desire presumes we already have the desire, but the Latin humbly prays for this. What you promise omits “what you (God) command”, thus weakening our sense of duty. Make us one in mind (and heart) is a new sentence, and appears as the main petition, yet not in coherence with what went before. The Latin rather teaches that uniting our minds is a constant work of God, to be achieved by our pondering his commandments and promises. Clearly, I.C.E.L. has written a new prayer. Does all this criticism matter? Profoundly! The Liturgy is our law of praying (lex orandi), and it forms our law of believing (lex credendi). If I.C.E.L. has changed our liturgy, it will change our faith. We see signs of this change and loss of faith all around us.
9 – The foregoing instances of weakening the Latin Catholic Liturgy prayers must suffice. There are certainly THOUSANDS OF MISTRANSLATIONS in the accumulated work of I.C.E.L. As the work progressed I became a more and more articulate critic. My term of office on the Advisory Board ended voluntarily about 1973, and I was named Member Emeritus and Consultant. As of this writing I renounce any lingering reality of this status.
10 – The I.C.E.L. labours were far from being all negative. I remember with appreciation the rich brotherly sharing, the growing fund of church knowledge, the Catholic presence in Rome and London and elswhere, the assisting at a day-session of Vatican II Council, the encounters with distinguished Christian personalities, and more besides. I gratefully acknowledge two fellow members of I.C.E.L. who saw then, so much more clearly than I, the right translating way to follow: the late Professor Herbert Finberg, and Fr. James Quinn S.J. of Edinburgh. Not for these positive features and persons do I renounce my I.C.E.L. past, but for the corrosion of Catholic Faith and of reverence to which I.C.E.L.’s work has contributed. And for this corrosion, however slight my personal part in it, I humbly and sincerely apologize to God and to Holy Church.
11 – Having just mentioned in passing the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), I now come to identify my other reason for renouncing my translating work on I.C.E.L. It is an even more serious and delicate matter. In the past year (from mid 2001), I have come to know with respect and admiration many traditional Catholics. These, being persons who have decided to return to pre-Vatican II Catholic Mass and Liturgy, and being distinct from “conservative” Catholics (those trying to retouch and improve the Novus Ordo Mass and Sacraments of post-Vatican II), these Traditionals, I say, have taught me a grave lesson. They brought to me a large number of published books and essays. These demonstrated cumulatively, in both scholarly and popular fashion, that the Second Vatican Council was early commandeered and manipulated and infected by modernist, liberalist, and protestantizing persons and ideas. These writings show further that the new liturgy produced by the Vatican “Concilium” group, under the late Archbishop A. Bugnini, was similarly infected. Especially the New Mass is problematic. It waters down the doctrine that the Eucharist is a true Sacrifice, not just a memorial. It weakens the truth of the Real Presence of Christ’s victim Body and Blood by demoting the Tabernacle to a corner, by reduced signs of reverence around the Consecration, by giving Communion in the hand, often of women, by cheapering the sacred vessels, by having used six Protestant experts (who disbelieve the Real Presence) in the preparation of the new rite, by encouraging the use of sacro-pop music with guitars, instead of Gregorian chant, and by still further novelties.
12 – Such a litany of defects suggests that many modern Masses are sacrilegious, and some could well be invalid. They certainly are less Catholic, and less apt to sustain Catholic Faith.
13 – Who are the authors of these published critiques of the Conciliar Church? Of the many names, let a few be noted as articulate, sober evaluators of the Council: Atila Sinka Guimaeres (In the Murky Waters of Vatican II), Romano Amerio (Iota Unum: A Study of the Changes in the Catholic Church in the 20th Century), Michael Davies (various books and booklets, TAN Books), and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, one the Council Fathers, who worked on the preparatory schemas for discussions, and has written many readable essays on Council and Mass (cf Angelus Press).
14 – Among traditional Catholics, the late Archbishop Lefebvre stands out because he founded the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), a strong society of priests (including six seminaries to date) for the celebration of the traditional Catholic liturgy. Many Catholics who are aware of this may share the opinion that he was excommunicated and that his followers are in schism. There are however solid authorities (including Cardinal Ratzinger, the top theologian in the Vatican) who hold that this is not so. SSPX declares itself fully Roman Catholic, recognizing Pope John Paul II while respectfully maintaining certain serious reservations.
15 – I thank the kindly reader for persevering with me thus far. Let it be clear that it is FOR THE FAITH that I am renouncing my association with I.C.E.L. and the changes in the Liturgy. It is FOR THE FAITH that one must recover Catholic liturgical tradition. It is not a matter of mere nostalgia or recoiling before bad taste.
16 – Dear non-traditional Catholic Reader, do not lightly put aside this letter. It is addressed to you, who must know that only the true Faith can save you, that eternal salvation depends on holy and grace-filled sacraments as preserved under Christ by His faithful Church. Pursue these grave questions with prayer and by serious reading, especially in the publications of the Society of St Pius X.
17 – Peace be with you. May Jesus and Mary grant to us all a Blessed Return and a Faithful Perseverance in our true Catholic home.
Rev Father Stephen F. Somerville, STL.
Q. Isn't it true that the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre did not apply to his followers or individual members? Is your decree, by including Catholics who belong to the St. Pius X Society, going beyond what the Vatican decree does?
A. The sanction of interdict and excommunication that is in the legislation of the Diocese of Lincoln applies to membership on the part of people who are in or of the Diocese of Lincoln in the Society of St. Pius X and/or the St. Michael the Archangel Chapel. Both have been fraudulently advertising themselves in Lincoln as "in full union with Rome," causing confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty on the part of many of the faithful in Lincoln, and giving rise to many serious questions which the legislation was intended to answer.
Bishop Bruskewitz is someone I listen to. My parish priest calls him "medievil" and "out of touch" and so I know the liberals can't stand Bruskewitz which is a huge point in his favor, IMO.
Where does that leave us??? It leaves us exactly where we have been for 2,000 years, before the radicals (some of whom we now see are repentant) decided to pull the rug out from under the Faith.
You mean to tell me you honestly cannot imagine life outside Vatican II? You are so alienated from your 2,000 year faith that without Vatican II you would not feel Roman Catholic? That in itself speaks VOLUMES about the REAL destruction of Vatican II -- the way it has pulled people from the 2,000 year old faith and into a new religion. Amazing!
Of course. I expected you to say no less.
You have turned the ancient faith into a quarrel.
I'm 43. Of course I cannot imagine life outside of Vatican II.
Can you imagine life in Auschwitz?
If John Henry Cardinal Newman thought otherwise [giving you the improbable benefit of whatever doubt there might be], he was wrong too. In any event, no one estabnlished you or Marcel Lefevbre or John Henry Cardinal Newman as judge over this or any other pope. which is the point you must refuse lest you sink back into the personal insignificance that you merit and have difficulty in futuro drawing attention to yourself.
Let's see: ultima ratio on the one hand and JPII on the other: whose is the authority? I'm going with JPII which certainly seems like the safe choice. If God did not want JPII, he would not be there. If He wanted you, you would be there. JPII is pope. You are not. I have no doubt that Cardinal Ratzinger would agree since he serves JP II as head of the Holy Office. Aren't you nervy citing Ratzinger who is, after all, the trusted confidante of the pope you despise by appointment of the pope you despise. Have you no shame? Why are we arguing about this? Just because you want attention, that's why!
If words like "schismatic" and "heretic" have some meaning, then they must apply to someone like Luther. But when you use them to attack every person with whom you disagree, then they lose their meaning.
The point was "Would you use the same old hackneyed accusations to attack Fr. Somerville?" It looks like the answer is "Yes." But when you don't have any other arguments, then I guess you have to keep using the only one that you have.
The Holy Spirit doesn't guide every action of the Church, whether in an ecumenical council or otherwise. The Holy Spirit only protects the doctrine of the Faith from corruption. So far, all the events that have occurred during Vatican II and afterwards were proposed as "prudential judgments." There have been no infallible declarations. The current pope likes to publish "speculations." None of these are binding on the faithful.
The results of these "prudential judgements" have been disastrous, indicating that they were not nearly so "prudent" as their instigators would have us believe. And many people, like Fr. Somerville, after witnessing the devastation caused by these innovations, are going back and investigating the causes of our current situation. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit has abandoned the Church. But it does mean that shepherds with the duty to protect the Faith and guard the faithful have utterly failed at their assigned duties.
First, your denying the schismatic status of SSPX does not, by infinite repetition, make of schismatic insolent dissenters Catholics again instead of the schismatics they clearly are.
If you are citing the sorry likes of Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, who WILL you cite next in the ongoing contortions in which you must engage to defend yourself as delusional rather than schismatic? Validity was not in question. No one doubts, to the best of my knowledge, that the excommunicati are validly consecrated as bishops or ordained as priests nor does anyone doubt that they are capable of confecting the sacrament. A particular aspect of the outrages they have committed is that they are validly consecrated and ordained. What is denied is that they may licitly (lawfully) do ANY of these things. They are, with Lefebvre ecclesiastical and sacramental thieves who have stolen what is not their own and assumed authority not their own. If you call this holiness, you are about as Catholic as Luther, Calvin or Zwingli.
Cassidy, like Kaspar and Lehmann, or Keeler, Mahoney and Rembert Weakland have personal agendas militating in favor of undermining papal authority, don't they? See how easily it may be observed that when you lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas? No offense to noble canine creatures.
That technical legal defenses will be made of Lefebvre is no surprise since his track record previous to open rebellion was to loosen up the standards for annulments (leading to AmChurch annulment mills) as head of the Rota or Vatican marriage court.
Not one person you cite as authority other than, perhaps, the regrettable Cassidy is saying that Lefebvre was not in schism. They merely make somewhat arguable (if the quotes fairly reflect them) statements and highly specific and legally technical statements at that as to the consecration of bishops without assigning them not being in and of itself the ESTABLISHMENT of a schism. As you well know, the situation with Ferrario has a lot more relevant facts than you have cited and, in any event is not a whitewash of SSPX but a vindication of some Hawaii Catholics who were excommunicated by Archbishop Ferrario for contributing to his embarassment over the fact that he had stashed a generally compliant former altar boy in a San Francisco love nest for Ferrario's weekend entertainment. Neither the Vatican nor JPII nor anyone else in authority at Vatican HQ were amused by Ferrario abusing these folks for attending the only Mases where they would not be denied the sacraments. They would not have been excommunicatable for attending Russian Orthodox Masses either. Do you think that proves that Michael Celarius did not lead the east into schism or that the schism of the east is no longer a schism?
As to Father Murray at the Greg, he may or not be a good Canon lawyer but that is all the $64 term Licentiate in Canon Law means. Canon lawyers are a dime a dozen just like the secular kind. Did he use prevail instead of avail or was that a typo?
Soooooooo tiresome!!!!!!!!
De gustibus non disputandem est. But then there would be no reason to draw attention to yourself, right?
Ubi Petrus Ibi Ecclesia.
Well, that says it all, I guess. You cannot imagine the Church as it has been for 2,000 years. You can only imagine the Modernist "Church" constructed in the 1960s. Do you even understand the fundamental pilar of our faith, Sacred Tradition? It seems VatII turns brains to mush.
Well said. It needs repeating again and again. Why is it that the neo-Catholics do not even understand the basic tenets of their Faith, one of which being your above post? Looks like dumbing down the faithful is just another of the fruits of Vatican II. And we also have a bona fide papalotor on this thread as well, a simple pagan heresy.
1. Solid Catholics do not despise papal authority. They submit to it, trusting in the Trinity. Without refusal of the authority of the pope, SSPX would not exist and you know it.
2. I think that my complaint was not as to irreverence in Tridentine Masses at all but as to the interminable slow motion associated with many renditions of the Tridentine Mass that does not need to be 1 1/2 hours looooooong. It can and ought to be said crisply as it was when it was the norm. Exaggerated slow motion is not piety. However, reverence is ALWAYS in order at any Mass. If the making immanent upon the altar of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross is not an occasion for reverence, what could be? I have already agreed with Cardinal Ratzinger (in spite of you) that the Mass ought to be said ad orientem but that the priest facing the people is hardly cause for invalidity, however much it may offend your tastes and preferences. How do you suppose that Cardinal Ratzinger says his own Masses? Do you think he begins by saying: "Hi, I'm Joey and I'll be your presider today"? I do suspect that his Masses are Novus Ordo and said ad populum. He might prefer otherwise as do you as do I but he submits to papal authority and to the norms of the Church. If you think he is saying Protestant Masses, why do you keep quoting him?
3. I am sorry that you have no faith in the promises of Jesus Christ as to the papacy or in the efficacy of the Holy Ghost (as we Traditionalists IN the Church are used to referencing Him). Catholics do not try humility. They live humility in their daily lives and do not substitute their imagined teaching authority for the actual teaching authority of the pontiff. The concerns you attribute to Father Somerville seem not to have occurred to him during the many years of his service on the ongoing liturgical revolutionary junta known as ICEL, but never mind. Let's clean up the conclusion of your #3. What you meant to say is something to the effect that we are forced to choose between the "tradition" represented by your impudent imagination (as though you would know the essentials of the Catholic faith if whacked over the head with a 2 X 4 with those essentials attached) and the pope who has inherited the authority of Peter. I'm still going with the pope. Call me eccentric. Just the kind of boy I am. No one disagrees that there are serious sins and abuses, but if your attitude and the SSPX are the answer, it must have been a silly question.
4. As to your #4, again, I am sorry as to your inability to have faith in the promises of Jesus Christ or the efficacy of the Holy Ghost. I am not about to abandon the Faith over your shortcomings.
Y'all come back now!!!! Y'heah?
Fr. Somerville who is temporarily titillating the SSPX crowd after many years of service deconstructing the rubrics on ICEL OR John Paul II, successor of Peter. I'm still going with JPII!
Why do schismatic and heretic apply to a pope mugger like Luther and not to Lefebvre, SSPX and Company? Is it because the Lefebvrite crew imagine themselves as defenders of the faith? So did Henry VIII and so did Luther, to name just two.
I can be accused of many things but never among them are accusations that I:
1. Cite Cardinal Cassidy as authority;
2. Regard the Roman Catholic Church as some sort of debating society where the fantasies of the rebellious have equal standing with the pronouncements on matters of faith and morals of the popes; or
3. That I lack arguments.
But the fault here is the failure of bishops to adhere to the "wide and generous" application of the indult that was mandated by the Pope. If there is only 1 Latin Mass per Sunday (or even per month) in an entire large diocese, then it will be a solemn high Mass with singing, incense, etc. If there were several Latin Masses, then the faithful would have the option to attend Low Mass which need take no longer than 30 - 40 minutes on Sunday. Pre-Vatican II Low Masses on Sunday that took only 20 minutes were an abuse, but there can be a happy medium between that and 1.5 hours.
Without refusal of the authority of the pope, SSPX would not exist and you know it.
You have told us that you attend the Latin Mass, and even have the privilege of belonging to a Latin Mass parish in Rockford. So please answer this question: "Would there be any option for a Latin Mass today if it were not for Archbishop Lefebvre?"
The public celebration of the Latin Mass was utterly forbidden from 1971 to 1984 (some private Masses were allowed for priests considered too old to learn the New Mass). It was only the conflict with the SSPX that caused the Vatican to issue the indult. Even the 1984 indult was very severely restricted. It was only in 1988, ON THE VERY DAY of the consecration of the SSPX bishops, that the motu proprio "Ecclessia Dei Adflica" was issued, thus allowing general use once again of the Tridentine Rite.
Will you claim that the issuance of Ecclessia Dei on the very day of the SSPX ordinations was merely a coincidence? Would there have been any Latin Mass celebrated during those years if the SSPX had not remained faithful to the Tradition of the Church? Do you not today owe a debt of gratitude to Archbishop Lefebvre for the existence of the Mass you attend?
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