Opening shot for book on worship not soon to be a major motion picture, possible titles for said book, liturgical movement gone astray, the two Pope Piuses . . .
. . . book of long gestation but not yet born and not yet dead.
I write in the role of a crabby old objector to the new mass, dying to issue a cry from the heart, an extended complaint at the plundering of liturgy as he knew it, which he has considered akin to Henry VIII’s rape of the monasteries — Shakespeare’s “bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” A despoliation, he feared — and still does.
This is that man, dear reader, pondering what to call his book. Possibilities abound, leading he hopes to a whetting of reader’s appetite, in any case a hint of what’s to come.
Those Old Novus Ordo Blues: How Vatican Council II was betrayed by liturgical enthusiasts in the late 1960s and since then within the bosom of the holy Roman Catholic church. Catchy, to be kept in mind.
My Novus Ordo Blues: Extremely Old Catholic Looks Back. No. Age factor will be obvious enough. An antediluvian with a position to announce will soon enough reveal himself. In any event, it’s nothing to brag about. So he lived a long time? What acts of slimy cowardice did he have to perform to dodge bullets figuratively speaking to get this far?
Novus Ordo Reconsidered: A Meditation. Serviceable, one supposes. Gives writer a lot of room, sets him above criticism because who’s going to blame the deep thinker, him with the furrowed brow? Pity, maybe . . .
Novus Ordo: The mass since Vatican II and how it tore the heart out of religious devotion. Now you’re talkin’. Something to chew on, anticipating the argument, albeit flamboyant, with something of the carnival-barker about it.
Novus Ordo: The mass since Vatican II and how it offers the church opportunity for respect for conscience. Egad, a loser of the first order. Good for a footnote. Wait. It’s a roundabout possibility readers maybe will wonder what the heck that’s about. So save it, maybe for a chapter title.
Book to be written in small chunks. Watch it in progress.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
We’ll see about that.
In the beginning was “the movement.” What went wrong?
Dom Prosper Guéranger and Pope (St.) Pius X were at the origin of the Liturgical Movement in the early 1900s, working towards “renewal of fervor for the liturgy” among clergy and faithful.
Promoters of the New Order (Novus Ordo) of the Mass say that’s where the new Mass got its start. Not so, wrote Fr. Didier Bonneterre in his 1980 book, The Liturgical Movement: Gueranger to Beauduin to Bugnini, Roots, Radicals Results.
The fact is, says Bonneterre in a detailed, fascinating, aggressively partisan argument, the liturgical movement was diverted from its course. It was his business to tell how that happened, discover who set reform off on the wrong track, what was its early deviation, what the main error, who “hijacked” the movement so as to “propagandize” for the change-oriented Vatican Council II and a New Mass.
Bonneterre identified major protagonists who would be “hounding” Popes of the decades to come, naming names to conjure with in liturgical history, heroes, even icons, of the religious left (progressive, liberal) -- unfamiliar to the pew-sitter but well-known to scholars and enthusiasts.
Thanks to them and their followers, says Bonneterre, the New Mass was conceived — “the poisoned fruit of the perversions” of the Liturgical Movement. How did it happen? His book, he wrote, “helps us to know what to reject and what we must carefully conserve.”
This is a tale of several popes. The first modern-day papal liturgical reformer, Pius X (1903-1914), is claimed by later reformers as one of their own. Not so, says Bonneterre. His ideas and theirs were worlds apart. Or drifted that way. Indeed, this Pius was more in the mold of Pius V (1566-1572), who presided over a council, of Trent, or in Latin Tridentum (1545-1563), and followed through on its edicts and findings with the mass called Tridentine.
This 5th Pius’ successor-reformer of four centuries later, Paul VI, followed through on a council he also had not convened — but was unlike him in endorsing a new mass, with radically new script and stage directions.
The two masses endure, the first as barely tolerated (by never-Tridentiners among higher clergy and the incumbent pope himself) or lovingly cherished (by traditionalists) — whereby hangs a dramatic tale.
The latter constitute a hard core (corps, you might say) of worshipers and increasing numbers of the religiously curious, a curiously growing bunch.
As for the the new mass, it has been offered to the faithful for most of its life on a take- it-or-leave basis. Its traditional opposite was illegal at first, with an endearing exception, and later restored in stages by two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It remains a minority experience, however thriving, to the alarm and apparent resentment of the incumbent since 2013, Francis, who has taken his own steps to rub it out.
Of all this there is more to come.