I am confronted with a choice:
The '62 is not a danger for the Faith.
- Archbishop Lefebvre, student of Fr. LeFloch, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Theology, God's chosen instrument to found and lead the numerically most significant organization of Catholic resistance in the Crisis of the Church
-or-
The '62 is a danger for the Faith.
- Sean Johnson
Nothing personal, please understand. You have an excellent grasp of many issues. Your contributions around here are generally magnificent. I often find myself rooting for you from behind the keyboard.
Hello NIFH-
I do not take your critiques personally, so no worries there, and I appreciate you taking the time to say so. I would like to clarify a few points, however, simply in the interest of making sure I am properly understood (rightly or wrongly):
Firstly, let me state that I share your admiration for Archbishop Lefebvre. Like you, it is clear to me that God did in fact use him to "keep the pilot light burning," so to speak. And if I may go even further, considering the enormity of what he accomplished, moreso than any other (i.e., forming a resistance to the deliberate extinction of Tradition), I believe he may posssibly be the greatest Churchman since the days of Athanasius...and possibly ever.
But in the domain of liturgy, I believe he could have made a better choice, and it is clear to me from some of the statements you yourself havee quoted, that his broad ranging perspicacity either did not extend to the liturgical issue (i.e., he appears to have beeen oblivoius to the per-conciliar destruction of the liturgy already in process by the time of Vatican II), or he chose to ignore it for political reasons, and advanced untenable arguments in defense of that political decision (e.g., "the Pian Holy Week was not a preparation for the Novus Ordo;" or "The people on the liturgical commisssion were not the same as those who made the ovus Ordo;" etc.).
The truth of the matter is, one does not need to be a doctor off theology, or philosophy, or even ever have spent a day in a seminary, to assess the significance and gravity of the changes ushered in by Pius XII.
One only needs to be an objective historian.
Was it not Fr. Carlo Braga (Collaborator of Bugnini, and Secretary of Consilium under Paul VI) who acknowledged that the Holy Week "reforms" were "the head of a battering ram which pierced the fortress of our hitherto static liturgy?"
Here is what I am willing to concede:
On most days and/or Sundays of the year, the differences between, say, the 1950 missal and the 1962 missal are imperceptible (which is not to say minor, for example, is adding St. Joseph to the Canon a "minor" change?), and I myself attend the 1962 missal -more by necessity than by preference- which I could not do, were it
in se an objective danger to the faith.
But I do not atend the Pian Novus Ordo of Holy Week, and this brings us to the heart of the matter:
The 1962 Misssal naturally uses the 1956 Novus Ordo of Holy Week.
But prescinding from the argument about whether those changes were great or small (you already know my opinion on that), the 1962
transitional misssal did not occur in a liturgical vaccuum, but was the spearhead of far wider reaching liturgical and related disciplinary "reforms," such as:
1) Overturning liturgical fasting laws (1957);
2) Permitting evening Masses (1953);
3) Eliminating most of the Octaves (1955);
4) Eliminating the proper Last Gospels (1955);
5) Various rubrical changes, such as permitting incense without deacon/subdeacon; bowing to the book instead of bowing the the Crucifix; eliminating the 2nd confiteor; etc, etc;
6) Permitting laymen (i.e., "capable readers") to read certain readings;
7) Permitting the congregation to recite prayers audibly (1958);
8) The priest quietly "duplicating" the Gospel, Epistle, Reproaches, Holy Saturdayprophcies, etc;
9) When Holy Communion should be distributed;
10) Modification of the ancient Canon (1962).
Many more "reforms" could be listed, but the point is this: Everything in that list also applies to the 1962 Missal; it does not stand independent of thm, but is in fact a product of them.
So back to +Lefebvre's use of St. Thomas Aquinas's principle (i.e., only when the faith is in danger): It seems clear to me that any application of that principle will depend upon one's apprehension of that "danger."
And it seems equally obvious to me that, based upon +Lefebvre's comments, he was largely oblivious of the "battering ram" (to use Fr. Braga's description) which had already been destroying and reconstituting the Catholic liturgy (and accessory liturgical praxis) for more than a decade prior to 1962. In truth, one would have to go all the way bacy to the novelty of the dialogue Masss, but that is a digression for another time.
For this reason, I could easily concede Aquinas's principle, and simply acknowledge that +Lefebvre wrongly applied it, for lack of a broader historical view of all that the "reforms" entailed.
Alternately, I could deny that Aquinas's principle even applies to the 1962 Missal, because as some (e.g., Fr. Cekada) have observed, a transitional missal lacks the stability required to bind. All the more so when it is already abrogated ex post facto.
All of this is to say that I am not persuaded, as you are, that the1962 is obligatory, nor that just because +Lefebvre was God's primary instrumet to combat modernism, that we must be wedded to his every decision, nor that one must match or exeeed his clerical credentials and bona fides. One need only be an historian of the liturgical movement, and view the 1962 missal within that context. To +Lefebvre's everlasting glory, he gets the credit for putting the brakes on the revolution. But there's no convincing reason why we can't or shouldn't back the car up a bit.
Topic: Ordination Sermon by +Zendejas (6/23/23) (Read 7004 times)