After the Aftermath As Oriens Went to Press, Reports As of Writing, We Do Not Know When from Rome Indicated That the the New Directive Will Be Published
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Oriens Journal of the Oriens Foundation January-March 2008 Volume 13, Number 1 $4.00 After the aftermath As Oriens went to press, reports As of writing, we do not know when from Rome indicated that the the new directive will be published. Vatican will issue a new document clarifying the terms of Summorum The jugglers This Issue Pontificum in which Pope Benedict A few weeks before Christmas, XVI liberated the traditional Latin a close observer of current Church Page 1 Mass. affairs, and one well informed about Editorial The Vatican Secretary of State, the quality of ecclesiastical manpower, Page 2 Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, told Italian suggested to Oriens that, when it Here and there magazine Famiglia Cristiana that the came to implementing a liturgical By Oriens staff Ecclesia Dei Commission will issue “reform of the reform,” bishops had to instructions to “clarify the criteria for confront the fact that many, perhaps Page 6 Some Catholics just don’t get it the application of the motu proprio.” the majority, of their clergy were By David Kehoe The reason for the new document, “ecclesiologically challenged.” Page 9 Cardinal Bertone said, was “confused This was a kindly way of saying that The Old Mass: news from France reactions” by the bishops to the much of present generation of clergy, for the most part trained in the period Page 10 1965 to 1995, is so compromised by The return of the tonsure, contemporary styles of manhood and wimple and soutane Catholic priesthood, that it lacks the cultural By Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis aptitude for a sympathetic response Page 13 cultural to Pope Benedict XVI and his call for In search of a merciful God teaching and worship to be anchored By Fr Paul Stenhouse MSC literacy in in the whole tradition of the Church. This analysis includes “papal liners” as Page 15 it does “liberals”. Land prices and the moral short supply law It is the “pope’s men” who interest By John Young us here. During the John Paul II motu proprio. Contrary to the claims years, it was easy to be a “papalist”. Page 17 made by critics, Bertone said that In those days one could declaim “That you should sing My the Pope neither rejected Vatican against the culture of death while praise and glory” II, nor planned to replace the new liturgically celebrating the culture of By R. J. Stove Mass with the old. Less diplomatic banality. One could proclaim human than Bertone, Archbishop Malcolm Page 20 Ranjith, secretary of the Congregation rights, and bemoan the marginalised, Book reviews for Divine Worship, charged that while kicking traditional Catholics in By Martin Sheehan and some bishops have imposed arbitrary the pants and banishing them to the Gary Scarrabelotti interpretations on the motu proprio in outlands. One could condescend to Page 24 order to render its terms null and void Catholic pieties while paying reverence The sacred liturgy in their dioceses. to the shaman’s humbug. One could By Fr Duncan Wong FSSP kiss the papal hand and Mr Mahomet’s continued page 3 January-March 2008 1 Oriens News and comment Oriens Volume 13, Number 1 January-March 2008 Here and there Published by the Oriens Foundation Oriens staff report and comment on Catholic GPO Box 2021, Canberra ACT 2601 events. www.oriensjournal.com Editor Gary Scarrabelotti The move by Pope Benedict XVI to free the traditional Executive Editor Latin Mass for a return to Catholic altars has met with both magnanimous and pusillanimous responses. R.J. Stove In recognition of the publication by the Pope of his motu Contributing Editors proprio, Summorum Pontificum, three Australian archbishops Gerard McManus publicly celebrated the traditional Mass during recent months. Stephen McInerney Summorum Pontificum was issued on 7 July 2007 and came into Martin Sheehan force on 14 September 2007, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The first Australian bishop to give major public recognition to the new legislation was Archbishop Denis Hart who celebrated, on Oriens is the journal of the Oriens Foundation. The 28 August 2007, a Solemn Pontifical Mass according to the 1962 Oriens Foundation promotes appreciation for, and missal in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Next was Archbishop understanding of, the traditional Latin liturgy as one of Barry Hickey, who celebrated Mass in the same form in the Chapel the foundations of Western civilisation. Oriens traces in of St Michael the Archangel in Leaderville, Western Australia, history and culture, in language, art and aesthetics, in on 20 October. Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Peter J. Elliott, religious and moral norms, the influence of the classical Western liturgy, and examines its interactions with followed on 28 October by celebrating Solemn Pontifical Mass at private life and public affairs. Sacred Heart Cathedral, Bendigo, at the conclusion of the Christus Rex pilgrimage. I wish to subscribe to Oriens for: Finally, on 3 November 2007, and at the request of the Oriens 1 year $30 Foundation, George Cardinal Pell celebrated Solemn Pontifical 2 years $55 Mass in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney. (At the last-named event a 3 years $80 stunning 2,000 people turned out for the Mass and afterwards the Cardinal joined the Oriens Foundation, and a group of its and I would like to make a donation of $_______ supporters, as guest-of-honour at a luncheon to celebrate the ($20.00 minimum) occasion.) Please send your cheque and this form to: As we look abroad, similar events were taking place in Oriens Foundation Cathedrals here and there, sometimes with the local ordinary fully GPO Box 2021 on board, in other places, such as in Westminister and Southwark Canberra ACT 2601 cathedrals in the UK, without the presence of the local bishop. AUSTRALIA Dutch robust Name Much more robust, and surprisingly so, was the reaction of Address the Dutch bishops. In response to Summorum Pontificum, they published Het Heilig Misoffer, a handsome book containing the text of the motu proprio, its accompanying letter from the Pope to Telephone the Bishops, plus the text of the traditional Missale Romanum (the Email Ordinary) in Latin and Dutch. To top it off, the Bishops indicated continued page 4 2 January-March 2008 Oriens Editorial continued from page 1 book with nearly equal respect. For be sufficiently clarified. Similarly, there will need to insist upon certain things a certain type, combining ornery is no problem to fathom in a university to lay the ground for work that others attachment to some tough Catholic with a jaunty Catholic swagger like after him must do. doctrines with obeisance to the most Ave Maria (Florida) waging an internal • Latin must be a compulsory respectable fads was a cakewalk. But war against the Latin liturgical and seminary subject, and seminarians suddenly it is not so easy to juggle musical tradition. These are symptoms must meet minimum standards of incompatibles. of a well-understood syndrome. When competency in it before ordination First, we have a motu proprio men and women have kept a long- to the diaconate. that rejects discarding the historical established peace with the culture, it • Seminarians must be trained in forms of worship, and calls for the is not realistic to expect that overnight the Church’s liturgical music, new liturgy to be reformed by re- they should become advocates for a and must attain minimum levels establishing contact with the liturgical Catholic world-view and sensibility of competency in the singing of tradition. now foreign to them. Even among the Mass before ordination to the Secondly, we have an encyclical, Spe Benedict XVI’s episcopal supporters, diaconate. Salvi, dated 30 November 2007, that there would be quite a few for whom • The traditional Latin Mass and contains not a single direct reference his liturgical thought as a cardinal, the art of celebrating it must be to the documents of Vatican II. And, thirdly, we find in this same encyclical, contrary to the separation of Church and society often credited to One could declaim against the Vatican II, a rejection of private holiness in favour of one that transforms and challenges the pretended autonomy of culture of death while liturgically things that are doomed to pass away. celebrating the culture of Strange country We have insufficient space to banality. expand on each of these points. Taken together, however, they signal that we have entered the post post- and now his teaching and legislation a compulsory seminary subject conciliar world where the landscape is as pontiff, would pose marked alongside teaching about the new disconcertingly unfamiliar. That is why discomfort. liturgy. Rome is contemplating – and perhaps • Apart from any other church or might have published by the time you A burst of “reform of the reform” chapel in which the traditional read this – “a new document clarifying activity by the bishops, predicated on a the terms of Summorum Pontificum.” Latin Mass might be celebrated in “dialogue” between old and new Masses any diocese, the traditional liturgy When the Church’s leadership envisaged in Summorum Pontificum, is should be celebrated every Sunday group falls short of the required level not, therefore, going to develop easily. in every cathedral backed by the of catholic cultural literacy, a document Even where bishops might be willing, full liturgical and musical resources like Summorum Pontificum will pose their clergy and diocesan liturgical available. some comprehension problems. It is apparatus will mostly prove inapt to completely understandable that the It is only by obliging the bishops the task. Consequently, the liturgical apostolic administrator of the diocese to implement such measures that of Savona-Noli in Italy, for example, reform indicated by Pope Ratzinger the harmonious discourse between should have banned the celebration will have to be the work of future liturgies old and new can ever take of the traditional Latin Mass (see our generations.