14-15 Tablet 25 Apr 09 Mic 22/4/09 3:37 pm Page 4 ROBERT MICKENS Return to the Tradition More than 30 years ago when Pope Paul VI instructed Catholics Portraits of Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder that they must use the new rite of Mass, it dismayed of the Society of St Pius X, in St Michael traditionalists. But a group of cardinals over many years strove to the Archangel Chapel in Farmingville, New York. Photo: CNS/ ensure that the vernacular would not supplant the old Mass Gregory A. Shemitz n the summer of 1980 the late Pope John scient. “According to the bishops, the spirit confidently, ‘hopes to intervene with the Paul II authorised the then Sacred that has been created in these groups leads Pope to find a solution’,” Zizola wrote. Congregation for the Sacraments and one to think that an eventual concession to In an address in Long Island, New York, Divine Worship to conduct a consulta- use the Tridentine Rite would mark the begin- in November 1983, Archbishop Lefebvre Ition with the heads of all Latin rite dioceses ning … of an attitude of defiance towards all named Cardinal Ratzinger among those he around the world. The Congregation, at that that was established by the Second Vatican considered to be his most sympathetic allies time headed by Australian Cardinal James R. Council.” in the Vatican. The other two were Cardinal Knox, put two principal questions to the bish- The report on the episcopal consultation Silvio Oddi, Prefect of the Congregation for the ops. The first concerned use of the Latin pushed the SSPX even further to the fringes. Clergy, and Cardinal Pietro Palazzini, prefect language in the post-Vatican II revised liturgy. But in July 1982 things took a decisive turn of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The second was on the situation of the when Pope John Paul designated Cardinal “There is a true struggle going on in Rome clergy and lay faithful who were still demand- Joseph Ratzinger, the newly arrived Prefect between the few traditionalist cardinals” – ing celebrations of the Tridentine Rite that of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Lefebvre said in that 1983 address – “Cardinal predated the reform. Faith, to hold the Holy See’s first discussions Oddi, Cardinal Ratzinger [and] Cardinal The results of that survey – to which more in years with Archbishop Lefebvre. Talks had Pallazzini, on the one side, and all the pro- than three-quarters of the 2,317 bishops broken down in 1976 after Pope Paul VI sus- gressive cardinals on the other.” responded – were published in December 1981 pended the archbishop from celebrating The Curia officials he believed to be “mod- in the Congregation’s periodical, Notitiae. the sacraments after he illicitly ordained a ernists” included Cardinals Agostino Casaroli Traditionalists were immediately alarmed group of priests. That same year, Paul VI had [Secretary of State], Eduardo Pironio [Prefect when the consultation indicated that Latin said to the Consistory held in May: “The adop- of the then Congregation of Religious and was “more and more tending to disappear” tion of the new ‘Ordo Missae’ is certainly not Secular Institutes] and Sebastiano Baggio from the Mass, because – as the bishops left to the discretion of priests or the faith- [Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops]; as reported – most Catholics in their dioceses ful: and the Instruction of 14 June 1971 well as “all those who are in the Congregation did not want it. provided for the celebration of the Mass in for Worship”. “The great majority (83.82 per cent) of the the old form, with the authorisation of the The traditionalists evidently had more responses affirm that there does not exist any ordinary, only for elderly or infirm priests, sway with Pope John Paul than the “mod- request for the use of Latin in the liturgy,” the who offer the Divine Sacrifice sine populo ernists” because, less than a year after 22-page report said. And on the question of [without a congregation]. The new “Ordo” Archbishop Lefebvre gave his talk in New York, making greater allowance for use of the old was promulgated in order to take the place the Vatican issued a circular letter entitled rite, less than 1.5 per cent of the bishops said of the older one, after mature deliberation, “Quattuor abhinc annos” (“Four years ago”). that their priests and people were in favour. following the requests of Vatican Council II.” This 1984 document totally rejected the “The rest of the episcopate (equivalent to 98.68 Pope Paul and his most senior advisers views on the Latin Rite that bishops had per cent) considers the problem resolved, in seemed keen to isolate Lefebvre, while the expressed in the 1980 consultations – specif- the sense that the … Tridentine Rite is by now rebel archbishop, in turn, accused the Pope ically their recommendation that Rome outdated,” the report said. It indicated that of heresy and said there was no way he could make no concession for a return to the old many of the bishops were also “decisively reconcile his group to the developments that Mass. Instead, the new circular letter granted opposed to an eventual concession” for use came from Vatican II. an “indult”, under certain conditions, for the of the Old Rite because it would “create more For six years, until the meetings with celebration of the sixteenth-century Mass of problems than it aimed to resolve”. Cardinal Ratzinger, things were at a stalemate. Pius V (1962 edition), which the SSPX was The “problems” that were at the forefront But as early as 1977 Lefebvre believed that already using. The irony was that this docu- of the bishops’ minds were how to deal with the cardinal, then Archbishop of Munich and ment was issued by the newly re-named traditionalist groups inspired by the suspended Freising, could be of help. Just days after the Congregation for Divine Worship and French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder cardinal got his red hat, Italian journalist and Discipline of the Sacraments, at that point of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX). In the light author Giancarlo Zizola interviewed Lefebvre. headed by German Cardinal Augustin Mayer of the Vatican’s recent overtures towards the He recalled that conversation on 8 February OSB. current SSPX leadership, the concluding lines this year in Il Sole 24 Ore. “‘The newly cre- Strangely, the letter began with the admis- of the 1981 report in Notitiae now seem pre- ated Cardinal Ratzinger’, Lefebvre assured me sion that “four years ago” the Congregation’s 14 | THE TABLET | 25 April 2009 14-15 Tablet 25 Apr 09 Mic 22/4/09 3:37 pm Page 5 consultation had taken place and it “appeared scrutiny in 1986 when Pope John Paul set up and new missals were “not to be considered that the problem of priests and faithful hold- an ad hoc commission of nine cardinals to find other than the development of the one from ing to the so-called ‘Tridentine’ rite was ways to “remove the inefficiency” of the 1984 the other, since liturgical norms, not being true almost completely solved”. But in the very next indult. The members of that commission and proper ‘laws’, cannot be abrogated, but line, the text contradicted the findings with included Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger (CDF), are ‘surrogated’ – the earlier into the latter”. these words: “Since, however, the same prob- Augustin Mayer OSB (Worship), Josef Tomko A year after the ad hoc commission of car- lem continues, the Supreme Pontiff … grants (Propaganda Fide), Agostino Casaroli dinals met, Archbishop Lefebvre returned to to diocesan bishops the possibility of using an (Secretary of State), Bernardin Gantin Rome for another meeting with Cardinal indult.” Sources that worked in the Roman (Bishops), Pietro Palazzini (Saints), Antonio Ratzinger. He told the CDF prefect that he Curia at the time told The Tablet that the con- Innocenti (Clergy), Silvio Oddi (emeritus of was intent on ordaining at least one new bishop tradictory wording was not a mistake. Cardinal Clergy) and Alfons Maria Stickler SDB in order to assure episcopal oversight of the Mayer’s congregation was actually opposed to (Vatican Library). SSPX after his death. After fruitless efforts to the indult, but “there were heads of other dissuade him, Lefebvre ordained four bish- Congregations that insisted on it”. Pope John ardinals Tomko, Mayer and ops against Pope John Paul’s orders. The Paul and some of his advisers hoped Lefebvre Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI, Congregation for Bishops issued a decree say- would see the 1984 indult as an overture by of course) are the only members of ing that the SSPX leader and those involved Rome, which accepted his group’s use of the the commission who are still alive. in the illicit ordinations had incurred auto- Old Rite in exchange for its willingness to CThe results of the commission were never offi- matic excommunication (latae sententiae). But accept developments from the Council. But cially published, but Cardinal Stickler told an in its decree ratifying the excommunications, the indult only emboldened Archbishop American audience in 1995 that eight of the the Vatican established the Pontifical Lefebvre – now an international symbol for nine cardinals believed that the Tridentine Commission “Ecclesia Dei”. Some in Rome Catholics opposed to the New Mass and other Mass had never been suppressed. He said the never abandoned the hope that the SSPX might key Vatican II reforms – to increase his Pope was set to announce such a statement return to full communion, a hope that was demands that Rome “return to the ‘Tradition’”.