Ad orientem: the single most important reform

Melancholicus shares the view of Phil Lawler that turning the priest around again so that he celebrates Mass facing the direction he ought to be facing is the single most important change that might be made to the lex orandi of the Novus Ordo Missae.

There are a great many changes that Melancholicus would like to see made to his local parish Mass: the banishment of guitars, tambourines and other unsuitable musical instruments; the suppression of all those woefully inappropriate folksy “hymns”; the expulsion of musicians of any stripe from the sanctuary, and their relegation to the choir loft (which is where they should be in the first place); the abandonment of the damnable practice of using ‘girl altar boys’ as servers; the incineration of those shapeless off-white smocks that altar boys servers have been compelled to wear in place of soutane and surplice; an end to the practice of placing BOTH candles on the SAME side of the altar, as well as to reading the introductory rites of the Mass from the all-important chair instead of from the altar; the proscription of the dreadful 1970s ICEL translation of the Mass and its replacement with a language fitting for divine worship, preferably Latin but at the very least a solemn, hieratic English that elevates the minds of its hearers to the splendour of divine things; the suppression of the very banal offertory prayers in the Novus Ordo Missae and their replacement with texts that clearly express the mind of the Church during the offertory; the excision from the Missal of eucharistic prayer II; the scrapping of that silly rubric which instructs the priest to recite the Canon of the Mass in a clear and audible tone for the benefit of a human audience; the suppression of the ‘memorial acclamation’ after the consecration; the replacement of the current practice of having three readings (Old Testament + New Testament + Gospel) with two readings instead (Old Testament OR New Testament + Gospel), on top of which the so-called ‘responsorial psalm’ needs to be deleted from the liturgy as a matter of urgency; the revival of such laudable customs as knocking, bowing and genuflecting where these used to be done; the abolition of communion in the hand, as well as of the wretched extraordinary ministers; the revival of the ancient season of Septuagesima, or pre-Lent (this is topical, since this coming Sunday is in fact Septuagesima Sunday, but the vestments worn at Melancholicus’ local parish Mass will be green instead of violet, which will irritate him no end)...

Did I miss anything?

But out of all these changes, if I had to pick just one, it would be this: turn the priest around, so that he is facing the altar/tabernacle/east/almighty God again, instead of playing to the congregation. In my view, permitting Mass to be celebrated facing the people was the single most damaging liturgical innovation inflicted on the Church after the council. I can see it all the time, wherever the new rite is celebrated. Be he never so zealous for orthodoxy and liturgical correctness, if the celebrant is facing the people he will finish, despite his best intentions, by pitching the Mass to his audience instead of praying to almighty God. Many priests, brainwashed by the liturgical aberrations now fossilized within the new rite, consider the congregation to the be the most important ingredient in the affair, even to the extent of not bothering to celebrate Mass at all if there is no congregation present. Such a mentality could not have arisen if the practice of celebrating ad orientem had been maintained.

Letter from the abbé de Nantes to His Holiness Benedict XVI

From the October edition of the CRC journal:

Most Holy Father,

The pride of the reformers who, in past centuries, always came up against the holy fidelity of the apostolic Magisterium to Christ her Founder, has received today from the supreme Authority full scope to «renovate» our traditional Church and, by means of a conclusive «aggiornamento», to bring her back to the Gospel, to purify her of all in her that bore the trace of age-old imperfection, to correct all that repelled the modern world and contravened its demands. Thus, the glorious pioneers of this reform of the Church plan to present her at last to men in conformity with the Utopia of which they have long dreamt. The modern pioneers have succeeded the alleged Reformers of the sixteenth century, Protestants driven out of the Church on account of their schism and heresy, and thus reduced to attacking her from without. They have succeeded the Modernists who secretly plotted to change the Faith and the institutions of the Church by acting from within, but against a Hierarchy that reproved them – in the encyclical Pascendi (1907), in the Letter on the Sillon (1910), and in the encyclical Humani Generis (1950). Since 11 October 1962 these commissioned Reformers have succeeded. The work of these conciliar Fathers or periti (theologians) consists of reinterpreting the dogmas, revising morality, and modernising rites and discipline, and the Hierarchy itself considers it in its principle and in its most general form of «renewal» as inspired and directed by «the Spirit». The Roman Church, which yesterday was still «one, holy, Catholic and apostolic», is thus «in a state of permanent reform».

In this drift that is carrying her far from her place of origin, in this transfiguration (or disfigurement) of her historical being, in this opening to the world, one fact requires the attention of Your Holiness, that of the division of the Church, in hearts and in minds. The understanding of a concept cannot evolve without its extension varying to the same degree. The «people of God» of the New Reform is no longer exactly the same as the faithful Catholic people of not so long ago. Those who claim to find the rule of their mentality and of their new habits in Man’s Future necessarily separate themselves from those who have forever and fully found it in the Christian Past. Let us leave the indistinct mass of the flock that accepts everything – the old and the new – with blind obedience and blind faith. Their unthinking consent, whether passive or solicited by the authorities of the hour, proves nothing significant. The fact of the division is blatant at the extremes.

... This division is not material or superficial. It is spiritual and formal. There exist among us two religions in a single Church: the unchangeable dogmatic one and the modern pastoral one, that of Catholicism and that of ecumenism, that of the cult of God in Jesus Christ and, in the words of Paul VI, your predecessor, that of the cult of Man in the world. These two religions are not identical; the latter does not emerge from the former by logical development. Moreover, it claims to manifest better than the other one the true and pure Gospel.

... We must acknowledge the fact that there is a rupture in historical Tradition, by the superimposition or substitution of one religious faith for another. No «hermeneutic of continuity» can preclude the fact that there is a dramatic split in Catholic society between the adherents of the ancient allegiance and the devotees of the new.

Modernism cannot be brought into conformity with the deposit of the faith; the New Church is built on the ruins of the Ancient one. This Reform is opposed in general and in detail to Tradition, just as its so-called new “good” and pastoral “perfection” is opposed to the age-old “evil” and ancient “sin” of the Church. Thus, there is salvation only in casting into oblivion, abolishing, retracting all these worldly fashions and fables that will have momentarily overshadowed the divine Mystery of the Holy Church.

Retract the Second Vatican Council? Yes!

... The whole work of the Council was warped. Theologians, a council, even a pope, St. Paul would say “an angel”, no one has the inspiration nor the grace to reform what Jesus Christ himself instituted and to abolish what the Holy Spirit created throughout the centuries. The religious power of the hierarchy ends at the threshold of this sacrilege, which in itself is null and void. Guardians and Doctors of the faith, Pastors entrusted with bringing about the salvation of souls through the grace and the law of Christ, the reigning Pope and bishops alive today are not, according to St. Francis of Sales, the landlords of the Church but its administrators. They have not received, nor will they ever receive the mission to carry out the metamorphosis of her, and the revolutionary formula repeated everywhere of a “new Church for a new world” does not come from God. Christ is the cornerstone of the Church, and no one else. A single Pentecost sufficed; any other one could only come from another Spirit, from an Antichrist.

... One should leave no room for revolution. The wind from so many speeches will soon raise a storm that no one will be able to boast that he can calm. All that remains is to retrace one’s way from this whole programme of reform in order to disavow and abandon it as an unprecedented, impracticable and, what is more, illegitimate endeavour.

One does not reform the Church.

Read it all.

Priests fear sacramental wine could tip them over the driving limit

This is a story which properly belongs to the silly season, yet all the Irish media outlets seem to be taking it up. The version of the story presented on the website of Newstalk 106 (complete with spelling errors) is the most contemptible of all, but this coverage by Patsy McGarry of the Irish Times is not much better, at least from the perspective of Catholic theological acumen:

Priests fear altar wine may tip them over driving limit

Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Concerns have been expressed that priests celebrating more than one Mass in a day could soon find themselves over the legal limit for drink driving.

Enniskillen-based Fr Brian D'Arcy said the issue was already a concern among some priests in the North, which, like the Republic, is actively considering a reduction in the blood alcohol limit for drivers.

"The shortage of priests has resulted in those who are currently ministering having to say multiple Masses, and often drive from church to church to do so, having drunk from the chalice in each church," he said.

"Perhaps it [celebrating a number of Masses] could be enough for you to fail a drink driving test, and while I don't like to use the word wine, as it is the precious blood in the Eucharist, it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream," said Fr D'Arcy.

He pointed out that the use of non-alcoholic wine was not an option, as it was not allowed by the Vatican, even where alcoholic priests were concerned.

Fr D'Arcy said he always felt bad himself when getting into a car after celebrating a number of Masses. "As a pioneer myself I am conscious of the danger now that there is zero tolerance here in Northern Ireland of alcohol for people who are driving, and I assume the zero rule is due soon in the South as well," he said.

"Perhaps a small amount would not show up in blood tests but only medically qualified people can decide that. After doing several Masses I often have to drive off immediately to visit some person who may be very ill in hospital," said Fr D'Arcy.

Both the Republic and the North currently have the same blood alcohol limit for drivers of 80mg/100ml, but a reduction in the limit on both sides of the Border is expected within 18 months.

Fr D'Arcy was responding to a Tuam Herald report which quoted a north Galway priest as saying that, while he often had three ministers of the Eucharist at some Masses, he sometimes had to finish the wine left over in their chalices as well as his own.

This, he felt, could put him over the legal limit for driving.

"I would often have to read an evening Mass in the church as well as another one in a nearby nursing home and then drive to celebrate a neighbourhood Mass, all in one evening," he said.

"If I only took a mouthful of wine from the chalice at all three Masses I feel that this could put me over the legal limit for driving. But if a call comes in that somebody is nearing death, I have no choice but drive to where that person is and give him or her the last rites," he said.

© 2007 The Irish Times

Brian D’Arcy, for all his dissent from the teachings of the Catholic Church, actually presents us here with the authentic Catholic teaching on the eucharist; credit where credit is due.

The use of non-alcoholic wine is not permitted in the celebration of Mass since it would not constitute valid matter, and the sacrament would not therefore be confected.

Melancholicus wonders who this “north Galway priest” is, who apparently engages routinely in the doubtful and definitely-to-be-discouraged practice of offering holy communion to the laity under both kinds. What kind of priest entrusts an ‘extraordinary’ minister with the chalice anyway? But then, in these conciliar times...

If this priest is worried about his blood alcohol level, let him abolish this novel and un-traditional practice in his parish instead of complaining to the press about it.

Melancholicus was vexed most of all by the content of text messages sent to Newstalk 106, which he heard read over the radio while driving to the university. Without exception they displayed a total lack of comprehension of the Catholic doctrine of the eucharist and the Mass. One correspondent stated openly that she did not believe in orthodox eucharistic doctrine even though it is a central tenet of what she called “our faith”, and even seemed to believe that, since the clergy were worried about being intoxicated by the Precious Blood, this implied that the clergy did not believe in it either! Her logic is hardly any stronger than her faith. None of the correspondents seemed to know anything about transubstantiation; all, without exception, referred to the Precious Blood, post-consecration, as “wine”.

But we must not be surprised at such a state of affairs. Such has been the abysmal state of catechetics in Catholic schools since the 1970s, as well as the almost ubiqitous reluctance of the clergy to actually teach the Catholic faith that nobody, not even Catholics, knows what the Catholic faith is any more.