The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Tertium datur !
September 20, 2007

In my last column on battleship priests and the brave new world approach, I deliberately set up a conscious dichotomy as though these two positions were the only two positions possible vis-à-vis the Second Vatican Council’s openness to the modern age and the pre-Conciliar approach of opposition to the world… tertium non datur (Latin for “a third way is not given”).

Generally Trads will agree that we’re either for or against the Council’s openness to modernity. This view of things is heavily forced upon us by the Society of St. Pius X. Almost all Trad groups derive their origin from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a Frenchman. Indeed the reason he founded the Society was because two or three seminarians from the French Seminary in Rome came to him perturbed by the influx of Modernism in their priestly training. Lefebvre’s national origin is crucial to your understanding of why we’re supposed to be either for or against Vatican II. Dom Bernard Botte, a Belgian liturgical scholar prior to the Council, has this rather interesting observation to make of the French in general and on their take on the liturgical reforms in particular:

In a more general way, these contacts led me to know the French better. Until then, my experience was limited to a stay of six months spent in Lille as chaplain of the military hospital and, at the same time, curate in Sacred Heart Parish. Since 1948 my visits to France became more frequent, and I was able to observe the French from up close, with friendliness, but also with a certain critical sense. This enables one to understand many things, even in regard to liturgy. The Frenchman is stricken with a political virus. One must be either on the left or on the right. There can be no plain center: there's a center-right and a center-left, and this makes itself felt in the most diverse spheres. I had an argument with a French confrere over a question of textual criticism. I reproached him for using a majority method and received an indignant reply. He protested that he was an enemy of any majority system, that universal suffrage was an absurdity, that he had always been for Marshal (Petain) and not the General (de Gaulle). I answered that, not being French, I worried as little about the Marshal as about the General. Politics also influences judgments on liturgical reform. The more to the right you are, the less you like it. One evening I had a meal with the people of the Action Francaise. There I learned that there's nothing good in these (liturgical) reforms. But when you get close to the center-left, these reforms become inadequate.

I hope my French friends-there are lots of them on both the right and the left-won't be offended by these remarks. France has always extended a warm welcome to people, and I like the French a lot. But it's precisely because I like them that I sometimes allow myself to smile kindly at their foibles.

From Silence to Participation, Dom Bernard Botte O.S.B., Pastoral Press, 1988, pp 65 & 66

Ironically Father Didier Bonneterre (a Frenchman of the SSPX of course) characterizes Botte as a “wolf” in his book on the liturgical reforms thereby beautifully confirming Botte’s assessment of the French.

Last year I read Botte’s book cited above. It was an eye-opening read indeed. Obviously I could not share many of the author’s opinions, but his explanation of the reasons for some of the changes were highly engaging and caused me much thought. One thing that comes through clearly, though, is that Botte is not interested in wholesale change for the sake of change. In many of the 1950s liturgical movement’s gatherings he comes through as a voice of moderation. Thus if Botte comes through as a voice of moderation in his own book, one can readily see again why Bonneterre’s assessment of him as a “wolf” fits the French dualist mode perfectly.

French dualism is indeed my point here; it is precisely this trait that bedevils the entire Trad movement if not the Modern Church as well ! It explains perfectly why we see the following extremes:

Progressives: Vatican II authorizes the complete destruction of the past.
Traditionalists: Vatican II is the complete rupture from the past.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and others see a third way: Vatican II needs to be received in the light of Tradition and in continuity with Tradition.

Progressives will have none of this – Vatican II called for the complete overhaul of the Church. The Council documents read in their context do not endorse this. Take Sacrosanctum concilium on the liturgy, for example. Nowhere do we find the Council authorizing the removal of statuary, the smashing up of ad orientem (facing east) altars, the removal of the Blessed Sacrament etc.. The progressives take the document as though it mandated these deformations of Catholic liturgy and they bank on the fact that the average layperson hasn’t bothered to do their homework.

Traditionalists reject the notion that Vatican II can be received in the light of Tradition. Now this is curious because Pope Benedict in the December 22, 2005 speech to the Curia called for a re-interpretation of the Council documents “in the light of Tradition” and this was exactly the same phrase that Archbishop Lefebvre agreed to in his Protocol that he signed with the then Cardinal Ratzinger in May 1988. Lefebvre and Pope Benedict use the same language, but today’s SSPX bigwigs reject even their founder’s position. It will be recalled in April of 2006 that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais said in an interview that if the Archbishop were alive today that he would reject this position now – poppycock !

The Lefebvrists, and others of their ilk, maintain that teaching like Religious Liberty - which the Council espoused are condemned by Pius IX in Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors (which it is). They maintain that these documents are infallible (or as close to infallibility as possible) and not capable of being reformed. I have demonstrated that not even Pius IX intended this since in an essay written by Bishop Josef Fessler, the Secretary of Vatican I, Fessler maintains that only those parts of those specific documents are infallible which the Pope clearly says are infallible or agree with some previously defined dogma which was defined as to be received by the Church at large as infallible.

As a result of my last column one e-mailer asked me a couple of questions which we can now deal with here:

1) If Vatican II was to help "us" to come to terms with the modern world, especially as it established itself through La Révolution Française de 1789, and everything that was taken away from the Church, then why was there a need to create a new rite of Mass? I believe that the New Rite is valid and accomplishes what the Council of Trent teaches regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I am not contesting this Truth about the New Rite in the least bit.

From the point of view of a Traditionalist nothing needed to be changed. From the middle position some changes could be made but always in harmony with Tradition. I am convinced that the Missal of 1965 was the Missal the Council fathers intended. That was the Missal with the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular and some of the other texts as well. The progressives, it will be recalled, favor the wholesale revamping of everything which was why the New Mass had to come in and the Old Mass had to be exiled.

2) If we especially consider what the Holy Father wrote as Cardinal, that the New Rite was a "banal on the spot production", could we not have simply come to grips with the modern world in the context and framework of the Liturgy as it traditionally has always been?

For those who hold the middle ground, the answer is obviously yes. For the two other extremes the answer is no. The progressives: we need to change everything; the traditionalists: nothing changes it’s set in stone. The traditionalists are completely wrong on this question; they act as though the Missal of St. Pius V was the text used by Our Lord at the Last Supper. I have even read that some people believe that St. Peter composed the Roman Canon ! In fact we have no idea what the early Christian community prayed, the earliest extant texts that have come down to us through time date to the 1^st and 2^nd centuries and they in no way resemble the Traditional Mass of today. The point being this: if historically we can demonstrate the evolution of liturgical texts, how can a Traditionalist arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say 1962 and no further ? It just doesn’t work that way and history shows it. Thus between the “Let’s trash everything” progressive approach and the “Let’s bury our heads in the sand” traditionalist approach” Tertium datur (there is a third way) !

+TF

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