The Mass at the Shrine
The largest Catholic church in America was filled to standing room only with nearly 4,000 people on Saturday afternoon for the first “old Latin Mass” in the church in 40 years. The Mass was to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the day Pope Benedict XVI was installed as Pope
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from America
Special Initial Note: I will speak at Georgetown University this Wednesday, April 28, 2010. All are invited. For more information, see: https://events.georgetown.edu/events/index.cfm?Action=View&EventID=76242)
Benedict Honored
WASHINGTON, DC, April 25, 2020 — Embattled Pope Benedict XVI, who turned 83 ten days ago on April 16, was honored in the United States on April 24, the 5th anniversary of his election in 2005 at the age of 78, by thousands of American Catholics who attended a Mass commemorating his installation.
(Photo, Mass in the packed Basilica at the moment of the homily. Bishop Slattery is seated to the left at the base of the column, and near him in red is seated Cardinal William Baum. There was standing-room only in the Basilica for this extraordinary Saturday afternoon Mass.)
The Mass was also the first celebration of the “old Latin liturgy” in the nation’s largest Catholic church in 40 years, since the reform of the liturgy by Paul VI in 1970, and the large crowd in attendance is striking evidence that, despite the passage of four decades, there remains a considerable reservoir of devotion to the old form of the Mass among Catholics in America.
Despite some controversy associated with the choice of the celebrant, between 3,000 and 4,000 people filled the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC on Saturday afternoon for this double purpose: (1) to commemorate the installation of Pope Benedict XVI as Pope five years ago, and (2) to celebrate the return, after a 40-year absence, of the “old Mass” to this shrine dedicated to the Mother of God.
The pews in the basilica was completely filled, and there were several hundred people standing in the aisles. One of the basilica ushers told me that “though officially we seat 3,500, actually the capacity is 2,800 to 3,000.” With the number of people standing, he added, it would not be exaggerated to say there were “more than 3,000” present in the basilica.
Paul King, a leading Washington business executive who also heads the Paulus Institute, a group dedicated to the renewal of the traditional liturgy of the Church, was the chief organizer of the Mass. He told me he thought the number of people who were standing, as well as considerable squishing together in the pews, meant that the number present must have approached 4,000.
(Photo, Paul King with his brother after the Mass. For more on King, see: https://www.thepaulusinstitute.org/directors/paul%20king.htm)
In the absence of an official count, it seems fair to say that there were between 3,000 and 4,000 people at the Mass.
The Controversy Before the Mass
The Mass, a High Pontifical Mass sung in Latin and accompanied by an organ and choir, was offered by His Excellency Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But Slattery was not the first choice as celebrant.
“We are pleased and honored to have His Excellency, Edward Slattery, come to Washington to celebrate what will be a historic event and a major step toward the restoration of sacred tradition,” Paulus Institute President King, wrote in a mid-April press release. “The richness of our Catholic tradition will be visible to all the world on Pope Benedict’s fifth anniversary.”
But Slattery was a last-minute replacement for the originally scheduled celebrant, the Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 81 (photo), famous for standing up at the risk of his own life to drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, the greatest Colombian drug lord, whose Medellín cartel once controlled 80% of the cocaine shipped illegally into the United States.
So Castrillon is regarded as a man with courage, who will not back down when faced with a challenge.
But Castrillon became too controversial for this event.
Several weeks ago, a letter he wrote almost 10 years ago concerning a case of priestly pedophilia in France was made public. In his letter, Castrillon praised a French bishop for not telling police about a French priest who had sexually assaulted children.
In mid-April, advocates for sexual abuse victims voiced outrage that Castrillon was planning to come to Washington to celebrate the Mass.
The “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” (SNAP) sent letters to Pope Benedict XVI and to Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl, calling on them to condemn Castrillon’s remarks and to replace him in the Mass.
The Pope did not intervene. He didn’t have to.
Instead, there was a dramatic conference phone call between Paul King and another organizer of the Mass and Castrillon in which the decision was made not to have Castrillon be the celebrant.
“A lot of things have been written about how the decision was taken,” King said. “Some say I asked him not to come, others, that he took the decision not to come. But it was not as clear-cut as that. During a 40-minute-long phone conversation, a deep and profound conversation filled with much sorrow and pain, it became clear what the decision had to be. It was decided that, in order to maintain the solemnity, reverence and beauty of the Mass, we needed to have another celebrant.”
A Homily about Obedience and Suffering
Bishop Slattery (photo) gave a thoughtful, moving homily which focused on how our sufferings in this world can be made meaningful, and so bearable, if we unite them with the sufferings of Christ.
Here is the complete text of the homily:
Solemn Pontifical Mass, Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.
Celebrating the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Benedict XVI to the throne of Peter — ad multos annos!
We have much to discuss — you and I …
… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter.
We must come to understand how it is that suffering can reveal the mercy of God and make manifest among us the consoling presence of Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.
We must speak of this mystery today, first of all because it is one of the great mysteries of revelation, spoken of in the New Testament and attested to by every saint in the Church’s long history, by the martyrs with their blood, by the confessors with their constancy, by the virgins with their purity and by the lay faithful of Christ’s body by their resolute courage under fire.
But we must also speak clearly of this mystery because of the enormous suffering which is all around us and which does so much to determine the culture of our modern age.
From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age.
This enormous suffering which can take on so many varied physical, mental, and emotional forms will reduce us to fear and trembling — if we do not remember that Christ — our Pasch — has been raised from the dead. Our pain and anguish could dehumanize us, for it has the power to close us in upon ourselves such that we would live always in chaos and confusion — if we do not remember that Christ — our hope — has been raised for our sakes. Jesus is our Pasch, our hope and our light.
He makes himself most present in the suffering of his people and this is the mystery of which we must speak today, for when we speak of His saving presence and proclaim His infinite love in the midst of our suffering, when we seek His light and refuse to surrender to the darkness, we receive that light which is the life of men; that light which, as Saint John reminds us in the prologue to his Gospel, can never be overcome by the darkness, no matter how thick, no matter how choking.
Our suffering is thus transformed by His presence. It no longer has the power to alienate or isolate us. Neither can it dehumanize us nor destroy us. Suffering, however long and terrible it may be, has only the power to reveal Christ among us, and He is the mercy and the forgiveness of God.
The mystery then, of which we speak, is the light that shines in the darkness, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals Himself most wondrously to those who suffer so that suffering and death can do nothing more than bring us to the mercy of the Father.
(Photo, Slattery while delivering his homily Saturday)
But the point which we must clarify is that Christ reveals Himself to those who suffer in Christ, to those who humbly accept their pain as a personal sharing in His Passion and who are thus obedient to Christ’s command that we take up our cross and follow Him. Suffering by itself is simply the promise that death will claim these mortal bodies of ours, but suffering in Christ is the promise that we will be raised with Christ, when our mortality will be remade in his immortality and all that in our lives which is broken because it is perishable and finite will be made imperishable and incorrupt.
This is the meaning of Peter’s claim that he is a witness to the sufferings of Christ and thus one who has a share in the glory yet to be revealed. Once?Peter grasped the overwhelming truth of this mystery, his life was changed. The world held nothing for Peter. For him, there was only Christ.
This is, as you know, quite a dramatic shift for the man who three times denied Our Lord, the man to whom Jesus said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Christ’s declaration to Peter that he would be the rock, the impregnable foundation, the mountain of Zion upon which the new Jerusalem would be constructed, follows in Matthew’s Gospel Saint Peter’s dramatic profession of faith, when the Lord asks the Twelve, “Who do people say that I am?” and Peter, impulsive as always, responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Only later — much later — would Peter come to understand the full implication of this first Profession of Faith. Peter would still have to learn that to follow Christ, to truly be His disciple, one must let go of everything which the world considers valuable and necessary, and become powerless. This is the mystery which confounds independent Peter. It is the mystery which still confounds us: to follow Christ, one must surrender everything and become obedient with the obedience of Christ, for no one gains access to the Kingdom of the Father, unless he enter through the humility and the obedience of Jesus.
Peter had no idea that eventually he would find himself fully accepting this obedience, joyfully accepting his share in the Passion and Death of Christ. But Peter loved Our Lord and love was the way by which Peter learned how to obey. “Lord, you know that I love thee,”?Peter affirms three times with tears; and three times Christ commands him to tend to the flock that gathers at the foot of Calvary – and that is where we are now.
Peter knew that Jesus was the true Shepherd, the one Master and the only teacher; the rest of us are learners and the lesson we must learn is obedience, obedience unto death. Nothing less than this, for only when we are willing to be obedient with the very obedience of Christ will we come to recognize Christ’s presence among us.
Obedience is thus the heart of the life of the disciple and the key to suffering in Christ and with Christ. This obedience, is must be said, is quite different from obedience the way it is spoken of and dismissed in the world.
For those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance. Simply juridical and always external, obedience is the bending that breaks, but a breaking which is still less painful than the punishment meted out for disobedience. Thus for those in the world obedience is a punishment which must be avoided; but for Christians, obedience is always personal, because it is centered on Christ. It is a surrender to Jesus Whom we love.
For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.
Let us consider, then, that Christ has given us both the image of his obedience and the action by which we are made obedient.
The image of Christ’s obedience is His Sacred Heart. That Heart, exposed and wounded must give us pause, for man’s heart it generally hidden and secret. In the silence of his own heart, each of us discovers the truth of who we are, the truth of why we are silent when we should speak, or bothersome and quarrelsome when we should be silent. In our hidden recesses of the heart, we come to know the impulses behind our deeds and the reasons why we act so often as cowards and fools.
But while man’s heart is generally silent and secret, the Heart of the God-Man is fully visible and accessible. It too reveals the motives behind our Lord’s self-surrender. It was obedience to the Father’s will that mankind be reconciled and our many sins forgiven us. “Son though he was,” the Apostle reminds us, “Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.” Obedient unto death, death on a cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive us that God might reveal the full depth of his mercy and love. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do.”
Christ’s Sacred Heart is the image of the obedience which Christ showed by his sacrificial love on Calvary. The Sacrifice of Calvary is also for us the means by which we are made obedient and this is a point which you must never forget: at Mass, we offer ourselves to the Father in union with Christ, who offers Himself in perfect obedience to the Father. We make this offering in obedience to Christ who commanded us to “Do this in memory of me” and our obedient offering is perfected in the love with which the Father receives the gift of His Son.
Do not be surprised then that here at Mass, our bloodless offering of the bloody sacrifice of Calvary is a triple act of obedience. First, Christ is obedient to the Father, and offers Himself as a sacrifice of reconciliation. Secondly, we are obedient to Christ and offer ourselves to the Father with Jesus the Son; and thirdly, in sharing Christ’s obedience to the Father, we are made obedient to a new order of reality, in which love is supreme and life reigns eternal, in which suffering and death have been defeated by becoming for us the means by which Christ’s final victory, his future coming, is made manifest and real today.
Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.
Do not be dismayed that there many in the Church have not yet grasped this point, and fewer still in the world will even consider it. You know this to be true and ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.
If then someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came to this Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery and if someone asks what I said of the present situation, tell them only that we must — all of us — become saints.
(Here is an audio version of the homily; simply click on the icon to play the audio: https://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/04/bp-slatterys-sermon-in-washington-dc/)
A Passing Phase?
It is right that the controversy over the celebrant, Cardinal Castrillon vs. Bishop Slattery, did not “up-stage” what was happening at this Mass.
For, in addition to the sacred mystery of the Mass itself (which was the most important thing of all, of course), something else was occurring on April 24 in Washington of considerable importance — of importance for the future of the Church, and so also of importance for the future of the West.
That “something” is this: the interest in this Mass — which was televised nationwide by EWTN (photo) — reveals that, in the West, in the United States, and precisely in Washington DC, the capital of the US, despite a generation or more of “post-Christian” cultural pressure, there remains a desire, a hunger, to be connected with the Christian past, and to hand on to posterity what was handed down over the centuries, often in the face of much suffering.
In short, the celebration of this Mass, after 40 years, and in the midst of an admittedly profound crisis in the Church, suggests that American Catholics, like their counterparts in Europe and around the world, may yet turn to the riches and treasures of their tradition to find a way forward.
And this will not be pure archaism.
It will not reflect a flight from present reality.
Nor will it be a rejection tout court of everything that came with the Second Vatican Council.
Rather, it will be an attempt to pick up the threads of our past, and see if they may still be woven into the fabric of our present, in order to create the tapestry of our future.
It is our future that it looks toward — not just our past.
Having just been in Rome, having been present three weeks ago at the papal liturgies during Holy Week, having talked recently with a number of Vatican officials about liturgical matters, and about the Second Vatican Council and its legacy, for me this liturgy reflected what Pope Benedict is trying ceaselessly to teach: that the Catholic tradition has not been lost, that it remains to be discovered, and lived.
How this will all work out, of course, is yet to be seen.
At least one Vatican official I talked to recently told me he believes the future of the Church’s liturgical life will be a type of fusion between the old Mass and the new Mass of Paul VI.
This is the view of many.
But at least one Vatican official I talked to, also in the past month, told me he believes the future is solely and exclusively in a return to the old rite.
“The old rite is our past, and it will be our future,” he told me. “The new Mass is a passing phase. In 50 years, that will be entirely clear.”
“Lex orandi, lex credendi”
In this context, we must recall the words “lex orandi, lex credendi.”
That is, literally, “the law of praying is the law of believing.”
To put it less literally: the way one prays, the way the Church prays, shapes and determines and establishes what a person, what the Church, believes.
Praying “becomes” believing.
And this is the fundamental reason that liturgy matters.
Some readers may feel the liturgy is a superficial matter, that time spent discussing or arguing or debating about the liturgy is wasted time, time that could be better spent in study, or prayer, or works of mercy and charity.
But the liturgy is not a superficial matter.
It is a fundamental matter.
It is fundamental because it determines and establishes the faith itself: lex orandi, lex credendi.
And this means that, for those who wish to change faith, or alter it, or destroy it, changing the liturgy is the first, essential step.
Likewise, for those who wish to keep the faith, and hand it on, and preserve it, preserving the liturgy is the first and fundamental aim of all their efforts.
Pope Benedict has written: “The Church stands and falls with the Liturgy. When the adoration of the divine Trinity declines, when the faith no longer appears in its fullness in the Liturgy of the Church, when man’s words, his thoughts, his intentions are suffocating him, then faith will have lost the place where it is expressed and where it dwells. For that reason, the true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy is the center of any renewal of the Church whatsoever.”
And so Pope Benedict has been a Pope of liturgical reform, or of liturgical preservation, because he believes that only through the liturgy, through the prayer of the Church, can the Church’s faith, that depositum fidei which was entrusted to him, be protected and handed on to his successor.
Lex orandi, lex credendi. In the Early Church there were about 70 years of liturgical tradition before there was any creed — any formulated statement of what the Church believed — and about 350 years before there was an accepted biblical canon.
The Church’s prayer, her liturgy, provided the basis for establishing the other bases of the faith, the creeds and the canon.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles — whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi.”
Now, this is not to say that the new rite of the Roman Mass, promulgated by Paul VI after the Council, does not draw on very early Christian traditions and prayers.
Nor is it to say that there was no need for some type of liturgical reform in the middle of the last century.
In fact, there can always be a certain need for liturgical reform, especially when social and cultural conditions external to the Church (like, for example, the loss of knowledge of the Latin language), make it necessary to change the form or praying in order to preserve the very essence of that prayer.
And this is what the Council Fathers were calling for in the 1960s when they asked for wider use of the vernacular language in the Latin liturgy — the mystery of the liturgy does not need to be mystification, incomprehensible and impenetrable. (The liturgy can be comprehensible. It can be in English, or in Japanese, or in Swahili…)
And this is why, again, the Council Fathers called for greater “active participation” by the faithful in the liturgical action — because they wished the faithful to be drawn more deeply the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrifice, not to be excluded from it.
And so the liturgy is of central importance to Benedict, and to the Vatican, today.
He and his inner circle see the liturgy as critical to the future of Roman Catholicism. But not only to Roman Catholicism. There is another reason for Benedict’s focus on the liturgy.
The Orthodox Connection
It is well known that the Orthodox, in a profound way, share Benedict’s conviction that the liturgy is fundamental for faith, and so also for practice of the faith.
For example, Eastern Orthodoxy’s Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople quoted the phrase “lex orandi, lex credendi” in Latin on the occasion of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Istanbul in 2006, drawing from the phrase the lesson that, “in liturgy, we are reminded of the need to reach unity in faith as well as in prayer.”
I believe that Pope Benedict’s approval, a few months after that November 2006 visit, on July 7, 2007, of wider use of the old Latin Mass in the Latin rite, was intended to help prepare the reunion of the two great divided branches of Christianity, Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
The path toward this reunion must pass, in some essential way, through the liturgy.
Through a shared liturgy.
The liturgies of the two Churches must express the same faith if the Churches are ever to be once again in unity — something Christ willed for his disciples in his prayer on the final night with them before his crucifixion.
The Homily of Patriarch Bartholomew at the Divine Liturgy in Constantinople attended by Pope Benedict, November 30, 2006
By Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople
With the grace of God, Your Holiness, we have been blessed to enter the joy of the Kingdom, to “see the true light and receive the heavenly Spirit.” Every celebration of the Divine Liturgy is a powerful and inspiring con-celebration of heaven and of history.
Every Divine Liturgy is both an anamnesis [remembrance] of the past and an anticipation of the Kingdom. We are convinced that during this Divine Liturgy, we have once again been transferred spiritually in three directions: toward the kingdom of heaven where the angels celebrate; toward the celebration of the liturgy through the centuries; and toward the heavenly kingdom to come.
This overwhelming continuity with heaven as well as with history means that the Orthodox liturgy is the mystical experience and profound conviction that “Christ is and ever shall be in our midst!”
For in Christ, there is a deep connection between past, present, and future. In this way, the liturgy is more than merely the recollection of Christ’s words and acts. It is the realization of the very presence of Christ Himself, who has promised to be wherever two or three are gathered in His name.
At the same time, we recognize that the rule of prayer is the rule of faith (“lex orandi lex credendi”), that the doctrines of the Person of Christ and of the Holy Trinity have left an indelible mark on the liturgy, which comprises one of the undefined doctrines, “revealed to us in mystery,” of which St. Basil the Great so eloquently spoke.
This is why, in liturgy, we are reminded of the need to reach unity in faith as well as in prayer. Therefore, we kneel in humility and repentance before the living God and our Lord Jesus Christ, whose precious Name we bear and yet at the same time whose seamless garment we have divided. We confess in sorrow that we are not yet able to celebrate the holy sacraments in unity. And we pray that the day may come when this sacramental unity will be realized in its fullness.
And yet, Your Holiness and beloved brother in Christ, this con-celebration of heaven and earth, of history and time, brings us closer to each other today through the blessing of the presence, together with all the saints, of the predecessors of our Modesty, namely St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom. We are honored to venerate the relics of these two spiritual giants after the solemn restoration of their sacred relics in this holy church two years ago when they were graciously returned to us by the venerable Pope John Paul II. Just as, at that time, during our Thronal Feast, we welcomed and placed their saintly relics on the Patriarchal Throne, chanting “Behold your throne!”, so today we gather in their living presence and eternal memory as we celebrate the Liturgy named in honor of St. John Chrysostom.
Thus our worship coincides with the same joyous worship in heaven and throughout history. Indeed, as St. John Chrysostom himself affirms:
“Those in heaven and those on earth form a single festival, a shared thanksgiving, one choir”. Heaven and earth offer one prayer, one feast, one doxology. The Divine Liturgy is at once the heavenly kingdom and our home, “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21.1), the ground and center where all things find their true meaning. The Liturgy teaches us to broaden our horizon and vision, to speak the language of love and communion, but also to learn that we must be with one another in spite of our differences and even divisions. In its spacious embrace, it includes the whole world, the communion of saints, and all of God’s creation. The entire universe becomes “a cosmic liturgy”, to recall the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor. This kind of Liturgy can never grow old or outdated.
The only appropriate response to this showering of divine benefits and compassionate mercy is gratitude (“eucharistia”). Indeed, thanksgiving and glory are the only fitting response of human beings to their Creator. For to Him belong all glory, honor, and worship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
Truly, particular and wholehearted gratitude fills our hearts toward the loving God, for today, on the festive commemoration of the Apostle founder and protector of this Church, the Divine Liturgy is attended by His Holiness our brother and bishop of the elder Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, together with his honorable entourage. Once again, we gratefully greet this presence as a blessing from God, as an expression of brotherly love and honor toward our Church, and as evidence of our common desire to continue—in a spirit of love and faithfulness to the Gospel Truth and the common tradition of our Fathers —the unwavering journey toward the restoration of full communion among our Churches, which constitutes His divine will and command. May it be so.
Text of Summorum Pontificum from 2007
Here is the complete text of the Apostolic Letter “Summorum Pontificum” issued Motu Proprio by Pope Benedict XVI nearly three years ago.
By Pope Benedict XVI
On Saturday, July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter on the celebration of the Roman Rite according to the Missal of 1962. The following text is the unofficial Vatican Information Service translation of the official Latin text.
Up to our own times, it has been the constant concern of supreme pontiffs to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy ritual to the Divine Majesty, ‘to the praise and glory of His name,’ and ‘to the benefit of all His Holy Church.’
Since time immemorial it has been necessary — as it is also for the future — to maintain the principle according to which “each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church’s law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.” (1)
Among the pontiffs who showed that requisite concern, particularly outstanding is the name of St. Gregory the Great, who made every effort to ensure that the new peoples of Europe received both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship and culture that had been accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries. He commanded that the form of the sacred liturgy as celebrated in Rome (concerning both the Sacrifice of Mass and the Divine Office) be conserved. He took great concern to ensure the dissemination of monks and nuns who, following the Rule of St. Benedict, together with the announcement of the Gospel illustrated with their lives the wise provision of their Rule that “nothing should be placed before the work of God.” In this way the sacred liturgy, celebrated according to the Roman use, enriched not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples. It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.
Many other Roman pontiffs, in the course of the centuries, showed particular solicitude in ensuring that the sacred liturgy accomplished this task more effectively. Outstanding among them is St. Pius V who, sustained by great pastoral zeal and following the exhortations of the Council of Trent, renewed the entire liturgy of the Church, oversaw the publication of liturgical books amended and “renewed in accordance with the norms of the Fathers,” and provided them for the use of the Latin Church.
One of the liturgical books of the Roman rite is the Roman Missal, which developed in the city of Rome and, with the passing of the centuries, little by little took forms very similar to that it has had in recent times.
“It was towards this same goal that succeeding Roman Pontiffs directed their energies during the subsequent centuries in order to ensure that the rites and liturgical books were brought up to date and when necessary clarified. From the beginning of this century they undertook a more general reform.” (2) Thus our predecessors Clement VIII, Urban VIII, St. Pius X (3), Benedict XV, Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII all played a part.
In more recent times, Vatican Council II expressed a desire that the respectful reverence due to divine worship should be renewed and adapted to the needs of our time. Moved by this desire our predecessor, the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI, approved, in 1970, reformed and partly renewed liturgical books for the Latin Church. These, translated into the various languages of the world, were willingly accepted by bishops, priests and faithful. John Paul II amended the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus Roman pontiffs have operated to ensure that “this kind of liturgical edifice … should again appear resplendent for its dignity and harmony.” (4)
But in some regions, no small numbers of faithful adhered and continue to adhere with great love and affection to the earlier liturgical forms. These had so deeply marked their culture and their spirit that in 1984 the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, moved by a concern for the pastoral care of these faithful, with the special indult Quattuor abhinc anno, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted permission to use the Roman Missal published by Blessed John XXIII in the year 1962. Later, in the year 1988, John Paul II with the Apostolic Letter given as Motu Proprio, “Ecclesia Dei,” exhorted bishops to make generous use of this power in favor of all the faithful who so desired.
Following the insistent prayers of these faithful, long deliberated upon by our predecessor John Paul II, and after having listened to the views of the Cardinal Fathers of the Consistory of 22 March 2006, having reflected deeply upon all aspects of the question, invoked the Holy Spirit and trusting in the help of God, with these Apostolic Letters we establish the following:
Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the “Lex orandi” (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi,‘ and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s “Lex credendi”(Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite.
It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as an extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The conditions for the use of this Missal as laid down by earlier documents ‘Quattuor abhinc annis‘ and ‘Ecclesia Dei,’ are substituted as follows:
Art. 2. In Masses celebrated without the people, each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962, or the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, and may do so on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum. For such celebrations, with either one Missal or the other, the priest has no need for permission from the Apostolic See or from his Ordinary.
Art. 3. Communities of Institutes of consecrated life and of Societies of apostolic life, of either pontifical or diocesan right, wishing to celebrate Mass in accordance with the edition of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1962, for conventual or “community” celebration in their oratories, may do so. If an individual community or an entire Institute or Society wishes to undertake such celebrations often, habitually or permanently, the decision must be taken by the Superiors Major, in accordance with the law and following their own specific decrees and statues.
Art. 4. Celebrations of Mass as mentioned above in art. 2 may — observing all the norms of law — also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted.
Art. 5. § 1 In parishes, where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, and ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church.
§ 2 Celebration in accordance with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII may take place on working days; while on Sundays and feast days one such celebration may also be held.
§ 3 For faithful and priests who request it, the pastor should also allow celebrations in this extraordinary form for special circumstances such as marriages, funerals or occasional celebrations, e.g. pilgrimages.
§ 4 Priests who use the Missal of Bl. John XXIII must be qualified to do so and not juridically impeded.
§ 5 In churches that are not parish or conventual churches, it is the duty of the Rector of the church to grant the above permission.
Art. 6. In Masses celebrated in the presence of the people in accordance with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII, the readings may be given in the vernacular, using editions recognised by the Apostolic See.
Art. 7. If a group of lay faithful, as mentioned in art. 5:1, has not obtained satisfaction to their requests from the pastor, they should inform the diocesan bishop. The bishop is strongly requested to satisfy their wishes. If he cannot arrange for such celebration to take place, the matter should be referred to the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei“.
Art. 8. A bishop who, desirous of satisfying such requests, but who for various reasons is unable to do so, may refer the problem to the Commission “Ecclesia Dei” to obtain counsel and assistance.
Art. 9. § 1 The pastor, having attentively examined all aspects, may also grant permission to use the earlier ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, if the good of souls would seem to require it.
§ 2 Ordinaries are given the right to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation using the earlier Roman Pontifical, if the good of souls would seem to require it.
§ 3 Clerics ordained “in sacris constitutis” may use the Roman Breviary promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962.
Art. 10. The ordinary of a particular place, if he feels it appropriate, may erect a personal parish in accordance with can. 518 for celebrations following the ancient form of the Roman rite, or appoint a chaplain, while observing all the norms of law.
Art. 11. The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei“, erected by John Paul II in 1988 (5), continues to exercise its function. Said Commission will have the form, duties and norms that the Roman Pontiff wishes to assign it.
Art. 12. This Commission, apart from the powers it enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See, supervising the observance and application of these dispositions.
We order that everything We have established with these Apostolic Letters issued as Motu Proprio be considered as “established and decreed”, and to be observed from 14 September of this year, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, whatever there may be to the contrary.
From Rome, at St. Peter’s, 7 July 2007, third year of Our Pontificate.
Pope Benedict XVI
(1) General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 3rd ed., 2002, no. 397.
(2) John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” 4 December 1988, 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899.
(3) Ibid.
(4) St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Motu propio data, “Abhinc duos annos,” 23 October 1913: AAS 5 (1913), 449-450; cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” no. 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899.
(5) Cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Motu proprio data “Ecclesia Dei,” 2 July 1988, 6: AAS 80 (1988), 1498.
“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” —Blaise Pascal (French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and writer, 1623-1662)Note: We are now beginning to take preliminary requests for our Fall 2010 pilgrimage, which will include a visit to Assisi, Norcia, Rome and the Vatican. If you would like information about this trip, please email us at: [email protected].Special note: Three years ago, we participated in a concert in Rome (on March 29, 2007) in which a Russian choir and orchestra, flying in from Moscow, performed a new version of The Passion According to St. Matthew composed a few months before by the young Russian Orthodox bishop (now Metropolitan and “foreign minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church, Hilarion Alfeyev).That moving concert, in which one or two of the exhausted women singers fainted on stage and had to be carried off, was broadcast live worldwide via a Vatican Television Center feed by EWTN.No DVD or CD was ever made of that concert — until a few days ago. After nearly three years, we have finally produced the DVD and CD of that historic concert, and they aqre now available for sale.I believe the sound of this music, and the sight of the performance, especially duing Holy Week, when we recall Christ’s Passion, will bring tears to your eyes.The DVD and CD of this historic concert are now available on at website at the following link: https://www.insidethevatican.com/products/concerts-dvd-cd. htm Other Gift Ideas:(1) Christmas Oratorio (Russian Concert) on DVD
On December 17, 2007, a leading Russian orchestra performed an exceptional “world premiere” concert of Russian Christmas music at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Now you can order your copy of the concert on DVD, which includes English sub-titles.
The music is a completely new composition by a young Russian Orthodox Archbishop, Hilarion Alfeyev, 43. At the time, he was the Russian Orthodox bishop for all of central Europe, based in Vienna, Austria. He is now a Metropolitan and the head of the External Relations Department of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Makes a wonderful gift. Order one for yourself, one for a loved one and one for a friend… at three copies, the price is less! Click here to order(2) A Talk by Dr. Robert Moynihan on CD“The Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now?”
To understand the motu proprio, one must know the history of the Mass. Dr. Moynihan gives a 2000-year history of the Mass in 60 minutes which is clear and easy to understand. Dr. Moynihan’s explanation covers questions like:
— How does the motu proprio overcome some of the confusion since Vatican II?
— Is this the start of the Benedictine Reform?
— The mind of Pope Benedict: How can the Church restore the sense of the presence of God in the liturgy?(3) To subscribe to the print edition of Inside the Vatican, click hereThe newsflash is free, but there are costs associated with producing it. To support this writing, you may call our toll-free number in the USA, 1-800-789-9494, or click hereThese reports are archived at www.themoynihanreport.com. To go there, click on the image below:Special note: We would be happy to receive feedback from our readers about these newsflashes. This newsflash is currently being sent to 17,100 people around the world. We hope it meets with your approval, and we will be happy to try to improve it according to your suggestions and needs.“Inside the Vatican is a magazine I read cover to cover. I find it balanced and informative. I especially appreciate its coverage of art and architecture. It is not only an important magazine, it is also a beautiful one.” —Prof. Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard University Law School, former United States Ambassador to the Holy See
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