Rejoice, Traditionalists! Rejoice oh ye seriously Conservative Magisterium Catholics!
A big (indeed, magnum) development has occurred that only a few see as important as it actually is. The new papal ruling on translations, Magunm Principium, will drive the rickety Vatican II Church over the cliff (for reasons detailed below), but most commentators of all stripes are discussing it as yet another twist in the long-running Vat2 soap opera known as the "Liturgy Wars".
- Well, lemme tell yez, if it is just another maneuver, it is the equivalent of Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
Here's the U.S. Magisterium house organ, the National Catholic Register on Francis' Magnum Principium.
For a Sort of mild Progressive-to-Leftist-Magisterium take on it, read John Allen of Crux.
And Fr Z provides excellent comments
on Magnum Principium from his "Long March Through the Institutions" War of Position Traditionalist Front here and here.
But we ought to be giving thanks to God for Pope Francis (as the writer Hilary White has often said) because Jorge Bergoglio, in his Pope Francis avatar, is pushing the Vatican II Church into the arms of its final destiny. Another JPII-type pope would have prolonged the agony we've been suffering since 1963. Not Francis, Argentine bull in the pansy flower shop that he is No way Jorge has put the Vatican II Church on the plank, and has just given it a shove with a cutlass in the back, pirate style.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
"You are what you pray." What's made the Western Church the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church is the Latin language and the common liturgy of St. Gregory the Great (more or less, it having variations within bounds that organically developed through the long ages before radio and TV). In other words, the basic Latin liturgy has lasted for centuries, as did the language, and that produced one Church, a Church full if fantastic saints, doctors, and clergy and laity of all sorts.In the West.
In the East, the chasms of belief and prayer opened early on between those who prayed in Greek and those who prayed in Syriac (Christian Aramaic) and those who prayed in Coptic. Long before the 1054 A.D. split between Rome and Constantinople, the Syrians broke off from the Greeks, and the Copts from both. Obtuse theological questions were in play, of course, but the language differences were fatal.
Thus it was the the actual documents of Vatican II didn't call for the exclusion of Latin, just more use of the vernacular here and there. For to vote for a totally vernacular Church was to vote for extinction. History is filled with important examples. Only a fool or a Progressive who never bothers to ask, "Where will it all lead? What's the end game?" would run off blindly downfield clutching the vernacular ball insanely tight.
Dividing the Latin-Rite Church up into vernaculars could only lead to separate (but equal? Riiigght!) Churches.
What Magnum Principium Does
It's the exact equivalent of the Anglicans tossing out their old Common Prayer Book. That decision split the "You are what you pray" principle. It severed the main connecting link between all the myriad types of Anglican Churches, and the "low", "high", and "broad" laity within each church.Anglicanism has been disintegrating ever since. It's in a death spiral.
The Pope's new fatwa does exactly the same, in slow motion. ("Motu proprio" is the Latin, but "Fatwa" as a certain Semitic charm.) Magnum allows bishops' conferences to decide on translation matters, (i.e., all worship services, etc., in Latin translated being into the local lingo), with only a final review by the formerly powerful Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, headed by Cardinal Sarah.
- But the good Cardinal has long been reduced to a figurehead; now his entire congregation is essentially a rubber stamp. (Were it to be staffed by clerical heroes, Bergoglio would see that it was quickly un-staffed of those types and restaffed by his sort of "Si, si!" yes-men. (Actually, it was El Bergo who appointed Cardinal Sarah to the Congregation in late 2014.)
- This is a change from formerly, when JPII and especially B16 worked to make the decisions centered under the watchful eye of a Vat2 conservative in the Vatican hierarchy. These popes did so precisely because the liturgical chaos of the 1960s and the dull, tawdry, oh-so-mundane Novus Ordu Mass was ripping the guts out of Catholicism. Had Albino Luciani lasted very long in the papacy, there might not be a Catholic Church today (oh, there's always a remnant, of course; we'd all probably be in the SSPX today).
- Now, that Congregation of Cardinal Sarah's can approve of a new translation, or not; if not, however, can they issues detailed suggestions as they did before? We'll find out.
The Misuse of Synods and Those Awful National Bishop Conferences.
- It's death to the Vatican II Church because lex orandi, lex credendi. Always.
- In ten years the various national churches in the West, (the Germans, the French, the English, and so on) will have quite different liturgies. In this, they'll mirror what's happened to the Anglicans.
- (As for myself, I used to think this would take a century to fully mature, these separate "national" churches, or at least a half century; but I think so no longer)
- For the Historical Church, the Catholic Church in the West and the various Orthodox in the East, not to mention the Copts in the South, how one prays is what one is, lex orandi, lex credendi: we're defined by our prayers, especially the most important prayer, the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, which ontologically makes Our Lord Christ literally present. "Cult" makes Culture. A culture founded on the cult of Ba'al is going to be quite different from one founded on the worship of YHWH, obviously enough. (Oh, wait, in the U.S. some 45 million babies have been aborted since about ten years after Vat2 ended. So maybe old Ba'al is still worshiped after all?)
- This fact about worship highlights the problem with the "Spirit of Vatican II worship: it was established in the "Me" decade, and worship of self is quite evident in how the Novus Ordu Mass "works". Think about it. None of the following, for example, were mandated by the actual Vatican II documents: a total replacement of the Latin for the vernacular; priest facing the people, not God or His altar; everyone speaking in rote, lamely worded prayers, all orchestrated, managed, and directed by their orchestra conductor, the "presider"; the goofy handshake, the smarmy songs, in the insipid "You're OK, I'm OK" homilies; even the soft, pastel colors and removal of the altar rail and receiving the Most Precious Body and Blood of God Himself in the hand, given by some "extraordinary minister! – in fact, it is much like taking (or giving) a tip. About as sacred as passing out gum.
Bottom Line
Fact is, the various language-family churches currently making up the One, Holy Catholic Apostolic Church have had a growing number of differences since Vatican II, all implemented primarily by the Mass being in the many vernaculars in the first place.- And that is Protestant, the very essence of Protestantism.
- For the first thing the 16th century Protestant revolutionaries did was to translate the Mass into the local vernacular and turn the priest around to face the people
- The next thing was to abolish the Mass and the priesthood, and have ministers of various sorts.
- “We must strip from our
Catholic prayers and our Catholic liturgies everything which can be the shadow
of a stumbling block for our separated brethern, that is, Protestants."
L’Osseratore Romano, 19 March 1965, quoted in Michael Davies
Already the "Roman Catholic" Church is fragmenting! The Germans basically were threatening B16 with going into Schism "back in the day". Were somehow an actual Trad Catholic to become pope tomorrow, the Germans would go into Schism the day after.
And each N.O. parish will be "celebrating liturgy" even more differently than now. Traveling Catholics have a good bit of homework to do to find a parish that worships in a way they're used to.
- But of course it is important to point out that many N.O. parishes might go the other way, offer more TLMs just to bring some sanity to their worship...
- Many might turn the priest around to face God and His Altar (at last! It only took 60 years to figure that one)
- But most of all, the Trad Catholics, clinging to and worshiping the TLM, will be the ONLY Catholics left in 50 years. As I noted at OnePeterFive, the rest will be grunge rock bands.
P.S. One Commentator Got It Right
I'm sure more than one did, but the one I read was commenting on a Fr. Z column. "Austen" wrote
Austin says:
Putting the vitally important liturgical questions aside
for a minute, the decentralisation that Father notes is a clear and present
danger.
I am a former Anglican. Having no central authority, our
communion was ripped apart by rogue provinces (led by the Americans) which
unilaterally changed liturgical norms, then discipline, and then doctrine. The
weight of having one rich and powerful progressive province distorted the whole
communion and pulled it in a revisionist direction until the tension grew too
great and the communion was ripped apart.
It is clear that the Germans wish to resume their role,
assumed at the Council, of being the Church’s progressive pressure bloc. If
they persist, other like-minded conferences, in Latin America particularly,
will join them. The US church will be horribly divided. There may be
international schism.
Pope Francis is on record as saying that he may go down
in history as the one who divided the church. Given his admiration for Luther,
and the force of his policies, it appears that this is an ambition rather than
an unfortunate corollary of his pontificate.
We are seeing an unprecedented crisis in the life of the
Church. When the guarantor of orthodoxy and unity becomes an agent of dubious
opinion and division, the whole edifice of the Church Militant is put at risk.
Spot on, Austen! He has a great understanding of what's happening to Anglicanism, and that's been beautifully written up by Fr. Ed Tomlinson. (Highly recommended.) What's happening to the Catholic Church now has already devastated the Anglican Communion, as detailed here. Some points to consider:
- Synodal government – or for Catholics, these "National Bishop Conferences" – are deadly to the Church. Church councils have met since the First Jerusalem Council, as detailed in the Acts of the Apostle. But such councils rarely meet, and they meet to decide some specific issue. Or they should. You can't govern by them. The U.S. has one president and other countries have a P.M. The chief executive. Yes, Countries had congresses and parliaments, but the general governing is done by one person, a person whom is held responsible for what happens, like the captain of a ship (same principle there, too).
- Bishops govern their local churches and the pope governs the bishops. Groups of bishops hiding behind a bureaucracy (i.e., national bishop conferences) are just a way to "pass the buck". For example, Paul VI called a council to ratify the new Mass, but they rejected it (that is, while a sizeable chunk of them voted to OK it, a majority voted against it, although they were divided into two groups: one wanting to reject it out right and one will to accept it only if changes were made. (They weren't.) Paul6 ignored it all (well, except to burst into tears, but he was always doing that).
- Fr. Ed Tomlinson writes (my emphasis), "synodical governance ... led to a radical politicisation of the Church of England. With everything suddenly up for grabs, by virtue of majority vote, the factions no longer pulled together in unity but began to plot and lobby against each other. General Synod became a battleground on which theological opponents could be put to the sword. And it didn’t take long for the liberal lobby, strengthened by trends in society and over-represented on the bench of bishops, to realise synod worked in their favour."
- Synods or Bishop Conferences are mere power blocks where, behind the scenes, battles rage.
- We can see from the two "Synods on the Family" how Bergoglio and his associates, the "powers that be", cynically used the assembled bishops to press his own agenda.
- Conclusion: they should be reject...
- ...And to the extent they're not rejected, the Church will just succumb more and more to the "politics" of it all.
Just remember: God is in charge, and doing "His thing" in His own way and in His own good time.
Amen to that!
An Préachán
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