"Apologia Pro Ritu Romano Unico" – A Basic Defense of the One Roman Rite Among Christian Liturgies

[The Liturgist]

They are considered to be within the Latin Rite. Not a separate right. A different 'use'. But if the 1970 liturgy is the unique/sole/only expression of the Latin Rite then the Sarum and Ambrosian and Ordinariate et all are in limbo.

Indeed, it is a form of the Latin Rite, but not of the Roman Rite, which this thread is about. I would argue the Roman Rite is sufficiently distinct from both the Anglican derivative of the Sarum Use, which was a Roman liturgy, and also from the Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites, that it constitutes a separate rite.

However, I have seen no evidence suggesting that these other liturgies are being suppressed as @Reader Antonius suggested.

 

[The Liturgist]

People argue whether pope Francis is a pure Peronist or not. I am not up on the state of that argument. I just know a case can be made that he can better be understood as something else than Peronist.

The FSSP was started from inside the SPPX as a more moderate version that wanted to regularize with Rome. The SPPX is currently semi-regular with Rome, not fully schismatic but not all that regular either. Even pope Francis has given them permission broadly to hear confessions so they are NOT full-blown schismatics. Not like SPPV and the like.

Oh, and from the Ordinariate web site:

Are members of the Ordinariates still Anglicans?
No, if you are a member of the Ordinariate you are no longer a member of the Anglican Communion or one of the continuing Anglican jurisdictions. Instead, you are a Latin Rite Roman Catholic of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, and in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. However, because we maintain our own distinct heritage and traditions, we are Catholics who maintain our distinct Anglican Tradition within the Roman Catholic Church.

Are Ordinariate communities a part of local dioceses?
No, they are part of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, which is its own jurisdiction within the Church. However, Ordinariate communities and clergy are encouraged to have close relationships with the dioceses in which they are located and most Ordinariate priests receive faculties to assist in diocesan parishes.

Is the Ordinariate a separate Rite within the Catholic Church?
No. The Ordinariate exists entirely within the context of the Roman Catholic Church. Its worship, while distinctive, is a form of the Roman Rite. Ordinariate parishes celebrate Mass using Divine Worship: The Missal, a definitive book of liturgical texts promulgated by the Vatican in Advent 2015. This missal uses Prayer Book English — language derived from the classic books of the Anglican liturgical tradition — that is fully Catholic in content and expression.

Thank you for posting this information for the benefit of other members. I myself am familiar with it.

One thing I very much hope is that the ICKSP is not interfered with, as it has not received, to my knowledge, the same assurances as the larger FSSP, and unlike the FSSP it does not have a historical connection with the SSPX and is thus fully canonical.

Part of the problem with the FSSP is that the assurances of Pope Francis lack any mechanism to enforce them, since previously, the rights of the FSSP and later the additional freedoms granted by Pope Benedict XVI, were enforced by the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei.” This has been abolished by Pope Francis, which creates a problem for the FSSP when it comes to its ability to actually assert whatever privileges it has been granted.

What is particularly grim about this is that the SSPX is absolutely committed to the 1962 edition of the liturgy books, which are extremely problematic as they contain the disastrous changes made by Pope Pius XII to the Paschal Triduum. The old Triduum was beginning to see a revival just when Pope Francis without warning unleashed Traditiones Custodes.

 

[chevyontheriver]

If the Second Vatican Council’s specific agenda for liturgical reform had been implemented, the results would have been mostly positive (aside from the unwarranted and baffling decision to suppress Prime).

The mass of 1965 was hastily translated into a bunch of languages but was adequate enough that even archbishop Lefebre had no real issue with it. The mass of 1970 had a new three year calendar that may not have been ready for prime time. It had various Collects that were not so much hastily translated as radically revised. And many priests saw the new liturgy as an opening for all sorts of experimentation.

What could and should be done is to look at the calendar again to see what got forgotten along the way, what calendar days and what texts from the readings. We did get MORE Scripture with the three year calendar but a few things did get lost.

Also the Collects and other old texts need to be retranslated to be more in tune with the old mass. Things have been lost. Theological things.

And while we need to stop the clown masses and the other goofiness we need to recognize the diversity that things like Traditiones custodes threatens.

I would like us to some day try Sacrosanctum concilium as opposed to what we got. We may need a whole new Council to re-approve and update S.C. but we may need a whole new Council for other reasons too.

 

[The Liturgist]

I was at the Ft. Worth Ordinariate on Sunday and they have had phenomenal growth. When they separated from the Episcopalian diocese without their church building they had 65 members. And for several years they hovered around that level while having their site at the Catholic Diocesan Center in Ft. Worth. But they slowly grew and planned out the purchase of a new building. About a year ago they had 330 members in their new building. At present they have 530 a weekend in attendance. They can grow some more before their building is full and I suspect that they will do so. As to how many are Episcopalian refugee Anglo-Papalists I don't know. I suspect you may be right. Some of them sure are. But then Ft. Worth also has a growing FSSP parish and who knows what else.

Well I think there are probably a lot of Episcopalian refugees in the Anglican Ordinariate, as well as Novus Ordo refugees, but I doubt many of the Episcopalian refugees were of the Anglo-Papalist persuasion, which is why I think if the Catholic Church did try to suppress the Anglican liturgical rite in its modified form, in the Book of Divine Worship, it would be a disaster. It would probably result in people leaving for the Continuing Anglican churches and the Western Rite Orthodox vicarates.

Speaking of the Western Rite Orthodox, if anyone is interested I might share St. Andrew’s Service Book, which is what I feel a proper “Ordinary Form” of the Roman Rite should look like.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Indeed, it is a form of the Latin Rite, but not of the Roman Rite, which this thread is about.

The Ordinariate uses the language of their members being Latin Rite Roman Catholics (using both the words 'Latin' and 'Roman' interestingly enough) AND that Ordinariate worship is a form of the Roman Rite. Maybe they say it without full precision but that's exactly what they say according to Ordinariate Questions & Answers

 

[chevyontheriver]

Well I think there are probably a lot of Episcopalian refugees in the Anglican Ordinariate, as well as Novus Ordo refugees, but I doubt many of the Episcopalian refugees were of the Anglo-Papalist persuasion, which is why I think if the Catholic Church did try to suppress the Anglican liturgical rite in its modified form, in the Book of Divine Worship, it would be a disaster. It would probably result in people leaving for the Continuing Anglican churches and the Western Rite Orthodox vicarates.

It would be a smackdown to Lutherans who might want to retain a more familiar amended but still Lutheran liturgy while swimming the Tiber as groups. It would put various ecumenical Orthodox much at less ease about reconciling with the Catholic Church, however far fetched that idea is right now, in that it would show that the Vatican sees it as their way or the highway. True, those are different Rites, but it would be a fungible message. It would be a 'teaching moment' and it would teach them the wrong thing. Or the right thing in the pope Francis papacy. May sanity soon return.

We already have the Coptic Orthodox suspending dialogue with Catholics over F.S. not surprisingly. Want to put it in full reverse? Tell the Ordinariates that they could only use the novus ordo. I think the Orthodox would get that message loud and clear. Archbishop Ireland may have been 100 years ago but reaching out from the grave.

Speaking of the Western Rite Orthodox, if anyone is interested I might share St. Andrew’s Service Book, which is what I feel a proper “Ordinary Form” of the Roman Rite should look like.

I'm curious.

 

[The Liturgist]

The mass of 1965 was hastily translated into a bunch of languages but was adequate enough that even archbishop Lefebre had no real issue with it. The mass of 1970 had a new three year calendar that may not have been ready for prime time. It had various Collects that were not so much hastily translated as radically revised. And many priests saw the new liturgy as an opening for all sorts of experimentation.

What could and should be done is to look at the calendar again to see what got forgotten along the way, what calendar days and what texts from the readings. We did get MORE Scripture with the three year calendar but a few things did get lost.

Also the Collects and other old texts need to be retranslated to be more in tune with the old mass. Things have been lost. Theological things.

And while we need to stop the clown masses and the other goofiness we need to recognize the diversity that things like Traditiones custodes threatens.

I would like us to some day try Sacrosanctum concilium as opposed to what we got. We may need a whole new Council to re-approve and update S.C. but we may need a whole new Council for other reasons too.

Well to that end I would suggest you take a look at the Western Rite St. Andrew’s Service Book, which I wish I had been involved in, but it was compiled many years ago, but as a compiler of liturgical texts, I really wish I had been involved in it, since it is one of those that I come across occasionally that is really good, that I have nothing but admiration for, and no desire to tinker with.

Usually when I come across a liturgical text, particularly outside of the Orthodox Church, with the notable exception of the old Roman Catholic service books, which I love, I tend to think “Well this is nice, but you know, this could be a bit better,” but in the case of St. Andrew’s Service Book, the Antiochian Orthodox Western Rite Vicarate really did a splendid job (there are a handful of Orthodox books of secondary importance, that are not the primary service books, but rather, for example, certain prayer books, and the service books used by New Skete Monastery, that I think could be better, to be clear).

 

[chevyontheriver]

What is particularly grim about this is that the SSPX is absolutely committed to the 1962 edition of the liturgy books, which are extremely problematic as they contain the disastrous changes made by Pope Pius XII to the Paschal Triduum. The old Triduum was beginning to see a revival just when Pope Francis without warning unleashed Traditiones Custodes.

I suspect, I know, the FSSP and the like are not free to use anything other than the 1962 missal. Older missals are forbidden by the Vatican and any changes for a new updated missal would require specific Vatican approval. So while we might be able to come up with better TLM texts the folks doing the TLM can't use them.

That wasn't the goal of pope Benedict, who saw cross-fertilization as a possibility that could improve both novus ordo and TLM. But he's gone and the TLM is kept to the 1962 missal often by their own desire but also and absolutely by Vatican rules. No changes, even for the better. Maybe with a different pope.

 

[The Liturgist]

I suspect, I know, the FSSP and the like are not free to use anything other than the 1962 missal. Older missals are forbidden by the Vatican and any changes for a new updated missal would require specific Vatican approval. So while we might be able to come up with better TLM texts the folks doing the TLM can't use them.

That wasn't the goal of pope Benedict, who saw cross-fertilization as a possibility that could improve both novus ordo and TLM. But he's gone and the TLM is kept to the 1962 missal often by their own desire but also and absolutely by Vatican rules. No changes, even for the better. Maybe with a different pope.

Actually the use of the pre-1955 Paschal Triduum if I recall was happening in FSSP parishes, in addition to Diocesan Latin masses. Also, the damage done by Pope Pius XII if I recall was specific to the Tridentine Use, so it would not have affected Dominican, Carmelite, Carthusian, Norbertine, Lyonaise or Bacarense masses (although I don’t know how those compare to the Paschal triduum, but I believe i have a complete Dominican Rite hand missal around somewhere, so I will look into it).

 

[The Liturgist]

Maybe with a different pope.

I really do believe that at this point, after the disaster of Fiducia Supplicans, Pope Francis ought to follow the example of his august predecessor, which he had hinted he might do earlier if I recall, and pass the torch. The Roman church needs someone like Gerhard Cardinal Muller, Raymond Cardinal Burke, or Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone or Bishop Athanasius Schneider as Pope.

Actually given that Bishop Athanasius is ethnically German, descended from the German population of Kazakhstan who were deported there by Stalin after WWII, some of whom remain (perhaps because some are intermarried with Kazakhs and don’t qualify for German citizenship under the Basic Law…I am obviously not very familiar with the immigration protocols of the Bundesrepublik, with most of my knowledge of German border procedures being confined to an academic interest in shall we say the lack of emigration protocols in the GDR - there is a video from just before the fall of the Berlin Wall on YouTube for British servicemen travelling by road to West Berlin which is pure nightmare fuel. At any rate, I think an ideal solution to the contumacy in the German church would be to retire the German bishops with full pensions under the condition they stay out of church affairs, and make Schneider the Patriarch of the Catholic Church in Germany, and locum tenem for all German dioceses.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Actually the use of the pre-1955 Paschal Triduum if I recall was happening in FSSP parishes, in addition to Diocesan Latin masses. Also, the damage done by Pope Pius XII if I recall was specific to the Tridentine Use, so it would not have affected Dominican, Carmelite, Carthusian, Norbertine, Lyonaise or Bacarense masses (although I don’t know how those compare to the Paschal triduum, but I believe i have a complete Dominican Rite hand missal around somewhere, so I will look into it).

Next time I see the FSSP seminarians I'll nail it down as to what they use for the Triduum. They show up en masse for pro-life events near their seminary in Denton NE. It's quite a sight with so many of them in black.

Of course I think you are right about those other non-Tridentine situations.

For others, the biggest change in the 1962 missal was the addition of St. Joseph to the canon. Older missals often have his name written in by hand. But it's the 1962 version that is in demand at the used bookstores. Much less the earlier ones. Anything later is of almost zero demand and nobody but nobody seems to want the 1965 missals. That is the one Lefebvre was OK with.

 

[The Liturgist]

Next time I see the FSSP seminarians I'll nail it down as to what they use for the Triduum. They show up en masse for pro-life events near their seminary in Denton NE. It's quite a sight with so many of them in black.

Of course I think you are right about those other non-Tridentine situations.

For others, the biggest change in the 1962 missal was the addition of St. Joseph to the canon. Older missals often have his name written in by hand. But it's the 1962 version that is in demand at the used bookstores. Much less the earlier ones. Anything later is of almost zero demand and nobody but nobody seems to want the 1965 missals. That is the one Lefebvre was OK with.

Lefebvre specifically mandated the use of the 1962 edition in the SSPX, where it remains in use. And this features the ruined Triduum with red vestments on Good Friday, elimination of the portions of the Presanctified Mass written by St. Gregory the Great, etc.

 

[jas3]

I think @The Liturgist covered my initial thoughts on the OP (and then some - you really live up to your username). I also noticed that the OP focused mainly on the origins of various parts of the liturgy, without addressing the theological concerns introduced by the new liturgy. These are covered well in the "Ottaviani Intervention," the critical study of the novus ordo by several theologians which was given to Pope Paul VI in advance of its publication: The Ottaviani Intervention

 

[The Liturgist]

I think @The Liturgist covered my initial thoughts on the OP (and then some - you really live up to your username). I also noticed that the OP focused mainly on the origins of various parts of the liturgy, without addressing the theological concerns introduced by the new liturgy. These are covered well in the "Ottaviani Intervention," the critical study of the novus ordo by several theologians which was given to Pope Paul VI in advance of its publication: The Ottaviani Intervention

Thank you very much for your kind words. That being said I did appreciate the OP by @Reader Antonius , because we don’t get to have enough discussions of liturgics.

By the way, insofar as my thoughts on this liturgy did touch on the 1979 BCP, which I believe was harmed by attempts at coordination with the Novus Ordo Missae, but which I think is still better than it, particularly given the rubric which allows its Eucharistic prayers and indeed all of its content to be said in traditional language, and also “Rite III” which is used to enable, among other things, Byzantine Rite Anglicanism, I should probably also have tagged my dear friend @Jipsah in the event he has any opinions on this interesting subject.

Also, if members find this kind of liturgical discussion interesting, I have ideas for some similar threads.

 

[Shane R]

I would argue that what he said does not impact the Anglican Ordinariates as these are regarded as a separate rite

That is incorrect. Bp. Lopes himself wrote a piece shortly after "Divine Worship" was issued stating that the Ordinariate Mass is an expression of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite Mass, much to the chagrin of most of his clergy who thought it was more akin to the Extraordinary Form.

 

[The Liturgist]

That is incorrect. Bp. Lopes himself wrote a piece shortly after "Divine Worship" was issued stating that the Ordinariate Mass is an expression of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite Mass, much to the chagrin of most of his clergy who thought it was more akin to the Extraordinary Form.

Well, that’s distressing.