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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
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What is Pope Benedict
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There has been a lot of talk of Pope Benedict XVI “bringing back the old Latin Mass” in recent months, and yet not that much seems to have changed in most Catholic Churches. What, in fact, is going on with the Pope and Catholic liturgy today?
Firstly, we need to understand that for Pope Benedict, the liturgy – the manner in which we celebrate our redemption in Christ and receive the gifts that His redemption brings us – is absolutely fundamental to the life of the Church: he wrote as Cardinal Ratzinger that “the true celebration of the liturgy is the centre of any renewal of the Church whatever.” Of course, this is not merely his private opinion; it derives from the teaching of the Catholic Church that the liturgy occupies a privileged place in Christian Tradition. Therefore, how the liturgy is celebrated is important because it has a particular role in both manifesting and educating – literally “leading us into” – the very mysteries of our faith.
Secondly, we need to understand that the changes in the liturgy of the Catholic Church over the past five decades have been somewhat controversial. The editing of prayers, the re-ordering of Churches, the radical change of styles of language, music and demeanour, have not been universally welcomed and, more importantly, were not necessarily in accordance with the mind of the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote extensively on this before he became Pope, perhaps most famously in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000). Elsewhere he stated rather bluntly that, after the Second Vatican Council “in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of organic development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it – as in a manufacturing process – with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.” Both he and others are profoundly concerned that this product may be shaped by shallow fashions and ideologies that do not sufficiently accord with the riches of Catholic liturgical tradition, resulting in a modern liturgy that is somewhat “lite”.
So it will come as no surprise, putting these two factors together, that Pope Benedict sees the liturgy as an important area of concern for the Church today. As Pope he has called for an improvement in the quality of the modern liturgy at every level, from gestures, furnishings, vestments and music, stating that everything in the liturgy “should be marked by beauty,” for goodness, truth and beauty belong together in that interior worship of Almighty God in spirit and truth to which we are all called.
This explains why papal Masses and other ceremonies have seen a marked improvement in décor and music recently: Pope Benedict is leading by example and trusting that others will follow, not because of yet another official liturgical directive, but simply because of his quiet yet clear witness. One of his most marked reforms is to return the cross to the centre of the altar-table so that it is now the cross of Christ and not his minister (the priest) who is the focus of the liturgical assembly. Cardinal Ratzinger put this succinctly when he wrote “Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord.” And that is why on occasions, for the Eucharistic liturgy, Pope Benedict himself faces East and not the people – so that all are united in one act of “turning toward the Lord”.
The Pope’s concerns also explain his rehabilitation of the older forms of the liturgy as celebrated before the reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. In decreeing that the more ancient rites are henceforth freely to be available to those who want them he wrote, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behoves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”
We need to be clear: Pope Benedict is not reversing the modern liturgical developments or requiring that anyone use the older forms of the Mass and Sacraments. No, he is imposing nothing. Rather, he is insisting that the usus antiquior, the more ancient liturgical uses, still has something to offer the Church of today and of tomorrow – which is seen by the increasing number of young people and families who regularly worship according to it – and that there is absolutely nothing wrong or disloyal or un-Catholic in using it.
There is, of course, another aspect to this decision, namely that of seeking to reconcile those within the Catholic Church who have felt profoundly disenfranchised by the imposition of modern forms of worship, and this is important. Unity in faith and communion is essential for Catholics, but not liturgical uniformity – as the rich Catholic tradition of Eastern and Western liturgical forms that have developed over the ages demonstrates. Whatever form is used, what is fundamental to Catholic worship is that it is the worship of Almighty God, not ourselves, for as Cardinal Ratzinger wrote, “the Liturgy is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our age.”
Dr Alcuin Reid is a London-based liturgical scholar and is author of The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2005) which carries a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
| CONTENTS: West London Churches |