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| The author celebrating Mass in the Shrine of St Augustine, Ramsgate, England |
By Fr Christopher Basden, Parish Priest of Ramsgate, England.
Since the
Pope’s recent brutal and unmerciful constriction of the traditional Latin Mass,
many have been shocked by its unusual severity and questioned what motivates
it. Liberal Catholic friends respond that it lacks the inclusivity that a broad
Church demands. Friends from beyond the confines of Catholicism scratch their
heads; this is the classic Roman ritual which for 1 ½ millennia was the
inspiration of countless works of music, literature and art.
One of the
loveliest personal memories I have was the infectiously charming and bubbly
founder of the famous monastery of Le Barroux, Abbot Gerard Calvet OSB. Out of
the chaos of the disintegration of religious life in the 1960s he had left his
community and become a hermit. Sought out by young disciples he was urged to
re-initiate traditional monastic life centred on the classical liturgy. This he
accomplished with his foundation nestled beneath the majesty of Mt Ventoux (of
Tour de France fame) in Provence. In 1988, feeling the Episcopal consecrations were
a step too far, he sought canonical recognition from the Vatican. Despite the
warm welcome of Pope John Paul this was not shared by the monastic
establishment who excluded him from their associations. I found this shocking
and sad and after a while I was relieved to hear he had at last been invited to
the worldwide conference of Abbots in Rome. I hoped, I remarked to him, that
they were welcoming. His response:
“Oui ils
etaient gentils mais c’est une autre religion” (Yes they
were kind but it’s another religion).
I was quite startled and struck by what I
then perceived to be an extreme assessment, but a quarter of a century later it
bears further scrutiny.
But let us
get back to the question at hand. Why on earth does such a venerable ancient
Rite with stellar accomplishments in the pantheon of saints, not to mention the
huge cultural impact it has had within western civilisation merit exclusion?
Today its adherents represent a tiny percentage, largely unknown in the
worldwide Catholic Church since the Rite’s termination in 1969. Despite the
liberalisation of its use in 2007, and a remarkable flourishing of vocations
and conversions in the limited confines in which it returned to use, why the
draconian and fearful suffocation of newly ordained priests being permitted to
use it? Why should the new young communities be subjected to hostile commissars
bent on eradicating the old Rite as if it were a dangerous virus?
The papal
condemnation accuses these traditionalists of being divisive and of being
ideologically opposed to the second Vatican Council. However that Council (of
which most of the young devotees know little, having been born long after its
closure in 1965!) was pastoral, not definitively doctrinal let alone
ideological. The vast majority of the bishops at the Council, including Marcel
Lefebvre, signed most of its decrees.
It was
largely what came afterwards, with the explosive and revolutionary ‘implementation’
of the Council. The vast majority of bishops had no say (let alone anyone else)
in the promulgation of the reformed Mass. However, at the Synod of Bishops in
1967 it is on record that only a minority of bishops present approved the New
Order of Mass. Cardinal Heenan prophesied it would result in dwindling numbers.
In spite of this, the Consilium pushed it through, calling on all to be a
obedient to the “spirit of Vatican II.” Cardinal Ottaviani, then head of the Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith, complained that the new Mass marked a “striking
departure” from the solemnly defined Catholic Eucharistic theology of the
Council of Trent. In many ways it can be demonstrated that the Consilium’s new
Mass was in no way what was envisaged by the Fathers at Vatican II. For example,
the Council asks that “Latin is to be retained in all the rites” (it totally
disappeared) and “Gregorian chant is to have pride of place” (it sadly has had
no place at all)!
The Rubrics
which uphold facing East during the Canon are still in print but almost
universally ignored.
Cardinal
Suenens boasted that Vatican II was “1789 in the Church!” Fr Yves Congar said
of the Council, “the Church has peacefully undergone its October Revolution.”
Was that
really in the minds of the bishops who assembled in 1962? Pope Benedict deplored
the “Council of the Media” and promoted the notion of the “hermeneutic of
continuity”. He resisted the idea that at Vatican II we had begun completely
anew. The holy Bishop of Leeds, Gordon Wheeler, stressed that Vatican II can
only be properly interpreted within the harmony of the preceding tradition.
The studies
of Father Anthony Cekada are very disturbing. The Council called for a return
to the sources, but he amply demonstrated that 83% of the Collects of the
traditional Mass were discarded. Archbishop Bugnini (architect of the New Rite)
admits in his apologia (his full papers have yet to be divulged) that ‘negative
theology’ was incompatible with the sensibilities of modern man. The concepts
that were deleted included the very notion of the soul! The use of this word
disappears in the New Mass! Other deletions include miracles, fasting,
mortification, error, evils, enemies, the wrath of God and Hell. He is on
record as saying that the New Rite should avoid anything that could be a
stumbling block for Protestants. Jean Guitton, a personal friend of Pope Paul
VI, confirms this, admitting that the revolutionary changes were set in place
to more perfectly coincide with the Calvinist Eucharist. How naive to think
unity with Protestantism could be achieved, especially as now the mainstream
churches of the Reformation are in terminal decline. Only the Baptist, bible
based and so-called fundamentalist denominations have much life left. As former
Anglican Bishop Graham Leonard declared, “the future of the church will belong
to those of conviction.” Even more serious is the New Rites’ deselection of
holy scripture (ignoring the warning at the close of the book of Revelation!) For
example, “Whoever receives the body of the Lord unworthily merits condemnation.”
This line among several others is deleted.
Today’s
young clerics who stumble on the classical Roman liturgy discover a rich
scriptural content with explicit priestly and sacrificial overtones. Fr. Hugh
Simon-Thwaites, SJ remarked that, “the Old Rite is the greatest expression of
the Eucharistic doctrine of the Catholic Church.” I find it amusing but sad,
that after an appeal to the Pope against the termination of the Old Mass in the
‘London Times,’ in July 1971, from the greatest men and women of culture
in Britain, he recognised but one, Agatha Christie, the writer of pop murder
mysteries! Others included Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kenneth Clark, Robert Graves,
Yehudi Menuhin, Iris Murdoch, Nancy Mitford, and R.C. Zaehner. Most were
non-Catholics and even non-Christians, including two Anglican bishops. The Old
Mass was universally terminated (save in England which allowed rare permissions
due to Agatha Christie!)
After two
permissive indults under Pope John Paul in 1984 and 1988 (the second responding
to the Episcopal consecrations of Archbishop Lefebvre), Pope Benedict attempted
to give the classic Roman Rite a home back in the Catholic Church in 2007. In
his Summorum Pontificum he confirmed the long held view of many
canonists, including Count Nero Capponi and Cardinal Stickler, that the Old
Rite had never been canonically abrogated. As Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope
Benedict XVI) said, “anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of
this (Old) Liturgy or takes part in it is treated as a leper; all tolerance
ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing so we
are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can we trust her at
present if things are that way?” Pope Pius V had in 1570 declared that the
traditional Roman Rite “would be valid henceforth now and forever.”
I have two
contrasting memories of the response that summer of 2007. The liberal London Tablet
(financially supported by the Catholic hierarchy but read more by Anglicans)
screamed in protest “but it (the Old Mass) WAS banned!” At Wonersh Seminary, on
the other hand, at an Eastern Churches seminar, several Orthodox ecclesiastics
enthused delightedly that Rome had no longer officially proscribed its ancient
tradition which had further distanced us from the Churches of the East.
A question
has to be sincerely posed: “What are the fruits of the revolutionary
transformation in the liturgy which heralded a huge plethora of changes in the Church?”
Despite the continual denial of the aged ecclesiastics in power who suffer from
the “Emperor’s new clothes syndrome” one can truly say that the result is a
huge devastation of the vineyard of the Lord. Every religious order, diocese
and parish has drastically declined since 1965 in numbers. We have never seen
such an abandonment of priestly and Religious vows in all our history. By 1978
40,000 priests had left the priesthood; the sad, seeping, departures have never
stopped since that time. If we had kept the priests we had actually ordained
there would not be the severe shortage of clergy. In 1985, with the celebration
of 20 years since the Council, the then Cardinal Ratzinger dared to say that
the results could never be described as positive. He was demonised, and his ‘Report’
was banned from several Seminary libraries! Eight years earlier, in 1977, an
Archbishop in Italy, Arrigo Pintonelli wrote in an open letter to his fellow
Bishops that the anarchy in the church was “a true scourge of God much more
vast and destructive than the one by Atilla, with consequences that ought to
deprive of sleep those who are responsible for the life and governance of the
church, who inexplicably remain silent.”
This
terrible decline has never subsided. Religious women have disappeared from our
streets. Monasteries collapse and Seminaries close due to the utter collapse of
vocations. In England over 95% of students from our Catholic schools (our pride
and joy) do not persevere in the practice of the faith. Not only in the European
heartlands does the decline in vocations and practising Catholics occur. For
example even the powerful Nigerian Catholic Church is subject to a continual
substantial haemorrhage to Pentecostal sects.
The sex
abuse scandals have disgraced the Church and destroyed much of everything the
priesthood stands for. Since 90% of the victims were teenage males we can see
that pederasty and not paedophilia is the real problem. No one dares to ever
speak about it, however, lest they be considered ‘homophobic.’ This has
infected the highest echelons of the hierarchy as evidenced in the sordid
affair of Cardinal McCarrick. What a veritable dark night of the Church!
In
contrast, the tiny percentage of clerical Institutes, convents and monasteries,
using the irresistibly attractive Traditional Latin Rite, have flourished. The
revival, with seminarians and novices and conversions, has been heart-warming
for so many of us worn out and wearied priests. The large noncontraceptive
families represent one of the only answers to the demographic timebomb
affecting the western world. Sadly the very sight of these seminarians and
novices in cassocks and full habits incurs the contempt, derision and
detestation of the Vatican commissars.
It is not
the adherents of the Old Mass who are ideological, it is the curial officials
of the Vatican who display a paranoia in the face of reasonable dissent from
the so-called liturgical reforms of Bugnini. They are the ones who respond with
a unpastoral ferocity and ideological fanaticism. Now, years later after
decades of reluctance, I realise the old Abbot was correct.
They are
the purveyors of a new, distinct and often subtle religion without any real
substantial base in scripture and tradition. While holding to the divine corpus
of truth as set out in the Creed and Catechism, their slippery interpretations
renders many doctrinal and moral beliefs in a subjective and relativistic
manner, leaving them devoid of the original content. As Fr George Tyrrell SJ predicted
a century ago, “Rome cannot be destroyed in a day, but it is necessary to make
it fall into dust gradually and inoffensively, then we will have a new Religion
and a new Decalogue.” Today Tyrrell is largely rehabilitated by his brother
Jesuits. The new religion will dialogue with anyone except those who stand by
Catholic Tradition. The mantra “the liturgical reform is irreversible” and the “New
Order of Mass is the richest form of the Mass in history” is not dissimilar to
the empty, ugly, untrue dogmas of the Chinese communist party which has the
Vatican in its financial control.
What are
the hallmarks of this new ideological religion? They are all around us in this
present moment of history. The new ideology promotes the idea that “God wills
diversity of religion.” Excepting for His “permissive will” this goes against
everything objectively stated in both the Gospel and the Koran of Islam. The
new faith deplores proselytism, thus thrusting a dagger into the church’s
missionary nature, destroying the real nature of evangelisation. Furthermore
the new faith, by moral ambiguity, devalues marriage and family life by
allowing access to the sacraments after divorce and remarriage. By confusing “loving
the sinner and hating the sin”, it opens the door to betraying the long held
Gospel belief in the indissolubility of marriage. Furthermore it welcomes
recognition of homosexual unions, even denying that chastity is possible! This
new approach has transformed the Pontifical Academy of Life into the Pontifical
Academy of ‘Choice’, thus negating the remarkable contribution of Pope John
Paul in his Encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The new religion is man
centred, humanist, with no seeming necessity for the Atonement of Christ whose
Divinity is devalued.
Finally the
title used by many previous popes and even discussed by the second Vatican
Council, of Our Lady ‘Mediatrix of graces’, is to be discarded. She is but a
mother. Here we have the neo-Protestant, de-supernaturalised religion evident
for all to see. The present situation reminds me of the scene in CS Lewis in
his Last Battle, in which a baboon covers himself in the skin of a lion
proclaiming himself to be Aslan, showing forth the age of the antichrist. The
commissars see the extraordinary growth, potential and fruits of the Old Mass
in just 14 years as a threat to their pseudo faith which patently does not
work.
Do not
despair. In England the faith in the 16th century was abruptly cancelled, being
replaced by a new Religion and Catholics persevered underground waiting for a
second spring that happened ages later. In Egypt despite the rest of the whole
of North Africa ceasing to be Christian, the Copts amazingly survive, despite
continual persecution.
Our Blessed
Lady is the ‘Conqueror of all Heresies!’
She and
Saint Joseph, the ‘Patron of Times of Crisis’, will see us through this
diabolical incursion into the enfeebled Church of God today. He alone wins the
Victory!
