Right after the explosive news on the actual positive nature of the global bishops' report on Summorum Pontificum was published last week, Monsignor Nicola Bux, one of the great liturgical names of our times and a major advisor under Benedict XVI, released a book with more details on the event. We now know that Vatican insiders close to Francis lied about it, and Francis himself did not tell the truth about it (on paper, in Traditionis custodes, the restrictions document).
Monsignor Bux spoke at length about these matters in an interview granted to Stefano Chiappalone, of Italian news website Bussola Quotidiana, and published today:
Msgr. Bux, so it was not the majority of bishops who were pushing to “do away” with the traditional Mass?
The first to be astonished was Pope Benedict, as we know from Msgr. Gänswein's book, Nothing but the Truth. But for many others, too, it was surprising that the bishops of the world should take such a negative stance toward an act - Summorum Pontificum - that had indeed restored liturgical peace, hoped for by Benedict XVI himself, and at the same time had done justice to a precious and millenary heritage. By the way, one cannot understand why everywhere tradition is being rediscovered, even in the area of gastronomy (“traditional cuisine”), but this should not apply to the liturgy. Then let us not speak of the great heritage of Eastern rites, recently emphasized by Leo XIV.
The Traditionis Custodes measures have also been justified by appealing to alleged anti-ecclesial attitudes. Yet, reading the bishops' responses one gets the impression of limited cases and not such as to call for the abolition of Summorum Pontificum...
It is always arduous to analyze the sense of the Church and the faith of the people. One could then also make an analysis of all the people who attend ordinary Mass: whether they have a sense of the Church, whether they feel together with the Church about the truths of faith and morals. We know very well that this is not the case. So to attribute to the extraordinary rite a distorted sensus Ecclesiae is not correct. Disagreements have been there on all sides, even in progressive circles (think of the Dutch Catechism) but that is no reason to keep people out of the Church.
In the questionnaire some bishops note the positive effects of the ancient rite even for those celebrating the new. But then would banning it be a loss for everyone, not just for this or that group?
Certainly. If the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo-which by its proponents is presented as a development of the ancient one-has known, as we know, “deformations at the limit of what is bearable” (Benedict XVI, July 7, 2007) evidently it means that it needed that restoration of the sense of mystery that in the Eastern liturgies is well present (as Pope Leo reminded us) and that in the ancient rite is equally present. Even the Orthodox who sometimes participate in the so-called extraordinary or Vetus Ordo rite are impressed by this. As a scholar of Byzantine liturgy I can say that if there is a rite that is very similar to the Byzantine rite it is the Old Roman rite. So why sever a relationship that by the way is also very good for the encounter with Eastern Christians? I just want to mention that when the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum came out, the then Patriarch of Moscow, Alexis II, complimented Pope Benedict because he said that only by recovering the common roots, traditions and liturgies will Christians come closer together.
What has been the effect of Traditionis Custodes to date?
I think overall the effect has not been that impressive. Of course, that obedience that must characterize bishops and priests has obviously slowed down the celebration of the ancient Roman rite but it can hardly stop it. The reality of the traditio is like the water in the river that becomes richer as it flows. But if we reject this wealth of faith, prayer, and liturgy that we have received, how do we expect new generations to be able to reconnect with the Catholic Church? Instead, let us look at the young people who participate in traditional pilgrimages, such as Paris-Chartres or Covadonga in Spain, and others that are looming. The hope is that we abandon once and for all the ideology that tends to cling to ecclesiology and liturgy, because the Church is always a reality that comes from above, the heavenly Jerusalem that descends among us, not something that is “made.” On this Pope Benedict insisted very much: the liturgy is not the result of our arbitrariness as priests or bishops, nor of the Pope and the Apostolic See. For even the Pope is subject to the Word of God and therefore to the tradition that this Word over two millennia has brought down to the present generation.
Is that why the volume opens with a presentation on the Mass throughout the centuries?
Exactly, it is to demonstrate-with a necessarily concise excursus-that what we profess comes from the apostolic tradition, not from someone's inventiveness. In the book we wanted to set the issue of questionnaire evaluations within its proper context and then conclude with recent events, from Summorum Pontificum to Traditionis Custodes and then make an appeal to the Pope.
It is too early to say how Leo XIV will move but what can be hoped for the future of “liturgical peace”?
We need to get back on the road of the “reform of the reform,” in the sense in which Benedict XVI understood it, starting from the observation that the liturgical reform has not really taken off, or has flown very low, to the point that it has been able to allow deformations, arbitrariness, Masses on the mat, and so on. This is because it was not “armored” by canonical regulations and sanctions, despite the fact that Sacrosanctum Concilium was very clear about this, admonishing that no one “even if a priest, dares, on his own initiative, to add, take away or change anything in liturgical matters” (SC 22:3). Let us ask what has happened instead in these sixty years and resume studying how it went. I make a proposal directly to the Pope and to the Prefect of Divine Worship: have the courage to study the documents of the Consilium established by Paul VI to carry out the liturgical reform, or the Memoires of Louis Bouyer, one of the great experts who participated in it... have the courage to make truth. And thus to recover, not through imposition but with the patience of charity, what is left on the ground, to replant the severed branches, to use an Augustinian image.
This is the work I would call “reform of the reform,” without ideological pretension but as a matter of fact, a respectful confrontation, which certainly cannot happen overnight. In the meantime, let's let the two ritual forms “ferment” - as most of the bishops said in responding to the questionnaire and as advocated by Summorum Pontificum.
If Jesus speaks of the wise scribe who draws from his treasury nova et vetera, new things and old things, it is not clear why we should not be able to do so for the very great traditional heritage of the liturgy.
