"Vatican II: Still Waiting to be Implemented?... -- A Comparison with the Reception of the Council of Trent" - by Côme de Prévigny

Vatican II: Fruits that will germinate, or spoiled fruits?

Côme de Prévigny

Rennaisance Catholique

Feb. 7, 2023

John XXIII wanted to "bring a little fresh air into the Church" and, sixty years ago, the most heated minds promised the Catholic world a real "springtime", an unhoped-for renewal that would undoubtedly give hope and youth back to the venerable institution. The crowds were to fill the sanctuaries while the workers were to find their way back to the baptisteries. Obviously, the decades have passed and the promises have not been kept. In the great naves, one can only breathe the odors of pigeon droppings and the mold of fungi favored by humidity. Churches have been deserted, seminaries have closed and dreams have been dashed. With the passage of time, the prophets of good omen have bent their foreheads terribly, and they mask their wrinkles to suggest every day that we wait another year to see a new dawn shine on Christendom. Until a few years ago, some well-informed observers ventured to tell us that it would take fifty years to expect to receive the fruits of the famous Council. Now we have to wait a hundred years. "It is true that it takes a century for a Council to take root. We still have forty years to make it take root", Pope Francis warned without being discouraged. What is the truth of this? Should we be patient or has the essential message of the aggiornamento been received?

The comparison with the Council of Trent

Cancelling Pope Benedict: Reflections on a recent article and the “hermeneutic of rupture”

Rorate has received this excellent essay by “A Concerned Priest” and is pleased to share it with our readers. It is one of the best analyses to date of the impossible theological premises on which Pope Francis has enacted his campaign against the survival of the traditional rites of the Church.

“The right to celebrate the perennial Mass of the Roman Church is based on immemorial tradition and not on legal positivism” — Homily by Traditional Catholic Priest

A recently-ordained priest's first Mass

Rorate Caeli has been given a copy of a homily preached this past Sunday, the Seventh after Pentecost, by a traditional priest serving in a major metropolitan parish, with whose permission we publish it for the benefit of our readers as we prepare to return to the bunkers and trenches of the 1970s.

Everyone knows that the centrepiece of the Catholic religion is the holy Mass. The Mass is a proper sacrifice in which the true Body and Blood of the Lord are offered to God under the outward appearances of bread and wine through the ministry of an ordained priest. The holy Mass renews—you could say it prolongs and perpetuates—the sacrifice Our Lord offered once and for all on the cross. In fact, it is the self-same sacrifice; only the outward manner of the offering differs.

 

This holy sacrifice, moreover, does not exist in a void but it is encased in a sublime sequence of prayers and ceremonies called the rite or the liturgy of the Mass. The ancient axiom of the Church Fathers lex orandi, lex credendi—“the law of praying is the law of believing”—reminds us that our liturgical prayers must be an accurate expression of our faith and must inculcate true reverence for God. That is why, especially at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the faith of the people was changed precisely by disrupting the ancient forms of Catholic worship. For example, John Calvin, a radical reformer who denied the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist, once wrote, “God has given us a table at which to feast, not an altar on which to offer sacrifice” (Institutes; IV, xviii, 12, col. 1059), and so by removing the old high altars and replacing them with a common table, the faith of the people in the sacrifice of the Mass was undermined and soon destroyed.

 

I mention these things because today [July 11] falls right between two important anniversaries related to the sacred liturgy: the papal letter Summorum pontificum from Pope Benedict XVI on July 7, 2007 and the papal bull Quo primum from Pope Saint Pius V on July 14, 1570. The Council of Trent had met from 1545 to 1563 to address the challenges of the Protestant Reformation, above all by clearly defining the Catholic dogmas denied by the heretics [1] and by promoting sound reforms in the life of the Church to root out the abuses which had first sparked the Reformation—things like the poor training and immorality of some of the clergy and the shoddy manner of celebrating Mass in many places.

 

The Church triumphs over Luther

Cast out by Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the Devil, false religion, and the heresiarch Martin Luther fall from heaven while an angel of God burns Luther's heretical writings and mistranslated German Bible -- from the fresco that Johann Michael Rottmayr (1656 –1730) painted within the dome of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI's Karlskirche in Vienna, Austria.

While the Vatican officially celebrates heresy, schism, blasphemy, sacrilege and iconoclasm [that is to say, Protestantism], let faithful Catholics instead join with the saints and angels in celebrating the Church's eternal triumph over Protestantism's assaults on the Faith which she achieved through Leo X's bull Exsurge Domine and the decrees of the Council of Trent, which infallibly and irreformably anathematise the false teachings of the Protestants.

January 13: 470 years of the Decree on Justification of the Council of Trent - a Permanent Bulwark againt Protestant Heresy

The Cathedral of San Vigilio, in Trent, home of the
Sixth Session of the Council of Trent (1546-1547), in the morning of January 13, 2017

On this day, exactly 470 years ago, the August Fathers of the Sacrosanct Ecumenical Council of Trent, at the end of the sixth session, issued one of their most decisive and extensive documents, the Decree on Justification.

Justification, of course, had been the central issue of the Protestant heresies ravaging the Church in Europe since the malevolent actions of the renegade monk Martin Luther, thirty years earlier. After long debates, the Conciliar Fathers clarified all points and reaffirmed the unchangeable doctrine of the only Church of Christ on the Salvation of Souls.

The full text of the Decree is available here. The main points dealt with in the Decree can be summarized thus:

1. The Catholic Faith is the foundation of all Justification.

"Reverence Is Not Enough: On the Importance of Tradition" -- Dr. Kwasniewski's Lecture at Strahov Abbey in Prague

In the evening of Friday, October 14, 2016, the official launch of the Czech translation of my book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church was held at historic Strahov Abbey in Prague. His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke gave an introduction in which he spoke of the importance of the sacred liturgy in his own life, his experience of the painful years of liturgical reform and experimentation, and his joy that Catholic tradition is being rediscovered today by young people. He then spoke about the book, recommending it to the audience of about 130 people, including journalists and a national Catholic TV station, gathered in the winter refectory of the abbey. Sitting at the same table were the book's Czech translator, Fr. Štěpán Smolen, and one of the members of the publishing team, Mr. Andrej Kutarna, who also translated the lecture below into Czech.

The text of the lecture is reproduced in full.

Catholic Teaching on Marriage and Divorce - the Bible, Our Lord, and the Constant Teaching, simple and to the point

Catholic teaching on marriage – theological background

a guest-post by John Lamont

The subject of Catholic marriage is now being hotly debated at the current session of the Synod on the Family. It is thus helpful to have available an account of the essentials of Scriptural teaching on this subject, which this article will attempt to provide.

The starting point for this account is the text of Deuteronomy 24;1-4:

Synod - Simple and to the point: Polish Bishops explain why "remarried" divorcees will never be able to licitly receive Holy Communion

Since the very first year of Rorate, we have covered the persistent wave of those prelates who have tried to use the cover of "mercy" to push for sacrilege (in the name of reception of Holy Communion by civilly "remarried" divorcees). Naturally, at that time we did not expect we would ever reach an age where support for the idea would come from the very highest level of the hierarchy.

Thankfully, Catholic Poland does not disappoint. In his intervention on the matter, made Saturday in the Synod Hall, and made public this Monday, the President of the Polish Bishops' Conference , Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, explained it clearly and in unforgettable words why Catholic doctrine on the matter can never be changed from what it always was.

The Polish Conference also published a theological commentary explaining the matter at the light of the Councils of the Church, in particular of the Sacrosanct Council of Trent, which dealt particularly with the concepts of sanctifying grace, sacramental grace, and mortal sin which must be muddled by the manipulators in order for the sacrilege to be forced down the Church.

First his intervention:

Four Days After Synod Closes, CDF responds officially: NO COMMUNION FOR "REMARRIED" DIVORCEES WHO LIVE AS IF THEY WERE MARRIED, PERIOD. - Full text -

INDISSOLUBLE MEANS INDISSOLUBLE

Father Claude Barthe

[French Catholic periodical] L'Homme Nouveau

November 12, 2014

November 13, 1564 - 2014 : 450th Anniversary of the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent

Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred (Gesù, Rome)

Ten tips on how to survive a calamitous Pope and remain Catholic

Italy, France, Spain... Our readers must have noticed we are quite fond of bringing you news and opinion pieces by Catholic writers from these very ancient Catholic lands, and there is a very important reason for it.

SYNOD AND TRUTH - or, How a Holy See Journal Created a Historical Deception on Trent to Favor Kasper - by Roberto de Mattei

Roberto de Mattei

Il Foglio

October 7, 2014

The Synod that has just begun will not go down in history for its documents but for the importance that has been attached to the event itself:  i.e., a “laceration” in traditional morality, encapsulated with the formula “the primacy of pastoral practice over doctrine”.  This thesis is sustained in deliberately misleading historical and theological articles, like the one by the Jesuit Giancarlo Pani which appeared on the eve of the Synod in the “Civiltà Cattolica” carrying the title “Matrimony and second marriages at the Council of Trent (Quaderno, n.3943, October 4th 2014).  In this essay the author summons up the history of “one of the most innovative decrees from the Council of Trent on matrimony, known as “Tametsi” , asserting that in the 7th Canon of the document, the Church while condemning the doctrine of Luther and the reformers, “leaves uncriticized the traditions of the Greeks who, in the case specified, tolerate  new marriages.”

Communion for "Remarried Divorcees": "Eucharist Not a Superstitious Rite – Outside State of Grace, Not Only Useless, But Sacrilegious."

Jules-Alexis Muenier
Catechism Lesson (1890)
Musée d'Orsay

"From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And in the house again his disciples asked him concerning the same thing.

And he saith to them: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."

The Gospel according to Saint Mark, x

Pope Francis: "Bishops, Enough with Congresses, Conferences and Travels! The Decrees of Trent must be obeyed: a Bishop must truly reside in his diocese."

From the address of the Holy Father to the full composition and staff of the Congregation for Bishops this morning:

The Second Vatican Council states that to the Bishops "is fully entrusted the pastoral office, that is the habitual and daily care of their flock" (Lumen Gentium, 27). We must dwell more on these two descriptions of the care of the flock: habitual and daily. In our time assiduity and habituality are often associated with daily routine and boredom. So often we try to escape to a permanent "elsewhere". This is a temptation for Shepherds, for all pastors! The spiritual fathers must explain it well, so that we understand it and will not fall. Even in the Church, unfortunately, we are not exempt from this risk. Therefore, it is important to reiterate that the mission of the Bishop requires habituality and daily dedication. I think that in this age of meetings and conferences the decree of the Council of Trent on residency is so up-to-date: it is so up-to-date and it would be nice if the Congregation for Bishops wrote something about this. The flock need to find space in the heart of the Shepherd. If he is not firmly anchored within himself, in Christ and in his Church, he will be constantly buffeted by the waves in search of ephemeral compensation and will not offer any shelter to the flock.

Franciscus

Address to the Congregation for Bishops (Italian)

February 26, 2014

The Pope is right - but of course it is mainly the post-conciliar duties of the permanent functioning of the Conferences of Bishops, these bureaucratic behemoths, and their endless committees and gatherings, as well as international meetings of all kinds, from ecumenism to interreligious dialogue, that have increased the incessant traveling of bishops outside their dioceses. This had become quite unusual in the three centuries preceding Vatican II as the non-residential Ordinary common throughout the late Middle Ages and Renaissance became increasingly scarce with the full implementation of the Tridentine reforms. In this as in much else the practical effect of Vatican II has been that of an Anti-Trent.

Francis, writing on the Council of Trent, explicitly affirms the authority of the 'hermeneutic of reform in continuity'

Today the Vatican website published the Latin letter addressed by Pope Francis to Cardinal Brandmuller on the celebrations for the 450th anniversary of the closing of the Council of Trent. 

The letter affirms the continued importance of the doctrine of Council of Trent. While some might dismiss this as mere routine, this letter has the significance of being the very first occasion (to our knowledge) that Francis has directly and explicitly invoked, when touching upon the interpretation of doctrine, the authority of Benedict XVI's epoch-dividing December 22, 2005 address on the "'hermeneutic of reform', of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church." (Sometimes shortened to 'hermeneutic of reform in continuity' and, with less precision, to 'hermeneutic of continuity'.)

Coming back to the letter's treatment of the Council of Trent: regardless of the actual "level" of this document (which at least is not a mere summary or an interview with a secular newspaper), and without the need to assume anything about future events in this unfolding Pontificate, we now have something "quotable" from this Pope about the continued importance of Trent -- not just as a historical event, but in its doctrinal heritage.

________________________________

To our Venerable Brother

Walter Cardinal Brandmüller

Deacon of St. Julian of the Flemings

As the 450th anniversary of the day on which the fortunate Council of Trent was closed approaches, it behooves the Church to recall with more prompt and attentive eagerness the most fruitful doctrine which came out of that Council convened in the Tyrolese region. Certainly not without cause, the Church has for a long time already accorded so much care to the Decrees and Canons of that Council that are to be recalled and observed, since, indeed the most grave affairs and questions having appeared at that time, the Council Fathers summoned all diligence that the Catholic Faith appear more clearly and be better understood. No doubt, with the Holy Ghost inspiring and suggesting, it especially concerned the Fathers not only to guard the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine, but also to more clearly enlighten mankind, so that the saving work of the Lord may be poured out onto the whole world and the Gospel be spread through the entire world.

Graciously hearing the very same Holy Ghost, the Holy Church of our age, even now, continues to restore and meditate upon the most abundant doctrine of Trent. As a matter of fact, the “hermeneutic of renewal” (interpretatio renovationis) which Our Predecessor Benedict XVI explained in 2005 before the Roman Curia, refers not only to the Tridentine Council but also to the Vatican Council. The mode of interpretation, certainly, places one honourable characteristic of the Church in a brighter light that is given by the Same Lord (Benedict XVI): “She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God” (Christmas Address to the Roman Curia).

Therefore, we rejoice and express gladness that, glowing with such splendor of the Church, this event is celebrated in a more solemn manner in the City of Trent. Wherefore, the Venerable Brother Luigi Bressani, Metropolitan Archbishop of Trent, requested that We assign some honourable Prelate who, on the 3rd of the following December, may pronounce the exhortatory words to all who shall attend this gladsome commemoration. Deeming this request, therefore, as just, and willing to designate You, Our Venerable Brother, who indeed have expertly investigated and have wisely carried forward the decrees of this Council. We, therefore, name You in these letters OUR EXTRAORDINARY ENVOY to the celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the day on which the Conciliar Fathers completed the works of the Council of Trent. Indeed, You will exhort all who shall participate in this event, that, souls joined together with the soul of the Most Holy Redeemer, they may be fully conscious of all the fruits derived from this Council, and that they may unite themselves in bringing these fruits to others and in propagating them in every way. You shall greet on Our behalf the Metropolitan Archbishop of Trent and all other attending holy Bishops, priests, religious men and women, and lay faithful of Christ, and You shall show them Our benevolence.

[Concluding greetings and blessing.]

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on November 19th of the year 2013, 1st of our Pontificate.

FRANCISCUS

[Source (in Latin): Letter of the Holy Father to the Special Envoy to the celebrations of the 450th Anniversary of the Closure of the Ecumenical Council of Trent  - Trent, December 1, 2013]

Original translation for Rorate was made by the owner of the Philippine Catholic blog Dei Praesidio Fultus. Adapted by NC. 

Almost 5 years after Summorum: In Trent, the chancery hates the "Tridentine" Mass

Another reason not to call it the "Tridentine" Mass - in the Archdiocese of Trent, the chancery hates it.

The Association "Sacra Liturgia" invites to the conference "Beauty in Sacred Art and in the Liturgy," with the pontifical ceremoniary Mons. Marco Agostini, which will take place in Trent on Saturday, February 11, at 1700, in the great hall of the Major Seminary. The Feininger Choir will present some Gregorian chants. On the following day, Sunday, February 12, the Mass will be celebrated in the Seminary, at 1800.

Regarding this, this was the note of the diocesan press office:

"It is the constant and prioritary concern of our Diocesan Church the effort that the liturgical celebrations be the summit and source of Christian life, with an active participation of the faithful, and convergence of the various ministries.

"The initiative, taken by a diocesan priest, of promoting the celebration of H. Mass according to the ancient rite in the Diocesan Seminary is occasional. Although within the scope of catholicity, the initiative is personal and brings forth some perplexity; precisely for this, the choice of place intends to make clear that those to whom the celebration is destined are those persons capable of understanding it and participating in it, any form of spectacle being excluded.

"Regarding this, it is affirmed that the Council of Trent did not choose a single rite, and that Pope Benedict XVI has supported the one approved by Paul VI, but has consented that also the rite approved by Pope John XXIII, which, with successive modifications, dated from Pope Pius V, may be celebrated, in the presence of specific conditions.

"It is recalled that, also on the occasion of this celebration, as for other events, access to the Seminary church and square is not indiscriminately granted to the public."

We are often accused of wishing to promote "scandal" by mentioning the shameful shenanigans which seem to be inseparable from the celebration of the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite", the Mass of Paul VI. Yes, we are fully aware that there are a handful of places around the world where it is celebrated "reverently", according to variable unpublished standards - but other kinds of celebrations have been part and parcel of this Rite from the beginning, and they are in most cases considered quite legitimate. In fact, they are promoted from the highest places, and are the ordinary part of Church life everywhere worldwide.

We bring this up only because, on the very same day on which the above note was published, with "perplexity" for a single celebration in the only rite Trent knew for centuries (and for a millenium before the Council of Trent, in celebrations identical to the Traditional Mass or almost indistinguishable from it), the Archdiocese published as its main event for that same Saturday (Feb. 11) a "Rock Mass" (Messa Rock), with the participation of "Trent metal band 'High Voltage'":

Honestly, we are not the ones who cause scandal. The Archdiocesan Curia is, by publicly shaming a priest and faithful who are merely exercizing their (literally) God-given  papally-recognized rights, and limiting them - at the very same time they promote a "Metal Mass".

Shame on the Trent Curia: vergogna!!

[Tip and source: Messa in Latino]

Who is a Traditionalist?

See below for one religious brother's answer.

What do you think, dear readers?

The tiny village of Villatalla in the Italian diocese of Albenga-Imperia, where the Benedictines of the Immaculate live and where the little bell tower still summons people to attend the Traditional Latin Mass.

Traditionalism is an Affirmation 

by Brother André Marie January 17th, 2012 

One of the most important things for a person to have is an identity. This is why names are so important to us. Adam was given power to name things in the Garden of Eden, showing that he had dominion over the rest of creation, including Eve, whom he named. When a child finds out that a large, strange-looking animal has a name, he finds comfort in the fact, knowing that, if it has a name, and if Daddy can identify it, the thing must not be all that terrifying. It is known. 

Traditional Catholics, or traditionalists, name themselves thus because of their embrace of the traditions of the Church. That they do so in the face of large-scale abandonment of those traditions by hierarchy, clergy, and faithful alike is why the name “Catholic” is not always adequate, though it should be. Beyond that very generic concept of what traditionalism is, there are manifold and disparate understandings of what exactly defines the identity of the traditionalist. Avoiding a rigid dogmatism where the Church has given us no dogmatic definition — we must be willing to die for Catholic dogma, but not for our own opinions — I would like to consider what traditionalism is in its essence.