A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

The hubris of the liturgical movement June 3, 2013

As I wrote last Friday, I have become convinced that the 20th century liturgical movement, a small but very loud and influential group of primarily academics, went very much off the rails and ventured into pride and radicalism as the movement evolved during the 40s and 50s.  I quoted in that previous post an HA Reinhold, whom I described as something of a moderate in the movement. And by the late 50s, he was, in a sense, somewhat moderate.  But he was also increasingly becoming swept up in the hubris and revolutionary attitudes regarding the Liturgy.  It is difficult to categorize these men consistently, for many of them evolved (or devolved?) towards an increasing acceptance of foisting enormous changes, even revolution, on the Mass, in order to try to address the movement’s patent failure to improve liturgical piety.  So, whether he was truly moderate or not is open to debate.

There are a couple of quotes from HA Reinhold’s book Bringing the Mass to the People (1958 – 4 years before the start of Vatican II), which are quoted in Dom Alcuin Reid’s The Organic Development of the Liturgy. I’ll present them without much comment, and let you determine if you sense any pride or even arrogance.  This first quote is from the book’s afterword:

After finishing the manuscript of this small book, I described its plan and purpose to a friend of mine, a rabbi. He listened very attentively, and then said: “A very neat plan indeed – too neat for me. We Jews reformed our rites about 100 years ago; we cut off what was wild growth, as we saw it, and we introduced the ‘colloquial’ – which means more than a ‘vernacular’ – language. But we have learned that we have made a mistake: we lost our sacredness and the mystery of our rites. Now all is obvious and trite; the beauty is gone. [How many Catholics feel the same way with regard to the Novus Ordo?]

Many people besides my rabbi friend may have the same fears; but are these in any way justified? I really do not think there is any resemblance between the two cases……The Mass has a basic plan, an essential structure which may unfold in various ways; the reform is being planned with a deep respect for Tradition, a vast store of historical data and, above all, the supervision of the Apostolic See.

To say there is no relation between the Mass and the previous Jewish temple worship, is amazing. In fact, the Mass is the perfection of Jewish worship, just as the Catholic Faith is the perfection of Judaism. To just blithely assert there is no relation between the two is to betray either an ignorance that would be incredible, given Reinhold’s credentials as an ostensible liturgical expert, or an unwillingness to countenance any data that cautions against revolution.  I also have to note that the “deep respect for Tradition” associated with the post-VII liturgical reform rings rather hollow.

But there was another paragraph, the final paragraph of the book, where the self-assuredness of the liturgical movement attains what Dom Reid describes as “breathtaking, gnostic, ultramontane, historical arrogance”:

The reform now underway is superior to preceding ones both in knowledge and in motive. As to knowledge: the research of the last decades has put us in a position better than that enjoyed by our predecessors for understanding the essential structure of the Mass and the development of the various rites. As to motive: the purpose of the reform of Charlemagne and Alcuin was uniformity, discipline and teh personal reform of the clergy; the purpose of that of Trent was simply to put an end to confusion. But Pius XII, following St. Pius X, wanted to enable the spiritually underfed and thirsting masses to refresh themselves at the “primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit,” and to make the Sacrament a matter of true prayer, to which a feeling of wonderment is only a preliminary step.

As Dom Reid notes, this analysis of the state of the Mass impugns its efficacy as the prime vehicle of formation and spiritual growth for over a thousand years of Saints, Doctors, and others.  It is veritably a protestant critique, betraying the very protestant “corruption” theory proferred by Joseph Jungmann (this was a theory that a pure and holy early Mass had been corrupted by various evil influences during late antiquity or the Middle Ages).

I must also note that significant aspects of that scholarship on which Reinhold hangs his hat above, has already been refuted or at least put in doubt. As Dom Reid notes several times in his book, basing the Mass on the latest “findings” of historical research will lead to a Mass that is constantly in upheaval.  But there were significant players in the liturgical revolution that had no problem with that, the most influential of which was Anibale Bugnini himself.  In point of fact, Bugnini was preparing yet another round of massive changes in the Mass when he was removed from his exceedingly influential position as head of the Concilium in 1976 under very mysterious circumstances.  It has been very widely reported that his removal was associated with documents Bugnini himself accidentally left at a meeting, which revealed him to be a life-long Freemason. Irrespective, Pope Paul VI terminated all further developments in the Liturgy, banished Bugnini to Iran, dissolved Concilium, and transferred authority for all Roman Rites (Mass, Baptism, etc) into the Sacred Congregation for Rites.

What has occurred since then, has been a very slow, very on-again, off-again, process of retrenchment, slowly undoing the excesses of the 1960s liturgical revolution.  With occasional successes for the revolutionaries, like lay people distributing Communion and girls playing at altar service.

Opinionated liturgical history lesson concluded.  Let us pray for the restoration of the great Roman Rite!