The book of the Position Papers is now available

Long-term readers will remember the series of short 'Position Papers' I published on behalf of the FIUV--Una Voce International--on a variety of subjects about the ancient Mass, both aspects of it which need to be explained to those unfamiliar with it, and ways in which it can assist the Church in evagelisation.

These papers, gathered together and thoroughly revised, are now available as a book from Angelico Press, with a Preface by Cardinal Burke.

I will be organising book launch events in Oxford, London, and Rome.

You can buy them from the Latin Mass Society in England, from Angelico Press in the USA, and from Amazon.

The Case for Liturgical Restoration Una Voce Studies on the Traditional Latin Mass EDITED BY JOSEPH SHAW Preface by Raymond Cardinal Burke 432 pages Paper (ISBN 978-1-62138-440-3): $19.95 / £16.50 Cloth (ISBN 978-1-62138-441-0): $30.00 / £24.00

Position Paper on the Sanctoral Cycle

Today I publish the last of the FIUV Position Papers: The Sanctoral Cycle of the Extraordinary Form. Go over to Rorate Caeli to read it.

Researching the calendar, specifically the cycle of saints' days, has been very interesting. It has underlined how reletively empty of saints the 1969 calendar is (although the Novus Ordo has picked up a few more over the decades since then). If you go to a weekday Mass in the Novus Ordo, the priest will more often than not be wearing green, during 'Ordinary' time, or violet in Advent or Lent, or white in Paschal time: the colour of a 'ferial' day, when no feast is being celebrated. I have heard of this being taken even further, and a preference for the ferial Mass taking over even on days when according to the rules there should be a saint. But in the Traditional Mass ferial Masses are downright rare. On the few days each week when there is no saint to celebrate, priests tend to say a Votive Mass.

Islam and the Extraordinary Form

A glimpse of a transcendant mystery.

Today I am publishing a new Position Paper from FIUV, on the subject of Islam, on Rorate Caeli. Go over there to read it in full.

It sets out a very simple argument which seems difficult to deny. It goes like this.

1. Engagement with Islam (whether with a view to mutual understanding or evangelisation) is facilitated by common ground with Islam. The more common ground one has, whether cultural or theological, the better one can talk productively with people of other religions.

2. There is a great deal more common ground between Islam and that aspect of Catholicism exemplified by the Traditional liturgy, than there is between Islam and what is manifested by the reformed liturgy. In this, the Traditional Catholics are close to the situation of the ancient Christian churches in majority-Muslim countries.

The New Age and the Old Mass

Milton Manor House, Oxfordshire

Today I am publishing a new Position Paper from the FIUV on the New Age. Go over to Rorate Caeli to read it. Here I present some background and further reflections.

A few years ago on the LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham I noticed that four of my fellow pilgrims were converts to the Catholic faith from Buddhism. Buddhism is not a major religion in the UK, so the coincidence was rather remarkable. Indeed, in a number of obvious ways Buddhism presents a very marked contrast to Catholicism, and traffic between Buddhism and Catholicism tends to flow the other way. In fact, three out of these four pilgrims had been Western converts to Buddhism, before they came to the Catholic Church.

Buddhism in the West is part of a wider phenomenon, of the attraction posed by eastern spirituality to post-Christin or nominally Christian westerners. This eastern spirituality is often somewhat re-packaged for western tastes, and only the most serious-minded go the whole hog and become Buddhists. Far more popular are the (apparently) nice bits of eastern spirituality, such as reincarnation and the idea of self-realisation, without the asceticism and the infinitessimal prospects of success. Add these to a bit of Tarot-reading, Astrology, the 'all-religions-are-one' dogma of Freemasonry, and other bits of Western-inspired clap-trap, and you have the New Age Movement. This soup of influences is united by the idea that we can free ourselves from soul-cramping restrictions imposed by bad upbring, traditions, and habits, by spiritual techniques, such as meditation, perhaps aided by Yoga, or maybe even drugs.

The Ancient Lectionary

Reposted from May 2013, in response to the strange blog post arguing for various improvements to the Extraordinary Form, one of which is that it adopt the OF Liturgical Calendar. (There's another response here, from the excellent Fr Albert Marcello.)

The lectionary seems to many to be an obvious example of something the OF does better than the EF, but it doesn't take long to see why things aren't so simple. The brevity, and the basis of the selection, of the traditional lectionary have their own advantages. As for swapping one lectionary for another, this would produce an incoherent muddle.

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Today I'm publishing a Position Paper for the Una Voce Federation on the Lectionary. Go over to Rorate Caeli to read it.

The Traditional Mass and the Laity

The congregation is blessed with incense as the celebrant carries on the prayers and
ceremonies at the Altar. Dominican Rite Mass in Oxford.

Over on Rorate Caeli I am publishing today a Position Paper on the Laity in the Traditional Mass. It is a response to the argument that the Traditional Mass exemplifies 'clericalism', because it doesn't have swarms of lay peope in the sanctuary, reading the lessons, cleansing the sacred vessels, leading prayers and hymns and distributing communion. Read it here.

The key point of the paper is that, while at least some 'special' lay roles in the liturgy are perfectly defensible - serving and singing being the obvious examples - even these don't exist for the sake of the liturgical participation of the people doing them. This is a crucial point. Without it the rest of the congregation may well feel excluded wrongly from graces available only to the parish elite.

The Traditional Mass and Men: a new Position Paper

The congregation at a Traditional Sunday Mass in St Bede's, Clapham Park

Over on Rorate Caeli I have publishing a new Position Paper for the FIUV (Una Voce Federation), on the Traditional Mass and men. Go over there to read it.

On this blog I have discussed related issues over quite a few posts; you can see them under the 'masculinity' label. It is a fascinating and, as far as I can see, an under-researched subject. I don't get the impression that many people in positions of authority in the Church want to hear about it. They are too caught up in the imperative to 'reach out to women' to notice that it is men who are the most alienated from the Church today.

The issue is ultimately related to the question of the role of men and women in the Church and in society, but it should be possible to make Mass less unfriendly to men without committing oneself to any very controversial views about those matters. There are a number of simple correlations which have been made over many years and ring true.

The EF and Japanese culture

Blessing of the subdeacon after the chanting of the Epistle in High Mass (Holy Trinity, Hethe)

Recently I published a Position Paper on the Extraordinary Form in China. One of the things discussed in the paper is the connection between the sacrality, notably of the ritual, and traditional Chinese culture, and particularly Confucianism. There is an article in the current Mass of Ages about the resonance the Extraordinary Form has in Japan.

Asian cultures are ritualistic: or, better, they express themselves through symbolic gestures. For a culture to make extensive use of symbolic gesture there must be stability in the meanings of the gestures: otherwise, they would not be understood. This means ritual. What post-Enlightenment Westerners need to appreciate is that this stable, ritualised culture is not a hindrance to self-expression; like the linguistic conventions to which Westerners tend to limit themselves, ritual conventions make communication possible. If there is a structure of meanings, you can use that structure to say what you want to say.

Prayers for the Persecuted: a new Position Paper

Prayers After Low Mass at the LMS Priest Training Conference at Ratcliffe College

Today I am publishing a Position Paper on the Leonine Prayers on Rorate Caeli: go there to read it.

Here I would like to make a few further observations on this topic.

The paper is unusual as it is, first and foremost, an appeal to action: for the celebration of Masses for persecuted Christians around the world. But it does so on the basis of an historical understanding of the issues, something which the Position Papers try to bring to all their topics.

From the historical point of view, the paper makes two interesting major points. The first is that the Leonine Prayers are not as anomolous as they may at first appear. It may well be said that they are not 'really' part of Mass, they are stuck on the end of some, but not all, Masses, in an awkward and ad hoc way, and they detract from the liturgy. I confess my study of the liturgy gives me some sympathy with purist, Liturgical Movement-type arguments like these.

Video: what is Septuagesima?

And what's the point of retaining it in the Extraordinary Form?

It seems a good moment to re-post this video. See also the Postioin Paper on Septuagesima, Vigils and Octaves, here.

 

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The Traditional Mass and China: thoughts about Confucius

Our Lady of China

Today I am publishing a paper about the Traditional Mass in China on Rorate Caeli: go over there to read it. I want to use this post for some more reflections on this topic.

One of the issues relevant to the Church's evangelisation in any part of the world is the nature of the indigenous culture and religion. The Jesuits who brought the Gospel to China in the 16th and 17th centuries were very aware of this (and they thought very carefully about it in India as well). They didn't go for mindless, superficial inculturation; they wanted to get to the heart of the matter and explore the deep connections, or barriers, between what they found in China and what they were bringing with them. The servant of God Matteo Ricci SJ and his successors took the view that Taoism and Buddhism, the two other influential schools of thought present in China, were radically incompatible with the Faith, but that things were different with Confucianism, the officially endorsed philosophico-religious system of Imperial China.

After decades of hostility from the Communists, Confucianism today is undergoing something of a revival in China, with schoolchildren once more studying Confucian texts. It is far from being an official ideology, and its role in modern Chinese culture is limited, but it still represents classical, authentic, Chinese culture, and it is also viewed as a potential source of social stability and bulwark against self indulgence and corruption. This is a first reason why the connections the Jesuits found are once more relevant to the progress of the Church in China.

A second reason is this. The attitude of the Chinese state towards the Church today turns in large part on the question of foreign influence, which is seen (in light of modern Chinese history) in the context of foreign political influence and domination. This throws a spotlight onto the relationship between the Faith, and Catholic practice, and classical Chinese culture. To what extent is the Church in China a vector for distinctively European, and therefore questionable, ideas and culture?

Headcoverings: a new Position Paper from the FIUV

Today I am publishing a Position Paper on head covering in church: go over to Rorate Caeli to read it. This post is by way of some additional commentary on the subject.

The issue of ladies covering their heads in church may seem like a hornet's nest that we should just avoid kicking. For peculiar personal reasons the very idea causes apoplexy among some older, liberal women. It makes the traditional movement seem not just old-fashioned but wedded to an anti-feminist set of ideas which puts it beyond the pale of civilised discussion for great sections of the population. The idea that there might be some kind of moral pressure, if only from the example of others, on women new to the Traditional Mass that they adorn themselves with some absurd lace article, is obviously going to put loads of people right off the whole thing. So why don't we just shut up about it? That would obviously include not continuing the practice, since it is the very sight of women and girls in these things which draws attention to it first and foremost.

Baseball hats in church in Hexham and Newcastle

There has been a lively correspondence in the diocesan newspaper of the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle about this photo, which appeared illustrating a story about a 'Youth Village', a gathering organised by the diocese' 'Youth Ministry'.

It apparently did not occur to the editors of The Northern Cross that there was anything amiss in this picture of a young man presenting the gifts to Bishop Cunningham, and in response to a letter pointing out that something was amiss (which is on the website here, for the time being) there came an avalanche of letters defending the young man, Which of course rather misses the point. Evidently, no one in the Yoof Ministry had catechised him about the significance of men taking off their hats in church. I wonder if they had catechised him about anything else. That certainly isn't the young man's fault. You can't reap where you have not sown.

The Chalice and hygiene

Letter of the week: from The Tablet

I have been following the correspondence about receiving from the chalice. I qualified as a dentist in 1959 just as “reusable needles” passed into history but boiling water “sterilisers” were the norm.

Over the years, the worries concerning cross-infection became more dominant and the use of autoclaves became essential. Soon after, the Church permitted Reception of Communion under Both Kinds.

I well remember discussing with a priest that I felt this was odd because HIV/Aids was becoming evident and the method of its spread was not then known. He actually agreed but we left it there.

We now know that HIV/Aids is not spread orally but herpes and hepatitis can be and nowadays we have the arrival of ebola which is transmitted in body fluids.

I have been asked on many occasions why I do not take the chalice and my standard reply is that I have spent thousands of pounds preventing, as far as I can, cross-infection and wiping the chalice between communicants cannot be construed as such a practice. Intinction must be a better solution. Perhaps we can look forward to it becoming standard practice in the near future.

Paddy Chronnell, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Position Papers: 2nd Edition published of hard-copy book

Over the last three years, the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce, the world-wide federation of Una Voce groups, has been publishing executive summaries on specific aspects of the Traditional Mass: why we don’t have Altar Girls, why we don’t give Communion from the Chalice, why we worship towards the East, why we have a season of preparation for Lent, what happened to Holy Week in the 1950s, and many, many more: 23 short articles, with lots of references to recent official documents, and the latest scholarship.

They have been published individually online, but here is you chance to buy the book, with all 23 little papers. The perfect gift for your pastor, the perfect briefing for those who don’t have time to read a long tome but want a carefully researched answer to the questions people ask about the Vetus Ordo.

The series is on-going; look out for the next papers which will be published first on Rorate Caeli blog.

PRAISE FOR THE FIUV PAPERS:

'let me say simply that reading and ruminating over the FIUV Papers on the Liturgy could serve as a marvellous primer for how to address what often ends up being controversial in a very different and respectful manner.' Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, Papal Nuncio to the Ukraine.

The Traditional Mass and the liturgy of the Christian East

If the reformers in the West can't cope with Rood Screens (this one is by Pugin),
how can they profess respect for the Eastern Iconostasis? 
The objections they make to the former apply a fortiori to the latter.

Today I publish a Position Paper from the FIUV on the EF and the Eastern Churches: go over to Rorate Caeli to read it.

Consistently since the time of the great Pope Leo XIII, and of course frequently, if not completely consistently, before that, the Holy See has presented itself as a special friend of the Christians of the East, and of their liturgical traditions. Faced with a complex set of groups, some in communion with the Holy See and some not, with distinct liturgical, spiritual, and artistic traditions, Popes, and the Second Vatican Council, laboured to emphasise that they valued these traditions, and that no compromise of them would ever be necessary for dissident groups which wished to be reconciled to the Holy See. Non-Latin Rite Catholics could help with this project by their own fidelity to their traditions, in many cases these being exactly the same traditions as those followed by churches not in communion. Were the Greek or Russian Catholics, for example, to 'Latinise' themselves, change their liturgical practices, their church architecture, their artistic traditions, their spirituality, to conform more closely with what is typical of the Latin Rite, this would be most regrettable, because it would create the impression that once you come under the authority of the Pope you will sooner or later bid farewell to the traditions of the Fathers.

FIUV Position Paper on Septuagesima, Vigils, and Octaves

Over on Rorate Caeli I am today publishing the 20th of the series of short briefings, 'Position Papers', on aspects of the Extraordinary Form, which I have been coordinating for the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce for the last two years. Go over there to read it. See all the Position Papers here.

In this post I will take the opportunity to say one or two other things about the issue addressed. It is a problem, in a practical way, for parishes where both the Traditional, Vetus Ordo and the reformed, Novus Ordo are celebrated, in that on a Sunday, between Masses, the liturgical colour has to be changed on the altar frontal, tabernacle veil and anything else using the colour of the season, three Sundays in a row, between green and violet. This is hardly the biggest problem facing the Church today, but it is an indication of a particular kind of crashing of gears which results from the lack of continuity of the new Mass with the old. It also happens here and there in the liturgical year when feast days have been moved or abolished. But there is something particularly awkward about a parish proposing a season of penance in one Mass on a Sunday, and carrying on as normal for the other Masses on the same day.

Video on Mass 'ad orientem'

Following the FIUV Position Paper on Liturgical Orientation, some of the arguments are summarised in this short video produced by the Latin Mass Society.
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The Kiss of Peace

Bishop Schneider giving the Kiss of Peace to Fr Finnegan, the Assistant Priest, at West Grinstead

Today I am publishing a new Position Paper from the Una Voce Federation (FIUV), on the Kiss of Peace: go over there to read it.

The Pax may not seem the most important issue, but it is an interesting one, and also one which has a big effect on many people's liturgical experience. The over-chumminess and disruption caused by the Novus Ordo's 'Sign of Peace' is a trial for many people, and has been repeatedly condemned by Rome, notably in Pope Benedict's Post-Synodal Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007) 49:

Bishop Schneider giving the Peace to Fr Goddard FSSP, the deacon

‘…during the [2007] Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restraint in this gesture, which can be exaggerated and cause a certain distraction in the assembly just before the reception of Communion. It should be kept in mind that nothing is lost when the sign of peace is marked by a sobriety which preserves the proper spirit of the celebration, as, for example, when it is restricted to one's immediate neighbours.’

Pope Benedict's words reflects the feelings of many, like those of a certain Mr Waits who felt moved to write the following to the Universe (UK Catholic weekly newspaper) in 2011:

Whoever dreamt up the sugary sign of peace seems to have been naively oblivious to some unpleasant practicalities. In my church, one elderly widower tours the pews 'making a meal'; of his license to to make contact with female bodies. ... When the 'feel good' moment arrives, they approach me expectactly, but I ignore such cheap, shallow, bonhomie. I have often felt like adding 'a little peace before Mass would not have gone amiss.'

The reform of this little ceremony exemplifies the 'archaeologism' of the reformers: their attempts, at least in some places, to resurrect long-extinct texts and rubrics. It also exemplifies the problems with such archaeologism: its dependence on the limited scholarship of half a century ago, its ability to miss the most crucial point about a ceremony, and its refusal to understand the good reasons why, under providence (not thanks so some know-it-all committee), change happened, gradually, over the course of the centuries.

The Assistant Priest giving the Peace to the Master of Ceremonies

First, yes everyone did exchange the kiss of peace in antiquity. The reformers saw that this took place earlier, at the Offertory, in the Gallican Rite, and there was a widespread idea (see the scholars Gregory Dix and Josef Jungmann) that the Roman Rite moved the Pax from that position to its current one before Communion, at some point prior to a famous letter on the subject written by Pope Innocent I in 416. This is an example of scholarship getting ahead of itself, however: there is not a scrap of evidence that it ever took place at the Offertory in the Roman Rite (or in the closely associated African liturgical practice).

This is important for the meaning of the ceremony. At the Offertory, the key to it is the reconciliation of the Community, an idea which appealed to Bugnini and his gang in the 1960s. But in the Roman Rite, while this idea is not absent, there is something else which sets it into a bigger context.

The Peace is on the Altar.

Christ, the Prince of Peace, has come down upon the Altar, and it is His peace which is imparted in the Kiss. So it is not just exchanged between members of the congregation: it is given to them from Christ. The celebrant kisses the Altar next to the Consecrated Host, and it is this kiss, exchanged with Christ, which is passed on, one by one, to the rest of those present.

Bishop Schneider giving the Peace to Fr Hayward, the subdeacon

This is done with the very beautiful ceremony of the 'embrace', first to the deacon, then the subdeacon, then the MC and so on. I was delighted to hear that in Spain and her former Empire this can be passed on to the congregation with a 'paxbrede', a physical object (usually a small silver disc with a handle), as was done in Medieval England. Elsewhere, for practical reasons, the participation of the Faithful in the ceremony has, since the end of the Middle Ages, become purely spiritual.

The passing on of the Peace from the Altar has been completely lost in the current ceremony--if we can call it that--in the Novus Ordo, where everyone simultaneously shakes hands with everyone else.

Speaking personally, I am always moved to see the ceremony of the Pax at Traditional High Mass; I think it is one of the most symbolically eloquent ceremonies in the Mass. It is an example of something which really works. Those arguing about what to do about the Sign of Peace in the Novus Ordo should bear that in mind.

Position Paper on the 'silent' Low Mass: the Missa Lecta

Low Mass (a private Mass) said at the Belmont Priest Training Conference

Today I am publishing a Position Paper from the FIUV (Una Voce Federation) on Low Mass said without dialoguing by the congregation:

Positio 18, The Missa Lecta.

Some time ago a version of this was published in the Latin Mass Magazine in the United States.

This is the usual practice in England, the United States, and many other places, and it surprises those from certain other countries, notably France, where it is normal for the congregation to join in the responses made by the server. This latter practice is called the 'Dialogue Mass' (Missa recitata), and it was (re)introduced in the early 20th century.

The point of the paper is to show that the Missa lecta has its own rationale: you don't have to say the responses to participate in Mass. There is an obvious parallel with other issues thrown up by the liturgical debate in the course of the 20th century: the position papers have had to argue that you don't have to hear the Canon of the Mass in order to participate; you don't have to be able to see clearly what's happening on the Altar (ie have Mass 'facing the people') in order to participate; you don't have to understand all the words (ie have Mass in the vernacular) in order to participate. Catholics attended Mass with great spiritual fruit for many centuries without the aids thought so essential by 20th century liturgists.

On the historical question, it is important to bear in mind that Low Mass itself did not exist until the 9th century, so the question of saying the responses at Low Mass did not arise. The choir sings certain responses at sung Mass, and the people can join in with these, but the responses sung by the choir are not the same as those said by the servers, which are more numerous, and in a few cases lengthy. It seems that these were said by congregations at Low Mass in Southern Europe in the 16th century (and presumably before then), but there is no evidence that congregations in Northern Europe, who would have found them much more of a linguistic challenge, ever got their tongues around them.

The paper should not be seen as an attack on the Dialogue Mass: in some countries this is what happens at the Extraordinary Form at Low Mass, and it has obvious advantages. It means the Faithful become very familiar with parts of the Latin of the Mass, and engage in the action in the sanctuary in a very close way. The paper merely says that those who do not make the responses shouldn't be despised and looked down on for that reason. In any case, in whatever country you are in, in the Traditional Mass after the Offertory the responses stop, and the priest says the Canon in complete silence, broken only by the sound of the little bell signalling the consecration, and the priest's prayer of humility: nobis quoque peccatoribus. This is the real stumbling block for the theory of participation which seems to be implied by the Novus Ordo, and it simultaneously seems to be the feature of the Traditional Mass most immediately attractive to many newcomers.

Peter Kwasniewski has published a lovely meditation on the silent Low Mass here.

Low Mass with a congregation, at St Chad's, Manchester