John F. Baldovin
Dec. 3, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” (“Sacrosanctum Concilium”). Arguably the most practical outcome of that extraordinary event in the life of the church, the reform and renewal of Catholic liturgy is something whose meaning is still debated, as a number of recent studies have shown. How has the church’s worship fared in these past 50 years? The results since the council have been fairly mixed.
The many provisions of the constitution on the liturgy are directed toward three major goals: 1) full, conscious and active participation by all involved in the celebration of the liturgy (No. 14); 2) structural revision of liturgical rites (Nos. 21 and 23); 3) most important, recognition that the liturgy is the work of Christ himself and that the church itself is most fully realized when the Eucharist is celebrated (Nos. 5 to 10).
The first and third goals belong together, since the document affirms that full participation is integral to the liturgy because all the faithful participate by virtue of their baptism. A profound theology of the church based on baptism and the common priesthood of the faithful undergirds the whole document, one that the historian Massimo Faggioli has argued was not adequately embodied in the other constitutions and decrees of the council. The theological vision of Vatican II, which itself was the fruit of over a century of historical retrieval (ressourcement) and critical study of the liturgies of the past, is very much at the center of the debates about the liturgy today. One of the urgent issues that this theology raises is a better understanding of the relationship between the baptismal priesthood and the priesthood of the ordained.
The second goal, the structural revision of liturgical rites, is related to the other two. The framers of the constitution realized that the rites themselves needed revision so that their theological meaning could be appreciated anew. That process had been inspired by the first liturgical encyclical of the modern era, Pope Pius XII’s “Mediator Dei” (1947), and by the establishment of a commission for liturgical reform the following year. Some results had already been realized by the time of the council: the revision of the Holy Week ceremonies, the relaxation of fasting regultions, permission for evening Mass and the increase in so-called dialogue Masses, in which the people responded to the priest (in Latin) and sang parts of the Mass. But the council had in mind an even more radical reform that would clear away much of the debris that had (inevitably) accumulated over the centuries and would look to adapt the liturgy to contemporary culture—as long as organic continuity with the past was respected (No. 23). The actual shape of the subsequent reform and liturgical reformers’ understanding of modernity were to become controversial.
The Reforms: A Scorecard
Some council documents, like “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” needed to be complemented by further legislation and pastoral implementation. The task of putting flesh on the structure provided by the constitution was given to the Consilium, a group of bishops and expert advisors who began work immediately. The sheer scope of their work, completed within only 10 years, is awesome. Here we can highlight four significant areas of change: the use of the vernacular, the reorientation of the church building, the expansion of ministerial participation and the restructuring of the liturgical year.
The most obvious consequence of the constitution was the permission to use the vernacular for certain parts of the eucharistic liturgy. The Consilium and Pope Paul VI himself quickly found that translating the entirety of the liturgy into the vernacular was desirable. If conscious participation was ever to come about, this move was inevitable. Part and parcel of translating the liturgy was the desire to open up the treasury of the Scriptures. The liturgical movement and the new Catholic appreciation of the Bible went hand in hand.
Recent years have seen a struggle to find appropriate language for liturgical celebration. In English we seem to have moved from a rather loose and somewhat uninspiring translation to a text that is stilted and filled with awkward archaisms (consubstantial, chalice). One can hope that a future translation will find a happy medium and expand the body of prayers with original compositions, as the U.S. bishops and other episcopal conferences had proposed with the 1997 translation by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy.
If the use of the people’s language was the most significant reform inspired by the council, the rearrangement of church space was a close second. Even before the council had ended, a first instruction implementing the reform mandated that the main altar of any church at which the Eucharist was celebrated needed to be free-standing so that the presiding priest could stand on the side facing the people. What resulted was a remarkable shift in the popular understanding of the liturgy. Now it became clear that the celebration was communal and called for active participation. The change did, however, bring with it a peril because of the possible focus on the personality of the priest instead of on the liturgy itself.
A vigorous debate, spurred on by a movement often referred to as the “reform of the reform,” continues. As is the case with language, balance needs to be sought in church architecture and arrangement. Some of the newer church constructions clearly lack the beauty and elegance required for worship of a God who transcends our world while at the same time dwelling among us. Other church buildings that were designed with a very different liturgy in mind have suffered from weak and sometimes misguided renovations. Catholic communities deserve spaces that both inspire full, conscious and active participation and invite us to a deeper relationship with the God who is always beyond our grasp.
A third area of reform is the noteworthy expansion of liturgical ministries. Properly celebrated, the post-Vatican liturgy requires a number of ministers: deacons, readers, acolytes, musicians, servers and extraordinary ministers of Communion. There were deacons at the old solemn high Masses before the council, but they were usually priests who simply dressed the part. The council reinstituted the permanent diaconate, which made it possible for married men to be ordained in the Latin rite and, even if unintentionally, opened the door for what are now called lay ecclesial ministers, who may not minister at the altar but have become a significant part of the church landscape. The priest shortage as well as regularly offering Communion from the cup led to the need for more ministers and the institution of lay ministers of Communion. What official legislation still deems extraordinary—lay ministers are only called for when there are not enough priests available to distribute Communion—now seems normal in most parish celebrations. Lay ministers of Communion are an important symbolic element in the coordinated array of ministers that the liturgy requires.
Another aspect of the liturgy that was changed significantly after the Second Vatican Council is the rearrangement of the liturgical year. Sunday was restored to its pride of place in Christian celebration since it is our primary celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord (the paschal mystery). The integrity of the 50 days of Easter has been emphasized. The number and ranking of saints’ days has been dramatically reduced. Lent now has a twofold focus: Christian initiation and the renewal of that initiation through penance. Along with the reform of the liturgical calendar came a much richer approach to the Lectionary, with a three-year cycle of readings for Sundays and major feasts (including much more of the Old Testament than had ever before been read in the Roman Rite) and proper readings for weekdays. Previously only Lent had a series of weekday readings. Of course, in contemporary society the liturgical calendar competes with all sorts of other calendars (educational, civic, seasonal), but it seems to be working, even if subtly, to form a generation of Catholics. Only time will tell.
Critics and Challenges
The post-Vatican II liturgical reform has not been without its critics and its challenges. The “reform of the reform” movement had Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as one of its champions. Pope Benedict encouraged both a rethinking of the disposition of church spaces (turning the priest’s position once again to the “east”—that is, facing away from the people) and a revival of the pre-Vatican II Latin liturgy, which he named the “extraordinary form.” What at first seemed to be an accommodation for a minority who wished to celebrate the old form now seems to have become a growing trend, with some seminaries actively training future priests to celebrate the older rite and some groups actively encouraging its spread. It is very difficult not to regard this development as somewhat divisive. No doubt some of the roots of the movement lie in a shoddy and devil-may-care implementation of the liturgical reform, an external reform that was not accompanied by an interior renewal.
On the other hand, the older liturgy is clearly symbolic of a vision of church, theology and the world that the Second Vatican Council consciously moved away from in some very important ways. It is not for nothing that the most recalcitrant followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the St. Pius X Society, join their love of the Latin liturgy to a profound suspicion, if not denial, of the council’s declaration on religious freedom and its general mood of welcoming conversation with the modern world. In other words, opting for the older liturgy often bespeaks a rejection of Vatican II and all that the council brought with it. As Massimo Faggioli has convincingly pointed out, to reject the liturgy that resulted from the Vatican II constitution is to reject the council itself.
The election of Pope Francis may well open a new chapter in the postconciliar debates on the liturgy. If the first liturgical celebrations of his pontificate are any indication, he may at least temper the fervor of those who have been most critical of the reforms. His actions seem to show him in favor of the newer liturgy and its greater simplicity.
So the post-Vatican II reform will probably proceed apace. But with regard to the major goals of “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” the reform is far from over. Surely there are a good number of Catholic communities where the council’s renewed vision of the liturgy has been assimilated and celebrated, but there are far too many in which the message has been digested only halfheartedly or without a profoundly interiorized appreciation of that vision’s implications.
The task going forward is twofold. First, every effort should be made to ensure that our liturgical celebrations are truly reverent. This does not require that liturgies be celebrated with medieval choreography and lots of lace; it does mean that they must be carefully prepared and prayerfully celebrated. The style of the liturgy is not of primary importance. The post-Vatican II liturgy can be celebrated in any number of cultural contexts, but their common denominator needs to be reverence.
The second task is considerably more challenging. Catholics need to be helped to understand more deeply and more explicitly the connections between their lives and what they celebrate in church. As the great contemporary liturgical historian, Robert Taft, S.J., has said: “The liturgy is the Christian life in a nutshell.” Nothing more—but nothing less. Our liturgies themselves, albeit in a ritualized fashion, play out the way we are called to live. They are the summit of Christian living as well as its source. As that reality enters more deeply into the Catholic consciousness, we will achieve by God’s grace the full, conscious and active participation the council called for, and we will be on our way to celebrating more fully the baptismal priesthood we are called to live.
Comments
The way forward for the liturgy is really a subset of the larger question of the way forward for Christianity. As relevant as the most progressive theologian hopes to make the Church through dialogue with unbelief, indifference and "modernity", a point will soon be reached, if we are not already there, when the unbelieving and indifferent will simply view Christians as mentally impaired throwbacks to a superstitious past which the modern world has thankfully left behind. In other words, Christians will be seen as inherently "anti-modern" no matter how much they protest to the contrary.
It does not seem to me that the progressive forces fully realize that this is going to happen and that a religious ghetto awaits them, unless they choose to jettison their faith and go forward with "modernity". The end point for modernity will be that evolving public consensus determines what is legal, and what is legal is indisputably moral, and there are certainly better ways to spend a Sunday than in a building singing hymns to the non-existent deities.
I respect the traditionalists for realizing this sooner. They know they're going to end up ghettoized and are embracing it, regrouping, having larger families and getting ready for a fight back, if only through demographics. I may not want to go along with their embracing of the Tridentine liturgy as the centerpiece of their struggle but it makes sense why they are doing it. To their credit (or rather, to the credit of the liturgy), when you attend one of their masses, you leave with the distinct sense that something other-worldly has taken place. It's there in the set up, the movements and the orientation of the priest and people.
It is my hope that that experience will be extended in the future to as many parishes as possible while preserving the liturgy in some form in the vernacular. The other-worldly encounter has to be broadly experienced, not just by the pious few who are already well-versed in the faith. Even the poorly catechized need to know that inside the church building, something quite different from everyday life is taking place. It is what will sustain them if they find themselves engaged in the struggle.
As a 71 year old Catholic Christian, semi retired psychiatrist, it is a delight to, when not working, to go to daily mass. There indeed I find "the active presence", celebrated in Church, community of baptized people. My favorite words are "by the mingeling of this water and wine, may we have a share in Your divinity, as You came to share in our humanity" and "...God, who gives us all that is good". and also "Not look on my sins but the faith of Your entire Church". It need it is at "mass" since the reform of Vatican Two, that I find Hope that sustains my life. Now the new "translation" is a distraction I admit, but the miracle of the Mass, the foundational reality of the great mysteries of CHristianity, Creation, Incarnation, Salvation, in my language, with the community present and with all the celebrations around the enitre world daily and the "cloud of Witness"--plus of course the sacrament of "The Word" is given to us as our daily bread. And is the only balm for the sorrow and suffering of daily life as pilgrams in need of Hope and the source of any good I may do. I would never go back to the Latin Mass--active participation in the language of most of the people for liturgy and studying and praying and working and living knowing God lives among us, telling us to "Be Not Afraid". God is in all things---
Liturgical developments inspired by Vatican II occurred concurrently with many other social changes including a decline in Mass attendance. That does not constitute causality. Does anyone remember Humanae Vitae? How about the reluctance of educated Catholics to believe that missing Mass guaranteed eternity in hell? How about the impact of the sexual revolution?
John Quinn
What is not addressed in this essay or unfortunately in few essays whether on liturgy, christology, sacramental theology whatever is how the new cosmology impacts on such reflections. Despite the reforms of Vatican II the Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy is still based on Fall/Redemption from the Scriptures and Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory of Redemption.
Over thirty years ago while studying Sacramental Theology with Jake Empereur SJ he said that there was little or no experimentation with liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church because when you experimented you did not know what the result might be. The same goes with theology of any kind that seeks to be approved and not have its authors hounded by the CDF or individual bishops, bishops conferences or what-have-you.
The scientific findings that support the new cosmology - Big Bang, 13-14 billion years; Supernova Explosion 6 billion years; evolution; - invite us to examine our Scriptures - 4 to 4.5 thousand years old, written with a belief in a flat earth and a God who lived in heaven - and the theology that has developed from that source. But unless we are prepared to start with creation, and what we now know about it from our current scientific investigations, and not JUST with the faith-filled writings of a group of Semites s few thousand years ago then we are condemned to do nothing more than language clarification.
Do we not have the faith that the scripture writers had? Are we afraid to look at our world as we know it to be today and try to understand God’s presence in it? We say we believe in God but are we prepared to do theology, to seek to understand our faith based on our world in the 21st century? Or is our faith still the child’s faith in what our parents, grandparents, Church believes and has believed for but a few millenia? Do we have faith enough to experiment and see where we end up?
Discussions of this genre about the liturgy tend to come down to a push-pull about which form is "more reverent," "more meaningful," more-or less culpable for a decline in faith and attendance, "better" or not in any host of ways. One factor that is rarely included in the mix is the massive cultural shift and growing secularization that challenge any and every form of worship -- Catholic or not -- in our day. Vatican II did not take place in a cultural vacuum either. Fr. Baldovin speaks of the "worship of a God who transcends our world while at the same time dwelling among us." While people of any faith may presume that premise as a given, the folks who have abandoned worship do not seem to accept it as a reasonable starting point. For those who live with a mindset rooted in what is scientifically and empirically demonstrable, engaging in "divine worship" of any kind is very likely a difficult or quaint concept at best. As a Catholic priest, I'm grateful for those who come to Mass and the sacraments, but have little idea of how our discussions of liturgy on this plane will reach and re-engage those who have chosen to dismiss the divine. We find ourselves "preaching to the choir" -- or what's left of them.
Pope Francis agrees with you when telling the priests to leave the sacristy, to mix with sheep and smell like them...
That means, less clericalism and more compassion and love, by getting closer to those outside, the poor and those who left, or never came. Evangelization at the level of theology is a dream of scholars. We need to see "love in action as model of Christ" in the outskirts of the church, beyond the choir. We need a pastoral living image of Jesus among us, in the marketplace.
A fact to consider: this recent CARA survey indicates that 50% of American Catholics are unaware that the Church teaches that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, and 37% don't believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist: http://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2013/05/hypothesis-confirmed-know...
Isn't at least possible that this shocking level of ignorance about a central Catholic belief is the result of some of the changes to the Mass after Vatican !!?
My favorite line of Father Baldovin's article: "it seems to be working, even if subtly, to form a generation of Catholics. Only time will tell."
How in the world does any of the liturgical reform (including the novus ordo calendar) since the mid-20th century seem to be working? Would not a simple metric showing a drop in Mass attendance from 75% to 20% (and that's in a good diocese) be one way to measure how changing the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass is "working" ?
Moreover, how much "time" is needed to "tell" ? Mass attendance dropped immediately after the first round of massive changes in 1965, and attendance continued to drop after the novus ordo was invented in 1969. The only thing I see currently working is the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass and the increasing number of young people attending and devoted to it. Vocations are another metric here.
One of these days I would like to see an article on Vatican II and the liturgy that followed the Council talk about numbers and actual statistical impacts. Until then, I have no earthly idea what has been "working" as a result of Vatican II and its reform on the Mass.
Religious freedom if it means anything is the freedom to worship God in one's native language and culture. If as quoted, "If the Liturgy is the Christian life in a nutshell" mandating just one preferred Liturgy, with Roman rubrics and Latin, for all cultures just fails to recognize and respect the deep need for people to pray and worship in ways most meaningful to them. Our Christian sisters and brothers have much to teach Roman Catholic Latinists about the beautiful arrays of public worship and prayer that surely reaches God ears with equal pleasure and praise!
But meanwhile, we keep arguing about trivial matters such as who should do the dishes after communion and whether it should be on the altar in full view of the congregation or out of sight, even after Mass concludes and at the credence table or else the sacristy. I doubt that Jesus cares one way or another. In so many European and Latin American masses, communion under both species is still a rarity. And thus there is little need for additional Eucharistic Ministers on a regular basis. And so many ultra traditionalist parishes everywhere insist on kneeling at the altar rail to receive only on the tongue. Finally, the current prayers contained in the new Sacramentary are just poorly written and full of confusing and even redundant terms. Was Jesus offended somehow by the far more honest and simple, direct prayers contained in the former missal?
We in the Roman Rite have over litugicalized virtually everything. Our bishop insists that his priests celebrate Benediction on Corpus Christi Sunday. The new post Vatican II 'participatory' approach would seem much more likely to emphasize the reception of communion over adoration for an hour. And the real danger is that people will not attend mass but only Benediction instead. Clearly a misunderstanding of the sacrament is being enabled.
The interior space in too many older parishes is museum-like. These spaces were designed for a time when people did other devotions while mass was going on at the main altar. They still foster individualism rather than communal participation.
Are we there yet? Not. It is truly time for Vatican III.
I share the concern of returning to the "old" liturgy and fear the "divisions" that may arise from disagreements over the liturgical reform. I am 64 years old, old enough to have wonderful memories of the "old" liturgy. But I think the focus of the renewed liturgy (vernacular, full and active participation, etc.) has off-set any losses. The liturgy should, in all cases, however, maintain a sense of the holy. Additionally, I would like to see further participation by women as altar servers, not just young girls. (The issue of women deacons will be taken up by those further up the chain from me, but I think it is their right and I would welcome them!) As the U.S. becomes more of a missionary country, priests should have a sufficient command of the dominant languages in their parishes before they give homilies. Accents are wonderful and bring a certain richness to our communities, but they should not be so pronounced as to render the homilist's words unintelligible. Members of the assembly may rightly be expected to "apply themselves" to listen, but the chore should not be so burdensome that they stop listening. Having read John O'Malley's books on Trent and on Vatican II, one of the things that I take away is that these issues are always going to be with us, so we should not think that they will ever be set once-for-all. Every generation should have the right to find renewed and vibrant ways to celebrate the Eucharist and to announce the Gospel.
Great article. Two quick points:
1. Fr. Baldovin is correct to point to "the possible focus on the personality of the priest instead of on the liturgy itself." This, I would argue, has been one of the disappointing results of liturgical reform. Too often the presiding priest serves as a master of ceremony, e.g., shouting out "Good Morning," telling a few corny jokes, explaining each part of the liturgy. This really draws too much attention to his personality and not the communal act.
2. The "revival" of the pre-Vatican II Mass has been mostly a bust in most diocese. A few dozen people attend these Masses.
A few dozen people perhaps attend the pre-Vatican II Mass when it is offered on a 3rd Friday afternoon in the cemetery chapel in the worst part of town. Where it is offered every Sunday morning the numbers are almost always much higher.
With regards to statement no. 2, my diocese alone has a parish doing the 1962 rite with over 400 people there on a regular Sunday. There are too many other dioceses where this is also the case. This statement is inaccurate and represents the exaggerated positions of both the progressives and the ROTR people. Each sides wishes to demonize the other when there is truth on both sides of the question.
I'm not "demonizing" anyone. I was reporting my experiences in two dioceses. When I read one of the many websites that serve as a directory for the pre-Vatican II Mass I see that, in large archdioceses, there are only a handful that offer this form of worship (web2.airmail.net/carlsch/EFMass/churches.htm). In addition, I thought I saw a statistic last year that put their congregations in the low single digits as a percentage of dioceses.
Perhaps I am wrong so I welcome other people's reports on this.
There is much to disagree with in this essay. One of the texts not quoted from Sacrosanctum Concilium is its stipulation that the use of Latin is to be maintained in the Latin rites. This is much to be desired today when people tend to overdose on particularisms and nationalisms: our Mass, their Mass etc. The Mass has often been "inculturated down." The Church is supranational. Nationalism particularly "flowered" when Catholic-culture broke down in the Renaissance and Reformation. Consubstantial/chalice problems? I don't think so. Christine Mohrmann pointed out even when Latin was the vernacular, it was never "street Latin" but a highly stylized Latin proper to a hieratic language. One of the problems with the former translation besides its inaccuracy was it was often the height of banality even though the present translation is not perfect. None would be. I also think that what the conciliar-fathers voted on in SC was not what came out via Bugnini in 1969. Pope Benedict called it a "manufactured liturgy." Rather the principle was organic development not liturgy by committee. The Catholic and Orthodox East is horrified by this. The 1965 Missal was much closer to conciliar intentions in my view. How do you determine "debris"? If you compare the former and the current rites you often experience an impoverishment in the new, devoid of symbols and ritual, a "dumbing down" if you will, in favor of "total rationality" and constant sound. Read the comparison of the former orations with the current ones. Lauren Pristis has done wonderful work in this comparison. Look what happened to the notion of active participation! It has become people doing things (eg squadrons of EM's, liturgy as performance with a cast of thousands, constant blah blah), rather than a spiritual reality of actively uniting oneself to the sacred. No we still need a reform of the reform and a recovery of the sacred. Pope Benedict has rejected the manner of the liturgical reform and its problems and he has not rejected the Council while giving the Church back her ancient liturgy in order to proclaim one Church of 2000 years and a seamless tradition of Councils rather than make V2 a super-Council, the wild card in the deck which trumps all church-life prior to 1965. I don't think Pope Francis will reverse this even if his emphases might be different.
Uh, the Trent liturgy does not go back 2000 years. In fact there was for the first 1,200 years or so a rich diversity in liturgy and its celebration, often particularized to a local language and culture. Uniformity in worship is not the 11th commandment.