More Reactions to Traditionis Custodes

Only those who GO INTO schism are liable for that crime. But creating conditions that provoke others to go into schism is its own grave sin, and those who create such conditions will be held accountable for THAT offense. Indeed they are liable for their provocation in any event.

— Edward Peters (@canonlaw) July 16, 2021

Why the Pope's merciless war against the Old Rite matters https://t.co/CM3rTiUerK via @spectator

— Tim Stanley (@timothy_stanley) July 17, 2021

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski destroys the Pope's new motu proprio: "Francis’s anti-TLM motu proprio has all the charm of a decree by Stalin ordering the purge of Ukrainian dissidents." This is war!https://t.co/Lfxcx0dYmY

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) July 16, 2021

Protesting the Limits of the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome

After all, one could say that this authority of the bishop of Rome with respect to the Roman rite applies only to the authority that he has over the Roman rite and the patriarchate of Rome, and that this authority could be limited or modified.

What Paul VI did to the liturgy of the [Church] was a tectonic shift, an unprecedented assault on tradition—& therefore truly wrong, unworthy of the papacy, incompatible with the duties of the papal office, wicked in the way in which treason is wicked.https://t.co/ZhWnEFPoIT

— Crisis Magazine (@CrisisMag) July 7, 2021

Should They Have Been Upgraded to the General Calendar?

An Expansive Counter-Reformation Lex Orandi Retains Its Relevance https://t.co/OaXXIAFQUa pic.twitter.com/ml6ByMuocr

— NLM (@NLMblog) July 5, 2021

Receptivity

Crisis: Far from the Spirit of the Lord: On the Pope’s New Motu Proprio by Peter Kwasniewski

What we need to see, and see clearly, is this: the highest dignity of the baptized is to welcome Christ the Lord in Holy Communion. Period. Nothing else they do, no other function or service or activity, can compare to the Marian privilege of receiving God. When we elaborately multiply functions, services, and activities, we introduce distractions, invert priorities, build false hierarchies, and undermine simple faith, devotion, humility, and reverence. The participatio actuosa or actual participation of the faithful in the liturgy is not about doing, but about being, or more precisely, being a good recipient of the Word, so that this Word may be fruitful in us. It is not about busyness with much serving, but about contemplation, the union of love.

There is also the receptivity of the Son, who receives everything from the Father. Marian receptivity is symbolized by her, as a woman, becoming the Theotokos. Marian receptivity on a spiritual level is the receiving of the Divine Life by being a filia in Filio, just as the Son receives everything He is from the Father.

Promotion of Bridal Mysticism?

Investiture as a Bridal Ceremony by Peter Kwasniewski

Kwasniewski on the Feast of Christ the King

I'm somewhat agnostic on the "best form" of government, when governments seem to always devolve. But on today's feast, Peter K looks at Christianity & Kingship:

Between Christ the King and “We Have No King But Caesar” - OnePeterFive - https://t.co/fCjYptnA69 via @onepeterfive pic.twitter.com/u4zeQCYJv8

— Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) October 25, 2020

1P5

Kwasniewski:

The month of November begins with the great Solemnity of All Saints. But in the traditional Roman calendar, All Saints is preceded shortly before by an even greater feast—that of Christ the King, the One who creates and sanctifies the citizens, ambassadors, and soldiers of His Kingdom.

When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925, he was, one might say, supplying in the Church’s calendar the missing invisible cause of All Saints, as well as making clear just what the mission of the saints in history is: to be the living members of the Mystical Body under Christ its Head, and to extend this body across the whole earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the King of all men, all peoples, all nations, and His saints are those who, taking up their cross and following Him, have conquered their own souls and won over the souls of many others for this Kingdom.

This is close to the justification that Pius XI used in Quas Primas. Note that in the Byzantine rite, the feast of All Saints is celebrated after Pentecost (as it used to be celebrated in the West), and for an appropriate liturgical and theological reason. Otherwise the case could be made that every Sunday is a memorial of Christ who is the Head of His Mystical Body.

As Michael Foley shows in a brilliant article in the latest issue of The Latin Mass magazine, the feast was not merely moved, but transmogrified. It was given a new name, a new date, and new propers, all of which deemphasized the social reign of Christ and put in its place a “cosmic and eschatological Christ.”

But is the Pauline/Consilium's Feast of Christ the King closer in its conception of Christ to the Byzantine representation of Christ Pantocrator? Perhaps.

This leads me back to Pope Paul VI’s suppression of one feast of Christ the King and his creation of another. What is really going on here? It seems to me that the original feast of Christ the King represents the Catholic vision of society as a hierarchy in which lower is subordinated to higher, with the private sphere and the public sphere united in their acknowledgment of the rights of God and of His Church. This vision was put aside in 1969 to make way for a vision in which Christ is a king of my heart and a king of the cosmos—of the most micro level and the most macro level—but not king of anything in between: not king of culture, of society, of industry and trade, of education, of civil government.

Perhaps anything more than this would be pastorally unwise - presumptuous and maybe even blasphemous? Our Lord is not a sports team, and He does not want empty praise coming from the lips of men.

Foley's article was republished at NLM, a link to which I posted here.

One Can Do Anything with Allegory

Including preventing any future changes, even those that would seem to be sensible.

An Allegorical Rationale for the Ministers Sitting During the Gloria and Credo https://t.co/X44N7Ve9HV pic.twitter.com/U4YjVViHhA

— NLM (@NLMblog) October 26, 2020

Peter Kwasniewski

I Could Guess the Author from the Title Alone

NLM: In Defense of Allegorical Interpretation of the Liturgy by PETER KWASNIEWSKI

In Defense of Allegorical Interpretation of the Liturgy https://t.co/1vtyyZUanD pic.twitter.com/QZXaEAxadA

— NLM (@NLMblog) October 19, 2020

Related:

The Divine Office as a Mirror of the Mass https://t.co/6hX9HYRz4R pic.twitter.com/UvSwl2aa7W

— NLM (@NLMblog) October 22, 2020

Gregory DiPippo

Peter Kwasniewski on the Minor Options of the EF

NLM

Kwasniewski on "Mysterium Fidei"

NLM: The Displacement of the Mysterium Fidei and the Fabricated Memorial Acclamation by Peter Kwasniewski

For centuries, going back into the mists of time, the priest has said the words “Mysterium fidei” in the midst of the words of consecration whispered over the chalice. These words powerfully evoke the irruption or inbreaking of God into our midst in this unfathomable Sacrament. The consecration of the wine completes the signification of the sacrifice of the Cross, the moment when our High Priest obtained for us eternal redemption (cf. Heb 9:12), the re-presentation of which, together with the application of its fruits, is the very purpose of the Mass.

and

Even if the words mysterium fidei are not necessary for signifying transubstantiation (and thus, the consecration can be “effective,” and the Mass “valid,” without them), the removal of the phrase from its age-old position exudes the attitude: nothing is sacred.

Does this use of "mysterium fidei" match what St. Paul means by the Mystery, Christ becoming Incarnate so that we may be incorporated in Him? If that is what St. Paul meant, then why would "mysterium fidei" be used before anyone had actually received Holy Communion?

Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright

NLM



I am not sure if most of the essays were previously published or not, but some of the titles look familiar. At least the title isn't Reclaiming Our Catholic Birthright.

Participatio Actuosa

LSN: Catholics have a ‘right’ to good liturgy in accordance with Church’s ‘tradition and discipline’ by Peter Kwasniewski
The Catholic Church teaches that there is such a thing as a 'right to liturgy.'

Catholics have a ‘right’ to good liturgy in accordance with Church’s ‘tradition and discipline’ https://t.co/W5Moz0bQGy

— LifeSite Catholic (@LSNCatholic) May 17, 2020

[T]he generic concern for “active participation” in the liturgy eclipses the centrality of the specific and infinitely greater good of the Eucharistic sacrifice enacted by the priest on behalf of the people. Just as the right to life is unequivocally and primordially located in the right of each baby human to be born, so too the right to liturgy refers most of all to the right to “offer the holy oblation in peace” (as our Byzantine brethren say), to see and to experience the liturgy as the work of Christ in and for His Church, not as my or anyone else’s product.

There is no worship without people worshipping.

In the Catholic world, the “sign of peace,” the proliferation of lay ministers invading the sanctuary and handling the precious gifts, and execrably bad post-Communion songs, conspire to distract us from the miracle that has just occurred and prevent us from praying most fruitfully in union with Our Lord and with all the other members of His Mystical Body.

Maybe some progressives cite those as being examples of active patricipation, but they're not.It's rather a straw man argument.

We are given our natural life in order to acquire supernatural life, and this we are given for the sake of rising up to God in prayer and divine praise.

This is active participation.

[B]eing pro-liturgy does not mean getting as many lay people involved in as many ministries as possible.

Again, this is not what is generally meant by active participation among the proponents of the Latin liturgical movement of the 20th ce. Kwasniewski should be writing better than this.

This article by a Latin traditionalist is slightly better:
Participatio Activa & Participatio Actuosa by Andy Milam

But whether it's of the readings during the readings service or of the singing by the scholar or choir, listening without comprehension is not listening -- it's hearing. Intelligibility is important for both prayer and listening.Conscious activity that is without comprehension of the prayers or texts may be piety or devotion, but it's not participation in the liturgy. Participation dependent upon a lay missal with a translation into the vernacular may be possible for a few, but it probably isn't possible for all, and it won't be possible once the extra resources that enable the printing and purchase of such missals begins to dwindle.

The above essay does cite Msgr. Richard Schuler as an authority on actuosa participatio, as does Fr. Peter Stravinskas in a guest essay for NLM in 2016 (part 2).

Authorities  like Colman E. O’Neill, O.P. equate participation [in the liturgy] with offering the Sacrifice of the Mass and receiving the Sacrament[s]:

(It is) that form of devout involvement in the liturgical action which, in the present conditions of the Church, best promotes the exercise of the common priesthood of the baptized; that is, their power to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass with Christ and to receive the sacraments. It is clear that, concretely, this requires that the faithful understand the liturgical ceremonial; that they take part in it by bodily movements, standing, kneeling or sitting as the occasion may demand; that they join vocally in the parts which are intended for them. It also requires that they listen to, and understand, the Liturgy of the Word. It requires, too, that there be moments of silence when the impact of the whole ceremonial may be absorbed and deeply personalized.

While O'Neill does say that the laity should join vocally in the parts which are intended for them (but should they understand to what they are responding, and their own responses), and even concedes that they should understand the Liturgy of the Word, he does identify participation with the exercise of the common priesthood of the baptized, and it would be easy on the basis of that identification alone one could say that comprehension is not at all necessary, as some Latin traditionalists may do. Does one need to understand the texts of the Mass in order to offer it and to receive the Sacraments? Not at all. I think O'Neill's equating of the two is problematic for another reason, that he misunderstands what the common priesthood of the faithful is, as it is dependent upon the dominant Latin opinion of what makes the Eucharist a sacrifice. But more on that in another post.

The Ongoing Dispute About the Anaphora/Eucharistic Prayer

And when Christ becomes sacramentally or truly present on the altar.

NLM: East-West Disagreements about the Epiclesis and Transubstantiation by Peter Kwasniewski


A modified Tridentine position that is close to the "holistic" position of Fr. Louis Bouyer, who thinks that the Words of Consecration effect consecration of the sacred species but the whole anaphora is important. (But not the same as Fr. Robert Taft's, who talks of the necessity of the whole anaphora, both the institution narrative whether explicit or not and an explicit expiclesis, if there is one.) But Trent was not an ecumenical council with representatives from all of the Apostolic Churches, nor did it take into consideration the liturgies from the traditions of those Churches.

Concilium v. Communio

CWR Dispatch: Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Reformer by George Weigel
(Also published at First Things.)

As I wrote in The Irony of Modern Catholic History, a fissure in the ranks of the reformist theologians at Vatican II began to open up during the Council’s third session, held in the fall of 1964. A new theological journal, Concilium, was being planned by some of the Council’s influential theological advisers (many of whom had been heavily censored in the pre-Vatican II years). A towering figure among them, the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac, began to worry that Concilium would take the reformist project in a deconstructive direction: one that would do serious damage to what John XXIII, in his opening address to the Council, called “the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine,” which Pope John urged “be more effectively defended and presented.”
  
The first several issues of the new journal intensified de Lubac’s concerns. So in May 1965 the most venerable member of its editorial committee quietly withdrew from the Concilium project while continuing his work at the Council itself. As Vatican II drew to a close, others would join him in expressing serious reservations about the tack being taken by their onetime theological allies. And those concerns did not lessen over time.  

The result was what I call in my book “The War of the Conciliar Succession”: the war to define what Vatican II was and what Vatican II intended for the Catholic future. This war was not a struggle between “traditionalists” and “progressives.” It was a bitterly fought contest within the camp of Vatican II theological reformers. It continues to this day. And the question that so concerned Henri de Lubac remains entirely pertinent, 56 years later: Would an interpretation of the Council that effectively set the Catholic Church against “the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine” end up betraying the gospel and emptying it of its power?  

Joseph Ratzinger joined de Lubac and other dissident conciliar reformers in launching another theological journal, Communio, which he and his colleagues hoped would advance an interpretation of Vatican II that was in continuity with the Church’s settled doctrine even as it developed the Church’s understanding of that doctrine. Communio, now published in 14 language editions, has been a creative force in Catholic intellectual life for decades. Like Ratzinger, Communio is not against Vatican II; it has challenged what its authors contend is a wrongheaded interpretation of Vatican II.

Only one group was engaged in true reform, though in a wrong-headed way by employing the council to do it. Would  it be accurate to say the progressives were leaning towards heresy or had embraced it? Or were they guilty of an archaeologistic thinking that reflected a historical reality that existed only in their imagination? (Simplicity, the Eucharist as Last Supper, and all that?)

Peter Kwasniewski on the Roman Canon

Rorate Caeli:

“The Roman Canon: Pillar and Ground of the Roman Rite” — Full text of Dr. Kwasniewski’s lecture

Today, in honor of the feast of Pope St. Pius V, I am pleased to present to readers of Rorate Caeli the full text of my lecture on the Roman Canon, which in recent years has been delivered in a number of places in varying forms. The lecture had previously been translated into and published in Italian (“Pilastro e Fondamento del Rito Romano: il Canone Romano come Norma Dottrinale e Morale”) and German (“Im Herzen des katholischen Gottesdienstes: Zwölf Glaubenswahrheiten im römischen Kanon”).

Can There Be a Reform of the Reform?

1P5: Why the “Reform of the Reform” Is Doomed by Peter Kwasniewski

Why are there still liturgically minded people defending the Novus Ordo or promoting its “redemption” through Ratzingerian improvements?

Only now are some younger men becoming bishops; thus we see examples like Thomas Daly or Alexander Sample, both of whom sponsored liturgical conferences, which I think are aimed at an enrichment of both forms of the Roman rite. There are also probably many bishops like Joseph Strickland, who prefer the OF but allow their priests to study and celebrate the EF, and perhaps introduce some enrichment into the OF. But many dioceses still have the old guard in positions of power, though many have retired in recent years and will continue to retire, while others have the next generation of "progressives" in charge. So, ask the question again in 5 years, and maybe things won't seem so bleak, at least with respect to liturgical praxis.

Let's break down the second claim.

An Excerpt from Fiedrowicz’s Book

Something not included with Krwasniewski's recommendation over at Rorate Caeli, a link to which I posted here.

NLM: Best One-Volume Scholarly Introduction to the Traditional Mass, Now in English by
Peter Kwasniewski

Another Recommendation for Fiedrowicz’s Book

Rorate Caeli: The supreme literary vindication of Summorum Pontificum: Fiedrowicz’s comprehensive guide to the Traditional Mass — now in English by Peter Kwasniewski

Rubrics for the Laity in the EF?

NLM: Should the Postures of the Laity at the Traditional Latin Mass Be Regulated, Legislated, or Revised? by Peter Kwasniewski



Kwasniewski takes a laissez-faire position on this question, and that is appropriate, though it may be counter to the mindset of many Latin traditionalists, who will insist upon kneeling as the appropriate posture for certain parts of the Mass, etc.

There is but one further angle to examine: the Problem of Pews. Since nearly every Catholic church in the West is now equipped with pews, usually bolted down for permanence, the topic is far more speculative than what we have discussed heretofore, and deserving of a separate treatment.

The two questions are intertwined so I await for the next part of his discussion. There is also the first ecumenical council's prohibition of kneeling on Sundays, but Latin traditionalists think the patriarchate of Rome is above that. And then there are sentiments like this expressed in comboxes and elsewhere:

I like the fact that the TLM has no rubrics for the laity at all -- including posture. It underscores the fact that the congregation (to be blunt) has absolutely nothing to do with the activity of the Mass. The priest offers the Mass. The server (clerical role) makes the responses. The schola (clerical role) sings the chant. None of this, at least in the missal or rubrics, is appointed for the congregation.

Latins Should Return to the Ancient Practice

NLM

That it was the universal custom and observed by all Apostolic Churches is sufficient reason for its restoration in the patriarchate of Rome. (The rationale, I believe, was the same as well.)

That there is great confusion about the very essence of the Mass and the meaning of the ministerial priesthood may be gleaned from newspaper articles that interview priests who are now at loose ends because they have no congregation to engage. Having been led to define priesthood as a relation with the people when it is a relation with Christ first and foremost, on behalf of the people, they search in vain, or at least with great difficulty, for an intrinsic and transcendent meaning to the offering of due worship to the Most Holy Trinity, such as animated centuries of so-called “private Masses,” which the Magisterium of the Church encouraged right through Benedict XVI (see my article “The Church encourages priests to say Masses, even without the faithful”).

Has any Latin progressive admitted the force of the psychologically or "subjective" or "phenomenological"  arguments against versus populum? Or are they "pro-science" only when it agrees with their opinions?

If ever there was a reductio ad absurdum for the versus populum stance, this, the final outcome of the closed-circle mentality, would be it. If the church in which this priest is standing happened to have a tabernacle behind the altar, the inversion would be complete: a priest praying towards pieces of paper with faces, instead of praying towards the God who dwells with His people as their Head, their King, and their Shepherd, in Person—the Son of God whose bloody sacrifice on the Cross, sacramentally enacted upon the altar, is the reason Mass is said at all, for the profit of the living and the dead, wherever they may be.

This objectification of the reserved Eucharistic species in the tabernacle, that was not the rationale of the early Church but it is the dominant within second millennium Latin liturgical piety.

Seeing this photo brought home to me once again the wisdom of the tradition in having the Epistle chanted eastwards and the Gospel chanted northwards: in this way the position of the reader is dictated by theological and symbolic ideas that lead to no weirdness when implemented in an empty church, unlike the scenario depicted above.

Latin customs. For the readings, should the focus be on the reader? The direction in which the reader is facing? What image will help a "viewer" attend to the readings? An image of Christ? Or an image of the specific aspect of the Mystery being remembered?

Related: Eastern Christian Books: Orthodox Liturgy Phenomenologically Understood

Fordham UP: Welcoming Finitude: Toward a Phenomenology of Orthodox Liturgy by Christina M. Gschwandtner