The place of the older (or “traditional”) liturgical rites, the usus antiquior or the “more ancient use”, as it is perhaps less polemically known, is amongst them.
In his letter to the Cardinals before Christmas, Pope Leo indicated that this consistory would include an “‘in-depth theological, historical, and pastoral reflection ‘in order to retain sound tradition and yet remain open to legitimate progress.’” That is encouraging on two fronts.
Firstly, because it indicates that the Holy Father recognises that there is an issue here that needs to be addressed. The more than unfortunate attempt to ‘settle’ liturgical questions aimed at by that sheer product of prelatical political manoeuvring that is the Motu Proprio Traditiones Custodes (16 July 2021), and its disastrous pastoral impact, cry out to heaven for redress.
Pope Benedict XVI was right when he taught that “What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behoves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place” (Letter, 7 July 2007).
As we now know, when consulted over a decade later the majority of the world’s bishops, whether they personally appreciated the older rites or not, did not have a problem with this principle or with its practical implementation. On the contrary, they praised its fruits.
Secondly, the Holy Father’s use of the phrase “‘in order to retain sound tradition and yet remain open to legitimate progress”, which is from article 23 of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (4 December 1963), indicates a certain nuance. Indeed, for those who have studied the Council’s Constitution, this article is a critical key to understanding its intention to initiate a moderate, and not a radical or root-and-branch, reform of the liturgy, in clear continuity with the tradition it had received.
Article 23 insists: “There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.”
Whether the Holy Father intends to reopen the Pandora’s box of the question of reforming the unorganic reform that was imposed following the Council, so as to return to the Council’s own vision of continuity and not rupture, is not clear. But his language could certainly be taken to mean that the issues involved may be discussed.
The desirability of reforming the liturgical reform has, however, been somewhat left behind in the past decade or so. Many have simply settled into the celebration of the newer rites, the usus recentior.
Most do so with profound faith, devotion, and fruitfulness; some out of a resigned or almost perfunctory routine. A small number use the modern rites as a mere resource in their pursuit of illegitimate ‘progress’.
And, since Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Summorum Pontificum freed them from the shackles that bound them, a growing number of others have discovered the reality of the participative fecundity of the renewed celebration of the older liturgical rites, which have steadily grown in unpolemical popularity.
It is this latter phenomenon that seems to have sufficiently worried a group of ageing ecclesiastical ideologues into pressuring the former Pope into issuing Traditiones Custodes and into appointing ambitious henchmen to brutally enforce its truly reactionary policies.
As mentioned, this has been a pastoral disaster.
It has brought about division and discord where peace had been fostered by Pope Benedict’s vision of a profound communion and unity in the Church, whilst rejoicing in the rich and fruitful ritual diversity to which the Church’s liturgical tradition bears witness.
“Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows,” he exhorted the bishops in 2007. That might not be a bad starting point for the Cardinals’ discussion this week.
There has been a lot of impatient murmuring amongst the devotees of the usus antiquior in recent months, some of it absurdly naive and even utterly disrespectful, expecting the Holy Father to have resolved this issue overnight, as it were, upon taking office.
We need patience and charity: it took Pope Benedict over two years from his election to promulgate Summorum Pontificum, in the face of the direct and openly hostile opposition of many bishops, and Pope Benedict had been speaking and writing about the issues involved for many years beforehand.
Pope Leo needs time.
And he needs our patience and our charity, and above all the gift of our prayers and sacrifices.
He is consulting: Deo gratias. The same open consultation did not happen before Traditiones Custodes.
In a sense, consultation is relatively straightforward. Afterwards, the Holy Father has the task of judging the advice he has been given and of using his power of governance to establish regulations that will serve the true good of souls.
This is where each of us has much to contribute with the prayers and penances we can offer for his wisdom and strength. This is, after all, nothing less than our filial duty as Catholics.
That is not to say that we cannot discuss the issues or even offer positive proposals, such as the proposal made in a recent letter to the Cardinals to create an Ordinariate or Prelature for the usus antiquior.
Certainly, this seems to have worked well in the Apostolic Administration of Campos in Brazil, but that is a geographically defined structure. Creating some form of worldwide “nature reserve” for the usus antiquior could risk ghettoising it. This could impede the restoration and growth of that peaceful coexistence and ecclesial communion, as well as the enrichment of the liturgical life of ordinary parishes and secular clergy, that was a real fruit of Summorum Pontificum.
So too, the idea of placing existing self-governing institutes and communities that celebrate the older rites, in the quite diverse ways that they in fact do, under one structure has as much appeal as forcing many differently shaped pegs into a square hole. It would most probably simply not work.
That is not to say that these communities or groups should not have paternal and authoritative oversight.
Currently, the relevant dicasteries provide this in respect of their governance, but there remains a glaring lack of any authoritative episcopal support or guidance for them liturgically.
The dicastery concerned is simply not interested, and one would be worried about its competence in the matters to be dealt with if they were.
This is certainly a need that the Holy Father could address. The creation of an office, headed by a bishop and staffed by qualified persons to regulate the liturgical questions that arise with the usus antiquior, to assist diocesan bishops in ensuring that all is as it should be liturgically in such communities, and to provide bishops, perhaps even some retired Cardinals, to celebrate Confirmation and the other pontifical rites according to the older use where these are needed, would be a true paternal gift.
So too would the return to the liberality of the truly pastoral liturgical vision of Pope Benedict XVI. Let us pray and fast and offer what sacrifices we can for the Holy Father as he meets with his Cardinals in the coming days.
These traditional means of obtaining grace may well themselves bear much fruit in the decisions Pope Leo clearly understands that he must take.