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This article, from Commonweal, appeared on April 26, 2007. The book it refers to is out of print, but it is worth searching out.


DPA

...In a talk delivered in October 1964, Ratzinger remarked "that the first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smoldering within" (83). An example was the question of the liturgy, which represented a "profound crisis in the life of the Church." Its roots lay back in the late Middle Ages, when "awareness of the real essence of Christian worship increasingly vanished. Great importance was attached to externals, and these choked out the whole." Trent's reaction to Reformation challenges was inadequate, even if it eliminated a number of abuses. It did not sufficiently deal with Reformation difficulties with the notions of adoration and sacrifice. It did cut back the medieval overgrowth and took measures to prevent it in the future. But the main measure was to centralize liturgical authority in the Congregation of Rites.

"New overgrowths were in fact prevented, but the fate of liturgy in the West was now in the hands of a strictly centralized and purely bureaucratic authority. This authority completely lacked historical perspective; it viewed the liturgy solely in terms of ceremonial rubrics, treating it as a kind of problem of proper court etiquette for sacred matters. This resulted in the complete archaizing of the liturgy, which now passed from the stage of living history, became embalmed in the status quo and was ultimately doomed to internal decay. The liturgy had become a rigid, fixed and firmly encrusted system; the more out of touch with genuine piety the more attention was paid to its prescribed forms. We can see this if we remember that none of the saints of the Catholic Reformation drew their spirituality from the liturgy….

"The baroque era adjusted to this situation by super-imposing a kind of para-liturgy on the archeologized actual liturgy. Accompanied by the splendor of orchestral performance, the baroque high Mass became a kind of sacred opera in which the chants of the priest functioned as a kind of periodic recitative. The entire performance seemed to aim at a kind of festive lifting of the heart, enhanced by the beauty of a celebration appealing to the eye and ear. On ordinary days, when such display was not possible, the Mass was frequently covered over with devotions more attractive to the popular mentality. Even Leo XIII recommended that the rosary be recited during Mass in the month of October. In practice this meant that while the priest was busy with his archeologized liturgy, the people were busy with their devotions to Mary. They were united with the priest only by being in the same church with him and by entrusting themselves to the sacred power of the eucharistic sacrifice" (85-86).

After the baroque period, it was clear that the efforts of the Congregation of Rites had resulted in the total impoverishment of the liturgy. If the Church's worship was once again to become the worship of the Church in the fullest sense-i.e., of all the faithful-then it had to become something in movement again. The wall of Latinity had to be breached if the liturgy were again to function either as proclamation or as invitation to prayer… It was now clear that behind the protective skin of Latin lay hidden something that even Trent's cutting away of late medieval ornamentations had failed to remove. The simplicity of the liturgy was still overgrown with superfluous accretions of purely historical value. It was now clear, for example, that the selection of biblical texts had frozen at a certain point and hardly met the needs of preaching. The next step was to recognize that the necessary revamping could not take place simply through purely stylistic modifications, but also required a new theology of divine worship. Otherwise the renewal would be no more than superficial" (87).

…as a child, as Cardinal Ratzinger relates in his memoir, "Milestones" (p. 19-20 in the 1998 Ignatius Press paperback) he describes collecting missals as a child, with the enthusiasm that other kids collect baseball cards or comic books. And these were the so-called Schott missals, which were translations into the vernacular German of the Latin he heard at Mass. So it was through the vernacular, thanks to an innovative (and not sanctioned) liturgical movement, that the future pope first began his love affair with the liturgy.

"It appears to me that the almost absolute value which is attributed to the Latin language in the liturgy, in instruction and in the administration of the Latin Church presents a kind of anomaly for the Eastern Church; for without doubt Christ spoke to his contemporaries in their own language. He used a language which was understandable to all his hearers, namely Aramaic, when he celbrated the first eucharistic sacrifice. The apostles and disciples acted likewise. It would never have occurred to them that the celebrant in a Christian assembly should read the passages of scripture, should sing the psalms, should preach or break the bread, usinig a different language that that of the congregation. Paul himself says explicitly:'If you bless with the spirit [i.e. in an unintelligible language], how is one who is present as an outsider to say AAmen" to your thanksgiving when he does not understand what you are saying? You may give thanks well enough, but the other is not edified…. In church I should prefer to speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in [unintelligible] tongues' (I Cor 14:16-19). All the reasons one can bring forward in favor of the untouchability of Latin-a liturgical language but a dead one-must five way before this clear, unequivocal and precise reasoning of the Apostle. The Latin language is dead, but the Church remains alive. So, too, the language which mediates grace and the Holy Spirit must also be a living language since it is intended for men and not for angels. No language can be untouchable…." (17-18)

The question that comes to mind after attending this event is, could the Pope celebrate such a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica?

There are some impediments.

The ceremonial for a pontifical High Mass in the old rite is elaborate, and it has been so many years since one has been celebrated that many feel it would not be celebrated smoothly, if the Pope decided to do it.

And many Vatican officials seem reluctant, at best, to embrace the return of the old Mass.

No high-ranking Vatican officials were present at the Mass except for Monsignor Pozzo.

And Vatican Radio yesterday broadcast a report on a Mass celebrated elsewhere in the Basilica for the 400th anniversary of St. Leonardi, but made no mention at all of Archbishop Burke's Mass.

And so the Mass was celebrated quietly, almost unobserved.