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Many thanks Mag for a very sensible article.

Unicorn, the Anglo-catholic High Mass is ceratinly dignified and beautiful and usually accompanied by glorious music. Nevetheless, I am not sure that "litirgical diversity" is what the Pope has in mind. Here is an another article in a similar vein, by Hugh McNichol in All News

Pope Benedict XVI…ending the Counter Reformation!

Welcoming the Anglicans back to communion and permitting the retention of some of their ritual traditions should come as no surprise for Catholics that appreciate the message of Vatican II.
During the Second Vatican Council, then Father Ratzinger collaborated closely with Fr. Yves Congar(1904-1945) in revamping the Catholic view towards our Protestant brothers and sisters divided by the Reformation. Perhaps one of the most significant point of the Council to the was essentially putting an end to the Counter Reformation prompted by the Anglican Schism and understanding those Christian Churches in a new spirit of ecumenical understanding. Benedict XVI, as Pope has consistently offered a bridge to other faiths outside of Catholicism. Even within Catholicism itself, an olive branch extends to the liturgical extremists with the restoration of the Mass of Pope John XXIII.

Benedict's pontificate offers an appreciation of the unique rituals and customs of Anglicanism, while allowing their coexistence with the Roman Church. It clearly illustrates that the openness towards Protestant Christianity advocated by Fr.Congar might indeed be coming to fruition. Remarkably, this gesture by Rome indicates very strongly that the Church indeed permits ritual pluralism when it embraces theological solidarity. The notions of the modern world and the Church are quite similar in both sectors appreciating human diversity and cultural heritages. Catholics and Anglicans should really celebrate this unprecedented papal gesture towards acceptance of former Anglicans as a living expression of the concept of, "E pluribus Unum.)

The latest expression of reunion with the former Anglicans should be considered as the hallmark of the Benedictine papacy thus far…internal and external ecumenism. Ongoing negotiations with the extremists founded by Archbishop Lefebvre are ongoing. Relationships with the Orthodox Church have developed and there is a renewed appreciation of the cultural identity and acceptance of Islam. While the pontificate of John-Paul II strongly endorsed a new understanding of our Judaic roots, the papacy of Benedict seems to favor a more global sense of inclusion of theological plural-isms. The movement might well be considered as a transcendental Thomism that brings Catholic Scholasticism into a renewed global appreciation.

The increased diplomatic and ecumenical, "reach-out," of the Catholic Church to other faiths, cultures and traditions is part of the theological foundations of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council with the monumental document, Unitas Redintegratio (Restoration of Unity) which embraced the notions of a better appreciation and understanding of the Protestant faith. The document even suggested the Catholic Church itself could learn from their theological and cultural experiences and make great contributions to the life of the Catholic Church.

We must get to know the outlook of our separated brethren. To achieve this purpose, study is of necessity required, and this must be pursued with a sense of realism and good will. Catholics, who already have a proper grounding, need to acquire a more adequate understanding of the respective doctrines of our separated brethren, their history, their spiritual and liturgical life, their religious psychology and general background. Most valuable for this purpose are meetings of the two sides-especially for discussion of theological problems-where each can treat with the other on an equal footing-provided that those who take part in them are truly competent and have the approval of the bishops. From such dialogue will emerge still more clearly what the situation of the Catholic Church really is. In this way too the outlook of our separated brethren will be better understood, and our own belief more aptly explained....

Catholics really should take careful note of these renewed theological and humanitarian developments underway. The ecumenical teachings and the role of the Church in the modern world are emerging as Pope Benedict's intention to accomplish the work he started as Father Ratzinger at Vatican II. It really seems that the hopes and intentions of aggiornamento developed by the Fathers of Vatican II are starting to sprout branches in addition to already strong historical and theological roots...

Pope Benedict XVI…ending the Counter Reformation!

The Catholic Herald - author Moyra Doorly and Aidan Nichols discuss the merits of post-Vatican II liturgical reform

Dear Fr Aidan,

In your kind reply to my first letter you made the point that I was drawing "unnecessarily sharp" contrasts between a theology of "propitiation and supplication" on one hand, and teachings on the "fruits of Communion" on the other. But what I was trying to demonstrate is that the pre-Conciliar sources give ample teaching on both, whereas the documents of Vatican II ignore the theology of propitiation and supplication.

Now, to me this represents a doctrinal discontinuity of the first order, and may explain my long-held suspicion that the Church since Vatican II seems intent on bypassing Golgotha and heading straight for Pentecost. And yet we are told repeatedly that no such discontinuity exists. What's more, even the suggestion that it might will be met from many quarters with threats of exile in the gulag along with the Society of St Pius X which holds the view, as expressed in the November 2006 newsletter of their Holy Cross Seminary, Australia, that "the New Mass is a grave danger to the Catholic Faith... it lacks the integral profession of Faith that is essential to the Sacred Liturgy".

It may be possible to explain the contrast between the appearances of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms - how they look, sound, and are experienced - by pointing to the Council's desire for the active participation of the laity as announced by the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (CSL) (para 14): "In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy the full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else." But then another discontinuity becomes apparent, since according to Pope Pius XII's 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei (paras 23, 24): "The Worship rendered by the Church to God must be, in its entirety, interior as well as exterior... But the chief element of divine worship must be interior."

Alternatively, the finger may be pointed at over-enthusiastic modernisers who have taken the liturgy in directions previously undreamed of. But according to the CSL (para 37): "Even in the liturgy the Church does not wish to impose a rigid conformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole community." And (para 40): "In some places and circumstances, however, an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed." ....

Is the SSPX right about the liturgy?

A very robust interview with Father Bob Taft, a huge character and scholar based at the Oriental Institute in Rome

US Catholic- If any scholar could claim a ring-side seat to the liturgical reform of the 20th century, it would have to be Father Robert Taft, S.J. Taft recalls being surprised when he arrived in Europe in 1964 to see liturgical change already well underway. "Worker priests in Western Europe were celebrating the liturgy in the vernacular because it was the only way to come into contact with the de-Christianized workers there," he says. "The notion of celebrating the liturgy for them in Latin was simply absurd."

A Jesuit ordained in the Russian rite of the Byzantine Catholic Church in 1963, Taft eventually focused his studies on the ancient liturgies of the Christian East, work that has led him to a profound appreciation of the diversity of Christian liturgy in the past and present. "There is no ideal form of the liturgy from the past that must be imitated," he says. "Liturgy has always changed." Tracking those changes has been his life's work, a career that has included decades of teaching all over the world as well as hundreds of books and articles.

Though a historian, Taft is critical of attempts to remain in the liturgical past in the name of tradition. "We don't study the past in order to imitate it," he says. "Tradition is not the past. Tradition is the life of the church today in dynamic continuity with all that has come before. The past is dead, but tradition is alive, tradition is now."

Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, there is still argument about its liturgical reform. What do you make of the continuing opposition to the "new" liturgy?

Let me put my cards right on the table: I'm a Vatican II loyalist without apologies to anyone. The Second Vatican Council was a general council of the Catholic Church, and the popes since the council have made it clear that there's no going back. The mandate for liturgical reform was passed by the council with an overwhelming majority, so it is the tradition of the Catholic Church, like it or lump it.

Unfortunately, partly as a result of the schism of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his followers, there has been an attempt on the part of a group of what I call "neo-cons" to portray the reforms of Vatican II as something that was foisted upon the church by a small minority of professionals contrary to the will of many people in the church. This is what we know in the vernacular as slander.

The reforms of the council were carried out under Pope Paul VI in a spirit of complete collegiality. Every suggested adaptation, change, or modification was sent out to every Catholic bishop in the world, and the responses that came in were treated with the utmost respect. When changes were severely questioned or opposed by a large number of bishops, they were revised according to the will of the bishops and then sent back again.

So the notion that the liturgical reform was somehow forced on an unknowing church by some group of "liturgists," as if that were a dirty word, is a lie, and that needs to be said.

So the reform didn't come out of nowhere?

The pastoral liturgical movement began in the 19th century as an attempt to get the people not to pray at the liturgy but to pray the liturgy. People were at the Eucharist, but they were praying the rosary or reading a prayer book or something. You had two things going on at once. The whole point of the reform was to allow people to be active participants in the liturgy, as Pope Pius XII himself insisted in his encyclical Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy) in 1947, well before Vatican II.

What we sometimes forget is that it wasn't the Second Vatican Council that began the reforms of the liturgy. It was Pope St. Pius X, who in 1910 reduced the age of First Communion to the age of reason and, in perhaps the most successful liturgical reform in the history of the church, restored the Eucharist as the daily food of the people.

People who don't know any history don't understand that this was a very long process. When I was a kid, pastors did everything they could to get people to go to Communion on Sunday. They had Men's Sunday, Women's Sunday, Family Sunday, Knights of Columbus Sunday-whatever they could do to get people to go to Communion at least once a month.

Now the vast majority of people go to Communion at every single liturgy-a great success that turned around centuries of history in which people used to go at the most once or maybe four times a year. It didn't end there. Pope Pius XII restored the celebration of the Easter Vigil in 1951, which took the world by storm, followed by all the liturgies of Holy Week in 1955.

People who complain about the Second Vatican Council forget where it began and how long it took and how long the church prepared for it. The notion that it was done in a rush and shoved down the church's throat is simply ridiculous.

What about the oft-mentioned liturgical "abuses"?

After Vatican II some people unfortunately thought that they had to be creative. As I've said more than once, I have never understood why people who have never manifested the slightest creativity in any other aspect of their human existence all of the sudden think they're Shakespeare or Mozart when it comes to the liturgy. That's sheer arrogance.

Certainly there were abuses, but the abuses weren't the responsibility of the council's reforms. In part as a result of the church's resistance to the Protestant Reformation, Rome refused even very positive suggestions that were part of it, for example, returning the chalice to the people. This in effect put the Catholic liturgy in the freezer for centuries.

When the ice melted after Vatican II, things overflowed and people thought that they could do what they wanted with the liturgy. I can remember some of those "howdy-doody" liturgies. But let's put the responsibility where it belongs.

Everything has its downside, and one of the downsides of the reform was that people were ready to burst. ...

What are the arguments of those who still oppose the reforms?

Some complain that Vatican II's reform wasn't done by the council but by post-conciliar commissions, but the same is true of the liturgical reform of the Council of Trent. Trent, like Vatican II, left it to the pope at the time, Pius V, to implement changes in the liturgy. He naturally appointed others to do the actual work.

Why aren't they complaining about the way things were done at the Council of Trent? This is all foolishness as far as I'm concerned, foolishness of people who don't really know the true story.

When Pope John Paul II canvassed the Catholic hierarchy concerning the desire for the pre-Vatican II liturgy early in his pontificate, less than 1.5 percent of the bishops said that their priests and people were in favor of it, so there was no great outcry for its return. The rest of the episcopate said to leave it alone.

For his own good reasons, Pope John Paul decided to permit the continued use of the old rite, and the present pope has extended it to win back these so-called "traditionalists."

But the real problem isn't the liturgy, it's that people, including the Lefebvrites, don't accept the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which is the teaching of the Catholic Church. They believe that the Second Vatican Council taught error. They believe that Pope Paul VI was not a real pope.

How can you pretend to be Catholic if that's your point of view? I'm not attempting to force anybody to be Catholic, but let's stop this pretense.

What about those who claim that the old liturgy is more "mysterious" or reverent than the new? Are they right?

Absolutely not. The mystery we're trying to celebrate in liturgy is the fact that Jesus Christ died and rose for our salvation, and we have died and risen through Baptism to new life in him.

That life is expressed in the liturgy. It is nourished through scripture and the Eucharist and prayer. You don't need Latin for that.

Some people think liturgy is our gift to God. If we go to church on Sunday, we're doing God a real big favor.

But our liturgy is God's gift to us, not ours to him. St. Paul is quite clear that the purpose of the liturgy is not what we do at the celebration itself. That is simply the expression and nourishment of what is supposed to be the "liturgy of life," the way we live in the world.

That's why St. Paul never uses words such as sacrifice, priesthood, or worship except to describe the life we live after the model of Christ. "It is not I who live," he writes, "but Christ who lives in me." That's the mystery the liturgy is all about. ....

Mass instruction: Fr. Robert Taft on liturgical reform