8 Responses to “Biritualism and the Priest”

1. 1 johnboy316 Nov 23rd, 2006 at 10:51 am

   if the priest must choose which Mass to say, or is in a position where he must use either set of liturgical books, he is in the novel and undesirable position of being judge of the liturgy.

   What’s up homes? I think that remark is misleading. The priest technically is the servant of the Church. The use of the indult or the present rite should be based not on the priest himself but his parishioners/religious order or the Bishop.

   I didn’t think long and hard about this, it just came to my mind. I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say, however.

2. 2 johnboy316 Nov 23rd, 2006 at 10:52 am

   I should say *and* the bishop.

3. 3 TheJurist Nov 24th, 2006 at 1:21 am

   As one would expect Benedict is aware of this problem himself. At the July 2001 Fontgombault Liturgical Conference Cardinal Ratzinger stated the following:

   One problem, on the other hand, does remain: how are we to regulate the use of the two rites? It seems clear to me that, in law, the Missal of Paul VI is the Missal in current use, an that using it is normal. We should therefore consider how to permit the use o the old Missal, and to preserve the treasure for the Church. I have often spoken along the lines of Professor Spaemann: if there used to be a Dominican Rite, if there used to be- and, in fact, there still is- the Milanese rite, then why not likewise the rite, shall we say, “of Saint Pius V”? Yet there is a very real problem here: if the ecclesial community becomes a matter of free choice, if there are, within the Church, Churches of ritual, chosen according to subjective criterion, that does create a problem. The Church is built in the form of local Churches, on the existence of Bishops in succession to the apostles, and thus presenting an objective criterion. In am in THIS local Church, and I don’t look for my friends there, I find my brothers and my sisters; and these brothers and sisters are not people we look for, we just find them there. This situation, in which the Church in which I find myself is in no way arbitrary, in that it is not the Church of my choosing but simply the Church which presents itself to me, is a very important principal…

   One ought therefore- it seems to me- to look for a non-subjective criterion, with which to open-up the opportunity of using the old Missal. That seems very simple, in the case of abbeys: this is a good thing; likewise, it corresponds to the tradition by which there used to be orders of their own rite, for example, the Dominicans. Thus, abbeys which ensure the continuing presence of this rite, and likewise religious communities such as the Dominicans of Saint Vincent Ferrer, or other religious communities, or fraternities- they seem to be to offer objective criterion. Naturally the problem becomes more complicated with the fraternities, which are not religious orders but communities of non-diocesan priests who are active in parishes. Perhaps the “personal parish” might be a solution, but that is not without difficulty either. In any case, the Holy See should open-up this opportunity, and preserve this treasure, for all the faithful; yet on the other hand, it most also preserve and respect the episcopal structure of the Church.

   I thought this was interesting and gives some insight into what the pope might be planning.

4. 4 Iosephus Nov 24th, 2006 at 7:20 am

   Those are interesting remarks from Ratzinger. As I would have expected, the priests at the Oratory in Toronto have given some serious consideration to the matter, I mean, they’re aware of this subjective criterion problem.

5. 5 Tobias Petrus Nov 24th, 2006 at 1:21 pm

   Lo, the days of November wain . . . shall Vatican vaticinations be thwarted yet again.

6. 6 Corvus Nov 26th, 2006 at 7:30 am

   if the ecclesial community becomes a matter of free choice, if there are, within the Church, Churches of ritual, chosen according to subjective criterion, that does create a problem.

   We already have that problem. How many people now choose a parish based upon peculiarities of liturgy? This is usually traditional vs contemporary, good music vs. bad, etc. There are so many variations we have come to insist upon choice.

7. 7 duckkeeper Nov 26th, 2006 at 10:05 am

   A priest also has the choice of whether to say mass at all. (Cardinal Spellman is said to have done so almost never, preferring to farm out that duty to one of his chaplains. ) Does a priest’s (necessarily private) choice to say mass then somehow put him in the position of judging on his own account that saying mass is a good or not? I suspect equating choice with “private judgment “is a red herring. Sure, our present position is anomalous. It is worth reminding ourselves how that came about. An unprecedented event occurred: a new liturgical fabrication was imposed on the Church. Once that had been done, nothing could ever be the same again, liturgically speaking. Maybe that is why previous popes confined themselves to pruning and supplementing the rites they had received. Now the toothpaste is out of the tube, the water has run downhill. We can’t reverse its course very neatly. If we are convinced that a little zuruckgehen is necessary (why? circumspice) then we shall have to put up with some untidiness and illogicality along the way. (And I think if the Oratorian priest you talked to were to gain more familiarity with the traditional rite he would see that its concluding rites–with or without the Leonine prayers–actually do make a great deal of sense structurally.)

8. 8 duckkeeper Nov 26th, 2006 at 11:20 am

   P.S. In The Mass in Slow Motion (first preached to Catholic schoolchildren) Fr Ronald Knox expresses regret that the Secret of the Mass cannot be said aloud. Was he indulging in un-Catholic private judgment in allowing himself to enunciate this criticism of the Mass he then celebrated? Or would one somehow be “judging” between the relative merits of a silent low Mass, a dialogue Mass, or a solemn high Mass in choosing to celebrate one or the other according to the traditional rite? Or was St Jerome (who celebrated indifferently in Latin or Greek) somehow setting himself above the “givenness” of the liturgy? In an uninteresting (yet necessary) sense, yes. In any significant sense, no.

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