The World Since Summorum

Three years ago, Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, a motu proprio that liberalized the older form of the Roman Rite that had been brutally suppressed in 1970. This suppression was accomplished not by legislative design but intimidation and pressure coming from every quarter. It took courage to resist that pressure and those who did paid a large price.

Strikingly, they were not the only ones who paid a price in those days. Priests who celebrated the reformed liturgy was attention to rubrics and with strict adherence to the words of the Second Vatican Council — people like Msgr. Richard Schuler at St. Agnes — also suffered derision and marginalization simply for using the Latin language and Gregorian chant. The atmosphere was so poisoned that even quoting the very documents of the Council was enough to get you labelled as a troublemaker.

Clearly the damage done by the events of 1970 went far being the suppression of the older form, though this was the most conspicuous and shocking change endured by this generation. This was only part of a dramatic change in the culture of Catholicism. It was tradition itself, along with the doctrine and morals that are central to the faith, that were under attack. Intensifying the irony is that the words of the Council itself were being ignored or reversed in their meaning,

It is for this reason that Summorum has far greater significance than it would first appear. It not only freed the Tridentine Mass, now called the extraordinary form; it also provided license to re-embrace tradition in all its manifestations, and in ways that influence the entire life of the Church.

To say that this was a glorious event is an understatement. In the three years since its passage, the effects and results go far beyond even the most optimistic expectations. All over the country, the extraordinary form is being celebrated, not just in outposts created for that purpose but also in mainstream parishes, where young priests are learning the form and offering it to parishioners. This opportunity has helped to heal some of the terrible hurt that was caused all those years ago.

But the effects haven’t stopped there. We are seeing at massive outpouring of books, media, apostolates, and vocations that are centered on recapturing what had been lost and nearly forgotten. The change in the liturgical ethos for the ordinary form has been stunning. We are seeing for the first time in 40 years a deep questioning of what has become the standard manner of celebrating the liturgy with pop hymns and casual decoration. Instead of this, we are seeing a new dawning of consciousness about the propers of the Mass, with even the head of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy urging all musicians to revisit their significance – and the effects of this change alone will be enormous.

Matias Augé, former consulter to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, stated as as follows: “While there are still abuses and aberrations, there is also a growing recognition that the rite comes before individual innovations and must be respected and correctly interpreted. There is greater attention to silence and reflection which improve the quality of participation. Priests are more aware that they should not pull the assembly’s attention onto themselves.” (Translation by Fr. Anthony Ruff).

Augé, however, is reluctant to credit Summorum for this. He says that these positive development were fostered by responsible leaders long before Summorum appeared. While it might be true that these developments were favored, the question is what created the environment that permitted them to be realized and put into effective at the grass-roots level. And here is the critical point. It was Summorum that provided encouragement as never before toward a movement that has in fact been building for decades. The motu proprio, as I’ve said many times, was the key that unlocked the mansion of tradition and all the treasures that it contains. Lacking this encouragement, the atmosphere of intimidation, the prevailing ethos that all that had come before was now invalid, might have lasted much longer.

The striking fact is that it has been Summorum and its liberalization that has permitted the most optimistic and healthy motivations present at the opening of the Second Vatican Council to flourish. This is true even with regard to the lay participation in the life of the Church that the Council sought to encourage. Augé complains about the massive proliferation of “traditionalist” forums, blogs, newsletters, and other movements that become ubiquitous since Summorum. But why not count this as healthy lay involvement of exactly the sort that Vatican II favored?

I’m especially grateful that Summorum took the old Mass that had become the private preserve of a small movement, one that had perhaps understandably grown belligerent and strange, and and mainstreamed the cause, leading millions of unjaded and forward-looking Catholics to participate in its glories and beauties. And the influence of these new celebrations is having that expected spillover effect on the ordinary form. It strikes me that there would be more much controversy alive about the new translation of the Mass in English, appearing next year, had Summorum not sent such a strong message that the tide has turned.

The tide has indeed turned in the last three years, and Summorum has much to do with it. But the objection is sometimes made that the motu proprio has not led to healing but rather created division. My response is that for millions of people who had been estranged from the mainstream of Catholic life, Summorum has in fact been a occasion of healing and unity. Catholicism is starting to feel Catholic again, much to the relief of multitudes. Their perspective surely must be considered here.

As for those who feel estranged as a result of the return to tradition, it is hard to know what to say other than: look inside yourself and try to repair the problem. After all, if one’s intolerance toward tradition is so intense that one feels anger and hurt to know that it exists somewhere and can’t no longer be suppressed or stomped out, we might consider that the issue is with the person himself, and not the Church and the direction of change.

It would be too rough to say that Summorum is helping to separate the wheat from the chaff. But we can say that it has provided an opportunity for teaching and learning, for remembering what had been forgotten, for rediscovery the meaning of what it is like to see, hear, live, and breath the magnificence of the faith that the Church, in her generosity and liberality, hopes the entire world will embrace.