Author: Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Has Traditionalism Really Been Transformed?

A few days ago I posted an article on Chant Café entitled Sacra Liturgia 2013 and the Transformation of Traditionalism.  It was meant to be more a report on the conference itself and how what was seen of “traditionalism” there was a very different variety than that caricatured by detractors from various vantage points.  I was surprised, therefore, at how the article has been engaged by authors and Commentariats of blogs representing a plethora of viewpoints across the Catholic spectrum.  Raising the question of whether the traditionalist phenomenon is undergoing its own transformation has obviously touched a nerve.  So perhaps it might be the time for me to elaborate a little.
We have to remember that the word “traditionalism” first gets on the radar screen of the Magisterium with the thought of Bonald and Lammenais.  It proposed that human reason in and of itself is radically unable to apprehend truth, and thus it is faith alone which provides the certainty of truth.  It was a reaction against Rationalism, and Vatican I responded with its thundering declaration in Dei filius preserving the legitmate sphere of reason in ascertaining knowledge.  Traditionalism was a kind of fideism, and as such, was condemned.
The word “traditionalism” does not have the same sense in Catholic discussions today.  In fact, like the word “pastoral”, it has been used to mean just about anything under the sun.  But most often it is attached to a certain type of thought that harbors criticism of Vatican II and its aftermath.  It is by no means a homogeneous phenomenon, and unfortunate attempts to paint it with the same dark, ugly brush stroke have served only to obfuscate and anger critics and criticized.
I would like to contend, though, that, the second half of the twentieth century has been marked by two main strands of traditionalist thought: (By the way, this is built upon the analysis of Nicla Buonasorte in the book Tra Roma e Lefebvre, and I do not count it is particularly original)
1. École française.  The Ultramontane spirit in its Gallican form, affected sometimes with a sympathy for counterrevolutionary political thought, could perhaps be incarnated in someone like Mgr Louis Pié, Archbishop of Poitiers (1815-80).  Its attachment to, and its own declension of, the scuola Romana of neo-Scholastic Thomism in the wake of Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris, after the Modernist Controversies during the pontificates of Blessed Pius IX and St Pius X, developed a remarkable homogeneity of thought as a system by the eve of the Council.  This theological position can best be seen in the works of Fr Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877-1964).  The position was deeply suspicious of anything outside of the system, as it were, and the advent of the nouvelle théologie, and especially its apparent triumph around Vatican II, was deeply worrisome to those who took this position.  As French seminarians in Rome around Vatican II saw that theology, and its practical consequences, in the ascendant, they rallied around Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-91) as someone who in his person was emblematic of the best of the école française.  The Society of St Pius X, and, to a lesser extent, some quarters of the communities founded from them and returned into communion with the Apostolic See, to a greater or lesser degree reflect this position even today.  Wherever positions are at variance with the thrust of their own neo-Scholastic Thomism, they tend to be rejected.
2. Scuola Romana.  The prevailing neo-Scholastic Thomism of the world of the pontifical university system, at least intellectually, shares much of the same humus as its French counterpart.  Where it differs is in its ecclesiological roots.  Whereas French Ultramontanism was in a sense a reaction to, and in some sense conditioned by, Gallicanism, the Roman school was more properly papal.  For it, the geographical closeness of the Pope was more consistently formative, and, uncomplicated as it was by parries with Gallicanism, it was (ironically) much more firmly attached to the Roman See than the French.  Garrigou-Lagrange can be seen as the type of theologian who bridged both schools.  Where the two schools depart is less a matter of substance as regards their crititque of theological and pastoral trends outside the system, but in terms of their deference to Rome.  The iconic hierarch of the Roman school, and counterpart to Lefebvre, was Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa (1906-89).  His sense of Romanità figured more prominently in his thought than a Gallic version of Ultramontanism.  His book Gethsemane (1980) substantially reflects the criticism of both schools of the theological and pastoral trends in the Church.  What separates Siri from Lefebvre, is that Siri was able to continue in visible communion with the Church by accepting Vatican II in a nuanced fashion that might today be called closer to a hermeneutic of continuity, and all without breaking visible bonds of communion as a result of his critique. 
While it is perhaps simplistic to say that contemporary traditionalism tends along this binary path of école française and scuola romana, it does explain some of the differences among traditionalists, differences which must be grasped if an accurate portrayal of the movement is to be had.  While both remain skeptical of much of the theological and pastoral climate of the post-Vatican II Church, the latter reflects a hermeneutic of continuity much more than the former, which stressed, sometimes almost exclusively, rupture. 
It is perhaps also simplistic to say that both strands could continue on as they were throughout the pontificate of Blessed John Paul II.  Both were synonymous for those who accused them all equally of being traitors to the Council, and both also substantially continued in the same vein of critique.  Ecclesia Dei of 1988 may have granted more access to people to the classical Roman liturgy, which became the most potent symbol of traditionalist resistance.  But it did little to change the perspectives of either school of traditionalists or their detractors.
Pope Benedict XVI changed all that.  On the surface, the Bavarian theologian belonged to the same nouvelle théologie that both schools found suspect.  His dealings with the affaire Lefebvre had gained him some modicum of respect, albeit it at a distance, with the école française, which grew in numbers as the scuola romana became the preserve of some very few circles in Italy.  French traditionalism was imported as a missionary endeavor along with the Mass of the Ages all over the world.  But Benedict was also to challenge that école française as well.  His overtures to the Society of St Pius X and his increasing questioning of the implementation of Vatican II became a pietra d’inciampo for the traditionalist world (and a scandal for those who hated it).  Were they a ruse to lure the faithful into Modernism, or were they a sincere gesture of a loving pastor concerned for unity in the Church?  In all of this, Benedict XVI emerged, not as a liturgical traditionalist, but as a liturgical pluralist.  While he remained committed to the Council and to the initial motives for the nouvelle théologie’s departure from Scholasticism, he also gained the confidence of many traditionalists, who migrated from a more polemical anti-Roman attitude of the postconciliar école française to a nuanced hermeneutic of continuity which was a kind of rebirth of the scuola romana. 
After Summorum pontificum of 2007 effectively ended the exile of traditionalists within the Church, as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass was introduced to more people, especially the younger with no historical memory of the affaire Lefebvre, a new Ratzingerian strand of traditionalism seems to be emerging.
It is it possible that there is now a new Ratzingerkreis emerging in the traditionalist world?  The école française in many ways risks disintegration as the Society of St Pius X experiences its own internal divisions and spinoffs, such as sedevacantism and strict observances.  The classical scuola romana approximates many of the traditionalist communities who have followed the path from Ecône back to Rome.  But now there are many people, who are perhaps a bit more open to certain insights outside of the pre-conciliar manualist theological tradition, such as those of Ratzinger, who now find themselves engaging the same critiques of the traditionalists, but from within the desire of a hermeneutic of continuity.  Such a school of tradition is no mere reincarnation of Ultramontanism in its neoconservative Amerophilic form.  It is embued with the classical liturgical movement, with an eye to the Patristic age, the East, as well as certain insights of the nouvelle théologie.  One thinks of a Ratzinger scholar like Tracey Rowland as perhaps more of an example of this type of thought. 
In its own way, contemporary traditionalism, like Catholic liberalisms of the 19th century and the post-Vatican II era, is a critical resistance movement.  Both shy away from a facile “everything is alright in the state of Denmark” false piety that is lamentably very much alive in self- identifying “conservative” Catholic circles, which carry forward Ultramontanism after a series of popes and a council have disavowed the possibility of any such attitude being authentically Catholic.  Both also caution against a one-sided fundamentalist reading of Vatican II, a reading which arguably is hardly tenable given Blessed John XXIII’s inspiration for the Council to break with anathematizing people and invite them to dialogue in charity.
Yet it is hard to maintain an essentially critical spirit for long without descending into bitterness, a lack of communion, decreasing charity, and the rise of ideologism.  If traditionalism (or for that matter, antiquarian strands of liberalism) remains fixed in a position according to which the true nature of the Church is such that, to be who she really is, the Church must return to a status quo ante, regardless of whether that ante is 313, 1054, 1570, 1962 or 1968, it cuts itself off from a dynamism which makes the Tradition living and present to every age.
It is clear to me that, many of the participants in Sacra Liturgia 2013 have moved beyond traditionalism as a particular school of thought tied into a certain time period and critique, towards a desire for profound immersion into the Traditio which is the glory of the Catholic religion.  And that transformation, whether it be caused by or only chronologically successive to the Benedictine papacy, is, for me at least, a sign of hope for the Church, the real Gaudium et spes of the 21st century.      

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Sacra Liturgia 2013 and the Transformation of Traditionalism

A conference like Sacra Liturgia 2013, from which I have just returned, is the kind of thing that arguably could never have taken place during the Jubilee year of 2000 when I entered the seminary in Rome.  In fact, it could not have been conceived of even in the wake of the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of St Peter in 2005, just before I was ordained to the priesthood.  I was reminded of just how much things have changed when I went this week early in the morning to St Peter’s to offer Holy Mass.
During my Roman years, which was really not all that long ago in a Church that thinks in centuries, I could easily walk into St Peter’s, and a few side altars would be busy at 7am with some few priests, mostly Vatican types or pilgrims, offering the Novus Ordo Mass in various languages.  Every once in a while you could spot the Latin edition of the Missale Romanum 2002, but not very often.  To even speak of the Missale di San Pio Quinto was to invite a reaction which could quite possibly result in expulsion from the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles.  Sure, there were a few brave souls who had the indult who would produce a Missal from within their cassock pocket, but always with the Missal on the left side, and without altar cards, and fudging the rubrics just enough not to get caught.
You can imagine my surprise when I went this time.  The sacristy of St Peter’s, which used to be so delightfully quiet on an early weekday morning, is now a hive of activity.  Priests and pilgrims from all over the world find themselves at every single usable altar of the Basilica.  Altar cards adorn several altars in the North Transept, and one can see several of the Pope’s ceremonieri and other Vatican officials going back and forth from those altars celebrating Holy Mass in the classical Roman rite.  More than once I had to wait for an altar, and some priests eventually gave up after waiting in line for more than 2 hours to say Mass.  (Private Masses have a very small window of time in the Basilica, and either you get it in between 7 and 9am or you don’t!)
There were celebrations all over the Basilica, in various languages and uses of the Roman Rite, and in Latin in Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms.  Many of the kids from the Preseminario San Pio X have now learned to serve the Extraordinary Form, which some of them call, irony of ironies, la Messa nuova.  And the queue for the altars reserved for the Extraordinary Form was so long one morning I just gave up and celebrated Mass in Italian.
In the principal church of Christendom, Pope Benedict’s vision of liturgical pluralism had taken root.  There were no more suspicious glances, clerical catfights or mutual recriminations.  In fact, the spirit of peace and energy that now reigns over St Peter’s on weekday mornings was also very much evident at the Pontifical University Santa Croce this week for Sacra Liturgia 2013.
I cannot for the life of me imagine such a conference being held even a short time ago, at least outside of a dingy ballroom in a minor city with little interest and with some unsavory characters around.  But this event attracted not only first-rate liturgists, hierarchs and theologians, but also many laypeople, many of them very young, who were eager to learn and network with other people all over the world who had caught on to Pope Benedict’s vision.  And of course, there was the presence of the gliteratti of that new grand salon, the Blogosphere, and the knowledge that every thought, word and deed of the conference was going to reach an audience that it would never have reached before, merely because of advances in technology in service of tradition.
But what was even more amazing than the quality of the speakers at the conference, which I could go on about at length, and the beauty of the liturgies, which were celebrated in both forms, was the spirit which animated it all.  A conference which focused so much on the traditional liturgy once upon a time not so long ago would have been the preserve of people who have been caricurated, pilloried and described, sometimes not entirely inaccurately, as rigid, reactionary and schismatic.  Now, there are some in the Church today who still have not grown up quite past employing this paradigm for any and every who darken the door of a Mass celebrated according to certain books.  But the atmosphere at Sacra Liturgia 2013 was not like that at all.
While there was the occasional barb at liturgical looniness, it was directed, not in the service of a critique borne from a desire to paint the Liturgical Reform as a Masonic plot to destroy the Church, but from a desire to highlight a proper ars celebrandi.  And those barbs, few in number, were directed, not only against some of the most bizarre incarnations of the Novus Ordo, but also the hurried, hapless celebrations of the 1962 Missal and the psychopathologies of some who think that traditional Catholicism is a matter of dressing like the Amish.  Overwhelmingly, the tone was positive.  How can the entire Church develop a liturgical spirit via a beautiful ars celebrandi for the salvation of souls and the regeneration of society?  One of the most arresting things I took away from the Conference was the idea that ars celebrandi is not just a matter of externals to which the priest must attend, but a spiritual and theological orientation of the entire Christian assembly. 
I must confess that, going to the conference, I wondered whether some of the participants and speakers might see it as a “last hurrah” for the Benedictine liturgical party within the Church, and that it might be seen by its critics as the swan song for the Benedictine reform.  I wondered whether we might lose time and energy in harsh denunciations of the liturgical practices of Pope Francis, and turn on each other in division and hatred.
Nothing could be further from the truth.   This was a group which truly “thought with the Church”, not in a slavish manner, but as free men and women of God.  We were able to raise serious questions about the liturgical reform without having them turn into gripe sessions or anticlerical bashes.  There was a profound experience of communion, conviviality, prayer and study. 
Why is this important?  Well, I think that it is representative of what has happened in the Church because of the Pope in whose honor the conference was called.  There are many people who have discovered the beauty of the liturgy conceived, not in restrictive terms as saying the black and doing the red of one particular Missal, but in terms of an ars celebrandi which respects legitimate diversity.  A traditionalism which looks only backwards, and only with an eye to criticism, while it may contain some elements of merit with which the Church must dialogue, will eventually run out of steam.  But love for the liturgy, for God, for the Church and her shepherds, which is the ultimate goal, not only of various traditionalisms, but of Tradition itself, cannot stop at that.  The Conference was proof that traditional liturgy has a powerful dynamism for reform and renewal when it is unshackled from the tired labellings and trench warfare of the past.  The sheer diversity of the speakers and participants also point to the fact that the good insights of the traditionalists can be brought in medio Ecclesiae and transform the dialogue over the nature of the Church and her worship in a way which is not tied to the past, but can do good for the future.  Far from being critical of Pope Francis, a traditionalism freed from being tied into the critique of Vatican II and crisis rhetoric, embued with a spirit of communion and the spirit of the liturgy, shares in the desire of the Bishop of Rome for the Church to reflect Christ ever more.
Those for whom liturgy is not a battle to be fought over and won by texts and rubrics, but an enchanting participation hic et nunc in the divine life, will anxiously look forward to the publication to the Acts of Sacra Liturgia 2013.  There they will grasp a coherent vision of the Church’s life and worship which has, thanks to Pope Benedict XVI, transcended this tumultous time and its wars and opened up a way for the Church, not just towards the future, but towards the final consummation of all things in Jesus Christ.    

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Organist Job Opportunity

Just in case there are any organists out there for looking for work, here is the official job notification for a position at Prince of Peace, my parish!
Prince of Peace Catholic Church in suburban Greenville, SC is seeking qualified applicants for the position of Parish Organist. This parish community prays the Mass in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms on a daily basis with 4 sung Masses per weekend in a beautiful church dedicated just 10 years ago. Sung Vespers, Stations and other seasonal and devotional services are included through the church year as well.
The 3-manual Allen Renaissance (2003) organ, located in the gallery, was skillfully installed and voiced
to take full advantage of the spectacular acoustical properties of the space. The successful candidate
will work with a full-time Director of Music with extensive knowledge and experience in sacred choral
literature and chant.
The current work load for this position is approximately ¾-time in scope, qualifying for the Diocesan
benefits package. Some collegial duties are necessary to assist in administration of the music program.
The salaried compensation will be tailored to the individual with careful attention to AGO guidelines for
education, work-load, skills and experience.
This position is available as of 1 June and applications will be closed as of 31 May. Qualified applicants
should submit their resume to: organist@princeofpeacetaylors.org.

In case you want to know more, Prince of Peace is a 1900 family church in the buckle of the Bible Belt.  We have an interesting church building which is a blend of modern and traditional elements.  The parish has a long history of liturgy and music after the school of Pope Benedict XVI.  We have a lot of sung liturgies, in the context of a Reform of the Reform English liturgy as well as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite which does sung plainchant and organ masses.  It’s a lot of work, but it is also a great environment for the right kind of person! 
Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Bringing the Campion Missal to our Parish


In theory, one of the most attractive things about the Extraordinary Form is that is the same everywhere.  Yet the liturgical culture that any particular place has, and all kinds of practicalities, dictate how it is celebrated.  There are places where Low Mass with one server in absolute silence is the standard practice.  There are places where the Dialogue Mass has caught on, or where Low Mass is buried under (shudder) hymns.  And there are those beautiful places in the vineyard of the Lord where there are Sung or even Solemn Masses where the propers and the ordinary are sung.  Even then, is there a schola, do the people sing, is there polyphony and/or chant, is it Rossini or the Graduale?
My parish, Prince of Peace (www.princeofpeacetaylors.net), is an interesting place.  We have consciously modeled the life of the parish and her liturgy on the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI.  We have both forms of the Roman Rite every day (except for the occasional practical reason when we go down to one English Mass).  On weekdays, we have Low Mass.  On most Sundays of the year, we have a Missa Cantata, where a schola sings the propers and a choir the Ordinary.  During the summer, we usually have an Organ Mass. 
The EF has had a stable presence in the life of the parish for about 10 years now.  Some of those who come regularly experienced the rite in a dizzying array of different ways (but, Father, in the 1950s in New Jersey we didn’t do that…).  The vast majority, however, have come to appreciate and love the EF here in our parish.  We have tried to make strides in getting the people to sing the Mass, but I confess that has been a hard sell.  Even though many of our people love the Sung Mass, they also love for the choir (we frequently have paid choral scholars) to sing their parts.
From time to time, we give a class in how to follow the Missal.  There are those who bring their hand missals with them to the Mass.  In the pews we have had the red Ecclesia Dei missalettes (Mary Kraychy be praised!) for years, and many people have remain glued to them, even as they fear the recent Angelus Press hand missals that we have been encouraging our people to buy.  For all sung Masses, we do a music sheet with the Latin and English texts for the Mass and the Ordinary in chant.
So we have experimented with a variety of ways to help people participate in the Tridentine Mass. 
I have been looking, however, for years, for something that we could put in the pews.  A sturdy, pew-ready book that had everything that you could possibly want to participate in the Latin Mass, which was also stunningly beautiful.  But who had ever seen such a thing as what I had in mind?
Well, apparently Jeff Ostrowski.  His knowledge of the liturgy and its music, his aesthetic sensibility, and his publishing know-how met right on with a keen sense of pastoral responsibility and what people need.  The St Edmund Campion Missal is the fruit of an amazing work which has been incredibly done.
But, even if such a beautiful thing had been made, how could we ever afford it?
I have a parish of some 2000 families, and we get around 200 at a Sunday EF Mass.  Many of those families are homeschooling families with many children. And, with a church that seats 1200, how could I ever make this work?
One Sunday, I put a sample copy of the Missal in the narthex for the people to view, and kept it out there for a couple of Sundays.  I was amazed at the response.  “It’s beautiful!”  “It’s just what we need in the pews!”  “Can I contribute towards the cost?”  And so, I launched out into the deep and asked for donations.  Within 72 hours we had not only covered the cost, but also had more donations than we could possibly use for that project. 
We have lived with the Campion Missals in the pews for a couple of months now.  The instructional video on how to use the Missal was posted on our website and Facebook pages, and people viewed it.  The response has been incredibly positive.  What’s more, parishioners who never frequent the EF, and who never picked up the red misalettes in the pews, are using it for their private prayers and meditation.  I had more than one person say, “I wish we had something this nice for the Novus Ordo Mass.”
In short, the adoption of this Missal in my pews, one book per rack, has been incredibly popular.  The people use them, and like them, and it has also brought the community together. It has also had the added benefit of introducing people to the EF who might have never known anything about the Mass at all if it weren’t for a book that was attractive they couldn’t help but obey that tiny voice saying, “Tolle, lege!”
Of course, now I am wondering what to do for the Ordinary Form Masses.  I hate disposable missalettes as a general rule, but they do have the advantage, being dated material, of being very user friendly.  Of course, none of them approach the beauty of the Campion Missal.  I also am facing the possibility of adding Spanish Masses to the schedule as well.  My original intent to also purchase the Lumen Christi Missal for the OF has been put into question by the need for bilingual materials.  I’m not sure how many parishes have EF and OF in English and Spanish, but we do, or will soon, and there is only so much space in a pew rack.  Maybe Jeff and his team at Corpus Christi Watershed can bring their brilliance to bear on that thorny pastoral problem, too.  In the meantime, however, the Campion Missal was one of the most successful projects our parish has undertaken.  Just watch how the people respond!      
      

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Benedict XVI: Towards a Liturgical Theology of Liberation?

It was especially the Latin countries that developed the idea that the Church is the “Church of the poor.”  This assertion undoubtedly lends itself to many interpretations and misinterpretations.  A certain sentimentality could lead to a kind of romanticizing of poverty, which is harmful to nobody as much as the poor themselves.  But the idea is essentially sound and may be seen as the expression of an important spiritual reawakening.  The Church has for a long time looked like a Church of baroque princes.  It is now returning to the spirit of simplicity which marked its origins – when the “servant of God” chose to be a carpenter’s son on earth and chose fisherman as his first messengers . . . In the footsteps of Christ the Church is sent especially to the forgotten and to the outcasts.
I just read this quote to a friend of mine and asked her, “What Pope wrote this?”  She did not hesitate to respond, “It sounds very Pope Francis to me!”  In reality, they are the words of Josef Ratzinger in Theological Highlights of Vatican II (New York: Paulist Press, 2009, 77), the collection of the young German theologian’s thoughts after each of the sessions of the Council. 
Those who see Benedict and Francis as matter and anti-matter are going to have problems understanding this.  A carefully constructed mythology has painted Ratzinger as the dying gasp of the Counter-Reformation papacy, with its monarchical trappings.  They liken the Bavarian theologian’s appropriation of symbols put in abeyance to the hyperdramatic rituals of Julian the Apostate who failed to read the signs of the times in reviving pagan rites no one cared about anymore.  Benedict’s successor’s apparent dislike for what are being called the trappings of the papal office has even led senior churchmen to declare that the monarchical papacy and the pomp of the Renaissance court, briefly revived, is dead.  “Moving from HIGH church to LOW and humble church! What a blessing that we are encountering Jesus without all the trappings!”  “So long, papal ermine and fancy lace”  “SIMPLE is IN, extravagant is out.”  These were all tweets supposedly from a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church.
So how did we get from the Ratzinger who spoke so eloquently of a spiritual reawakening of the Church of the poor to a Ratzinger who is implicitly criticized by cardinals on Twitter for aggrandizing himself with the detritus of a sixteenth century court, which he himself earlier had recognized as inauthentic as an expression of the Church?
An oft-repeated response refuses to consider that question and says that, since there must be continuity instead of rupture, what seems to be the discontinuity between Benedict and Francis isn’t really rupture at all.  In fact, these are all externals that can be changed by papal fiat anyway.  None of the essentials of the faith and morals are affected, so what appears to be two entirely different expressions of the exercise of papal authority in terms of liturgy and protocol is a non-issue.  As a result, the choices of Pope Benedict XVI to recover certain ritual elements and vesture appear as personal taste, and indeed, as an eccentricity.  The choices of Francis need not even look like a contrast, for they are also merely personal choices, and hence, don’t matter all that much.
Yet, for all that this position indicates that they don’t matter all that much, there surely has been rather a lot of blogink spilled on trying to understand what those choices mean. 
A few weeks before the abdication of Pope Benedict, commentator George Weigel issued a book called Evangelical Catholicism.  In it he advances a theory that the entire Church since Leo XIII has been struggling to free itself of the stranglehold of the Counter Reformation, with the weight of its pomp and circumstance on the papal office.  Once the Church is free at last from all of that, she will come into her own as truly evangelical Catholicism, as Catholicism pure and undefiled.
I will refrain here from commenting on Weigel’s invention of an entire historical hermeneutic which he proposes as the Urprinzip of a carefully elaborated proposal by which he assures us the Church can be saved.  Hans Küng in Infallible? and Marcel Lefebvre in Open Letter to Confused Catholics both attempted, in their own ways, much the same thing. 
I will zero in on some comments he made about the liturgy on p. 168 of his book: “The reform of the reform of the liturgy will not be advanced by a return to the use of the maniple, or by the widespread revival of fiddleback chasubles, or by a proliferation of lace surplices and albs, or by other exercises in retro-liturgy.”  He contrasts this with “evangelical Catholic liturgy” which he describes as “high” but “not precious, and it is most certainly not prissy.”
As I read this chapter of Weigel’s book, which does contain many profound insights, I wondered how Weigel would explain all of those actions attributed to Benedict by others as “exercises in retroliturgy.”  Also, how would he explain a cardinalatial tweet which implies that we return to the Gospel precisely in moving from “high” to “low” Church, and that Francis’ return to simplicity requires the abandonment of “high” Church?
The age has dawned upon us when the fractious system of parties within the Anglican Communion has been grafted onto the Catholic Church as if their existence were a fait accompli, and I have yet to see anyone object.  The acceptance of this division has produced a widely accepted narrative describing two disparate concepts of ecclesiology and liturgy: There is a High Church party which does retro-liturgy because it is on a pharisaical nostalgia trip and fears modernity, so it takes refuge in Counter-Reformation Renaissance pomp.  And then there is the True Church of Jesus, the True People of God, the Evangelical Full Gospel Catholic Church which is being led by the Spirit to shed all of that as they joyfully sing a new, relevant Church into being. 
Then, I guess there are those in between.  But where does Benedict fit in with all of this?
One of the questions I have asked myself is: why did Benedict choose to restore some things and not others?  For many people, why he did doesn’t matter, because any pope has the power to come to a different conclusion anyway, and it’s all in the realm of the unimportant.  Yet, if anything, those of us who have spent time with Ratzinger’s theology can attest that the way he has acted as Pope has been very much in coherence with his theology.  He restored the papal fanon, but not the tiara.  He adopted acres of man-lace, but declined to be carried in the sedia gestatoria.  Did he just not have time to bring back all of the accoutrements of the Counter Reformation papacy?  Or is there something more going on here?
I would like to suggest something that my readers might need time to grapple with. 
In 1977, Josef Ratzinger gave a speech that has recently been republished as “Primacy of the Pope and the Unity of the People of God” in Fundamental Speeches From Five Decades (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012, 13-33).  In it he discusses Reginald Pole’s book De summo Pontifice.  In a dense section on what he calls the martyrological structure of the primacy, he discusses the titles of Christ:
“The majestic titles pertain to Christ as God by nature; according to his humanity, however, he receives them only after his humiliation.  Analogously, this is true for the representative: the majestic titles are effective and possible only in and by way of humiliation.  The only way to participate in Christ’s majesty is concretely through sharing in his lowliness, which is the sole form in which his majesty can be made present and represented in this time.  Hence the authentic place of the Vicar of Christ is the Cross: being the Vicar of Christ is abiding in the obedience of the Cross and thus repraesentatio Christi in the age of this world, keeping his power present to counterbalance the power of the world.”  (p. 29)
What does this have to do with vesture and symbols?  At a superficial level, it may seem that Benedict restored an ambience reminiscent of a Baroque prince, and certainly associable with the papal court of the past.  Yet, we have ample evidence from his own writings that the papacy should not and could not be a Baroque court.  Was he being incoherent or disingenuous?  I think not.  He very carefully avoided those things which could be confused with purely earthly power, such as the tiara and the sedia gestatoria.  But he did bring back, or use at a very high level, other things.
A priest blogger recently commented, “Many of the trappings of the hierarchy are derived from Imperium more than from Evangelium, and from time to time it is useful for the Church to ponder this distinction and make whatever changes will bring the Gospel more clearly to the center of the Church’s life.”  Here we have several things: 1. the externals of the liturgy are already put into the realm of trappings, and hence are disposable by the Church.  2. a distinction between Imperium and Evangelium.  At first glance, it may seem obvious that the two are different and distinct.  And we must acknowledge that some of what are called the trappings of the papacy have their historical derivation from the Imperium.
Should not then the Church in the modern world dispense with the symbolism of the Imperium, which seems so arcane and out of touch with modern sensibilities, especially when that symbolism does not touch the essence of the Faith? 
On the surface, it would seem so.  The entire thrust of the postconciliar period seems to argue for it.  The battles over ecclesiology and liturgy, the books written by Küng, Lefebvre and Weigel, much of the last 50 years all manifest the struggle to understand where Evangelium will begin (again) and Imperium (should) end.
I contend that, Benedict has done something so revolutionary the effects of which have yet to be discerned.  If one reads the recovery of symbols in the context of Ratzinger’s theology of the primacy and of liturgy, something very interesting emerges: a liturgical theology of liberation.
In our age, the monarchical spirit has yielded to democracy, for better or for worse.  The Church is one of the last places where the trappings of Imperium exist.  Are they a confusing relic of the past, destined to obviate the Church’s progress into the future?  On the contrary, Benedict, in choosing the elements are not incompatible with the office of pope, has desecularized them and oriented them all towards another end.  The ceremonial grandeur of the Benedictine papacy has redeemed the time in historical continuity with the past and put all of the earthly signs of temporal power not contrary to the faith at the service of the sacred liturgy.  He has sacralized them, the same way that the organ or Latin or clerical vesture, none of which are sacred of themselves, have been removed from profane use and set apart for divine worship.
But why these elements, which seem so closely associated with the Age of Absolutism?  Let us remember Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quas primas.  This letter on the kingship of Christ has often been interpreted (and hence affirmed or rejected) as an attempt for the Church to perform a hostile takeover of the secular world and the State.  Is it possible for Benedict to do something radical, and read Quas primas in the light of Lumen gentium, Dominus Jesus, and Spe salvi, thus taking the symbols of earthly power, desecularizing them, sacralizing them, and orienting them towards the liturgical celebration of the sovereignty of Christ?
From Quas primas: “Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ; and that We promised to do as far as lay in Our power. In the Kingdom of Christ, that is, it seemed to Us that peace could not be more effectually restored nor fixed upon a firmer basis than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord” (1) and “It was surely right, then, in view of the common teaching of the sacred books, that the Catholic Church, which is the kingdom of Christ on earth, destined to be spread among all men and all nations, should with every token of veneration salute her Author and Founder in her annual liturgy as King and Lord, and as King of Kings. And, in fact, she used these titles, giving expression with wonderful variety of language to one and the same concept, both in ancient psalmody and in the Sacramentaries. She uses them daily now in the prayers publicly offered to God, and in offering the Immaculate Victim. The perfect harmony of the Eastern liturgies with our own in this continual praise of Christ the King shows once more the truth of the axiom: Legem credendi lex statuit supplicandi. The rule of faith is indicated by the law of our worship.” (12)
The pope, far from being personally self-aggrandized by the pomp and circumstance of a Renaissance court, finds himself truly as Vicarius Christi in obedience to the Cross of faith and handing on the Tradition.  The papacy becomes the repraesentatio Christi in the world not as an earthly potentate, but as Christ the King.  The person of Peter’s successor disappears into a symbolic reference to the Prince of Peace. 
The Scriptures present this kingdom of peace as one which men enter through the interior regeneration of faith produced by the external rite of baptism.  This kingdom, opposed to Satan and the world, demands detachment from riches and earthly things, a spirit of gentleness, hunger and thirst after justice which comes from the carrying of the Cross in penance.
The papacy which presents this Kingdom to the world, in this optic, is relativized and minimized in terms of power, and instead manifests the pope’s function as the first Leiturgos.  The pope disappears into Christ the King, and performs a holy work through the sacramental economy entrusted in a special way to the Bishop of Rome.
The pope as a mere world leader with some temporal power and recognized spiritual power now appears as something else, something mystagogical.  Christ the King in persona Papae Romae, presiding over His Church in charity, through the Sacred Liturgy ushers in the Kingdom of Justice and Love, which is the true liberation of man from sin, oppression and injustice.  The Church of the Poor then becomes, not a Church of wealth, but truly free.  The sacraments and the liturgical tradition become no mere human traditions, but the way to liberation, a liberation of the human person which will then in turn affect human society.
Far from being a blip on the screen as the dying gasp of the Counter Reformation Church, the Benedictine papacy, with all of its liturgical richness, is actually a powerful theology of liberation.  It frees human attempts at liberation from romanticized patronizing of poverty and the futility of earthly means.  Orienting the human desire and activity for liberation liturgically and sacramentally in communion with the Roman Pontiff develops a truly powerful theology of liberation.  It is powerful not because of the man who wears the Fisherman’s Ring and exercises spiritual and temporal power on behalf of humanity, but because the grace of Christ the King acting through and with the Pope, and the Church in communion with him, in the Civitas Dei which replaces the City of Man deep in the heart of each one of us through grace.
No greater symbols can I find of this high theology of liberation than the ferulae of Francis and Benedict.  The brutal, grey Scorzelli staff is an image of ugliness, of human suffering, of pain.  It is where the Church begins, and on this earth always dwells, at the side of the poor and the marginalized, the sick and the lost.  But the glorious gold ferula of Benedict , stamped with the Agnus Dei, classical symbol of the Lamb slain for sin, reflects the eschatalogically fulfillable glory which is ours in the liberation of the Cross (cf. Revelation 5.6-14).  They are not before and after, they are not pre or post, they are both inseparable parts of the life of the Church, and of the ministry of Peter. 
Superficiality fails to recognize the history and the symbolic import of Benedict’s reappropriation of certain elements, his recontextualization and even sacralization of them.  A deeper look into them reveals something terrifyingly beautiful, the revelation that the Kyrios of Glory and the Servant of the Slums are one and the same Lord.  They are both part of the same mystery where latria is ascribed to the Lamb/Ancient of Days (cf. Revelation 5.8-14).  A hermeneutic of continuity has no need of contrived explanations for differences in the Church Visible under Benedict and Francis.  It need only take account that a humble German professor has integrated the last of the Imperium into the Evangelium, read not in the Good Book but in the whole life of the Church, and that an Argentinian pastor makes that Christ of Glory present in humility and charity in those places that need it most.       
  

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Is There a Rupture Between Benedict and Francis?

We are only a few days into the reign of Papa Francesco, and already there are many people trying to scrutinize the tea leaves to read into every word, action and gesture some interpretation of what the Franciscan papacy will be like.  The blogosphere has already become a battlefield with people taking sides based on their interpretation of what they have seen.  The basic narrative, however, seems to be this: there is a rupture between Benedict and Francis.  For some, this is a source of joy, because they like the latter and did not like the former.  For others, it is a source of great anxiety, and because of it, they are tempted to question the motives of the new pope.  Then there are many who see all of this as just ridiculous and that the people who are freaking out on either side need to “get a life” and do something more useful with their lives
I should like to offer an observation which undergirds my contention of why all three reactions are misplaced: it shows what is wrong with an essentially Ultramontanist view of the Roman primacy.  It is no secret that, after the loss of the Papal States and the accession of Blessed Pius IX to the Throne of Peter, the influence of the papacy and Roman administration has become more prevalent in the daily life of the Church.  After the proclamation of the doctrine of papal infallibility and the rise of modern mass media, the influence of the papacy would be increasingly felt throughout the world.  Vatican II sought to do what was supposed to have happened at Vatican I, but which was made impossible because of the Franco-Prussian War: place papal infallibility in the context of the ministry of all the bishops.  At Vatican II itself, there was quite a war between what we call papal maximalists in the Ultramontane vein and papal minimalists in a basically Conciliarist vein. 
Vatican II chose to see the relationship between Pope and bishops in terms of collegiality, and the relationship between Pope, bishops and People of God, less in terms of papal absolutism and more as a communion.  The reality, however, is that how this theological vision is lived in the Church has also competed, to a certain extent, with the brilliant personal charisma of many of the Popes of the post-Vatican II period, particularly Blessed John Paul II.  People now have certain expectations of how the Pope should act because of the way in which Papa Wojtyla incarnated the post-Vatican II papacy.
So when Josef Ratzinger became Pope, many people were watching very closely to see how he “did” the papacy.  In an age in which visual images and soundbites are supremely important, everything he did was up for scrutiny.  One of the principal themes of Pope Benedict’s pontificate was the “hermeneutic of continuity.”  His principal point was that the Church of post-Vatican II is not radically altered or different than the Church of pre-Vatican II, a corrective against the revolutionary rhetoric of both progressive and sedevacantist alike.  But that vision was also seen in the gradual reintegration into papal vesture and liturgical celebration of visible elements in continuity with the papacy before and after Vatican II.
He was alternately celebrated and pilloried for the ferula, for the fanon, for ad orientem worship, for chant and polyphony, for lace and for fiddleback chasubles.  The prophets of rupture saw these things as a return to the pre-Vatican II Church in all of her ecclesiology and liturgy.  Those who interpreted these things in this way celebrated or pilloried him as a result.  Yet, anyone who has read Ratzinger’s theology in depth also knows that his theology of the Roman primacy is anything but a facile reappropriation of a supposedly pre-Vatican II ecclesiology of papal monarchy.  It is anything but Ultramontane and anything but revolutionary at the same time, and is much more.
Yet, the post-Vatican II reincarnation of the Ultramontane spirit welcomed the recovery of these signs and symbols as beautiful and as highlighting the papacy.  Yet it was not that spirit which animated Benedict XVI to reintegrate these things into the liturgy.  It was quite another.
What do I mean?  The classical liturgical movement of the 20th century, particularly as influenced by men such as Louis Bouyer, Pius Parsch and Josef Jungmann, had a severe allergy against Tridentine Baroque liturgical form.  They saw it as a decadent devolution from a truer liturgical spirit which breathed only in antiquity and which needed to be rediscovered and retranslated in modern idiom.  I think we cannot underestimate the power of this allergy against the Tridentine Baroque in the thought of the liturgical reform.  Because they saw the papal court with its traditions and liturgy as fossilized into that form, they loudly called for its rejection.  The aesthetic crafted under Paul VI and Virgilio Noe sought to bring about the de-Baroquicization of the papal liturgy and the formation of a papal vision coherent with the pride and prejudice of that classical liturgical movement.
That aesthetic was a powerful exercise in a hermeneutic of rupture, even as it was intended to give visible form to the ecclesiology of Vatican II, which in many ways was a continuation of the theological development of papacy, hierarchy and ecclesiology of the preconciliar period and Magisterium. 
Previously, there was a powerful idea that the Pope bore the weight of the tradition, not just in sense of what Congar would see as Tradition versus les traditions,“ but in all of its particularities of vesture, behavior and the papal rites.  It is probably apocryphal, but Blessed Pius IX’s “Io sono la Tradizione” incarnates that idea.  In some ways, it is analogous to Louis XIV’s, “L’etat, c’est moi.”  For an American, unused to the highly stratified and specific culture of court etiquette, it seems all a bit effete, overwrought, and hardly in symphony with evangelical simplicity. 
Yet, monarchy perpetuates itself, not like an inspirational idea like the American Dream, but as a complex language of rites, customs and symbols into which monarch and ruled live and dwell and use.  The papacy has always had that kind of weight of tradition assigned to it.  That is why every single visible change to the way things are done around the Pope has weight.  For many people, the visceral reactions to Pope Benedict and now Pope Francis, prove this principle, but others do not grasp their importance: they see it as all adventures in missing the point.  They do not understand the weight of the ceremonial life in which the Roman Pontiff goes about being Peter. 
With Pope Benedict, we had a rich theological treasure and Magisterium which helped us to understand why he insisted on recovering aspects of the papal liturgy and ceremonial as an exercise in the hermeneutic of continuity.  He was profoundly influenced by the classical liturgical movement, but also clearly saw its tendency towards rationalism and puritanism.  His cultural idiom was forged by the Bavarian and Italian Baroque, and he was able to see these elements of continuity for their own beauty and shorn of any sinister ideological interpretation.   
Pope Francis, however, is an entirely new player on the papal stage.  He is a Jesuit, first of all, and we all know the conventional wisdom about Jesuits and liturgy as being like oil and water.  And he also comes from Latin America, a continent which I would offer is the land that the liturgical movement, both classical and new, forgot.  It is important not to jump to conclusions about why the first steps of his papacy seem to be so radically a rupture with the last steps of his predecessor.  But, at the same time, the weight of tradition, volens nolens, upon the Roman Pontiff is so serious that he cannot for long continue to “do his own thing” without it being interpreted in various ways not according to his intention.  Perhaps that is why the Popes for so long were content with being their own men, but conforming to the expectations of the ceremonial life of the Pope of Rome.  Such conformity may (and arguably should) be personally uncomfortable, agonizing and even annoying.  It is also a reminder of Our Lord’s words to Peter in John 21.18, Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would: but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.  Papal conformity in this way avoids individual holders of the office arbitrarily and eccentrically undertaking words, gestures and rites which may be interpreted in a way far from their actual intention.  Far from glorifying the papal office overmuch, it actually conforms the man to the office and holds him accountable to it and not his own preferences.  It causes him to disappear behind the office and become Peter and less himself.
It is also important to note that in the Church’s life, there has always been a tension between visible exuberance and simple austerity.  In the Middle Ages, Bernard of Clairvaux with his Spartan Cistercian simplicity arrested Europe just as much as Abbot Suger with his soaring riots of color and glass and precious materiel.  Yet Bernard and Suger belonged to the same Church.  The same Church produced the rococo churches of Austria and the mud huts of the Tamanrasset.  The tension between the two must not be capitalized upon by ideologues who see only one or the other as the true Gospel: they must live in communion with each other.
Three people in the Church’s tradition saw this very well.  The great Jesuit Robert Bellarmine lived in a time in which the Church desperately needed great reform.  His personal life was one of unmitigated austerity.  The people knew that underneath the pomp and circumstance of the office to which he was called, his was a life of penance and interior and exterior mortification.  Humility for him was not casting aside the weight of his office, with all of its expectations, but an interior virtue of obedience to it all.  And it was that, combined with a life of piety and zeal, which made him into the great reformer.  Blessed John XXIII was concerned to made the Gospel accessible to modern people, but he loved the ceremonial and liturgical splendor of the Church.  He embraced it and reveled in it, but his human warmth and virtue made all of it seem, not alien and weird, but even more beautiful. 
The deacon Francis was a servant of the Church because he was a servant of God.  His love of poverty and simplicity did not cause him to go off on revolutionary crusades against the Church’s rich liturgical and artistic patrimony.  He instead infused all of that patrimony with the presence of Christ.  Now the Pope who has taken his name, and seeks to rebuild the Church which has fallen into ruins, has the chance to live the virtue of humility and obedience by taking up the weight of the papal tradition in a hermeneutic of continuity.  If he infuses that tradition with his own personal love for the poor and the marginalized, his own personal simplicity and desire to not be on the world stage, he just might be the most incredible witness for Christ and His Church we have seen in a long time.                  

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

The Unfinished Liturgical Work of Benedict XVI

One of the things that I hoped against hope for during the pontificate of Benedict XVI was an encyclical on the liturgy marking the 50th anniversary of Sacrosanctum concilium.  That will now never come to pass.  Only the future can tell how much the liturgical theology of Joseph Ratzinger will continue to enter into the life of the Church via the Roman Magisterium.  That liturgical theology, of course, is itself the heir of the classical Liturgical Movement, applied to the problems of today in such a way as to herald a New Liturgical Movement.  This renewal movement, like its early 20th century predecessor, has not been a uniform one by any stretch of the imagination.  But it clearly reflects the thought of Joseph Ratzinger.
But there are also some significant lacunae that present themselves at the end of this papacy as well, that his successor will have to in some way address.  There is much in Ratzinger’s theology, which never saw itself translated into anything concrete via the munus regendi of the Roman Pontiff and the Curia.  There are other things which found their counterpart in things the Pope did by way of example, but were never enshrined in any other way.  A question burning in the hearts of many a disciple of the Pope of the Liturgy is whether any of those things will find their way into the next pontificate.  Or will they remain as they were in the papacy of Benedict XVI: quiet provocations to thoughtful people to integrate them into the ars celebrandi, not by force but by their intrinsic worth becoming more visible (or not) with time?  It can also be asked, and must be, whether the Reform of the Reform was a “quixotic movement doomed to extinction” as a priest friend once said of the Traditionalist Movement, a force which will lose its guiding star, fading before the burning sun of secularist might?  Or is now the moment of its greatest epiphany, as Pope Benedict leaves to his followers the shadow of a blueprint for how to go about it all?
I don’t think anyone can adequately answer these questions.  But we can look at the work that has been done in the years of Pope Benedict’s papacy and then surmise what is left to accomplish if we are to advance the goals of the New Liturgical Movement.       
Reorientation of the Liturgy
If I had to say what I thought is the single most important accomplishment of Pope Benedict’s liturgical magisterium, I would have to say the reorientation of the liturgy.  That might surprise you.  After all, the only public papal ad orientem celebrations were on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, in the context of what otherwise might have been an ordinary Italian Novus Ordo parish Mass.  No edict issued forth from Rome encouraging the type of celebration that Klaus Gamber and Joseph Ratzinger argued had an inherent and irreducible liturgical symbolic weight.  What has come to be called the Benedictine arrangement, which in reality is just the post-Tridentine arrangment of cross and candles on altars in Roman Basilicas where a confessio precluded celebration of the Mass in front of the altar, appeared in the papal liturgy and was imitated all over the world.  It had no legal force behind it.
But Ratzinger/Benedict was very clear on the christological orientation of the Sacred Liturgy.  The Mass had to be oriented towards the Christ of the Paschal Mystery.  His insistence on this principal was a needed corrective to a one-sided emphasis on self-celebrating community and the meal aspect of the Mass.  It serves to reduce the temptation of clerical presiders to be protagonists in creating the liturgy, and puts priests and liturgy commissariat apparatchniks in their place, which is not in the center of the celebration, but in its service.
Yet how is this principle translated into action?  It is foremost a spiritual principle which can be made visible in liturgical celebration in various ways.  The challenge for the future is that, now that more and more celebrants are choosing to celebrate the Mass facing what is now described as liturgical East, will it remain an eccentric option able to be marginalized, and hence manipulable by those who claim it causes division?  Will it grow unencumbered by discriminatory retributions on the part of those who despise it in principle and in action?  Or will a future edict of the Pope, the Congregation for Divine Worship, or Bishops’ Conferences mandate or proscribe it?
Leadership from on high will be needed if the movement towards ad orientem worship is going to contribute to the unity of the Church and not detract from it.  And that leadership cannot ignore the fundamental Christ-centered liturgical action of Benedict’s teaching.
Two Forms of the Roman Rite
The 2007 document Summorum pontificum and its 2011 follow-up Universae ecclesiae introduced a radically new notion into the life, and the law, of the Church.  The Roman Rite was henceforth to consist of two forms, an ordinary one (the 1970 Missal of Paul VI) and an extraordinary one (the 1962 Missal of Blessed John XXIII).  This declaration is unparalleled in the history of the Church.
But what has it actually done?  First of all, it has removed the stigma that ambiguously marked millions of Catholics who were attracted to the classical form of the Roman Rite.  No longer second-class citizens, traditionalist-minded faithful all of a sudden found themselves (at least most of them) no longer questioned for their loyalty to the Church.  What’s more, the traditionalist critique of men such as Lefebvre and Siri and their heirs has once more began to be heard in the open, and no longer in secret enclaves.  Whether this should be the case or not, it is, and a newer generation of clergy and young people are asking questions that were stifled only a decade ago.
Second, it has enshrined the principle that there is such a thing as legitimate liturgical diversity even within the one Roman Rite.  This has been used to free other ancient uses as well, such as the rites of the religious orders, and can be applied also to other historic uses. 
Third, it puts the Missal of Blessed John XXIII, and the pre-reformed rites, front and center in the Church’s life again. It is no longer marginalized, and cannot be.  The steady increase of the older missal’s adoption marks a new stage in the faithful’s expectations of liturgy. 
Yet, since the proclamation has done all these things, it also brings up numerous unresolved issues.  Will the Church revisit Vatican II and seek out its authentic interpretation?  How will the Church do this?  By another council, by the Synod of Bishops, by theologians laboring to bring it forth, by Roman decree?  How can the traditionalist critique that the liturgical reform was a rupture be integrated into a Church which has been oriented by Benedict XVI to seek out a hermenutic of continuity?  
The diversity of the Roman Rite also presents its own challenges.  Does that diversity only apply to preconciliar expressions of worship, or can it also apply to things like the Zairian Rite, the newer liturgical customs of individual monasteries, LifeTeen Masses and the Neocatechumenal Way?  In what does the Roman Rite consist now?
Greater access to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII also has had the effect of raising some searching questions about the preconciliar liturgical reform.  How will the Church address the growing momentum to reconsider the reforms of the Pontifical and Holy Week before Vatican II, and liberate the usage of previous forms of them?  Likewise, how will the Church address the ways in which Liturgiam authenticam inspired translations of the Ordinary Form which have not always been received well by liturgists and pewsitters alike and through processes which have not always been accepted by them either?  Will any of the indications of Sacrosanctum concilium, such as the use of the vernacular, be brought to bear on the Extraordinary Form?
Pastors, theologians and liturgists have a weighty task now in evaluating how the christological reorientation of the liturgy in this papacy, and its accompanying recontextualizing of the Roman Rite, looks in practice. 
Reform of the Reform
Ratzinger had indicated that the time was propitious for there to be a Reform of the Reform.  But in what does that consist?  For all of the rumoring of various propositions that were supposed to be coming out of the Vatican which would give flesh to a Reform of the Reform, nothing has ever seen the light of day.  Did Pope Benedict have a Marshall Plan for the reform of the liturgy, or was that a fanciful notion driven by wishful thinking and some inside knowledge?  Regardless, the motor which drove forward the whole project, the person of Pope Benedict XVI, has now been removed from the vehicle of the liturgy.  Can that motor be replaced by another charismatic person who understands what must be done, or by a series of liturgical and legal proposals to bring the liturgy to a state of what would make its Christocentric nature more apparent?
“Something must be done” has been on the lips of many Catholics about the liturgy for a very long time.  But the question now becomes what that something is, and how it can be done in a way so as to not compromise the unity of a Church which finds itself pressured from inside and out by dividing forces?
Can the proposals for how the liturgy should be reformed enter into a dialogue with the whole Church, with theologians, liturgists, pastors or lay faithful?  Or will they be imposed by the hierarchy?  Will their imposition by the hierarchy yield long-time benefits despite short-term discomfiture?  When do the Pope, the Curia, Bishops and pastors know the time is right to advance the Reform of the Reform, and in what does it consist?
Mutual Enrichment
The placement side by side of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Missal was done with a hopeful view to mutual enrichment.  Some people have claimed that such enrichment has been too one-sided.  How are the two Missals supposed to enrich each other?  How can they do so if the mixing of the two forms is forbidden?  Is there a tertium quid which will recognize the merits of both and combine them in some fashion into a once again unified Roman rite?
Sacred Art and Music
The Liturgical Art and Sacred Music Commission of the Congregation for Divine Worship has been formed under the leadership of the Pope.  But what is its competency?  What is it supposed to do and how can it be used as a tool for the Reform of the Reform?  Will black lists of music and art be published, or will general guidelines for the arts in church be crafted?  How can they take into account what actually exists in the Church and the many different situations in which the Church’s worship is celebrated throughout the world?  Will the Congregation for Divine Worship oversee the Reform of the Reform as Consilium did the original reform?  How will the new commission be integrated into that project, if it ever sees the light of day?
Inculturation
Theologians and liturgists continue to puzzle over the guiding principles of inculturation in various spheres of the Church’s life: theology, liturgy, discipline, clerical formation, and more.  They also continue to puzzle over what that looks like in the concrete.  Where are the boundaries of such inculturation?  What limits do Revelation, canon law, or common sense impose on the experimentation which drives inculturation?  Will inculturation increase the diversity of the Roman Rite, or will there cease to be a recognizable Roman Rite?  Does inculturation apply only to mission countries in the developing world, or is there a sense in which the nations of Old Christendom need their own inculturation of the Gospel as well?
Ceremonial
The Pope, in all of his thought on the liturgy, avoids discussion of minute details of how the liturgy should be celebrated.  An exaggerated rubricism seems hardly amenable to the spirit of the times, but how does the papal vision look when it is celebrated according to the principles which guide it?  If it is up to individual interpretation, it is hard to see how the liturgy can remain a unifying factor in the Church’s life.  The Reform of the Reform advanced in an individualistic way can risk the same type of protagonism alien to Benedict’s conception of the ars celebrandi.  Greater guidance is needed from the Roman Curia on how to craft a workable ceremonial which incarnates the principles.  Greater guidance is needed to see how such a ceremonial may be adapted to the different situations in which the Church worships.  Is it too much to hope that a new General Instruction of the Roman Missal and an accompanying Ceremoniale Presbyterorum, rich in catechetical and theological depth alongside the necessary rubrics, may end the stop-and-go gradual transformation of the liturgy according to Benedictine principles and create a harmonious whole for the Ordinary Form just as the old books did for the Tridentine liturgy?
Reception of Holy Communion
The various indults allowing Communion in the hand have continued to exist and be granted, even in the papacy of Pope Benedict.  The norms for the reception and distribution of Holy Communion under both kinds remain what they are according to the third typical edition of the Roman Missal.  The norms for standing and kneeling remain what they are.  Yet, Pope Benedict himself chose to distribute Holy Communion to communicants who knelt at a prie-Dieu and received under the form of bread alone and directly on the tongue.  This mode of reception of Holy Communion, so closely associated with preconciliar practice and the rubrics of the Extraordinary Form, was clearly preferred by Pope Benedict XVI.  Books like that Athanasius Schneider’s Dominus est! provide a loud call for a return to that mode of reception.
In what sense can that mode be called traditional and preferred when there are many counterindications to its perduring historical presence?  What does it mean when the Roman Pontiff mandates it at his Masses, does not allow those receiving at his Masses to exercise all of the options allowed to them by liturgical law and at the hands of every other celebrant in the Roman Church, and clearly prefers it?  Do other modes merely indicate greater diversity in liturgical practice, and are they helpful for unity in worship?
The way in which Pope Benedict XVI distributed Holy Communion at his Masses reflects much of the thought in traditionalist and Reform of the Reform quarters, and goes against everything the Liturgical Establishment has said for 50 years should be the norm.  Perhaps during this Year of Faith there can be a reflection on how modes of distribution of Holy Communion should be located in the context of what it means to be properly disposed to receive, and how they have positively or negatively affected faith in the Real Presence.  It is time to address whether, and to what extent, Communion in the hand, Communion under both species, and Extraordinary Ministers have contributed to the growing crisis of faith.  It is also time to address whether aspects of the liturgical celebration, such as the mode of reception, should be conformed to the practice of the early Church, to pre-Vatican II practice, or to current needs, especially in light of confusion as to sacramental theology.  For decades now the Roman Magisterium has urged proper catechesis to go along with what has become accepted practice in many places for the current modes, but can a case be made for the modes themselves obviating or obscuring what is done in the catechesis?
Also, given that we have this struggle between norms in liturgical books and indults, local exceptions and eccentric practices, is it too much to ask that the Roman Magisterium clarify or mandate one form of reception for Holy Communion for the Roman Rite?  If Holy Communion is supposed to be a sign par excellence of the unity of the Body of Christ, can this bewildering diversity of practices in the modes of reception of Holy Communion really manifest and help preserve that unity? 
Papal Liturgy and the Roman Tradition
People for centuries have looked to Rome for how to celebrate liturgy (or how not to, as well).  Modern media have made it possible for everyone to analyze and imitate (or react against) what they see, particularly at papal liturgies.  The aesthetic cultivated under Pope Paul VI and Virgilio Noë became a standard for what the post-conciliar liturgy should look like, and how it should be celebrated.  Continuing under Bl. John Paul II and Piero Marini, this aesthetic formed opinions about how the reformed rites should be celebrated.
Under Pope Benedict XVI, however, something different has happened.  While the Noë look continues to a certain extent in the Vatican Basilica liturgies and in international celebrations, there has been a progressive adoption, at least in papal liturgies at the Roman Basilicas, of an ars celebrandi, from vesture and vestments to interpretation of rites, which to many recalls the papal liturgy before the Second Vatican Council.  To those who live outside the clerical culture of Italy, this has become a source of concern.  Many have interpreted it as a symbolic repudiation of the ecclesiology and liturgical reform of Vatican II.  Some have charged that it is a return to triumphalism, mediated by the restoration of a style associated with the now-abolished Papal Court and too tied to Baroque ceremonial traditions.  While many of those who make these comments are of a reformist, self-identifying liberal bent, this is not the case of all of the detractors.
Even conservative columnist George Weigel in his recent book Evangelical Catholicism identifies this trend with what he sees as “Counter-Reformation Catholicism” whose time has come and gone, and is no longer applicable to today’s needs.  As more and more younger clergy reproduce this new/old style in their own spheres, he intimates that it is “precious” and “prissy” and must be rejected as an unwelcome effeminate accretion to the liturgy.
It can be easy for critics of this Benedictine style to charge that these elements are all exercises in “retro-liturgy.”  Because many people associate so-called fiddleback chasubles, lace albs and surplices and birettas with the pre-Noë aesthetic, they also surmise that their use is evidence, at best, of nostalgia, and at worst, of moral degeneracy. 
Yet, outside of the Vatican, these same things are not interpreted, at least in Italian clerical circles, the same way.  The dichotomy applied to them is not liberal/traditionalist, but antico/moderno.  The choice for their use depends on a complicated calculus which includes the aesthetic of the church building (are you in a Baroque building, a Bauhaus church, or a Neo-Gothic chapel), the degree of solemnity (is it a feria of Lent or is it Easter Sunday), and the rank of the celebrant (is it a permanent deacon doing a Baptism or the Pope at a canonization).  While to outsiders, it may seem entirely too much falderol, it does represent a certain continuity with what came before.  It is a cultural thing which is peculiarly Roman, and has little to do with ecclesiology and liturgical questions in se.
The Roman basilica aesthetic and ars celebrandi is a tradition which has been handed down.  Gromier and Dante’s cultivation of it had its successor in Franck Quoëx’s application of it to the Extraordinary Form in our time and in Guido Marini’s reapplication of it, d’après la scuola liturgica siriana-genovese, to the papal liturgy.
But is the cultivation of this style in the Benedictine papacy a secret attempt to force effete nostalgia via Counter Reformation frocks upon an unwilling Pilgrim Church?  Is it an exercise in the hermeneutic of continuity, by stressing that the post-Vatican II papacy is in communion with that, both of Paul VI and Pius XII, at least in some visible way?  Is it simply bringing forth things new and old from the Church’s storehouse?  Or is it just a sign that polyester is out and brocade is back in?  And why have many younger people, particularly clergy, responded so enthusiastically to it?
Part of this question also involves concrete actions which have a symbolic weight.  Until recently, the Pope in the reformed liturgy was the only person who did not wear a Eucharistic vestment proper to his rank.  The restoration of the fanon brought back an important liturgical principle.  That action was rejected by many, because they depart from an esentially conciliarist principle that the Pope is really primus inter pares, and if anything should dress like any other Bishop, or any other Christian.  Difference is interpreted as a sign of willful clericalist discrimination.  Or the fanon is seen as an incomprehensible piece of nostalgia for people who like dressing up.
In reality, the fanon is the liturgical complement to the nota previa to Lumen gentium.  Just as the conciliar constitution on the Church had to have an appendage to salvage a proper understanding of the Roman papacy against the just clarification of the episcopal office by Vatican II, the fanon underscores the papal office against the anti-papal court style of the reformed rites.
Even though the Holy Father himself neverly celebrated the Extraordinary Form publicly, his unleashing of Summorum pontificum has led to a renewal of interest in both the papal and pontifical forms of that liturgy.  But that has led to some thorny issues.  Are celebrations of Bishops and the Pope in the Extraordinary Form to be brought in line with Pontificalis Domus of 1968, for example?  Are they subject to the 1983 Code of Canon Law (forbidding Mass coram Ss.mo)?  Or are they carried out according to the terms of the old liturgical books without reference to current legislation?  The fact that these are happening is already leading to calls for a revision of the austere pruning of Pontificalis Domus and the gutting of the Pontifical and Ceremonial in the revised rites.
In short, is the reappropriation of certain elements of Roman Basilica style in this reign a blip on the screen?  Were they just pushed by the private taste of Marini II and Gänswein?  Or are they part and parcel of a Reform of the Reform which will continue on into the next pontificate?
Conclusion
Nobody doubts that Ratzinger’s rich teaching and Benedict’s beautiful practice of the liturgy has been tremendously influential in a brief space of time.  But has it had time to take root, and will it be appreciated and advanced in the next pontificate?  The liturgy in our time is in a delicate situation, in a time of transition.  Only the Spirit can say how the next generation will engage the Sacred Liturgy, and whether Benedict’s unfinished work will morph into an enduring legacy.