Sacrosanctum Concilium revisited

As the Synod on the Eucharist presided over by Pope Benedict XVI is under way, it seems appropriate to revisit the role of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council's document on the sacred liturgy, in the liturgical changes that have produced the liturgical crisis that this Synod (one hopes) will address.

In Fall 2005 issue of Latin Mass magazine, Christopher A. Ferrara brings his legally trained mind to bear in an analysis of this key Vatican II document in an article entitled "Sacrosanctum Concilium: A Lawyer Examines the Loopholes." He writes:

For more than 30 years, he notes, traditionalists have listened to "conservatives" argue that what Monsignor Klaus Gamber has called "the real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman Rite with a history of more than one thousand years" had nothing whatever to do with the language of Sacrosanctum Concilium. ... Rather, they insist, the Council has been wrongly interpreted, and the problem is merely one of discovering "the true Council" -- whose strange elusiveness is never explained.

But the reality, Ferrara claims, is otherwise. As Monsignor George A. Kelly has observed, "The documents of the Council contain enough basic ambiguities to make the postconciliar difficulties understandable." Yet conservatives -- or many of those both liberals like Fr. Joseph O'Leary and radical traditionalists like to call "NeoCons" --persist in the argument that if only Sacrosanctum Concilium were implemented "as the Council intended," then we would have an "authentic reform of the liturgy" in the "true spirit of Vatican II" (not the ersatz thing most of us have been exposed to). But as Ferrara points out, "conservatives" have little to say about Pope John Paul II's declaration on the 25th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium that the new Mass, just as we see it today, is precisely what the Council intended:

The vast majority of the pastors and the Christian people have accepted the liturgical reform in a spirit of obedient and joyful fervor. For this we should give thanks to God for the movement of the Holy Ghost in the Church which the liturgical renewal represents.... for the radiant vitality of so many Christian communities, a vitality drawn from the wellspring of the Liturgy. These are all reasons for holding fast to the teaching of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium and to the reforms which it has made possible: the liturgical reform is the most visible fruit of the whole work of the Council [emphasis added].

Paul VI even declared in his address of November 19, 1969, that his new Mass was an act of obedience to the Council: "The reform which is about to be brought into being is therefore a response to an authoritative mandate from the Church. It is an act of obedience.... [emphasis added]"

What is the reason for this discrepancy between the account of the "conservatives" and the position taken by these two popes? Ferrara writes: "The answer is that while Sacrosanctum Concilium did not actually mandade creation of the new Mass, it certainly authorized everything that has been done to the liturgy, with papal approval, in the Council's name." He then draws the following observation:

A few years ago, having grown tired of hearing the "conservative" line on Sacrosanctum Concilium, I sat down and read the document, line by line, word by word. It was a classic jaw-dropping experience. Anyone with a modicum of perspicuity can see (at least in retrospect) that Sacrosanctum Concilium was designed by its principal draftsman, Annibale Bugnini, to authorize a liturgical revolution while giving the appearance of liturgical continuity. It is a nest of deadly ambiguities the Council Fathers can only have approved in the confidence that the liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite could not possibly suffer a dramatic rupture, because such a thing had never happened before. Indeed, when Cardinal Browne expressed to his fellow Council Fathers the fear that the Latin Mass would disappear withing ten years if the Council allowed the vernacular into the liturgy (as Sacrosanctum Conscilium provides), he was greeted with incredulous laughter....

... If a lawyer entrusted with the task of protecting the Roman liturgy from harmful innovation had drafted this document, he would be guilty of gross malpractice.

Ferrara claims that Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC for short) opened the way for liturgical deconstruction by an open-ended authorization for liturgical change on what is potentially a vast scale, without expressly requiring any particular innovation be adopted, and a process of "democratization" of the liturgy by ceding effective liturgical control to "ecclesiastical territorial authority," or the local bishops of each country the their liturgical commissions.

Ferrara's analysis is well worth reading in full, but let us take a look at a few of the articles of the Council document (SC) he examines.

Art. 23 -- ...[T]here must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing....

Ferrara comments:

To say that there will be no innovations "unless" means, of course, that there will be innovations. This seemingly conservative norm introduces two unprecedented concepts into the liturgical discipline of the Church: "innovations" in the liturgy and the adoption of entirely "new forms" of liturgy, as opposed to the gradual, almost imperceptible liturgical refinements of the preceding centuries.

Here is another interesting one for those of you interested in the musical treasury of the Church:

Arts. 114-116 -- [114]... The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care. [Art. 116]--... other things being equal [Gregorian chant] should be given pride of place in liturgical services....

Ferrara comments:

The phrase "other things being equal" partially undermines the phrase "pride of place," and the remaining provisions of Sacrosanctum Concilium (discussed below) complete the undermining by vesting "territorial ecclesiastical authority" with total control over the adaptation of church music to "local needs," along with the rest of the liturgy.

And here's another:

Arts. 38-40 -- [38] Provided that the substantial [!] unity of the Roman rite is preserved, provision shall be made, when revising the liturgical books, for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions and peoples.... This should be borne in mind when drawing up the rites and determining rubrics. [89] Within the limits set by the typical editions of the liturgical books, it shall be for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority to specify adaptations.... [40] In some places and circumstances, however an even more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed....

Ferrara comments:

These norms flung open the door to the winds of change in the Roman Rite. They authorized a complete transformation of the face of Catholic worship by "adaptation" of the liturgy -- even radical adaptation -- to suit local customs and preferences, as the bishops saw fit. Has not the Holy See approved this radical transformation of the liturgy at every step of the way?

Thus, claims Ferrara, nobody who reads SC carefully in the light of our experience since the Council can deny that it was a blank check for liturgical innovation and experimentation. As Monsignor Gamber noted: "The Council Fathers, when publishing the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, simply did not expect to see the avalanche they had started, crushing under it all traditional forms of liturgical worship ..." Small wonder, as Ferrara notes, that the modernist Schillebeeckx pronounced the Bugnini schema, which ultimately became SC, "an admirable piece of work." Which brings Ferrara to the rather gloomy conclusion that "conservative" calls for a "reform of the reform" only demonstrate that unless Sacrosanctum Concilium is reconsidered, the liturgical crisis that confronts the current Synod will never end.

Demands for constant "liturgical renewal" by liberals on the one hand, and a "reform of the reform" by conservatives on the other, will continue to revolve around this utterly problematical document so long as it continues to serve as a warrant for perpetual liturgical tinkering. The question before the Synod, therefore, ought to be the one posed by Monsignor Gamber: "What can be done about the loss of faith and the destruction of our liturgy?" In this writer's view, the only answer is to abandon the novel ambiguities of Sacrosanctum Concilium and restore, in all its integrity, the perennial Latin liturgical tradition that was overthrown only 35 years ago.

Only 35 years ago! ... Hard to believe! And I just read an essay by Fr. Peter Stravinskas last night, who celebrates the only Novus Ordo Mass in a Traditional Latin Mass parish somewhere (I believe) in Pennsylvania, in which, along with many other wise suggestions he offered for various accommodations, the most notable thing he said, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that he could not imagine the Latin Church returning to the Traditional Latin Mass in a thousand years! I don't mean this final thought as any personal reflection on Fr. Stravinskas, whom I respect a great deal, but: How fickle and quick to change, the thoughts of men!

Again, Ferrara's article is worth reading in full, since it gives a much more thoroughgoing analysis of key articles from SC than I can begin to convey in this limited space. His article, "Sacrosanctum Concilium: A Lawyer Examines the Loopholes," is published in Latin Mass , Vol. 14, No. 4 (Fall 2005), pp. 8-13. If you don't take this intelligent and wide-ranging journal of Catholic culture and tradition, I encourage you to subscribe online at http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/.

Christopher A. Ferrara is president and chief counsel of the American Catholic Lawyers Association. He is co-author of The Great Facade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church.

See also Michael Davies, Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II: Destruction of the Faith Through Changes in Catholic Worship, for a decent popular treatment.

You can find the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy online at: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Vatican website)