Michael Foley on Summorum Pontificum

Michael P. Foley, Professor of Patristics at Baylor University, offers a insightful analysis of Summorum Pontificum in "Motus Magnus: An Analysis of Summorum Pontificum" (Scripture and Catholic Tradition, February 24, 2008). Excerpts:

... thought the 1962 Missal is now universally available, no mention is made of a universal indult. This is a subtle yet tremendous change in language. In Church parlance an indult denotes permission to do something not allowed by the common law. It is thus an exception to the rule, an exception that, int he case of Pope John Paul II's 1988 Ecclesia Dei indult, was conceded begrudgingly. By speaking instead of two forms of the same rite, one extraordinary (the 1962 Missal) and the other ordinary (1970), Benedict has redrawn the map. No longer is the old Mass an exception to the rule; it is an established part of it. True, it will be a less frequently occurring form of Catholic worship, but there is a significant legal and even psychological difference between more frequent and less frequent on the one hand and a rule and its exception on the other. And as one blogger wryly remarked, "Let's hope that the term 'extraordinary' when referring to the 1962 Missal will be as broadly applied as it is when referring to 'extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion'!"

Another way in which Summorum redraws the map is by locating the initiative with the faithful and requiring the pastor and Bishop to address their needs (Article 5, para. 1). As Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos explained, "If a group ... having a priest available to do it, asks to celebrate this Mass, the pastor or rector of the church cannot oppose it." Indeed, the entire trajectory of Summorum is from the ground up: the faithful petition their pastor, and if he cannot accommodate them, they are to appeal to the Bishop; if the Bishop does not help, the matter should be referred to an expanded Ecclesia Dei Pontifical Commission (5 para. 1, 7). In a twist that some might consider ironic, Summorum performatively reaffirms Vatican II's teaching on not only the clergy but the laity as the people of God.

Summorum also offers a robust vindication of the legitimate aspirations and claims that traditional Catholics have been making for decades. The Pope gently reminds the Bishops that it was their own failure to implement Pope John Paul II's indult that led to the Motu Proprio, and he laments the liturgical "deformations" that betrayed the aims of Vatican II and caused great suffering among the faithful -- including, he adds in a touching personal note, himself. His Holiness also rejects the old canard that attachment to the classical liturgy is geriatric nostalgia by speaking of all the young who have been drawn to it, and he accords greater intellectual respect to traditionalists by mentioning those whose attachments have been "formed by the liturgical movement," that is, by study and prayer rather than mindless habit or mere allergy to the new."

... The Holy Father, however, is not blind to the vices that plague some traditionalists, who might be prone to "exaggerations and [unsavory] social aspects." Yet even here Benedict tells his Bishops that the best way to help them is by responding with charity. Put differently, if you want people to stop acting like freaks and fanatics, stop treating them like freaks and fanatics.