In a conversation with a friend today it became clearer and clearer to me how the Second Vatican Council’s document on liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, is entirely the property of … on the side of the traditional/conversative argument.Visit the Comment Box for some lively discussion.
The usual narrative which has predominated over the last decades is that Sacrosanctum Concilium is the driving force behind liberal reforms.
Sacrosanctum Concilium is a conservative document which was hijacked.
Then compare the following: "Holy Emmentaler!" (Rorate Caeli, August 30, 2010):
No document of the last Council was more consequential than its first, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium).
Many, particularly the loudest defenders of the "Reform of the Reform", simply say that the document was never properly understood, or properly applied. Was that so? Mr. Christopher Ferrara examines the loopholes in Sacrosanctum Concilium in an excellent analysis published by The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.
Fr Z is a good guy, stout fellow, and all that, but like the Narnian lads and lassies he, with his typically conservative "house" views regarding the council and its documents, is encased within a wardrobe, marvellous of itself, yet completely sealed off from the real world. Within the confines of this splendiferous wardrobe, lovingly assembled by cunning middle and northern European craftsmen, it is possible to accept the council as a purloined paradise, a disneylandic kingdom of love and niceness despoiled by -- depending on who's spinning the yarn -- mossbacked traditionalists, timid moderates, and reckless modernists. In this sealed off world, one may accept Paul, John Paul, and Benedict as a plucky succession of Aslans leading the new -- always the new -- generation of young Catholic love warriors into battle to restore the lost glory of the aggiornamento.
ReplyDeleteBut in the world outside the wardrobe, where the fruit of the council can be seen clearly as the fruit of the council, and not as the result of some fairyland conspiracy of ogres, trolls and monsters AGAINST the council -- there, little Lucy, it is a very different story indeed -- and the dour man of law Mr Ferrara has taken its measure quite well.
Enjoy your num nums, dearies.