Again and again, those who love the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass supplanted by the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, are required to answer some form of the question, "Do you uphold the Second Vatican Council as a work of the universal Church, ratified by her bishops? Do you view it as valid? Do you accept its teachings, even though we agree that it was not dogmatic, as its own documents assert?"
Anyone who is somewhere on the scale from "the Council in its evident results represents a super-dogma and I think it should be re-examined with a more critical eye" to "the Council was fine but was reduced to an amorphous 'Spirit' that makes me uneasy and has not quite borne the fruit it claimed would result from its implementation" finds himself required to preface any opinion or critique with an obligatory recitation of his credo, his "I believe" -- not in Jesus Christ, but in the Council.
But let us remember: The hand that strikes also blocks. The time has come to shed this defensive posture.
Martin Mosebach, in his First Things article responding to the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes in 2021, offers his usual insightful commentary. But perhaps the most important insight to help us overcome a fatally defensive position is this one:
"Francis appears to sympathize with the “hermeneutic of rupture”—that theological school that asserts that with the Second Vatican Council the Church broke with her tradition. If that is true, then indeed every celebration of the traditional liturgy must be prevented. For as long as the old Latin Mass is celebrated in any garage, the memory of the previous two thousand years will not have been extinguished."
A Christian ought to ground his faith in tradition. The Church Fathers are utterly unanimous on this. St. Athanasius exhorts us to have recourse to Scripture and to "the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept. Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called” (Ad Serapion 1:28)
Therefore, let those who seek to suppress doctrinal and liturgical tradition answer the simple question: "Do you follow a hermeneutic of rupture? Do you hold that Vatican II broke with tradition?"
Every thing they say must be prefaced with an answer to this question, and if the answer is "No, I do not," then every subsequent statement must be shown to be in continuity with tradition, as outlined in Sacred Scripture (see the letters of St. Paul) and the Magisterium. Or it must be rejected.
It's a simple question. The conversation starts there. "Does Vatican II represent for you a break with tradition?"
The hermeneutic of rupture has been confirmed by Cardinal Roche who says the suppression of the old rite is not about Latin but is about theology.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the precise rupture is coming out into the open. However, I think it's deeper than the intercessory nature of the priesthood. We saw them attack this in the 1970 GIRM which discourages private Masses (with no congragation), and more recently the NAC in Rome also banned private Masses, forcing priests in residence to concelebrate at the community Mass.
ReplyDeletehowever, I think the actual root is something deeper, and it has to do with the Four Last Things—Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. The sect that seeks to eliminate the intercessory priesthood also seeks to eliminate the sacrificial aspect of the Mass (also missing from the first edition of the 1970 GIRM), because they don't really believe in sin or objective morality. Or is there something I'm missing?
I agree that it is a matter of theology and not liturgy, but yet it is never framed this way, so the laity does not have a sufficient mental framework for even pondering the matter. I have recently read that V2 was an effort in "resourcement theology", which as far as I can understand is a rejection of neo-Thomism in an attempt to be more ecumenical.
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