Traditional Catholics, as we often call ourselves, have made many different arguments criticizing the recent liturgical reforms. Some arguments have been theological, focusing on the textual content and ritual symbolism of the Novus Ordo. Some have been aesthetic, pertaining to more of the liturgical externals. Others have been Canonical, questioning the Canonical status of the Pauline rite. Some trads, along these lattermost lines, have argued that in virtue of Pope Pius V’s bull Quo Primum, the liturgy of the Roman
Rite may not be changed, and therefore that Paul VI’s promulgation of the Novus Ordo was illegitimate. This
argument comes in various forms. There are some who seek to
attribute dogmatic force to Quo Primum,
others who argue that it is a practical application of dogmatic teaching –
either way that it may therefore not be changed. Yet others, admitting it to be
merely disciplinary, seek to provide a canonical argument that Quo Primum is still in force, or
at least partially so. I used to be attracted to this basic argument (I think I may have even
adhered, at different periods, to several of the variants of this argument), but
now I have come around to seeing that it is ultimately quite weak, for the following reasons. (Note: what
follows must also apply to Pius V’s bull Quod
a Nobis, which is the equivalent of Quo
Primum in regards to the Roman breviary.)
First, Pius V’s legislation was a
disciplinary act that could technically be modified or even revoked by future
popes. Thus, to call upon Quo Primum
in order to establish in principle that
the Tridentine liturgy must not be changed is a flawed argument. This principle cannot be drawn from one
particular act of mutable legislation. Now, as I said before, some have argued
that Quo Primum amounts to a dogmatic
declaration, and was therefore binding even on future popes. I believe this
sort of argument was proposed by the likes of the late Fr. Gregory Hesse. But this cannot
be, because that would mean that the previous 1600 years of liturgical
development prior to Trent was a process of continual dogmatic revelation,
which is impossible: for the Church teaches that revelation ended with the
death of the last apostle. A dogmatic declaration can only be of a truth or
practice that is part of the immutable deposit of faith that was bequeathed to
the Church by God, through Christ and the apostles. After that, there is no new
revelation (though there may be changes in the manner of communicating that revelation). So it is impossible for Quo
Primum to have dogmatically declared, all of sudden, that in the 16th
century, the liturgy could not be changed, when for the past 1600 years it had been
changing.
Others have argued, not that Quo Primum was a dogmatic declaration or
a theological teaching, but that it was the application of such a teaching. The
teaching in this case would be regarding the close connection between liturgy
and faith, and the necessary consequence of tradition. Fr. Paul Kramer makes this argument in one of his books; I have seen Dr. John Salza say likewise. This argument, though
slightly different from the above one, nonetheless seeks to establish the same
conclusion, that Quo Primum bound
future popes. However, while the liturgy is certainly closely connected to
faith and thus closely embedded in tradition, these principles do not of
themselves call for the dramatic measures that were enacted by St. Pius V in Quo Primum. That no one may dare alter
the missal in any respect whatsoever is not something that can be drawn, pure
and simple, from the theological and liturgical principles of Catholic
tradition. As will be shown below, this tradition itself welcomes a certain
degree of change, even (perhaps especially?) at the local level; so change can
never, as a matter of principle, be
excluded in the degree that Pius V excluded it. It can, however, be legitimately excluded
for prudential reasons, which is precisely
what I think happened. I will speak more on this below.
Secondly, after Pius V, the liturgy indeed continued to change,
with papal approval; suggesting that Quo
Primum did not in fact bind future popes.
Pius V himself slightly changed the Missal after Quo Primum when he added the Feast of the Holy Rosary. Thereafter, new feasts were constantly
being added to the Missal, and Popes Clement VIII and Urban VIII also made some
other changes to both the Missal and Breviary. Then in the 20th
century, the more radical changes began: the reform of Pius X heavily affected
the breviary (which was protected by the same kind of legislation as the
Missal, due to Pius V’s bull Quod a Nobis),
and the reform of Pius XII heavily revised the ancient rites of Holy Week. Many
traditionalists in fact celebrate the very liturgies which resulted from these
reforms, namely those enshrined in the books of 1962. If Paul VI violated Quo Primum, these changes violated it too.
It is no use to argue, in the style of Michael Davies, that all of these changes were minor and insignificant,
for first of all, Pius V’s legislation speaks of any change whatsoever, and secondly, some of these changes (Pius
X’s and Pius XII’s) were in fact very
great – comparable even to the Novus Ordo.
Thus it is historically inaccurate to pinpoint Paul VI’s reform as the first to
“violate” Pius V’s legislation.
Thirdly, if the liturgy of its nature
possesses some sort of a character of unchangeableness – and I would be the
first to argue that it does indeed possess this – this unchangeableness has not
historically been determined by legislation,
but by tradition. It is not Pius V’s Quo Primum which renders it wrong in principle to change the liturgy – and
even in this regard we have to make distinctions about kinds of “change” – but
it is tradition which makes this
wrong. This tradition is higher than and prior to any formal legislation in the Church. Thus, the rules of
the liturgy are first determined by this tradition. Quo Primum was a prudent and practical call for a needed liturgical
stability in a time of liturgical chaos; thus, the best possible argument that
can be made about the Novus Ordo insofar
as it relates to Quo Primum is that
it was imprudent, and even this is not easy to establish on firm premises. Traditionalists
would therefore make a much better argument if they were to point out, not that
Paul VI’s reform violated a 400 year-old piece of papal legislation that was
promulgated for prudential and practical reasons, but that it violated a 1500
year-old tradition, and a 2000 year old pattern of liturgical development, and
that this was wrong in principle.
Likewise, they would make a much better
argument if they were to point out, not that Paul VI’s reform violated the
wishes of another individual man, namely Pius V, but that it violated the principles
of a tradition that transcends all
individuals. In general, traditionalists rightly recognize that the old liturgy
is traditional, but strangely enough, some
of them do not adequately recognize that the source of this traditional-ness is in tradition itself; rather, they see it as
originating in positive legislation, e.g.
Quo Primum.
Which brings me to the fourth point:
tradition and unchangeable character of the liturgy has never been of such a
nature as to rule out all change. In
fact, history shows that tradition has always been very intimately linked with
the organic development of the liturgy. Pius V’s legislation forbade any sort
of change only as a needed practical measure in a time of liturgical anarchy,
but not necessarily as a definitive brake on liturgical development, as if the
liturgy had finally reached a state of perfection in the year 1570. To make this argument presumes that
Pius V had some sort of theological or liturgical principle by which he could
judge what is a perfect liturgy. The liturgy historically is something which
develops continuously – not always at the same rate, granted. By analogy this
development is said to be “organic,” insofar as it resembles the growth of
living organisms: they grow, but ever remain the same entity. But the analogy
can really only go so far. For living things, there is a way to determine what
is the “perfect” stage of development, what it is to be “in one’s prime,” as it
were. The liturgy, however, because of the nature of what it is, has an
inexhaustible potential for the expression of faith. This inexhaustible
expressive potential is what has always allowed the liturgy of the Church to
exhibit a certain kind of variety, locally and temporally. The faith and
spirituality of the Church receives a variety of expression in the liturgy
throughout the world and throughout time, and thus produces a variety of fruits
which are all conducive to the growth of holiness in the Church. There is a way
in which this temporal and local variety is a beautiful and positive thing – a
case could even be made for its necessity. That is not to say that it is
unlimited (as it is apparently thought to be today), or that it may not be
regulated for prudential reasons (as it was by Pius V). But it can never be
totally excluded on the basis of any liturgical principle. For these reasons
(which have only summarily been explained here), liturgical tradition not only
does not oppose change and variety, but it even welcomes a certain kind of variety,
and this is due to the very nature of liturgy. So the development of the
liturgy can never be legitimately brought to an absolute halt. In practice it may have its
legitimate pauses in history, for whatever reasons of circumstance, but it may never be absolutely
excluded in principle.
Thus, if we take Quo Primum to be mandating an absolute brake on all liturgical
development and change whatsoever, on the basis that liturgical development had
finished then and there, then yes, Paul VI’s reform would be wrong for having
violated Quo Primum. But if we take Quo Primum to be mandating only a temporary
and prudential pause for liturgical development and change – even the good kind
of change – then I do not think the Novus
Ordo would be a violation of Quo
Primum. If, again, Pius V had set down objective rules and principles,
founded in the tradition of the liturgy, for what is the right kind of change,
then it would be possible to judge the Novus
Ordo in light of such legislation. But the fact is that Pius V did not do
so: he merely prohibited anyone besides the pope to change the missal,
reserving to the pope alone the authority to do so. Thus, Paul VI’s reform
would not even violate Quo Primum at
all, if the latter was not even intended in the first place as a brake on
liturgical change in principle. Indeed,
Paul VI’s reform was in many ways in conformity with the legal situation that Pius V began: for those changes were all
sanctioned by the authority of the pope. What Paul VI’s reform did violate, however, are the laws that tradition has dictated for the right kinds of change and legislation in
the liturgy, that is, organic development in continuity with tradition. And it
is in virtue of that violation that
the creation of the Novus Ordo must
be judged a mistake.
I would like to make a final point,
clarifying something I just hinted at. Some traditionalists, while admitting
that Quo Primum does not amount to divine law, nonetheless attribute to it the
force of a positive ecclesiastical law which is still binding. Whether or
not Quo Primum is still binding legally is not my concern at the moment
(although I think the answer is in the affirmative). Rather, I would prefer to
draw attention to the fact that the view according to which the liturgy is
something regulated primarily by legislation is itself part of the reason that the Novus Ordo was made possible in the first place. Legislation has
an important place in the Church, of course, but that place is at the service of tradition. The riches of liturgical piety have been given to us in an organic tradition by God, working through the ages in the devout hearts of the Christian faithful. Piety is not something that can be imposed by law, but it grows from the heart that subjects itself to the inspiration of God. Law has the role of protecting and preserving the sources that have grown out of the traditions of Christian piety, but it does not fabricate or originate them. To attribute to it this role is to allow man to be the arbiter of the liturgy, which is precisely what enabled the present crisis. The argument
for the Tridentine mass which is founded on the fact of legislation is therefore weak,
because a similar argument can be made for the Novus Ordo: the pope approved it, therefore it may not be rejected.
So again, the traditionalist argument has to ultimately fall back not on the notion of
legislation and positive ecclesiastical law, but on the notion of liturgical tradition, which
has a dignity and importance that is higher than that of human ecclesiastical law. It is
this tradition primarily, and legislation only secondarily, which establishes
the limits of change in the liturgy, and the obligation of adhering to the traditional liturgy.
I have to admit, this is persuasive. Well done. It's obvious that St. Pius V intended future popes to adhere to Quo Primum and believed, himself, that the had the authority to bind them. But even if he did not, it is concerning that, so far as I know, this legislation has never been repealed - just violated.
ReplyDeleteExcellent, Maestro! In my brief neo-con days following my decade in the SSPX, a diocesan priest was able quickly to shut down my argument for the TLM (as "protected" by Quo Primum) by dismantling the notion of the typical trad interpretation of "in perpetuity". I had no good defense and succumbed to the ultramontanist view for a time, though inconsistently I also still held the Novus Ordo to be inferior/illegitimate. It would be another decade that I realized that the 1962 Missal and the Pian Holy Week changes in particular, were indefensible vis-a-vis rejecting the Novus Ordo, the logical conclusion is to take the view which transcends liturgy controlled by Papal fiat, no matter how saintly the particular pope happens to be.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the better informed trads know too well that they would have to concede the arguments of the "Nine" concerning the pre-conciliar changes if they were to change their argument away from Quo Primum and back to immemorial custom/liturgical Tradition. Even today, 31 years after that debacle, it is very difficult for them, the SSPX in particular, to distinguish the Nine's liturgical position (which is true) from the theory of sedevacantism (which is false).
Great read again; I am going to pass this along to my pastor.
Excellent piece! Best reflection and essay on the topic I have seen in a long time.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent essay!
ReplyDelete