Our 805 letter published on June 28, 2021
THE ENEMIES OF SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM WANT WAR
"You are going to have a new Motu proprio in the coming
days or weeks," Bishop Minnerath, Archbishop of Dijon, told the faithful
of the traditional Mass who came to demonstrate their displeasure in front of
the bishopric on June 26. But even before the publication of this text, if it
is well published, the testimonies on the intentions of the enemies of the
previous motu proprio, that of Benedict XVI multiply:
Thus, Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State, said before a
group of cardinals: "We must put an end to this Mass forever!" Bishop Roche, the new Prefect of the Congregation of
Divine Worship, explained with a laugh to seminary officials in Rome and
members of the Curia, all English-speaking: "Summorum Pontificum is
practically dead! We will give power back to the bishops on this point, but
especially not to the conservative bishops."
It should also be noted that Bishop Minnerath, who opened
hostilities against the traditional community of Dijon, is a member of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and therefore finds himself every
month in Rome, immersed in the circles of the Curia that prepared the offensive
against Summorum Pontificum.
Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of 2007 was
a compromise that ingeniously established a coexistence between the Mass of
Paul VI and the Tridentine Mass, in other words, it is true, between water and
fire. The fact remains that the peace achieved has been widely acclaimed by the
Christian people, whether or not they attend the old Mass, as all our surveys
have shown.
It is known, since the Pope spoke about it at the Conference
of Bishops of Italy on Pentecost Monday, that the new text will reduce the
possibility of diocesan priests to celebrate traditional Mass. In addition,
measures should be taken to lead the priests of the Ecclesia Dei institutes to
also celebrate the new Mass and to bring both this new Mass and the conciliar
magisterium into the training given in the seminaries of these communities.
Proponents of liturgical reform have become aware of the
importance of the traditional world
The exasperation, which animates the supporters of
liturgical reform in the face of the opposition they have met from the
beginning, has been revived with the arrival of Pope Francis. It continues to
grow as time passes and the pontificate logically moves towards its completion:
we must put an end as soon as possible to this opposition to the Council to
which Pope Benedict XVI had given a space of liturgical freedom.
The offensive was led by a pressure group in the Curia and
among the Italian bishops who worked to make roman decision-makers understand
that the two masses in attendance, the traditional mass and the new mass,
represented two incompatible doctrinal states: that of Vatican II and that of
before Vatican II. The great idea of Andrea Grillo, professor of liturgy at the
Roman University of St. Anselm, is that Summorum Pontificum has introduced an
aberrant state of "liturgical exception", which puts the traditional
liturgy and the new liturgy on an equal footing, which is monstrous and unbearable*.
In addition, these hardline conciliars have come to
understand that the traditional world, with its priests, its faithful, its
works, its schools, which they affected to consider as marginal and despicable,
represents in reality a significant weight, especially as the conciliar world
for its part is becoming exhausted and is increasingly fading.
Hence this desire to bring the Summorum Pontificum galaxy
into the common law. Undoubtedly what concerns the traditional liturgy and its
specialized actors, the priests of the Ecclesia Dei communities, will now be
the domain of competence of the Congregation for Divine Worship, which is by
its function in charge of the new liturgy. The extraordinary form will
therefore be subordinate to the ordinary law of the ordinary form. This could
be very expensive, for example, if the authorization to celebrate in
extraordinary form were conditional on participation at regular intervals in
the new liturgy, or on the use of the calendar of the ordinary form, or the new
lectionary. All at the discretion of the diocesan bishops, to whom the
management of this "tolerance" would be entrusted, the Congregation
for Divine Worship always giving them reason against the priests, the faithful
and the Ecclesia Dei communities. The conservative bishops, as Bishop Roche
implies, were under surveillance.
Doves and falcons
However, the present pontificate, that of a pope who is
already 84 years old, seems to be entering a difficult phase. Opposition to his
liberal line has always been very strong among conservatives and
traditionalists. But in addition, he is now meeting with discontent from a
number of those who have supported him until now.
More than a grumbling, a declared hostility. The historian
Alberto Melloni, director of the John XXIII Foundation, also known as the
Bologna School, is a major intellectual in progressive Italian Catholicism. On
June 14, in the largest left-wing daily, La Repubblica, to which he regularly
gives articles, he published a solemn warning to the Pope entitled "Il
giugno neo della Chiesa", The Black June of the Church (an allusion to
what left-wing historians call "The Black Week of the Council", this
week when the most serious crisis took place in the course of Vatican II).
Melloni lists Francis' bad practices against figures who were nevertheless
close to him, of whom he made enemies: the way in which he refused by a letter
made public the resignation of German Cardinal Marx; the confirmation of the
dismissal of Enzo Bianchi, Melloni's great friend, because of "serious
problems in the exercise of authority" from the ultra-ecumenical monastery
of Bose; the visit of a commissioner, ordered against the Congregation for the
Clergy after the resignation of Cardinal Stella, 80, one of the pillars of the
Bergoglian pontificate; the economic control launched against the services of
the Vicariate of Rome of Cardinal De Donatis; the search launched to feed the
charges deemed too weak against Cardinal Becciu, accused of economic
embezzlement in London when he was Deputy of the Secretary of State. Melloni
concludes: either Francis is surrounded by advisers who are bullies, or he has
remained the authoritarianist he was when he led the Society of Jesus in
Argentina. Let the Pope beware: "He is preparing for a storm!"
Part of the "left" is therefore seeking to free
itself from a chaotic mode of government. It is not surprising, therefore, that
some prelates, who are not very friendly to the ancient liturgy, give Francis
advice of caution: this is really not the time to open a new liturgical war
today. They join Cardinal Ladaria, "on the right", who has put the
brakes on this issue.
In doing so, these doves stand out from the hawks of the
Secretary of State and the Congregation of Divine Worship. The hawks seem to
prevail: "We must end this Mass forever!" (Cardinal Parolin);
"Summorum Pontificum is practically dead!" (Bishop Roche).
The front of refusal is preparing
A front of refusal is being prepared, as predicted by the
noise raised by the revelation of the fiddling of Summorum Pontificum,and
relayed by the great Italian press. Are we heading towards a return to the
situation of the 70s, when the new missal of Paul VI was promulgated? With this
difference that the Roman institution and the national episcopate are today
infinitely weaker.
In Dijon the priests of the diocese and the faithful who
still attend the churches do not understand the policy of the archbishop,
illegible for them. This is obviously what the reaction of the entire Christian
people will be, with the exception of the most progressive areas:
misunderstanding. Why reopen old wounds? Why advocate ecumenism ad extra,but
refuse it ad intra? Why show so little mercy?
And this in a context of dramatic reduction of Catholicism.
Andrea Riccardi, main character of the Community of Sant'Egidio, who is the
complete opposite of a conservative, in a recent book, where he considers the
fire of Notre-Dame de Paris as a parable, deals with the announced social
disappearance of the Church: La Chiesa brucia. Crise e futuro del cristianesimo
(Tempi nuovi, 2021), The Church burns. Crisis and future of Christianity. He
analyses country by country, in Europe, the collapse of Catholicism. In the
conclusion, he of course shows an obligatory hope on the theme "the crisis
is not decline", but he has previously launched, he too, launched a number
of small murderous sentences: "many Catholics have gone from enthusiasm
for Bergoglio to disillusionment", "the solution will not come from a
reform". And then also this observation: "Traditionalism is a reality
of some importance in the Church, both in the organization and in the
means".
Catholics attached to the traditional Mass are promised
extermination: "We must put an end to this Mass forever!" (Cardinal
Parolin); "Summorum Pontificum is practically dead!" (Bishop Roche).
Traditional Catholics will experience difficult times if Roman benevolence,
more or less followed by episcopal benevolence, is torn apart. But do we
believe that they will let themselves be done? It may well be that, in the
trial of strength that is being prepared, it is the guardians of the liturgy of
the Council who have the most to lose.
-------------------------
* For example, Andrea Grillo: "Il peccato dell'Ecclesia
Dei si chiama Summorum Pontificum", The sin of Ecclesia Dei is called
Summorum Pontificum, on the Munerawebsite,
http://www.cittadellaeditrice.com/munera/il-peccato-dellecclesia-dei-si-chiama-summorum-pontificum/
Paix Liturgique France
