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Toronto Catholic Register: op-ed attack on Archbp. Ranjith and Benedict XVI
A reader alerted me to this article in the Catholic paper of the Archdiocese of Toronto. The author is the former edition of this paper. I am told he was also an associate of retired Bp. Remi do Roo, who celebrates puppet Masses for Call to Action.
Let’s have a look with my emphases and comments.
http://www.catholicregister.org/content/view/1671/852/
Don’t step back on Vatican II reforms
Friday, 28 March 2008
Written by Bernard Daly, Catholic Register Special,
Recently it would appear that top Vatican officials are joining the attack on liturgy changes approved by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council. [Right away we get the idea that these "Vatican officials" are probably "bad men".]
Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, challenges widespread use of the vernacular, priests facing the people and communion in the hand. [A may God give him health and length of days for that!]
In a June, 25, 2006, interview with La Croix daily newspaper in Paris, Ranjith’s target was the full use of the vernacular language at Mass and turned altars. More recently, in his preface to a book by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, Ranjith questions communion in the hand. [May God shine His light upon them.]
He argues that these changes are not approved by the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This of course is true. The constitution deals with general principles. Paul VI slowly approved specific changes after the council closed in December 1965. [Okay… so if we are going to be faithful to the documents of the Church, we really should read them and then be faithful to them. No where will you find a document that abolishes Latin as the liturgical language of the Church. Furthermore, the Church permitted Communion in the hand as an aberration, a variation from the norm which is on the tongue. Also, altars ad orientem remain the standard, the norm, if you read the rubrics carefully. The author here seems to be saying "don’t bother me with the facts, Archbp. Ranjith is … is… is… doing something bad!]
Ranjith often notes [correctly] that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, made similar points in a foreword to a 2003 book by the English Oratorian U.M. Lang. [And not only there.] Then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “To the ordinary churchgoer, the two most obvious effects of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council seem to be the disappearance of Latin and the turning of the altars towards the people. Those who read the relevant texts will be astonished to learn that neither is in fact found in the decrees of the council.” [Unbelievable. He leaves aside entirely Ratzinger’s reason for why ad orientem worship is important, or how the argument for versus populum altars was based on bad scholarship.]
Ranjith says “it is clear that despite certain ‘steps forward’ to make the liturgy the vehicle of a true ecclesial renewal, there have also been some ‘backward steps.’ These are especially those changes in the liturgy that were effected hastily without proper research or due reflection.”
This can only mean that Ranjith thinks Paul VI approved changes “hastily without proper research or due reflection.” [Ummm… yep. That’s what it means.]
Unfortunately, most bishops who joined Paul VI in the slow renewal process, such as Bishop Albertus Martin and Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter in Canada, are dead. [Let’s look backwards, not forwards. Also, is this anything other than a slap at the last two Archbishops of Torontom Ambrozic and Collins?] We must pray that some of their successors will act vigourously to defend Paul VI and the liturgical renewal he approved. [If only they would defend the reforms as they are actually documented. That would mean the Novus Ordo in Latin, ad orientem with Gregorian chant and polyphony.]
Fr. Gilles Routhier of the Laval University theology department has made a career of researching how Vatican II was received in Canada. Regarding liturgical changes, he argues that any abuses that occurred locally happened mainly because changes, such as use of the vernacular, took so long to come into effect, and not because they were brought in too hastily or without due reflection. In Canada, by far the majority of Catholics welcome the renewal.
Of course, attempts to explain past events in absolute terms can never fully satisfy everyone.
As for the future of liturgical renewal, Archbishop Piero Marini, who recently ended long service as the head papal liturgist, [And now deserves a long and fruitful retirement.] makes a crucial point in his new book, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal. He points out that no place in Holy Scripture is God pictured standing behind His people, calling us to turn back to the past. [THAT is the great insight available from that book about this issue? I wonder if the author caught Archbp. Marini’s comment that the reforms the Consilium were jamming down the Church’s throat intended also to change the Church’s doctrine? Go back and read the top of page 46 carefully.]
Even in calling us to abandon old sins, God is urging us forward to a new life. [Did the writer just draw a moral equivalence between traditional liturgy and sin?] Old liturgical forms and practices had their glorious days, and now is the time to keep the Vatican II renewal moving forward in the direction Paul VI approved.
(Daly, now living in Toronto, is publisher emeritus of The Catholic Register. He also worked for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops for 35 years.) [So I assume he was in part responsible for the Winnipeg statement?]
I think it clear from the tone of his text that when he says “Vatican II renewal” he means Vatican II rupture.
Comment by Woody Jones — 15 May 2008 @ 11:49 amUnbelievable. What poor journalism.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Ranjith deserves a red hat for taking all the gut-punches for the HF.
Comment by RichR — 15 May 2008 @ 12:02 pmI’m not an Old Testament scholar, but I’m pretty sure a large portion of that tome is dedicated to calling the people of Israel back, away from their new abominable practices and to what they did before… For every Abraham who leaves his homeland, there’s a Nehemiah who goes back. That indicates there’s an objective standard of truth, not just progress versus regression, and sometimes we need to go forward and sometimes we need to go backwards.
Comment by Clavem Abyssi — 15 May 2008 @ 12:04 pmClavem Abyssi says in part:
“...not just progress versus regression, and sometimes we need to go forward and sometimes we need to go backwards.
I think it is more of a “sometimes we stray, and then we need to return to the fold”. Good points otherwise.
Comment by Brian Day — 15 May 2008 @ 12:16 pmClavem;
A very shrewd observation… guess he missed that one!
Overall, I think it is a giant step forward that this kind of opposition is being made public and with such ferocity… it is a sure sign that progress is being made! However I find it rather a strange argumentative technique to admit that your opposition is actually right, but that your point is valid because it is a commonly held error. Also, to point out the “problems” with Cardinal Ratzinger’s writings, and then cite Achbp. Marini as a valid source seems, well… a little intellectually dishonest.
Comment by Chironomo — 15 May 2008 @ 12:24 pmI’m not surprised by this article in view of the longstanding social liberalism of many Canadians which resulted in such fiascoes as mandatory universal health care producing more problems than cures. Mr. Daly, in all probability, is likewise a proponent of the modern “nanny state.”
Comment by John Enright — 15 May 2008 @ 12:27 pmThank God for men like Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith who are faithful to our Holy Father. I never cease to be amazed how silly are those who have been promoting change, for at least four decades, on the church’s believers. These are the same people who removed the tabernacle from the sanctuary because it was “distracting” and then gave us the choir/band in full view near the alter. This group is aging but they are still a force to be reckoned with, they remain very powerful. Communion rails continue to be torn out. How much longer Lord how much longer?
JMJ
Comment by Tom Lanter — 15 May 2008 @ 12:38 pmTom Lanter
With respect (and not wanting to start another long comment war), in a previous post Fr. Z praised the idea of liturgical freedom (in reference to bowing or genuflecting before receiving). But in this post, Fr. Z supports someone who wants to do away with a liturgical freedom. Why can we not praise liturgical freedom in taking the host in the hands or in the mouth? Both of which are allowed under the current norms.
Was it not a Doctor of the Church who said (I am parphrasing here: “Make of your hands a throne to recive your Lord.” [That tired old chestnut again?]
If the Church changes its norm, I will change. Until then, I will continue to make a throne of my hands.
Comment by georgeauinas — 15 May 2008 @ 12:39 pmActually, Communion in the Hand is not a norm. It’s an indult (rescript) that dispenses from the norm, which is Communion on the Tongue.
Comment by RichR — 15 May 2008 @ 12:51 pmgeorgeauinas: You mean this passage?
“In approaching, therefore, do not come up with your wrists apart or with your fingers spread, but make of your left hand a throne for the right, since you are about to receive into it a King. And having hallowed your palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it the amen. Then, after cautiously sanctifying your eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake, being careful lest you lose anything of it. For whatever you might lose is clearly a loss to you from one of your own members. Tell me: if someone gave you some grains of gold, would you not hold them with all carefulness, lest you might lose something of them and thereby suffer a loss? Will you not, therefore, be much more careful in keeping watch over what is more precious than gold and gems, so that not a particle of it may escape you.”
Given his utterly lofty regard for the sacred species, I’d say St. Cyril would be very quick to approve the traditional Roman practice of receiving only on the tongue. Look around you. The practice St. Cyril describes has been brought back, but the reverence he enjoins has, curiously, not. Another datum for organic development, anyone?
Comment by Pleased as Punch — 15 May 2008 @ 1:14 pm“He argues that these changes are not approved by the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This of course is true. The constitution deals with general principles.“
Yes: general principles that did not “envisage” (because they love that word) turning altars around, Communion in the hand, elimination of the musical heritage of the Church, obliteration of Latin, etc. The general principles are actually rather specific in their areas of application!
“We must pray that some of their successors will act vigourously to defend Paul VI and the liturgical renewal he approved.”
They could start by adhering to the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, especially in regards to sacred music and Latin; they could also affirm (and exercise) some other long-standing liturgical traditions of the Church, such as ad orientem worship.
“He points out that no place in Holy Scripture is God pictured standing behind His people, calling us to turn back to the past.”
Apart from the excellent “Old Testament” comment above, doesn’t this statement fly in the face of the antiquarian attitude (condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei) that resulted in resurrecting the “Canon of Hippolytus”, turning altars back into mere tables, and removing so-called accretions to the liturgy? Isn’t that turning back to the past? Get the story straight, guys!
Old liturgical forms and practices had their glorious days, and now is the time to keep the Vatican II renewal moving forward in the direction Paul VI approved.
Hey now… did Pope Paul VI approval a “direction” of liturgical renewal, or did he approve of particular liturgical changes?
Comment by Jeff Pinyan — 15 May 2008 @ 1:17 pm“If the Church changes its norm, I will change. Until then, I will continue to make a throne of my hands.”
I’d be interested to know why. If I stipulate to everything you say, and accept that both forms are allowed under the current norms, I am still curious as to why you choose one form over the other. While there may be one Saint (the quote is of dubious or at least debatable authenticity) who seems to recommend the practice of receiving Commuinion in the hand, there are a multitude who recommend just the opposite. Why then do you choose it?
Comment by Michael — 15 May 2008 @ 1:28 pmThese liberals can stomp their feet, mutter and sputter and howl to the moon all they want. The writing is on the wall, their time is up and they know it.
Comment by AnnaTrad — 15 May 2008 @ 1:31 pmThis is all little more than a call to, once again, ignore the actual reforms and follow the ubiquitous “Spirit of Vatican II”. As I said above, the fact that they feel it necessary to defend it means that it is truly under attack. The left is, for the first time in a long time, seeing their precious “reforms” being dismantled slowly but surely, and they are not ready to give them up easily. Pray that God’s will be done.
Comment by Chironomo — 15 May 2008 @ 1:31 pmThis kind of “editorial” troubles me. While we keep praying, and being told
to be patient, “brick by brick,etc..” folks like this writer can’t or won’t
see the damage done to Holy Mother Church. We’re trying to re-build one
brick at a time and they are full steam ahead with the wrecking ball.
How many fallen aw