Disciple of +Lefebvre: Benedict's Liturgical Renewal is Tridentine

(Paris)  In the French publisher Godfroy de Bouillon is a book about Pope Benedict XVI's changes in the Liturgy reform since the beginning of his pontificate.  The author of the book it he priest Paul Aulangier.  The book contains more of his preliminary steps to put the theme together and serves as a knowledgeable synopsis of the last seven years of liturgical renewal.   The basic starting point of the introduction is the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of 2007, which had reintroduced the classical form of the Roman Rite as the "extraordinary form" in the Church and had set it next to the "ordinary form".  Aulagnier showed the steps leading to how the "Old Mass" had experienced its return in the Church since its implementation through the Motu Proprio.

The author did not only deal with the question as to how Summorum Pontificum was implemented, rather also the previous history as to how it became the Motu Proprio.  Already in 1986 a commission of Cardinals appointed by the Pope then expressed itself for the return of the Tridentine Mass and also that the Pope did not stand against it.  Some Bishops Conferences wanted therefore to prevent the entire enterprise with all of their resistance.   So the Church had to wait till 2007 when the recognition of the Mass of All Ages was possible.

Aulagnier has published and analyzed all of the important documents  and came to the conclusion that Pope Benedict XVI, with his reform of the reform, envisioned in the future on the other hand only a single form of the Roman Rite one next to each other.   The Pope wrote already in the Motu Proprio about the "mutual enrichment".  In the concepts themselves which were still recognized by the hierarchy, there is a deferment taking place, which shows a shift in language toward appreciation for the "Old Mass".   Benedict XVI's goal is that he wants that both forms intermix and become one and do this from Tradition.  Where Pope Benedict has persistently since the beginning of his pontificate taken the steps of liturgical renewal, this is Tridentine, says Aulagnier.

The author shows that Benedict XVI would have undertaken the renewal more quickly with more steps, but there was strong resistance from the ranks of the Bishops, those of the French and the German episcopate before the publication of the Motu Proprior Summorum Pontificum, and this resistance is still there, although it is weaker.  The Pope had slowed his pace, because he wanted to win and convince.


Perhaps more importantly, said Aulagnier, as the papal documents are the Pope's  model for the practical implementation of the reform. There is an "educational" approach of the Pope by his example, that would be slow, but it has an extension throughout the world. The number of  sites where the Old Rite is offered take place everywhere. Nevertheless, during this pontificate no substantial change in the Missal of Paul VI was accomplished., from which you can see from the new translation of the Missal into English from. Aulagnier closes with a reference to a speech by Bishop Athanasius Schneider in Paris over the five wounds of the liturgy. The author says that it was long difficult to imagine that two Missal would co-exist equally, it still needs many steps to overcome this situation.

A book that understands itself as "an inventory", will be  much discussed. The author, Paul Aulangier was one of those seminarians in the French Seminary in Rome, who turned for help in the post-conciliar period to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and followed him. Consecrated in 1971 by Archbishop Lefebvre as a priest, he was among the founding members of the Society of St. Pius X. From 1976 to 1994 he was the District Superior of France and was involved instrumentally in building the Brotherhood in their "home country".  In 2004 he was expelled from the SSPX because he supported the unification of the Apostolic Personal administration of St. John Vianney in Brazil with the Holy See. Father Aulagnier founded the Institut du Bon-Pasteur, a new home which Pope Benedict XVI been established as an institute of pontifical right.


Link to katholisches original...