Holiness, What Are the Reasons For the Liturgical Crisis

 

Why doesn't Pope Francis call things by their proper name when he correctly identifies a liturgical crisis but fails to draw the necessary conclusions?

By Cristina Siccardi*

The Holy See takes no position on the profanations and blasphemies that are constantly committed in society, for example in gay prides or in contemporary "art", which unrestrainedly incites against the Catholic religion. Rather, the denigration of faith is carried out today as a matter of course in the churches themselves, with the consent of the pastors, who are blinded by the anti-liturgical wave.

 

Thus there are consecrated Hosts given and received without due holiness and heediness; Songs that are absolutely far from any Christian piety; Acts contrary to divine charity; naked and disheveled brides; grooms with eccentric and hedonistic attire and tattoos; guests at first communions, confirmations, weddings or funerals who are not even aware that they are going to church instead of to a stadium; Dogs carrying the rings to the newlyweds with viral YouTube videos... 

Blasphemy and ridiculousness and circus spread unchecked according to the standards of Guinness World Records.

Despite these massive and shocking events, which harm and mock the Church, Pope Francis is pointing the finger at those who are faithful to the Roman Rite Apostolic Holy Mass, rather than bringing clarity and order with the tools of a two-thousand-year tradition. He did so on the day of the Apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, with the Apostolic Exhortation Desiderio desideravi "On the Liturgical Formation of the People of God", addressed to bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated persons and the faithful.

The Pope begins his letter with the following words: 

“My dear sisters and brothers, with this letter I would like to address everyone – having already addressed the Bishops specifically following the publication of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes [ of July 16, 2021] – to share with you some reflections on the liturgy, a fundamental dimension of the life of the Church. The subject is very vast and deserves careful consideration in all its aspects: with these lines, however, I do not intend to treat the subject exhaustively. I just want to offer some food for thought here to consider the beauty and truth of the Christian celebration.”

Yes, the liturgy is really the fundamental dimension for the life of the Church, otherwise the Church would have no raison d'être. Christianity was constituted around the altar, catacombs, churches, parishes, monasteries, abbeys and cathedrals were built. On the millions of altars in space and time, however, a true (bloodless) sacrifice always took place through God's work and through the formulas and hands of the priests, His servants. Never, as the Protestant heresiarchs claim, was there a mere virtual commemoration, an act that insults, distorts, and obliterates the very nature of holy sacrifice and the priesthood. In the face of these truths in the sacred mysteries, the Pope's reflections seem alarming:

“Without the last supper, that is, the ritual anticipation of his death, we could not have understood how the execution of his death sentence can be the perfect and pleasing act of cult towards the father, the only true act of cult. A few hours later, on the cross of Jesus, the apostles could have discerned what 'offered body' and 'shed blood' mean if they had borne the burden of the cross: and we remember this in every Eucharist” (DD, 7).

Every Holy Mass is a true act of worship because it brings back the body and blood of Christ among the people and cannot be a mundane, earthly "commemoration" because the commemoration is a passive act, not an active one, it is a human act and not entirely a wonderful action in the original sense of the word, like transubstantiation, a crucial concept that is mentioned neither in the motu proprio Traditionis custodes nor in the Apostolic Exhortation Desiderio desideravi.

Instead of showing catholicity the evidence of the facts and fruits of the Novus Ordo, with all its errors, stemming from a utopian and pernicious ecumenical need, transforming the order theologically and factually, as many people today know, the Second Vatican Council is still canonized, which brought the reign of uncertainty to the Church, as Paul VI tragically denounced it on that June 29th, exactly 50 years ago, when he declared:

“Through some chink the smoke of Satan entered the temple of God. There is doubt, uncertainty, restlessness, dissatisfaction, confrontation. One no longer trusts the Church; one trusts the first profane prophet who speaks to us from any newspaper or any social movement, to run after him and ask him if he has the formula for true life", when the Church is the only refuge of true life, and then “it was believed that after the Council a sunny day would come for the history of the Church. Instead came a day of clouds, of storms, of darkness, of searching, of uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and distance ourselves more and more from the others. We try to dig chasms instead of closing them.” 

 

 

Just three years after the end of the Council, Pope Montini spoke of the " self-destruction " of the Church, which today has reached an impressive stage because of the ignorance that has arisen and because of the errors spread by a work of evangelization and missionary work, which no longer corresponds to what Jesus instructed his apostles to do.

Citing Romano Guardini (we remember that the most important work by this famous author, The Spirit of the Liturgy of 1918, became a cornerstone of the liturgical movement that arose in Europe in the first half of the 20th century and which liturgical reform aspired to by the Second Vatican Council), Pope Bergoglio calls for liturgical formation from a Christian-anthropocentric perspective:

“There is a need to find ways of formation as a study of the liturgy: much has been done in this regard, starting from the liturgical movement, with valuable contributions from many scholars and academic institutions. However, it is necessary to disseminate this knowledge outside of academia, in an accessible way, so that every believer can grow in knowledge of the theological meaning of the liturgy - this is the crucial and fundamental question of all knowledge and liturgical practice – as well as in the development of Christian celebration, acquiring the ability to understand Euchological texts, ritual dynamics and their anthropological meaning.”

  

But the new liturgy, born of a movement poisoned by liberalism and therefore by relativism, will never bear good fruit, as more than 50 years of experience show. In contrast, the Vetus Ordo brought and still brings a lot of attention and harvest in qualitative and quantitative terms, especially among the new generations.

The participatio actuosa ( active participation) of the faithful in the liturgy as understood in the Novus Ordo is not comparable to spiritual participation in the Holy Mass of the Vetus Ordo. It is a collective participation and not that of each individual soul, who is in truth called to attend the Eucharistic miracle with due concentration and holiness, because one is truly before the Sacrificed Lamb and can only be truly nourished by Him when one is in the grace of God. We therefore find a correct criterion in the papal letter when, following Leo the Great, he states:

“The fullness of our education is conformity to Christ. I repeat, it's not about some mental, abstract process, it's about becoming Him. This is the purpose for which the Spirit was given, whose work is always and exclusively to form the body of Christ. So it is with the Eucharistic Bread, so it is with every baptized person who is called to become more and more what he received as a gift in baptism, namely to be a member of the body of Christ. Leo the Great writes: 'Our participation in the body and blood of Christ does nothing other than make us what we eat' (Leo Magnus, Sermo XII: De Passione III,7)” (DD, 41).

 

Leo the Great and Romano Guardini are tacitly lumped together, creating a jumble of traditionally inconspicuous concepts and contradictory teachings, culminating in the declaration:

"The task is not easy, because modern man has become illiterate, he can no longer read symbols, he does not even suspect their existence" (DD, 44).

 

Unfortunately, the responsibility for this illiteracy rests solely with the pastors, most of whom have chosen the ecclesiastical revolution to embrace the world and the lex orandi, the lex credendi of the Church, the rock on which the Bride of Christ is founded to put on ropes. Changing the Mass - turning one's back on God, abolishing essential gestures of the divine liturgy, which had never been violated until '69, celebrating the assembly instead of the cross, moving the divine Host to a "eucharistic reserve", concelebrating with several priests... - was a human act and not divine. However, the heart of the problem continues to be overlooked:

“Rather, it is about regaining the ability to classify and understand the symbols of the liturgy. We must not despair because, as I have just said, this dimension is constitutive of man and, despite the evils of materialism and spiritualism - both of which deny the unity of body and soul - always ready to reappear like any truth" ( DD, 44)

That is exactly how it is, Holy Father, every truth is always destined to emerge again: Churches are depopulating and the people who enter them often do so with those attitudes that we reported at the beginning of the article.

“So the question we ask ourselves is: how can we become symbolic again? How can one be able to read them again to live them?” (DD, 45).

 

Well, certainly not with a rite based on ecumenical compromises made with representatives of Protestantism around the green table, as was the case with the 1969 liturgical revolution. Both the liturgical formation and the symbols that the Pope places most emphasis on in this document are elements rooted in the rite, and when the rite is in crisis, as the Pope himself points out, it means that his The main purpose is not to give glory to God and save souls, but to create an acceptable space in the world that does not find real acceptance, as happens when you sell your identity to the dominant culture to please, instead of leading all of us sinners.

The catechetical failures and the mass de-Christianization of families should illuminate the minds of those pastors who today could humbly exercise a just and empowering self-criticism of the years they have been "contemplating" a harmful and tragic theology of liberation, ecumenism, interreligiousness and ecology. Then one could really say as in Desiderio desideravi :

“The ars celebrandi can not be reduced to the mere adherence to a rubricistic apparatus, nor can it be considered an imaginative – sometimes wild – creativity without rules. The rite is in itself a norm, and the norm is never an end in itself, but always at the service of the higher reality that wants to protect it” (DD, 48).

 

• It is true that "the supreme and therefore most demanding standard is the reality of the Eucharistic celebration itself, which selects words, gestures and feelings and makes us understand whether or not they are appropriate to the task they have to fulfil" (DD , 57), but the Novus Ordo chose what it should not. 

• It is true that Mary Most Holy "supervises the actions of her Son entrusted to the Apostles," but if Our Lady is then left in the "hands" of Monsignor Tonino Bello 1 , what Most Holy Virgin are we talking about? 
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• It is very true that "it is the celebration itself that educates," but if the celebration is poisoned, what pedagogy does it produce? 

• Yes, it is even very true that the priest is formed in the cultic action of the sacred mysteries, but when these are watered down and even poisoned by an unjust and degrading scheme, he will be formed by them.
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“Therefore we cannot return to that ritual form which the Council Fathers cum Petro and sub Petro considered in need of reform, approving, under the guidance of the Spirit and according to their conscience as Pastors, the principles from which the reform proceeded. […] That is why I wrote Traditionis Custodes, so that the Church, in the multiplicity of languages, raises one and the same prayer that expresses her unity. As I have already written, I wish to see this unity restored throughout the Roman Rite Church” (DD, 61).

 

No, Your Holiness, as clerics, religious and faithful, we cannot "put strife behind us" because these are not destructive criticisms but questions that we present in a merciful and constructive manner and that call for answers, consistent with logic, coherence, justice and mercy. 

The Holy Roman Church, being a mother and not a stepmother, is committed to defending and preserving the Faith and its rites, with the main aim of bringing as many souls as possible to the Incarnate Word, because “ Salus animarum suprema lex” .

*Cristina Siccardi , historian and publicist, her recent book publications include L'inverno della Chiesa dopo il Concilio Vaticano II (The Winter of the Church after Vatican II. Changes and Causes, 2013); “San Pio X” (Saint Pius X. The life of the Pope who ordered and reformed the Church, 2014); "San Francesco" (Saint Francis. One of the most distorted characters in history, 2019).

Translation/Footnote: Giuseppe Nardi
Image : Corrispondenza Romana

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1 Monsignor Antonino Bello (1935–1993), who also let himself be called “Don Tonino” as bishop, was one of the best-known progressive Church representatives in Italy. 1982–1993 he was Bishop of Molfetta-Ruvo-Giovinazzo-Terlizzi and 1985–1993 President of Pax Christi Italy. He was involved in the Cold War so vehemently opposed to NATO rearmament that he has been accused of inciting soldiers to desert. He is best known for his ambiguous and profane way of speaking about Mary. Pope Francis traveled to Molfetta in 2018 to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Monsignor Bello and visited his grave. In 2021 he elevated "Don Tonino", whose beatification process is in progress, to the Venerable Servant of God.

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG