Liturgy and orthodoxy

LITURGY & ORTHODOXY

In a period of theological confusion, it is sometimes said that the liturgy is irrelevant. Why waste time arguing about the liturgy, why focus on trying to improve the liturgy, when fundamental doctrines are being called into question? Let’s not worry about the colour scheme of the deck-chairs when the ship is sinking.

This attitude is a mistake, for a number of reasons. The liturgy is central to the spiritual lives of Catholics – all Catholics – and if there are problems with it, this will harm souls. It will weaken those strong in faith, and push others over the edge into lapsation and disbelief.

It is also central to our theology. It is theoretically possible to ignore the theological messages the liturgy is sending us, in its texts and in its ceremonies, and this is what heretics and dissidents have done over the centuries. But ordinary Catholics in the pews have no reason to do this, and these messages are absorbed Sunday by Sunday, year by year. If this message is confused, muffl ed, or incomplete, so will be their understanding of the Faith. This will aff ect how they behave, how they deal with challenges, and how well they can persevere in the diffi cult conditions of the modern world.

Arguments about the liturgy, then, are not a distraction from what is important. I can’t, in a short article, open up the argument about every contested liturgical topic, but I have set out some important ideas in a book I have edited, The Case for Liturgical Restoration, which was published by Angelico Press this year. This seeks to explain the rationale of the ancient liturgy, and also what it can off er the Church as a tool of evangelisation.

There is another aspect of the ancient liturgy which is signifi cant for the current crisis. It has not, of course, been specifi cally adapted for the mid-to-late 20th century, which was the purpose of the liturgical reform. But by the same token, it has the imprint of the Church of the distant past. The orations and scripture readings of the Sunday Masses, for example, go back at least as far as the 6th century: we have Pope St Gregory the Great’s Sunday sermons, for example, DR JOSEPH SHAW which relate to the Gospel stories still read today in the Extraordinary Form. The reformed liturgy uses orations which have been drastically re-written, and a completely reorganised lectionary.

There is value in seeing things from the perspective of the Age of the Fathers. They have obviously not fallen into modern errors, and if they do not specifically address all our modern concerns, a formation in their thinking is essential if we are to do so. If we fi nd some things in the Fathers and in Scripture uncomfortable, that may be a sign that it is especially important that we hear them. To give just one example, in the context of the modern debate about couples in illicit second unions receiving Holy Communion, it is legitimate to ask if the complete exclusion, from the reformed Lectionary, of St Paul’s warning about sacrilegious communions (1 Cor. 11:27-9) was a good idea. This passage appears in the Traditional Lectionary both on Maundy Thursday and on the feast of Corpus Christi.

Another factor is the attitude one should take, as a Catholic, to the Church of the past. The liturgical reform of the 1960s was unfortunately accompanied by the rise of an embittered polemic directed at the Church’s traditions. The use of Latin, the priest “turning his back on the people”, the silent canon, and other aspects of the ancient liturgy were attacked as “excluding the people”, making real liturgical par-

BEAUTY OF OUR FAITH

ticipation impossible. Those who preferred the older liturgy were described as deluded at best, at worst totem-pole worshippers. These kinds of arguments are still heard today.

The effect of these arguments is to suggest that the Church of the past – at least until Mass began to be offered in the vernacular in 1965 – was not just in need of improvement, but radically mistaken, and even abusive towards the laity, in her most intimate inner life, the liturgy. It follows equally that all the Saints and Popes, all the Fathers and Doctors, had a terrible blind-spot, in tolerating and indeed warmly promoting a liturgy from which the people were able to derive limited spiritual benefit. Almost everything the great theologians and spiritual writers said about the liturgy must be consigned to the dustbin.

The damage this attitude does to the Church cannot be limited to the question of the liturgy. If we don’t want to hear what the Fathers had to say liturgically, why should we pay attention to what they say about doctrine? If the Church of the past has no credibility when speaking about the liturgy, what credibility will she have when speaking about morality?

One of the consequences of this situation is the feeling that Church documents composed before 1962 somehow have less weight than those published after. If Pius XII’s Casti conubii is irrelevant, Paul VI’s Humanae vitae came out of a vacuum. Paul VI had to remind Catholics that they still had to believe in Transubstantiation, in Mysterium fidei,because no-one seemed to think that the Council of Trent was part of the Magisterium any more. Pope John Paul II’s vast output of encyclicals was almost an attempt to reiterate everything, because nothing could be taken for granted.

The teaching of the Church cannot, however, be defended in this way. It has no weight, no authority, if it is merely the personal conclusions of two or three Popes. It is truly the teaching of the Church, only if the Church has always taught it. It must have roots which go back beyond the 1960s, to the Deposit of Faith; it must be attested in every age of the Church.

One way of looking at the movement for the old Mass today is as a movement for the restoration of continuity with the past. If the credibility of the Church of the past is to be restored, the polemic against the ancient liturgy must be rejected, and the Mass of the past must be accorded a place of honour in the Church. Only if this continuity is restored, can we hope to weather the current theological storm.

Dr Joseph Shaw has a Doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford University, where he also gained a first degree in Politics and Philosophy and a graduate Diploma in Theology. He has published on Ethics and Philosophy of Religion and has edited a forthcoming book on the liturgy: The Case for Liturgical Restoration: Una Voce Position Papers on the Extraordinary Form (Angelico Press). He is the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and Secretary of Una Voce International. He teaches Philosophy in Oxford University and lives nearby with his wife and eight children.