Michael Davies sums up the case

In 1996, as part of my research into twentieth century liturgical reform, I wrote to all Fathers of the Second Vatican Council then still living—some five hundred or so bishops throughout the world—in the hope of recording their recollections of the conciliar debate on the Sacred Liturgy, and of obtaining their assessment of the liturgical reforms enacted in the name of the Council. To the second of my questions: “What are your recollections of the Conciliar debate on the Sacred Liturgy?” one missionary bishop (a holder of a doctorate in Philosophy) replied:

Horrible. If we judge the debate on the Liturgy as we have it today. Very few bishops would be proud to say that they had a hand in it…In my opinion the debate on the Liturgy has been hijacked. The Council gave permission to “experiment” not to “finalise;” it was to reform, not to change completely.

The same prelate replied to the later and more specific question: “How faithful were the [postconciliar] Consilium [charged with the application of the Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy] to the mandate given them by the Holy Father?” with a curt “Eh. Come off it! How many bishops do you think will answer the remaining questions?”

Clearly a nerve had been touched.

The liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council—and that encompasses the work of the Council, the Consilium and indeed of Pope Paul VI—is very much a live issue, even with some of the Fathers of the Council itself. Simply asking my questions prompted rather prickly responses from some prelates.

Straight shooter

Michael Davies, for whom this issue has, in latter decades, become a cause, is a straight-shooter. His numerous works on the Council and on the various aspects of the liturgical reform that followed it are relentless in their exposition of the nature and causes liturgical dissolution that the Roman rite of the Catholic Church has experienced since 1964. The familiarity of the voice and of the message of any veteran campaigner can often deafen ears to its substance and to its import, and Davies’ efforts may well suffer somewhat from that. However, in 2003 even Pope John Paul II has formally acknowledged in Ecclesia de Eucharistia that “dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice” are present in the Church’s liturgical life and, at the time of writing, there is much talk abroad of reasserting longsince lost liturgical discipline.

It is, then, timely for Michael Davies to have written Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II, for the “question” of the Liturgy is very much under consideration at the present. The fundamental message of the book is contained in its title: the Conciliar Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium contained elements that would later explode and wreak havoc; or, in the words of Father Aidan Nichols OP, Sacrosanctum Concilium “carried within it, encased in the innocuous language of pastoral welfare, some seeds of its own destruction.” 1

In demonstrating how such a grave state of affairs could come to be, Davies looks, briefly—this book is a short essay and but whets the appetite for further study of the issues it raises—at the twentieth century Liturgical Movement. Rightly, Davies states that the Liturgical Movement sought “liturgical renewal within the Roman rite, but a renewal within the correct sense of the term, using the existing Liturgy to its fullest potential.” And, following the recently published short study of the Liturgical Movement by Father Didier Boneterre,2 Davies correctly asserts that the ground for erroneous liturgical reform was laid by the didacticism of some later Liturgical Movement enthusiasts, and by the consequent reformism which they espoused, which had far too much in common with the Enlightenment liturgical reforms condemned by Pope Pius VI in 1794 and deprecated by Pope Pius XII in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei.

Enigma

The enigmatic figure of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini looms large very early in the ascendancy of the Liturgical Movement reformists. Davies, of course, clashed personally with Bugnini over the question of the prelate’s alleged masonic affiliation, and here Davies’ presents clear arguments in support of his claim. I have to confess to always having wondered whether the question of who was or was not a mason amongst the curia—clearly in itself a gravely irregular and scandalous thing for any prelate to be—is not a distraction from the critical assessment of the liturgical reforms? Surely the reforms themselves, and indeed Bugnini’s published apologia,3 clearly enunciate the principles upon which the reforms were built, regardless of any corruption of the persons responsible? And surely a sound critique of those principles and of the ensuing reforms would neither gain nor lose from such sordid detail?

But Davies is right to point the finger at Bugnini, for he pushed for ritual reforms that served his view that a didactic and radically simplified Liturgy was what modern man required well before the Second Vatican Council. And, given Bugnini’s appointment as Secretary to the Council’s Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy, there is no doubt that he was ideally placed to see to the preference of his ideas. However, as Davies makes clear, Bugnini was not named Secretary of the Liturgical Commission during the Council itself, and was sacked from his Roman teaching post at the same time. Under the new Pope Paul VI, however, he was named Secretary of the postconciliar Consilium and resumed his interrupted work.

Consequences unforeseen

It is important to note that the Fathers of the Council did not draft the schema on the Sacred Liturgy which they were called upon to debate;4 this was done under Bugnini’s coordination, who for more than a decade prior to the Council had been pushing for a general reform of the Liturgy along the lines of his questionable principles. Thus, Davies asserts, some proposals, moderate enough when read with a traditional mindset, were inserted which were later to prove capable of exploitation in a most radical manner. It is also important to note that hardly any of the Council Fathers, for whom radical liturgical reform cannot be said to have been a burning issue, could have been expected to foresee such consequences.

For the “time bombs” which Davies identifies (Sacrosanctum Concilium’s call for “active participation” and for “legitimate variations and adaptations,” its recognition of the (not in any way primarily) “didactic” utility of the Liturgy; its observation that the Liturgy contains “elements subject to change,” its permission for the use of some vernacular in the Liturgy), were considered by the more than 2,000 bishops as merely proposals for a moderate reform—indeed an organic development—of the traditional Liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium’s paragraph 23 itself honours the principle of organic development and declares that “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them.” And the call for active participation was merely repeating that of St Pius X made in 1903. Archbishop Lefebvre, who would later write “let us then admit without hesitation that some liturgical reforms were necessary,”5 himself signed Sacrosanctum Concilium. No, the Fathers of the Council who signed Sacrosanctum Concilium on the 7th December 19636 did not suspect the presence of such time bombs.

One question Davies does not discuss merits some examination: were these time bombs maliciously planted with a view to the destruction of the traditional Liturgy, or were they simply proposals for moderate reforms which were later exploited well beyond the bounds of their original intent and meaning? In other words, was there a plot, or did Bugnini et al. become drunk on the elixir or power and change and boldly push further and further with the ensuing years? As has been said, one can identify a set of operative principles espoused by Bugnini for many years prior to the Council which are consistent with his activities after it. But that does not prove a conspiracy. And there were many other, sound, players in the work of reform who did not operate from such flawed principles. Also, one cannot forget that Bugnini was in public disgrace during the Conciliar debate on the Liturgy itself, and was therefore denied the influence he had previously enjoyed.

There is simply not enough hard evidence to gain a conviction on a conspiracy charge, however much suspicion abounds. On the available evidence, it seems that at present we can only say that the death of some key personages, the election of a new Pope and his subsequent rehabilitation of Bugnini—with whom Paul VI maintained extraordinarily frequent contact and in whom he placed much confidence—and the spirit of the age, all combined to give to Bugnini and his allies the opportunity to explode the time bombs even if they had not originally been placed in the schema with conspiratorial intent.

And explode them he did, and without much delay. To take but one by way of example, Sacrosanctum Concilium’s permission for the introduction of some vernacular into the Liturgy (cf. article 34) was, within six months, being interpreted as a licence for the progressive application of the vernacular into the Liturgy, as a preparatory paper for the April 1964 Plenary Session of the Concilium indicates. Father (later Cardinal) Antonelli,7 who was Secretary of the Liturgical Commission during the Council, objected to this, annotating his copy of this paper to the effect that if we speak of progressive application, then we shall arrive at the point where everything is in the vernacular, and that would be contrary to article 36 no. 1 of the Constitution. Of course, we know that this is precisely what has happened. In the words of Bugnini himself; “It cannot be denied that the principle, approved by the Council, of using the vernaculars was given a broad interpretation.”8 A very “broad interpretation” indeed! And the same may be said about the other principles or permissions for moderate reform (Davies’ “time bombs”) approved by the Council mentioned above.

No punches pulled

Davies catalogues various aspects of the consequent downward spiral of the Roman rite, not hesitating to attribute to it the pastoral disaster and massive loss of faith and practice that first world countries have experienced since the Council. There is much by way of qualification and discussion one may wish to introduce into such an assessment, but again, this is a brief book, and one cannot escape the fact that the Liturgy and attitudes to it are utterly central to the practice of the Faith. Tampering with it is risky. To revolutionise it is to court disaster.

And, in an appendix “The Fruits of the Liturgical Reforms,” Davies cites some pretty hard and up-to-date statistical evidence—if evidence be needed—that we are suffering from such a disaster. Those who speak of the unfettered “renewal” the Church has supposedly experienced since the Council need to face these facts. They also need to appreciate the causal link between the state of the Church today and the liturgical reforms (and abuses) enacted in the name of the Council. Other appendices provide some significant material demonstrating the protestant influence in the preparation of the new liturgical rites, and evidence that no formal permission is necessary for the celebration of the traditional rites.

The claims of this book are as striking as they are serious. Davies pulls no punches, and for that we may be thankful, for the urgency of the crisis in the Church does not permit of ostrichlike obfuscation. Whilst there is much more study and discussion to be done in respect of what has happened to the Roman rite in the past four decades, there is perhaps an even greater need for concerted and immediate action to stop the haemorrhaging of the very fountain of life-blood of the Church that is her Sacred Liturgy. For stating this clearly and succinctly we must, once again, express our gratitude to Michael Davies.

(*Dom Alcuin Reid is a Benedictine monk of Saint Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough , England , and holds a PhD from the University of London . His book The Organic Development of the Liturgy is to be published early in 2004.)

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