Can it be argued that Ecclesia Dei recognised not only a rightful aspiration to the Traditional Mass but also to the Sacraments as well? Oriens editor Gary Scarrabelotti addresses the question.

THIS is a question posed by the sometimes blank refusal of some bishops, who have already permitted the Traditional Mass, to extend to the same communities the full range of the Sacraments and other rituals of the traditional Latin liturgy.

Is there any logic to this position? The answer seems to be that YES Eccelsia Dei can reasonably be interpreted to recognise the right of Catholics to the whole of the traditional Latin liturgy: Mass, Sacraments, the Divine Office, the lot.

While the relevant documents are not absolutely explicit about the matter, it seems reasonable to infer from them that they do confer a right not just to the Mass in its traditional Latin form but to the whole sacramental system in the same form.

The sacramental system, after all, is a seamless instrument of grace. This is reflected in the fact that while there are many rites, Catholics traditionally celebrate the Mass and the Sacraments according to one. We do not celebrate the liturgy cross-ritually. It is an abuse, therefore, to oblige Catholics to celebrate one part of the liturgy (the Mass and the sacrament of the Eucharist) according to one rite and the other sacraments according to another. We must be clear about this: the traditional Latin Rite and New Order are two distinct rites.

Now it is clear that the Ecclesia Dei decree recognised the manifest right of Catholics to worship according to the forms of the traditional Latin liturgy. The Ecclesia Dei decree identified the "rightful [or legitimate] aspirations" of traditional Catholics to practice and express their faith not merely by access to the traditional Latin Mass - and, note this, the term 'Mass' nowhere appears in Ecclesia Dei - but by access "to previous liturgical. . . forms of the Latin tradition" and, elsewhere in the text, to "the Latin liturgical tradition". So we are talking about the liturgy which includes the Mass, the Sacraments, and the Divine Office.This point is illustrated by Roman legislation which flowed subsequently from the Ecclesia Dei decree.

Communities recognised

Most important here is the erection in October 1988 by Pope John Paul II of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter which conceded them "the use of the liturgical books in force in 1962" - the Missal, Pontifical, Ritual and Divine Office.

Subsequently other religious communities have been erected, or whose previous existence has been formally recognised, with the same rights. For example: the Bendictine community of Le Barroux, the Benedictine community of Fontgombault (and its several daughter houses), the Institute of Christ the King and Sovereign Priest, the Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer, and there are others. Not only do these communites have the right to use of the traditional Missal, Pontifical, Ritual, and Divine Office, so do all those Catholics who are served by these communities or who resort to them.

In the case of local bishops who establish traditional Mass centres or parishes, they do not seem to be under a clear and explicit obligation to provide for traditional Catholics the same liturgical freedom which those Catholics would have if they had ready access to any of the above communities. Yet the fact that Catholics are clearly free to resort to these religious communities - and, indeed, their foundation was approved by Rome in the full knowledge that many Catholics would so resort to them - indicates that all Catholics who aspire to have the benefit of the whole of the Latin liturgical tradition must be entitled to realise this aspiration in the Mass, in the Sacraments and all the rest of this great heritage.

To sum up. Given both the language of the Ecclesia Dei decree and the logic of its exclusive references to the liturgy, and given that monoritualism is the historic norm in a many-ritualled Church, the weight of the argument seems decisively in favour of providing Catholics, who desire them, the whole of the Church's public prayer and sacramental treasures in the forms handed down in the classical Latin liturgical tradition.

Return to Oriens, Spring, 1997

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