Pius XII: ‘The Reforms Come from the Holy Spirit’
Pope Pius XII’s address to the participants at
the Assisi Congress in 1956 contains a number of unwelcome surprises
for those who thought of him as in every way a solidly traditional Pope.
Just as the Congress itself had turned out to be a platform for
tendentious propaganda, so the Pope’s speech reflected and perpetuated
the reformers’ “narrative,” endorsing their message about “active
participation” for the faithful in the liturgy.
A papal fanfare for the Liturgical Movement
In his speech, Pius XII lauded what he termed
the “practical accomplishments” of the Liturgical Movement in the last
30 years. Among the “practical accomplishments” which he had so far
enabled were the following:
- The vernacular could be used in the administration of the Sacraments;
- The faithful could recite aloud the server’s responses during Mass and sing along with the choir;
- Women were officially permitted, albeit under certain conditions, to sing in the choir; (1)
- The 1955 Holy Week liturgy, particularly the Easter Vigil, was
gutted and reconstructed to cater for “active participation” of the
laity;
- In some ceremonies the celebrant was required to face the people and there was an optional dialogue in the vernacular;
- The Breviary was drastically shortened (“simplified”) as the
precursor to a more thorough reform incorporating the wishes of the
progressivists. In the Opening Speech of the Assisi Congress in 1956,
Cardinal Cicognani said that the “simplification of the rubrics was the
forerunner of the eventual reform of the Breviary.” (2)
The Pope stated that “undeniable progress” had been made through these
reforms. But “progress” does not necessarily guarantee improvement, as
in the case of the progress of a terminal disease. In the context of the
Liturgical Movement, “progress” meant only an advance along the road
toward the goals envisaged by the architects of Progressivism.
And we know exactly what those goals were – the replacement of the
Church’s traditional liturgy with a man-centred construct in which the “active participation”
of the laity would be the predominant feature. Yet, Pius XII stated:
“We sincerely desire that the Liturgical Movement progress and we wish
to help it.”
A new ‘pastoral’ approach to the liturgy
These reforms represented a significant turning point in the Church’s
liturgical development, the precedence of so-called “pastoral liturgy”
(aimed at adapting the ceremonies to the prevailing mentality of modern
man) over the objective liturgical tradition of the Church.
Progressivist Fr. Jungmann accused the traditional rite of losing its power of sanctify
As Bugnini explained in his Memoirs,
the Liturgical Movement, with the support of Pope Pius XII, “entered
upon its true course – that of pastoral concern – and was, thus,
returning to the ideal it had had in the beginning.” (3) But where does
that leave the liturgy of all the intervening centuries? It was
obviously to be passed over as neither “true,” nor “pastoral,” nor
“ideal.”
In fact, one of the speakers at the Assisi Congress, Fr. Josef Jungmann,
posited that the Church’s liturgy had, since early Christian times,
become “corrupted” and had lost its power to sanctify the faithful
because they could neither understand nor participate in it.
The implication of this blasphemous smear on the Church’s sacred
patrimony is that what we once esteemed was never really valuable in the
first place. From which it follows that somewhere in its early history
the Holy Spirit had departed from the Catholic liturgy, only to return
in the 20th century with the new “pastoral” approach of the Liturgical
Movement.
Playing to the gallery
It is undeniable that Pius XII favored this new “pastoral” approach and
even thought that it bore the Divine stamp of approval. To the delight
of the Assisi participants gathered in Rome, he stated:
“The Liturgical Movement is, thus, shown forth as a sign of the
providential dispositions of God for the present time, of the movement
of the Holy Spirit in the Church.”
If God was with it, who could be against it? A more imprudent and
divisive opinion could hardly be imagined – imprudent because it seemed
to imply that the traditional liturgy was grossly deficient and needed
Spirit-led changes; and divisive because it signalled the Pope’s
preference for the reformers, rather than the conservatives in the
Church, at least on certain issues.
The Assisi Papers were approved by Pius XII - a huge step forward for Liturgical Reform
But, the salient point is that the Pope – or whoever wrote his speech – simply assumed
that because the liturgical reforms were promoted by members of the
Church, their Movement must perforce enjoy Divine approval. His
statement that “the chief driving force, both in doctrine and in
practical application, has come from the hierarchy” is deeply troubling
for two reasons.
First, it is an admission devastating in its implications. It
reveals that it was the Church’s leaders, including the Pope himself,
who were the driving force behind the international effort to reform the
liturgy. In other words, it was the Pastors, more so than the
liturgists, who were responsible for driving the sheep towards a
liturgical cliff over which they would fall with astonishing suddenness
within a few years.
However, only a tiny minority of Bishops at that time favored the
reforms; and at the beginning of his pontificate most did not even have
the slightest suspicion that such reforms were being planned. It is
incomprehensible, therefore, that he should seek to alter the
spirituality of Catholics who valued the Church’s traditions to suit
those who did not.
Second, the Pope talked as if the reforms were unimpeachably orthodox “both in doctrine and in practical application” as if the lex credendi were in perfect accord with the lex orandi.
Here we are not addressing the orthodoxy of Pius XII’s magisterial
teaching on matters of Catholic doctrine. But to the degree that his
reforms promoted “active participation” of the laity in the sacred
functions, they introduced a tension between the Faith and pastoral
practice. The laity was now seen to be “on the move” against a
“despotic” clergy, who had allegedly robbed them of their rightful roles
in the liturgy, to take back what belonged to them by virtue of their
Baptism. The
clergy-laity class struggle had been the raison d’être of the Liturgical Movement since its inception by Dom Lambert Beauduin.
Even though Pius XII taught the true doctrine of the Catholic
priesthood, he nevertheless gave official impetus to the rolling
revolution of lay “active participation,” which challenged the exclusive
role of the priest. By promoting this competitive spirit, he initiated
the process that turned the liturgy into an ideological battleground
which continues to our day, to the detriment of the ministerial
priesthood and the confusion of the faithful.
Pius XII misled by false propaganda
Much of Pius XII’s Assisi speech echoed the desiderata which the
reformers had been putting forward in their various congresses and
publications. The fact that the forces of Progressivism should play a
pivotal role in the Pope’s speech is highly significant. It shows that
he was swayed by their rhetoric in making policy decisions for the rest
of the Church. He took their word for it that “the faithful received
these directives with gratitude and showed themselves ready to respond
to them.”
But, that was pure fabrication put about by Bugnini, who had massaged the results of the liturgical Commission’s surveys to give the misleading impression
of general acceptance. For all his efforts, Bugnini had not produced
evidence that was in reality objectively convincing or statistically
significant.
Also, the reformers had been spreading a false sense of despondency
about how useless the traditional rites were and claiming that the
faithful welcomed with relief all the new, exciting initiatives that
were on offer.
There was no general euphoria
among the Catholic population, clerical or lay, in response to the
reforms. In fact, the reformers themselves complained for years about
the lack of enthusiasm for “active participation” and the extreme
difficulty in getting the faithful to say or sing the responses.
Besides, it is dishonest to claim that the laity accepted the reforms
with joy on the basis of their presence at ceremonies, which they
attended out of duty and obedience.
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