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Online Semiology Course from the University of Florida

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Professor Edward Schaefer of Florida University is presenting an online course in Semiology and the Interpretation of Chant. There will be fifteen modules covering topics such as the relationship between textual rhythm and melodic development, Archaic Modes, and of course the notation from St Gall and Laon which will be examined in considerable depth. Ed's Semiology classes at the CMAA Colloquiums are incredibly popular and he is absolutely at the forefront of this field. There are details on his website and you can also read more in the the attached PDF which gives details of the course, cost and requirements. This has to be the first Semiology Course ever taught online and it looks to be an amazing opportunity for anyone looking to develop their knowledge in this area.


It's not meant to be easy...

Audio of Archbishop Sample's Talk

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Now you can listen to and download Archbishop Sample's talk 'Celebrating the Spirit of the Liturgy' which he gave at the CMAA Colloquium in Salt Lake City. This is the official recording so the quality is much better than the version we posted before. The recording includes Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth's introduction. (Photo: Charles Cole, Audio Carl Dierschow)


Cardinal Burke goes for a stroll with the Canons Regular of St John Cantius

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The Canons Regular of St John Cantius, Chicago have a good report on their website about the recent Sacra Liturgia Conference. There are some good photos there including this one of Cardinal Burke on a stroll with Father C. Frank Phillips, C.R. and Deacon Kevin Mann, SJC:


St John Cantius recently announced a new Juventutem Chapter which Jenny Donelson has already posted. A reminder that to celebrate the affiliation of St. John Cantius Quo Vadis Young Adults with Juventutem there will be a Solemn Pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form, celebrated by the Most Rev. Joseph N. Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago on Wednesday, July 24th, at 7:30pm.

A Report of the FOTA VI Conference in Cork Ireland, Day 1

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Once again, the NLM is very grateful to Mr. William A. Thomas for his account of the procedings of the recent FOTA VI liturgical conference held in Cork, Ireland; the theme of the conference this year was “Sacrosanctum Concilium 1963-2013”, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, examining the historical and theological background to the Constitution, re-presenting its vision of the liturgy, and assessing the application of that vision over the past fifty years.
One of the great highlights of the year in Ireland takes place in the city of Cork on the first weekend of July. This year the much awaited and appreciated conference on the sacred liturgy got underway at the Clarion Hotel Conference centre on Saturday the 6th of July, concluding late Monday the 8th. This very well attended gathering was made up by clergy and lay alike, coming together as they do, to discuss the role of the sacred liturgy in the life of the Church and in compliance with the universal call to holiness.

Professor Father D. Vincent Twomey SVD, one of Ireland’s leading theologians, opened the conference in the presence of His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the distinguished clergy, and the various delegates. In his opening remarks, Father Twomey reminded the audience that just prior to his Pope Benedict XVI met with the clergy of the archdiocese of Rome. In his talk the Pope referred to the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and to its 16 documents, telling his priests that there were effectively two Councils, one the “Council of the Fathers” and the other the “Council of the media” and that regretfully many of the Catholics of today, in particular that of the clergy, do not know the Council of the Fathers but remember only what the Council of the media told them. “The Council was the largest Council ever in the history of the Church” said Father Twomey, “but it didn’t produce any defined dogmas, just documents, of which there were 16 … The Council was pastoral” he said, “and the Church was and is trying to witness to the truth in a world of lies and deceit.”

The eminent Professor spoke about the promulgation of Sacrosanctum Concilium on the 4th of December 1963 by Pope Paul VI, a document which gives primacy (in matters pertaining to the liturgy) to God; “The liturgy” he said “is something which we have received from Christ and His Church and is not a construction by man.” Pope Benedict XVI, as part of the liturgical reform movement often called ‘The Reform of the Reform’, “has given us a beautiful liturgy and has allowed for its organic growth.” Fr. Twomey went on to state that the Second Vatican Council was by nature missionary, in that it was to bring salvation to all mankind and that the driving force behind it was the renewal of the liturgy, “because through the liturgy, the faithful are able to express in their lives their encounter with Christ” Adopting the liturgy to local culture influenced by rationalism, secularism, science and technology will drive people to the world of magic and darkness, he said. “Though we are looking at the document on the liturgy, for Cardinal Henri Marie de Lubac, the most important document was ‘Dei Verbum.’ De Lubac (+1991) was one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century, given that his writings and doctrinal research played a key role in the Second Vatican Council.

The second paper, entitled “Per Ritus et Preces and Fideles scienter” was given by Dom Paul Gunter O.S.B., a monk of Douai Abbey, currently a professor at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy in Rome, and a Consulter of the Office of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff since 2008. This paper examined these directing characteristics for active participation in the reform and promotion of the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. “The words ‘Fideles scienter’ from Sacrosanctum Concilium verify the formation needed for a fruitful participation in the liturgical life of the Church,” while “ ‘per ritus et preces’ from paragraph 48 delineates that the ‘participatio actuosa’ is made manifest in rites and prayers that are handed down by the Church for use in her liturgy.” Thus his paper considered these two important phrases of Sacrosanctum Concilium as the means of the ‘participation actuosa’ according to the Council. Quoting from paragraphs 47 and 48, he stressed the urgency of proper liturgical formation of the faithful and the theological meaning of the holy sacrifice of Christ.

Italian Father Serafino Lanzetta F.I. presented his paper “Sacrosanctum Concilium in the Light of the Liturgical Reforms,” stating that “ (it) was the first document approved by the Ecumenical Assembly of bishops. In a very short time this document found almost all the Fathers in accordance with the immutable principles of Liturgy, with some theological highlights for the active participation of all the people of God. Unfortunately the understanding of these principles did not emerge.” He went on to state that “all the principles of the Constitution … have a practical goal. From the general and theoretical principles derive practical norms to renew the Liturgy. … the work of the “Consilium” was to put into practice the entire document on the sacred liturgy. Often too much attention was given to the pastoral care of the liturgy and some of those decisions show how very predominant was that desire to reach some kind of a practical end. The risk therefore was to forget ‘the spirit of liturgy’ and to let praxis be the guideline.

“What can we do today,” asked Professor Serafino, “so that the Liturgy may express the precedence of God in our lives?” He suggests that we should reconsider more accurately three main points: 1) What active participation in the Mass properly means? 2) Is the liturgical assembly the subject of Liturgy, that is, what idea of Church must we have to consider the liturgical assembly? 3) The sacred language of Liturgy in our world in search of a common understanding. Quoting Abp. Anninbale Bugnini, who said that the Missal of Vatican II was a “pastoral” missal, Professor Serafino asked the question “what does ‘pastoral’ really mean? Does it mean continuity or discontinuity?” The word ‘pastoral’ is often treated like a miracle cure, but empty of dogma, thus there is a risk of the liturgy drying up if not celebrated correctly.

The afternoon session of Saturday began with a paper presented by Dr. Mariusz Bilinewicz of Dublin, entitled “Fifty Years of Sacrosanctum Concilium: a Review of the Theological Critique,” examining some of the critical voices which have been raised against the document since the time of its promulgation. He began with the question whether, and to what extent, theological critique of the Council's document is possible on the grounds of Catholic theology, then presented in greater detail the main objections which are raised against some theological aspects of the Constitution and against certain practical policies adopted by its authors. Finally, he attempted to evaluate these critical voices, highlighting the way forward for continuing theological reflection on the document. Dr. Mariusz Bilinewicz later presented his new book entitled “The Liturgical Vision of Pope Benedict XVI – A Theological Inquiry (published by Peter Lang).

The last paper of the day was given by Dr. Carmina Chapp of Saint Joseph’s College in Maine. She spoke about Sacrosanctum Concilium and its idea of the centrality of the liturgy in the Apostolic life of the Church. “As the first document promulgated at the Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium provides a lens through which the entire work of the Council can be viewed. There is an intrinsic relationship between the celebration of the liturgy and the missionary activity of the Church, particularly in the work of the laity in the temporal realm. The liturgy takes a central place in the apostolic life of the Church because it is the place where one is united with Christ and begins to ‘see as Christ sees,’ while also becoming empowered to be the vessel through which ‘Christ is seen’ by the world. The laity gain the fruits of the liturgy by active participation, and go out into the secular realm to ‘see it as Christ sees it’ and to conduct their temporal affairs as Christ would conduct them, being the presence of Christ in the midst of the world. The graces received in the liturgy are to be put to use in all temporal areas, including business, economics, politics, medicine, education, and the arts.” The day concluded with Pontifical Vespers celebrated in the church of Saints Peter and Paul.

In Defense of Preserving Readings in Latin

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Today, I am happy to be able to share with NLM's readers my article, "In Defense of Preserving Readings in Latin," from the forthcoming issue of The Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition.

This article offers reasons to maintain the Latin language for the readings in the usus antiquior. Recently more and more attention has been paid to the nature and role of the readings in the Mass, as an increasing number of Catholics are questioning whether the new Lectionary of the Ordinary Form is, in fact, an improvement over the old, or to what extent or in what respects it is an improvement -- questions that demand far more to be taken into account than the mere quantity of text utilized. One cannot say that more text or a greater diversity of text is superior without first seriously engaging the issue of what the role of Scripture at Mass is supposed to be, and curiously enough, the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council do not seem to have discussed this issue at any length. It is only now, in the light of several decades of experience with the new Lectionary, that we are better positioned to see the gains and losses of introducing a much more extensive vernacular lectionary into the Roman Rite.

My article here at NLM is scheduled to coincide with the publication at Rorate Caeli of Dr. Joseph Shaw's related Position Paper on the retention of Latin readings in the Extraordinary Form, which may be found here.

New Anglican Ordinariate Parish Commissioning Chalice and Patten in Traditional English Design

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Readers may be interested to see the website of the newly establish parish St Gregory which is part of the Anglican Ordinariate, Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (on the coastline north of Boston). 

Their priest Fr Jurgen Liias was ordained in April. Kevin McDermott of St Gregory's Church contacted me because they are raising money to pay for the making of a chalice and paten in designs that correspond to those from the time of the Gregorian mission to England.
Their website has a short photo montage and description this project which they hope to have completed by September 3rd, his Feast. It is designed by Vincent Hawley, who is a Florentine trained goldsmith who lives locally. He also designed and made a medallion based upon the earliest English painting of St Gregory (below), which is in what might have been St Bede's own copy of the History of the English Church. You can read more about this here.

This small community of about 30 people plus a similar number of more distant friends on their mailing list has so far worked hard to raise about $10,000 to get the project going (I think I might have seen Thomas Howard, the writer in the photos of the congregation!). High quality does not come cheap and they are looking for a similar amount to complete it. I am happy to see so much energy and time devoted to the creation of beauty for the liturgy.

Any who are interested in supporting this project financially can contact the treasurer Susan Carpentier at treasurer@saintgregoryordinariate.org or write to her at St Gregory the Great Church, PO Box 59, Rowley, MA 01969. Make cheques payable to St Gregory the Great Church and mark 'Sacred Vessels Fund'. There is also a PayPal button on the page linked above.




They also have recordings of the chants they use for the Ordinaries of the Mass which can be listened online or downloaded, here.

Tweet your requests to the organist of Notre Dame

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Tickets are now on sale for the Dedication Concert of the newly restored Kilgen Organ at Our Lady of Refuge in Brooklyn, NY. The concert, on October 18 at 7pm, will be given by Olivier Latry, one of the Titular Organists at Notre Dame, Paris. In what must be a first, Olivier Latry will include a piece in his programme which has been requested in advance on Twitter, using the hashtag #latryinNYC.

The rest of the programme includes J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Franck's Prelude, Fugue and Variation, Widor's Allegro vivace from Symphony No.5 and works by Vierne and Saint-Saëns. The restoration of the organ sounds like an incredible labour of love and you can read about it here. Kudos to Joe Vitacco, Chairman of the Organ Committee and Fr. Michael Perry, the Pastor of the Parish for managing to bring this about.

My new favorite "Ave Verum"

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I'm so thrilled that this popped up on Youtube. I've only seen this piece on paper and couldn't really imagine its realization. At last here it is. You wonder why music transforms people so completely? Why music matters? Why faith and art are so much united? Here is why.



An NLM exclusive: Interview about Campion Missal, 2nd Edition

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Many of you may remember my review of the St. Edmund Campion Missal, from Corpus Christi Watershed, when it first was released. The missal was received very well, and the stock has sold out. Jeff Ostrowski, the publisher of this fantastic Missal, took advantage of the situation, and revised it. I can assure you that I (or another contributor) will post here as soon as the new edition is available to order. Here is an interview about the second edition:

Ben Yanke (NLM): I've seen on your website that very few copies of the Campion Missal & Hymnal (First Edition) remain in stock. What is the situation with the second edition?

Jeff Ostrowski (CCW): It's totally done. We approved and sent off the entire thing about a month ago. The books will start shipping in approximately fifteen business days.

B. Yanke: Why the changes? Why not just reprint the first edition as-is?

J. Ostrowski: I suppose the best way to find out would be to purchase the Second Edition and see for yourself, but let me attempt to briefly summarize:
  • Several typos were corrected
  • The Solemn Mass section was completely redone and now has a clearer, more "classic" layout
  • A ribbon has been added
  • Minor improvements were made throughout the book to things like headers
  • The cover has been changed to a more subtle, elegant design. The original cover was lovely, but some priests felt it clashed with the colors/architecture in their churches (ours is a book for the congregation).

B. Yanke: You're sounding a bit like a vacuum salesman who came to my door the other day . . .

J. Ostrowski: Ha! Well, let me be honest: I did not believe the First Edition could be improved upon, but I was wrong. Perhaps I could be permitted to share a comment by one of the proofreaders of the Second Edition?
Contrary to my initial reaction, after looking closely at this Second Edition, I feel the simplification of the layout and the loss of some artwork may have been a blessing in disguise. I think a majority of folks will find the new more clean-cut format more readable. The subdivision and open 2-column formatting of things like the Lavabo is a big improvement, as is the new Crucifixion and more visible display of the Te igitur, making them easier for neophytes to follow. Also, I think the new page footers may be helpful for newcomers to the TLM. In short, as a major devotee and promoter of your Campion missal in its First Edition, I wind up my review of this Second Edition simply liking it better!
B. Yanke: As we computer geeks say, is the new edition backwards compatible? In other words, can the first and second editions be used side-by-side?

J. Ostrowski: Oh, absolutely. None of the page numbers have changed, nor any of the music.

B. Yanke: Can we take a look at the inside?

J. Ostrowski: I'd be honored, but please understand how difficult it is for an editor to choose examples. You've heard the phrase: "It's like choosing between children."

As you probably know, many actions for Solemn Mass do not occur at Low Mass. The Campion Missal was the first in history to print both Solemn and Low in their entirety to make sure the faithful can easily follow Mass. We tried not to repeat pictures: for example, the Low Mass images focus much more on the priest's gestures, the position of his hands, and so forth. Deciding upon the desired angles took months of preparation. Perhaps your viewers would appreciate seeing a very early draft:


B. Yanke: You also talk about the little editorial decisions you made throughout the book to make the second edition better. Can you fill us in on some of those decisions and your thoughts behind them?

J. Ostrowski: Editing a missal or hymnal is all about choices. For instance, all of us would agree that large, legible type is a good thing. On the other hand, extremely heavy books with numerous page turns are bad things. How does one strike a balance? Choices like these keep editors awake at night. In the end, the Campion Missal ended up being a book of moderate size and weight, approximately half the width of the blue CTS missal:

Remember how the fictitious detective Sherlock Holmes could look at someone's wristwatch and deduce the moral character of its owner? Having looked at so many historical Catholic missals (going back centuries), I often feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes. For instance, when I see a sample page from the Burns Oates 1952 Missal:


 I cannot help but notice their editorial choices: the way they abbreviate the Scriptures, the peculiar text wrap around the initial capital "A," the non-capitalized pronouns for God, the lowercase letters used after drop caps, the thin "see-through" pages, and so forth. Each choice has advantages and disadvantages. The most interesting choice for me is usually how the Latin is "lined up" to the English. In the Burns Oates Missal above, we see they used a larger font for the Latin. Another solution is to place the Latin in a smaller column than the vernacular, as they do in this 1764 Missal printed in Paris:


However, I have a problem with both of these approaches: they look uneven. My eye simply cannot get used to the lack of symmetry. The Roman liturgy is very balanced, so it seemed logical to me that missals should be balanced. Several of the FSSP priests agreed that printing the Latin in a smaller column implied a type of "discrimination." Therefore, we ended up chosing the approach of this 1806 Missal, where the font size and columns are uniform:


One disagreement throughout the creation process had to do with rubrics. Many of the traditional priests who assisted with proofreading are accustomed to liturgical books which describe every rubric in detail. I had decided early on to include only those rubrics which would edify the faithful or help them follow Mass. On this issue, I "stuck to my guns," in spite of pressure. One consulter even wanted me to include all the rubrics in Latin. I was happy to discover the following sentence in the Preface to the Burns Oates 1952 Missal, because it confirmed my decision:
The rubrics are in English throughout, and have been specially prepared to give the reader all necessary information, without entering into minute directions which concern the celebrant alone.
Let me emphasize once more that every choice has advantages and disadvantages. Our hope is that the Campion Missal, in spite of its flaws, will allow Catholics to assist at Mass with greater devotion.

B. Yanke: If people could take away just one thing from this interview, what would it be?

J. Ostrowski: I want them to understand our book is designed for the congregation. Ordinary Form priests are accustomed to purchasing hymnals and missalettes for their entire congregation, but this doesn't occur to many Extraordinary Form priests. As a result, members of the congregation who (for whatever reason) don't have a missal with them end up staring into space the whole Mass. How can your congregation sing a hymn together at the end of Mass if everybody has a different book? Perhaps this situation arose because until recently it was almost impossible to purchase a Catholic hymnal that wasn't chock-full of embarrassing texts and goofy tunes.

Renovation/Restoration at St. Patrick's New York

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A correspondent sends in news about the restoration work at St. Patrick's in New York. Workers have removed the 'low altar' from the chancel. For the last week or so already, they have been celebrating all Masses at the high altar, albeit ad populum. The low altar will apparently not be put back.



St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Chicago

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From a correspondent St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Chicago is a modern building, but a dynamic parish with excellent priests. All Masses are offered “ad orientem” (facing the altar); most Masses are in English, but all propers/psalms for the Mass are sung. They have an excellent/orthodox music program. Many weekend liturgies: one Mass is in Spanish, one is the Traditional Latin Mass.

Here is the altar.


A Report of the FOTA VI Conference in Cork Ireland, (Continued)

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Mr. William A. Thomas' report on the FOTA VI Conference continues with summaries of the talks given by Professors Ralf van Bühren and Helmut Hoping, and His Eminence Raymund Leo Cardinal Burke.
On Sunday afternoon, after a Pontifical High Mass celebrated at Ss Peter and Paul in Cork, Dr. Ralf van Bühren, Professor of Christian Art History at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome, presented his paper “Sacrosanctum Concilium and Sacred Architecture: Sources and Post Conciliar Reception of the Liturgical Constitution.” Sacred architecture might effectively influence the active participation of the faithful and also their comprehension of the paschal mystery, which rate among the principles of the liturgical restoration initiated by Sacrosanctum Concilium. In view of chapter VII (“Sacred Art and Sacred Furnishings” SC 122–130), this lecture examined the art, historical and theological background of the constitution in its antecedents and its later reception.

“By the 1920’s, sacred architecture in France and Germany had changed profoundly,” he said. “The impetus for a new aesthetics and a specific liturgical disposition of the sacred space came from the functionality of technical construction, and from the Liturgical Movement’s focus on the altar. Sacrosanctum Concilium took these evolutions into consideration. Until the 1980s, these new principles prevailed due to the Liturgical Reform after the Council, together with a preference for raw concrete as a means to renew sacred architecture with contemporary materials and forms, and a radical restriction of images for the purpose of highlighting the importance of the liturgical action.” On the other hand, since the 1990s, new aesthetic ideas have emerged, and there have been innovations concerning the pastoral and artistic promotion of the liturgy as regards liturgical spaces.

Professor van Bühren lamented the fact that during the 1970’s and 80’s, sacred images were removed from churches; such images are catechetical and fully conform to instructions given in Sacrosanctum Concilium 122 and 127 and Lumen Gentium 67, and they should not have been removed. Many sacred images were replaced with abstract designs which had little or no meaning. Architectural styles such as Bauhaus and De Stijl were box-like, rationalist, and not conducive to prayer or acoustics; in fact, they were just for saying Mass like “Mass-factories”. Some 8,000 new churches were built or restored after World War II in Germany alone, many of which might be considered to be “plastic architecture;” churches such as Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp and Virilio’s Sainte-Bernadette du Banlay at Nevers in France were similarly devoid of transcendence, and purely rationalistic.

Professor Dr Helmut Hoping gave an excellent paper entitled “What Reform? - The Hermeneutics of Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Liturgical Renewal”, a brief history of the Council, explained the history of the constitution, coupled with its hermeneutic. The document itself was the basis for liturgical reform, but the actual word ‘reform’ was never mentioned in the 1964 motu proprio Sacram Liturgiam, the first act of its implementation. Rather, the word “aggiornamento – bringing up to date” was used, which became one of the key words of the Council. “This ‘aggiornamento’ is precisely what the Council attempted to do, as the Fathers highlighted the liturgy and the primacy of God,” he said. Annibale Bugnini became a peritus of the Council, a radical reformer who prevented the liturgical reforms from going to the Congregation of Rites for approval, going instead directly to the Pope and having them approved by him; thus, there was no scrutiny of Sacrosanctum Concilium by the competent body.

Quoting Cardinal Ratzinger, Hoping said that “liturgy was not the aim of the Council, although Sacrosanctum Concilium became the first text to be discussed by the Fathers, and in that the primacy of God in the liturgy. Secondly the discussion focused on the use of the vernacular, and the modern and pastoral character of the schema.” Its goal was to renew the liturgy by focusing on the Paschal mystery, charity, simplicity, transparency, comprehensibility and the use of the vernacular. In conclusion, Professor Hoping stated that the Council Fathers did not envision a continuous liturgical reform; what is needed today is a new liturgical movement which brings to life the real heritage of Vatican II, something that requires profound liturgical education.

Cardinal Burke presented his talk by reflecting again on the primacy of God in the liturgy and that the importance of prayer should not be diminished in the understanding of the liturgy. The “Sacred liturgy should be rendered purer and the spiritual treasure offered within, be offered to the people of God; therefore let no one disturb it, let no one violate it. We are commanded to obey the Church’s laws and precepts and obliged to love the Church with Christ at its head.” Canon Law is the juridical structure of the Church, if we no longer respect it then we are in trouble; he quoted Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges (1983): “the renewal of Christian living was the goal of the new Code of Canon Law, that is holiness of life.” He went on to say that “the nature of Canon Law is derived from the Old Testament, and to keep it allows us the freedom to love God and our neighbor.” Therefore, Canon Law should be observed because it is extremely necessary for the Church, it is the “sacred power” of the Church, the visible manifestation of the norms of the Church in the administration of the sacraments. “(T)he lack of the proper place of Canon Law in the documents of Vatican II, in the general euphoria at that time, gave the sense that we no longer needed Canon Law and we could do what we wanted as we now believed that we no longer suffered from Original sin; this was a very sad day for the Church.”

Cardinal Burke then went on to speak about antinomianism or sense of lawlessness we find in the Church that creates a sense of uncertainty, especially when the euphoria manifested itself in the liturgy, where many changes were abusive and violent. “What happened to sacred music? What happened to other parts of the mass? There emerged a hermeneutic of discontinuity, a hermeneutic of rupture, a betrayal of the liturgy. The rupture was caused by the abandonment of any canonical discipline, the abandonment of catechesis, religious life, Catholic institutions and with it the sacred liturgy.” Explaining the student riots of the late 1960s, the Cardinal said that there was a “new age of freedom and love which had dawned on the Church, a sense of a free-for-all, which seems to have been the general consciousness at that time, and thus there was rebellion against all forms of authority in the world.”

His Eminence continued to stress the Jus Divinum in establishing the “right relationship” with God and knowing the “rights of God”, especially in relation to the proper celebration of the liturgy. The exercise of power in liturgical matters can be distinguished in three periods, the first being the early Church, when there were different rites (and uses) which differed from each other from diocese to diocese you were in. The second period was from the Council of Trent to Vatican II, when the power to intervene on liturgical matters rested with the Supreme Pontiff, and the third period was from Vatican II onwards when power in liturgical matters was returned to local bishops, resulting in the loss of universality in the liturgy. “The whole notion of power is the key question that needs to be addressed” he said, and that that power must go back to the Supreme Pontiff. In concluding his talk, Cardinal Burke reminded the priests that “the priest should lose himself in the holy sacrifice of the mass, he is not the protagonist, Christ is.

Important Prayer Request for a Catholic Blogger

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Please say a prayer for Mr. Thomas Peters, one of the main contributors to CatholicVote.org, who was very seriously injured in a swimming accident. Fr. Zuhlsdorf and the Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia) both have more information. Please remember Thomas' family as well; his father is Ed Peters, the author of very good blog on Canon Law, the Light of the Law.

Fortescue, a man of hidden talents

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Perhaps best known as the author of The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, the Reverend Doctor Adrian Fortescue needs little introduction. Fortescue, as his famous book is more simply known, is required reading for any Master of Ceremonies and has been through a multitude of reprints since its original publication in 1917. This remarkable man also wrote a similar book for organists, and I was privileged to be shown the one and only manuscript copy:


The Liber Organi is an incredibly beautiful hand-written book which Fortescue wrote to provide the organist at his church, St Hugh’s in Letchworth, with everything needed to accompany the liturgies. The inside front cover contains a photograph of the church taken in 1916 and the inside back cover contains the author's dedication 'in perpetuity' to St Hugh's:



The neatness is breathtaking and the overall sense of care which has been taken almost defies belief; the handwriting is beautiful as is the engraving of the music, some of it copied from other sources, but much of it Fortescue’s own harmonisations of the Gregorian Chants. There are also alternative melodies taken from hymnody:


His liturgical sense and attention to detail come across particularly in the short organ interludes he has composed in the Vespers section to modulate seamlessly from the key of one antiphon to the next:





The book is incomplete, filled with many pages of immaculately ruled empty staves which await music. He evidently wrote everything in pencil before inking it in when he was sure it was perfect. In one unfinished pencilled harmonisation he has marked a set of undesirable parallel octaves to remind him to set about an alternative solution. This was a man of apparently limitless talents who toiled in the pursuit of perfection. His manuscript gives a very personal insight, the effect of which is most humbling.



Early on in the book is a four page description of how to accompany the Mass which you can download here. I am most grateful to Fr Nicholas Schofield, the Westminster Diocesan Archivist, for allowing me a rare glimpse of this precious treasure.


A Brilliant Article on "Tragic Worship"

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The website of the journal First Things has a truly fascinating article by Carl. R. Trueman, Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, entitled “Tragic Worship.” His thesis is that Christian worship has lost the sense of death as the ultimate human reality, a “tragedy” in the classical sense of the term, and this loss reduces worship to a form of entertainment which becomes both banal and irrelevant.
The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world, Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it is not entertaining enough. … It neglects tragedy ... a form of art and of entertainment (which) highlighted death, and death is central to true Christian worship. The most basic liturgical elements of the faith, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, speak of death, of burial, of a covenant made in blood, of a body broken. Even the cry “Jesus is Lord!” assumes an understanding of lordship very different than Caesar’s. Christ’s lordship is established by his sacrifice upon the cross, Caesar’s by power.

Christian worship should immerse people in the reality of the tragedy of the human fall and of all subsequent human life. It should provide us with a language that allows us to praise the God of resurrection while lamenting the suffering and agony that is our lot in a world alienated from its creator, and it should thereby sharpen our longing for the only answer to the one great challenge we must all face sooner or later. Only those who accept that they are going to die can begin to look with any hope to the resurrection.

(Referring to Pascal's critique of 17th century France as a society obsessed with entertainment:) It would not puzzle him that death has been reduced to little more than a comic-book cartoon in countless action movies or into a mere momentary setback in soap operas and sitcoms. Indeed, he would not find it perplexing that the bleak spiritual violence of mortality leaves no lasting mark on the bereaved in the surreal yet seductive world of popular entertainment. But he might well be taken aback that the churches have so enthusiastically endorsed this project of distraction and diversion. This is what much of modern worship amounts to: distraction and diversion. Praise bands and songs of triumph seem designed in form and content to distract worshipers from life’s more difficult realities.

Even funerals, the one religious context where one might have assumed the reality of death would be unavoidable, have become the context for that most ghastly and incoherent of acts: the celebration of a life now ended. It is therefore an irony of the most perverse kind that churches have become places where Pascalian distraction and a notion of entertainment that eschews the tragic seem to dominate just as comprehensively as they do in the wider world. I am sure that the separation of church buildings from graveyards was not the intentional start of this process, but it certainly helped to lessen the presence of death. The present generation does not have the inconvenience of passing by the graves of loved ones as it gathers for worship. Nowadays, death has all but vanished from the inside of churches as well. 

The full article can be read at First Things, and is very much worth your time.

Pride of Place in the Roman Rite

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In spite of its ritual complexity, a solemn Mass in the usus antiquior comes across as a seamless and flowing single action that carries the worshiper along from start to finish, without awkward caesuras or transitions.  At the same time, some of the most impressively beautiful traditional liturgies I have assisted at moved along with a surprising fleetness by the hand of the clock, yet without the slightest appearance of haste or hurry.  Both of these aspects—the sense of a natural ebb and flow, and the “Roman efficiency,” which complements “noble simplicity” rightly understood—are the result of centuries of gradual perfection in prayers and chant, ceremonial and rubrics.  Everything “clicks” the way it’s supposed to, and one is caught up in the wonderful momentum of it all.  And regardless of how much time it takes, it helps you forget about time by its power to pass beyond time.

A major cause of this sense of “passing beyond time” is bestowed on the liturgy by the ancient chant, sung in modes that surpass our restricted melodic conventions and with a free-floating rhythm that baffles our expectation of beat (and therefore “keeping time”).  Anthropologists of religion tell us that every ancient religion has a sacred chant all its own because of a deep human instinct for distinguishing what is sacred from what is profane, setting apart certain signs, be they linguistic, musical, or ceremonial, from all others that belong to the workaday human world.  The Jews and the Moslems have ancient tones to which they chant their holy writings, the Buddhists and the Hindus likewise.  Alice von Hildebrand observed: “Not only is the quality of sacredness a mark of all religions, but it is so essential to religion that the very moment sacredness disappears religion vanishes with it.”  This innate human awareness, woven into our soul by God the Creator, is brought to completion by the same God when he revealed to us how best to worship him, as he did first for the chosen people of Israel, and, in the fullness of time, as he did for the Church when he gave her the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The sacred chant of the Latin Church was born out of a confluence of Jewish cantillation and Greco-Roman song, the same diverse cultural milieu that shaped our liturgy and our theological language.  As a result, there developed in the first millennium a music proper to the Roman Rite, a music that grew up with it from the beginning and was never left aside.  No matter how many subsequent musical developments there were, no matter how elaborate became the Masses of Palestrina or Mozart, Gregorian chant always remained a vital component of the liturgy; it was never discarded as a primitive historical form, one destined to be supplanted by the progress of art.  Indeed, later polyphonic and homophonic music makes continual reference to this immense treasury of chant—even the music of Protestant composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach (one need only think of the cantus firmus in the marvelous Credo of the Mass in B Minor)—so much was it the common language of all church musicians.  One does not simply leave behind tradition, for it preserves the origin and makes it ever present.  Tradition is the gift that each generation must give intact to the next.

The most fundamental problem, then, with the postconciliar “popular” church music is that it is quite simply fabricated, altogether new.  It has no organic connection with the tradition of the Church and with the music that has never ceased to grace the worship of the Church in every generation (even if not every congregation was privileged to hear it in its fullness).  It is religious music ex nihilo: in no way a development of the tradition, it is rather a rejection of it, a break, a totally new direction.  Its direction is from the world and to the world, not from the church and to the church.  It is meant to be “relevant,” to “appeal,” to “speak to people where they are.”  This has never been the purpose of sacred music or even of the liturgy itself.  The purpose of divine worship is to worship the divine, not to entertain or even to catechize people.  When we adore God in the manner handed down to us by tradition, we are the ones who are made relevant to the divine (so to speak), we are the ones re-formed.  We are taken to a place where we are not, but where we should be and must go.

When watching Into Great Silence, I was struck by a scene that occurs early on in the film.  A number of fellow monks are having a conversation outdoors, and one of them asks if they should get rid of the ceremony of the washing of hands, as he claims has been done at another monastery.  An older monk replies: “Our entire life, the whole liturgy, and everything ceremonial are symbols. If you abolish the symbols, then you tear down the walls of your own house.  When we abolish the signs, we lose our orientation.  Instead, we should search for their meaning … one should unfold the core of the symbols. … The signs are not to be questioned, we are.”

This, then, could be our battle cry: “Don’t change the sign, change yourself.” An artist who sets about producing a work of art for the Catholic Church should conform himself to the prevenient sign, the historic symbol, the given sacrament, rather than bending or even jettisoning these in order to pursue his own tastes and agendas.  In his great motu proprio on sacred music, St. Pius X wrote: “Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration, and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple. The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone.”

So good is the heritage we have received that nothing, nothing needs to be added to it in order to have the fullest and most fitting solemnity of divine worship.  Certainly, an abundance of beauty has been added century by century to the musical treasury of the Church.  Who would question for a moment the artistic splendor and liturgical suitability of the polyphonic masterpieces of the Renaissance, not to mention countless other compositions down to our own times?  Still, in his admirably principled way, Pope Pius X reminds us of a truth we should never lose sight of: a Mass sung exclusively in chant is not deficient or defective in any way, for it is clothed with the resplendent vesture of the King—the musical raiment with which Tradition, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has covered the Western liturgy, a glory of pure melody like nothing else in the history of the world.

Given these royal robes—hand-made, custom-fitted, bequeathed to each generation, held out to the People of God by one Vicar of Christ after another—can we seriously look elsewhere for the music of the liturgy?  Can we ever be forgiven if we persistently ignore, demote, or denigrate this patrimony?  If the universal Magisterium of the Church teaches the truth of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and if this Magisterium has been absolutely clear and utterly consistent about the primacy of Gregorian chant in the liturgy (limiting ourselves to the past century alone, we can see an unbroken chain from St. Pius X to Vatican II to Benedict XVI), then the rejection of the chant risks being a sin against the Holy Spirit.

The postconciliar fabricated secularized church music must be repudiated, in the name of Tradition, in the name of sound spirituality, and in the name of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which solemnly taught: “There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing” (SC 23).  This, of course, was the same Council that famously declared: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” (SC 116).  That is, even if other things are viewed as equal, chant should still be given pride of place, precisely because it is “specially suited to the Roman liturgy.”  The ceteris paribus phrase strengthens rather than weakens the Council’s unequivocal judgment that chant deserves primacy in the Roman rite.

Let there be an end to excuses and a beginning, at last, to the renewal that the Council actually called for.  This renewal will include Gregorian chant at its heart, or it will fail.  The New Evangelization must thrive on obedience to the Magisterium or it will be stillborn from the womb.

A Report of the FOTA VI Conference in Cork Ireland, (Conclusion)

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Mr. William A. Thomas' report on the FOTA VI Conference concludes with summaries of the talks given by Professors Manfred Hauk, Robert L. Fastiggi, and Fr. Sven Conrad F.S.S.P. Our thanks once again to Mr. Thomas for his diligent reporting.
Professor Fr. Manfred Hauke of the Theological Faculty of Lugano presented a paper entitled “The Dogmatic Discussion on Concelebration from Sacrosanctum Concilium to the Present.” “The Constitution … enlarged the possibility of Eucharistic concelebration that was (thitherto) restricted to newly ordained priests at their ordination and to the consecration of bishops … the starting point of this enlargement was the difficult experience with numerous Masses celebrated individually at international congresses and in great monasteries, but also the unity of Eucharistic celebrations in the ancient Church. Before the Council, Pope Pius XII clarified (in 1954 and 1956) that a priest celebrating or concelebrating the Holy Mass is operating in the person of Christ, which does not occur when he only assists at the Eucharist. For a valid sacramental consecration, the priest must pronounce the words of our Lord (so also the Holy Office, 1957). … Systematical reflection on concelebration begins only in the Middle Ages and is focused on the possibility of such an act, affirmed by the authority of Pope Benedict XIV.”

During the Council and its preparation, practical aspects dominated the discussion. Before the beginning of Vatican II, the Congregation of Rites observed that “a new and careful historical and dogmatic investigation on the origin, the nature and the extension of the strictly sacramental concelebration would be necessary”. This problem is very serious because the enlarged practice would be “a notable change in the liturgical discipline of the Latin Church”. The Prefect of the Congregation, Cardinal Larraona, asked two declarations from the Holy Office: 1) about the value of the concelebrated Mass: if one Mass concelebrated by ten priests really has the same value as ten Masses celebrated by ten priests; 2) about the legitimacy of the idea that every concelebrant can receive an offering. These declarations never arrived.

The Professor continued “The final text of the Council on concelebration in SC 57f states that concelebration “remained in use to this day in the Church both in the east and in the west,” an historical affirmation which requires a distinction. The enlargement of concelebration is intended for very special occasions (such as Holy Thursday and conferences) and must be regulated by the Ordinary, who can permit it for other cases in monasteries and in the parishes. Each priest retains his right to celebrate Mass individually (though not at the same time in the same church as a concelebrated Mass nor on Holy Thursday). The preference for communal celebration expressed in SC 27 must be taken together with the note of the Conciliar Commission, that every Mass has in and of itself a public and social nature. This is true also if there cannot be present a number of the faithful (PO 13). PO 7 recommends concelebration “at times” together with the bishop. Vatican II did not resolve the debated question of stipends for concelebrated Masses nor did it go into depth on the topic of the sacramental fruits of concelebration compared with Eucharistic Sacrifices offered up individually.

The “Ritus servandus” of 1965 provided that the number of concelebrants normally should not be over 50. The decree Ecclesiae semper of the Congregation of Rites in the same year mentions that in concelebration the priests operate together “one sacrifice in one sacramental action”, referring to the explanation of St. Thomas Aquinas, abandoning the precedent observation (during the preparation of Vatican II) that the concelebrating priests operate various sacrificial acts in the person of Christ. Concelebration manifests the unity of the priesthood, the sacrifice and the whole people of God. Benedict XVI poses critical questions on the validity of large-scale concelebrations (Sacramentum caritatis, 61; talk of February 7, 2008).

After the Council, various dogmatic problems were discussed: the possibility for a sacramental concelebration without pronouncing the words of Christ at the Last Supper, the significance of the extension of the hands in concelebration (indicative or epiclesis) and the validity of large-scale concelebrations, when the distance from the altar is very great. He went on to describe various positions taken by Karl Rahner and Gisbert Greshake, by the Thomists Joseph de Sainte-Marie and Rudolf Michael Schmitz, and by Paul Tirot and Philippe Gouyaud.

Robert L. Fastiggi, Professor of Systematic Theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, gave the following paper entitled “The Mass as the Sacrifice of Christ and the Church according to Sacrosanctum Concilium.” This paper examines how the constitution reaffirms the traditional Catholic dogma of the Mass as an unbloody re-presentation of Christ’s bloody sacrifice at Calvary, in response both to those who claim Vatican II de-emphasized the Mass as sacrifice, and those Catholic theologians who have tried to obscure the sacrificial character of the Mass. “The emphasis of Sacrosanctum Concilium on the ‘Paschal Mystery’ is demonstrated to be intrinsically linked to the sacrificial character of the Eucharistic liturgy, and furthermore, (the) recognition (in paragraph 48) of the participation of the faithful in the offering of Christ’s sacrifice at the Mass is shown to be a teaching previously expressed by both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII.” As he concluded his paper Fastiggi continued “this participation though, must be properly understood as rooted in the Church as the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ as taught by Pope Pius XII, and that this participation in the sacrificial offering is a privileged form of active participation,” he said.

The final paper of the Conference was given by Father Sven Leo Conrad of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, entitled “Liturgical Act or Liturgical Celebration? Some Considerations in the Light of Sacrosanctum Concilium and Presbyterorum Ordinis.” Fr. Conrad began by citing a report on an Extraordinary Form Mass celebrated at the German Katholikentag of 2012, characterizing it thus: “The priest stands with his back to the people. The chants and the texts are in Latin. This is not a common celebration of the faithful. It is the Sacrifice of the Mass at which the faithful assist.” Prejudices and misunderstandings towards the Gregorian Mass are today often founded on this idea, that this liturgy is not concerned with common celebration, and the faithful are excluded from the essential action. In order to adequately respond to this we must first clarify the concept of liturgical celebration.

“What the Liturgical Movement strived to do by reaching back to the celebratory character of the Sacred Liturgy was to surmount both rubricism and legalism. We could say that de facto what was sought was a return to the ‘pristina norma Patrum’. The more recent Magisterium in the 20th century has systematically appropriated this concept. Already Pius X in Tra le sollecitudini speaks of the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries. The term then often surfaces in the encyclical of Pius XII Mediator Dei, as also in the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium. Although the Magisterium with Pius XII had overcome a one-sided external view of the liturgy, there were still pushes in this direction, he said, Continuing he said that “ these initiatives were lastly aimed at preventing a theological qualification of the Sacred Liturgy … seen only as an external aid to the workings of Grace and in no way as a salutary activity in itself. Josef Pieper has made an important contribution to the fundamental understanding of the relationship between worship and celebration. What is decisive for him is the realization that every true feast is finally based on an “affirmation of the world” which must result in the recognition and praise of the Creator. Precisely the Sacrifice of Christ, and thus the centre of Christian worship, takes place “in the middle of Creation, which finds in this Sacrifice of the God-Man its' highest affirmation and fulfilment.”

The full text of all these talks will be published in book format.

Will the Real St Thomas Please Stand Up?

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I had a friend once who used to teach philosophy to undergraduates at Cambridge. He told me that for him philosophy was all about the phrase: ' it depends what you mean by....'. He was joking but what he was getting at was that just about anything can be true as long as you make the words fit the meaning that you want them to.

Consider now what might be a good definition of beauty? How about this: 'that which pleases upon being seen (or perceived)? To give it some medieval authenticity here it is in Latin - id quod visum placet. This, is regularly presented as definition of St Thomas Aquinas. I am no philosopher (and so am happy to consider that the problem could be mine), but my first reaction is to be troubled by this definition for two reasons. First is that it didn't seem to take into account the possibility of error in judgement. If I disagree with someone on whether or not something is beautiful (and this has happened plenty of times), and if beauty is an objective quality and not merely a matter of opinion, then one or both of us must be in error. It always seemed to me that the only way of reconciling this with the definition was to say that it depends what you mean by "seen"; and it depends what you mean by "pleased". Maybe this is relying on the fact that to apprehend beauty I have to see in the sense of apprehend clearly, as the pure see; and maybe also it is true if we consider only a genuine pleasure that which is derived from what it truly good. For all I know this definition probably also depends on what you mean by 'that which'. Simple though the expression is, if we have to struggle with the definitions that much to make it fit ordinary experience then does it have any real use? Couldn't someone clever come up with a better definition? Is the goal here to discover truth or to make Thomas Aquinas true I wondered?

The other reason that I struggled with this was that I read this definition first in a book by Jacques Maritain, (Art and Scholasticism, I think) The problem I had with the whole book was that after wading through hundreds of pages of difficult text he finally applied his theories and 'proved', that the work of Picasso, Braques and Severini was beautiful. This seemed so absurd that my reaction was to dismiss Maritain and his book. Clearly I thought, if he should propose such models, he didn't know much about art and didn't understand what constitutes Christian art. Also it soured my opinion on the value of the whole study of aesthetics. Maritain is the great name in the field and in the end all he seems to be doing is using long words to try to justify his personal taste. Like a politician who decides first what he wants to do, and then looks for the persuasive argument afterwards. Here I was trying to learn how to be a good painter, brush in hand, looking for guidance...and in the end, it seems it call comes down to what you like, even for Jacques Maritain. So why bother with all that intellectual stuff at all? I'll just copy what I like. It also put me off reading Aquinas in more depth, because once again, here is a great champion of him

Later in reading Umberto Eco's Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages there is a note in the bibliography at the back that reads as follows in a discussion of Maritain: "Expressions such as pulchrum est id quod placet are accepted as authentic Thomistic formulae by people who do not care, or perhaps are not aware that this definition was devised by Maritain himself. What Aquinas actually wrote was pulchra dicuntur quae visa placent. The difference is considerable. Maritain's proposition is a dogmatic attempt to define once and for all the ontological character of beauty. Aquinas's is more like a sociological finding. It means 'things that give pleasure when they are perceived are called beautiful', and this is to introduce the problem, not to solve it."

I feel happier just not liking Maritain than I do not liking both him and Aquinas! I always preferred the definition of beauty as 'the radiance of being' or John Paul II's  'the good made visible' anyway (the latter comes from his Letter to Artists). Once we have either of these, then Aquinas's three qualities of beauty: integrity, due proportion and claritas work well..(.he did actually give us these didn't he?).

Any who understand this better than I do, please instruct!




The Cappa Negra?

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