The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Fr Hunwicke , Rorate Caeli and many other blogs commented in April on the book The book entitled "The Ecumencial Vatican Council II - A much needed discussion" by Mgr Brunero Gherardini, a Canon of St Peter's in Rome, which is available in English translation. In England it is available at £14.25 from from Carmel Books 45 Base Point Yeoford Way Exeter EX2 8LB email: enquiries@carmel-books.co.uk Tel: 01392 824255 Carmel Books is a small supplier of good Catholic books; it would be worth having a copy of their catalogue.

Fr Z has an excellent podcast analysing Pope Paul VI's General Audience address for 26 November 1969 in which he speaks about the "liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass" which was to be introduced on the first Sunday of Advent, four days later. I was struck by this passage in the address: So what is to be done on this special and historical occasion? First of all, we must prepare ourselves. This novelty is no small thing. We should not let ourselves be surprised by the nature, or even the nuisance, of its exterior forms. Four days is not much time to prepare; clearly people were expected just to get on with it and "prepare" as they went along. Another passage makes this clear: But there is still a practical difficulty, which the excellence of the sacred renders not a little important. How can we celebrate this new rite when we have not yet got a complete missal, and there are still so many uncertainties about what to do? Those of us who were around ...

A correspondent regales me with an amusing instance of what might be termed a failure of completeness in the Liturgical reforms following the second Vatican Council. In the Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Sanctae of 1966, implementing various decrees of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI said: Although Religious who recite a duly approved Little Office perform the public prayer of the Church (cf. Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium , No. 98), it is nevertheless recommended to the institutes that in place of the Little Office they adopt the Divine Office either in part or in whole so that they may participate more intimately in the liturgical life of the Church. (n.20) The relevant part of Sacrosanctum Concilium 98 says: They too perform the public prayer of the Church who, in virtue of their constitutions, recite any short office, provided this is drawn up after the pattern of the divine office and is duly approved. My correspondent points out that therefore the Little Office remains part of the public...

There seem to be a number of important breaking stories this week and I haven't time to do more than list a few of them here in case you miss them on the other Catholic blogs. Rorate Caeli has an English translation of a Bombshell of an Interview with Mgr Bartolucci, Maestro Perpetuo of the Sistine Chapel in which he talks about the liturgical tradition, participation, seminary formation, and "affected cecilianism" in music. Also via Rorate Caeli, there is news of a forthcoming book by Mgr Brunero Gherardini, entitled "Vatican Council II: An Open Discussion." the book is to be published by Casa Mariana Editrice , the publishing house of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. ( Article at Catholicism.org ) Chris Gillibrand at Cathcon , among many others, has picked up on the comments of Bishop Jean-Louis Brugues, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano . He speaks of a forthcoming guide to priestly format...

Robert Kumpel of St John's Valdosta had a forthright post the other day following up on the story on LifeSite News about the statement of Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg, Canada.(See: Answering the anti-blogger Bishop .) The Archbishop has been annoyed by the internet coverage of the Canadian Bishops' official agency Development & Peace , which has been accused of funding numerous radical leftist organizations that promote a pro-abortion and pro-contraception ideology. Archbishop Weisgerber has said that an investigation has found that there was no evidence that Development and Peace has been involved in such funding. LifeSite News continues to insist that there is incontrovertible evidence, referring to its two earlier articles: MUST READ: All the Evidence of Development and Peace Pro-Abortion Funding …So Far and Mexican Pro-Life Leader Confirms: Groups Funded by Development and Peace are Pro-Abortion In response to this controversy, the Archbishop has attacked...

In an article in the July 2009 Newsletter for the Diocese of Basel in Switzerland, Bishop Kurt Koch, the President of the Swiss Bishops' Conference, has written an article which gives a forthright reply to a recent petition for the "unqualified acceptance of the council." He says: Right from the start, the expression "unqualified acceptance" irritates me because I don’t know anyone — myself included — to whom it would apply. He then gives examples from the Council to which many "vocal defenders" would not give "unqualified acceptance", the first two being the instruction that the Latin language should be retained in the Liturgy, that Gregorian Chant should be given pride of place. Here is the closing paragraph: It would not be difficult to lengthen this litany. Even so, it should be obvious why I demand more honesty in the current debate about the council. Instead of accusing others, and even the Pope, of wishing to go back to before the coun...

Helping me to catch up on one or two things I missed while away in Lourdes, a correspondent sent me links for the address of the Holy Father at the opening of the Pastoral Congress for the Diocese of Rome. Here is the original Italian text ; and here are a couple of quotations in English translation, thanks to Rorate Caeli and NLM : As I had the occasion to clarify in the address to the Roman Curia of December 22, 2005, an interpretive current, appealing to a supposed "spirit of the Council", intended to establish a discontinuity and even a contraposition between the Church before and the Church after the Council, at times confusing the very objectively existing boundaries between the hierarchical ministry and the responsibility of the lay faithful in the Church. The notion of the "People of God, in particular, was interpreted by some according to a purely sociological vision, with an almost exclusively horizontal severance, which excluded the vertical reference to God....

Alcuin Reid was on Radio 4's "Beyond Belief" programme broadcast yesterday. The subject was the lifting of the SSPX excommunications and its various implications. He was put in a contest against two opponents and came out of it very well. There is much in the piece about Vatican II and Alcuin manages to give some good clarification under fire about the different levels of assent required for different kinds of documents. Since I am sometimes rather negative about the BBC, I should say that the presenter, Ernie Rea, was quite fair and balanced.

Commentaries on the Society of St Pius X often remind us that the issue is not simply a matter of liturgy but also of the teaching of Vatican II. One key area of discussion is the question of religious liberty and liberty of conscience. If we accept that the teaching of various Popes, especially Pope Gregory XVI and Blessed Pope Pius IX, is part of the tradition of the Church, we will need to read Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae in terms of a "hermeneutic of continuity." In other words, we will need to understand Dignitatis Humanae in such a way that it does not form a point of rupture with the past but is in accord with the tradition of the Church, including those encyclicals. Some will say that this is impossible but I wonder whether the case of Bishop Williamson can help us in the quest. Dignitatis Humanae taught that In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of...

So why is St Joseph of Cupertino not in the General Calendar any more? Here is the text from the commentary on the Calendarium Romanum Generale of 1969 which was drawn up by the Council for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: Memoria S. Iosephi de Cupertino (d. Auximi, anno 1693), anno 1769 in Calendario romano ascripta, Calendariis particularibus relinquitur, quia non agitur de Sancto "momentum universale revera prae se ferente". The memoria of St Joseph of Cupertino (d. at Osimo 1693), added to the roman Calendar in 1769, is left to particular Calendars because it is not a matter of a Saint "of truly universal importance". The last quotation is from Sacrosanctum Concilium n.111. The context is given by a fuller quotation: Lest the feasts of the saints should take precedence over the feasts which commemorate the very mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by a particular Church or nation or family of religio...

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, the Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Migrants and Tourists, recently gave a speech at Ancona which was reported by the Catholic News Agency ( CNA: Vatican II not open to free interpretations, says Vatican official ) Here is a part of the article: “Vatican II was a great event, a synthesis between tradition and renewal that is not a break with the past in the creation of a new Church,” the archbishop said during a speech on the Catholic Church in the 20th century in the city of Ancona. He said the members of the School of Bologna have been very successful in “monopolizing and imposing one interpretation” of Vatican II that goes beyond what John XXIII and Paul VI imagined, even so far as to propose “a Copernican revolution, the passing to…another Catholicism.” Coming from a senior curial official, this is a significant public criticism of the Bologna school. Archbishop Marchetto (67) has been secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Migrants and...