.
"(Monasteries) became, accordingly, especial targets. Satan, issuing orders at nightfall to his foul precurrers, was rumoured to dispatch to capital cities only one junior fiend. This solitary demon, the legend continues, sleeps at his post. There is no work for him; the battle was long ago won. But monasteries, those scattered danger points, become the chief objectives of nocturnal flight; the sky fills with the beat of sable wings as phalanx after phalanx streams to the attack, and the darkness crepitates with the splintering of a myriad lances against the masonry of asceticism. Piety has always been singled out for the hardest onslaught of hellish aggression."
Patrick Leigh Fermor A Time to Keep Gifts
I think, sometimes, that the same junior fiend who is responsible for capital cities has had the Catholic traditionalist twittersphere added to his responsibilities, it being as easy for him to foment rancour and strong language between supporters and opponents of the SSPX to the detriment of all concerned as it is to corrupt the denizens of cities. And in the same way as cities can become hellish places, the lack of charity displayed at times by traditionalist Catholics on Twitter is scarcely an invitation to calm consideration.
I am reminded of this at the moment as, during a #twitterdueltodeath between supporters and opponents of the SSPX, I digest having been able to participate in a pre-1955 Triduum courtesy of the FSSP streaming from Fribourg. I'm not old enough to remember it, though I can remember serving the 1962 Missal's Triduum, and, of course the modern version.
I have studied the differences between what I never knew and what I remembered, but up to this year it has always been an intellectual exercise. This year I could witness the difference, and I felt, in a way I have never felt before, just how monumentally disastrous the twentieth century has been for Catholic worship and just how acceptance of the 1955 Triduum changes would lead inexorably to everything that followed.
A couple of examples: the 1955 reform cuts the number of prophecies from twelve to four, because that there were only four prophecies in the Gregorian Missal. But if that's important, why not make the four prophecies used from 1955 onward the same four as used at the end of the sixth century? And why does Pope St Gregory's four trump the earlier twelve in use in Jerusalem in the fifth century?
As it happens, the chanting of the twelve prophecies took just under an hour: I could read them and meditate on them as they were chanted. And as the celebration began at 5.00 pm (they weren't quite brave enough to restore celebration to the morning) the service wasn't extended indefinitely, nor was there the slightly shoddy liturgical pretence that "after dusk" is better than "before dusk" when part of the point of the 1955 Reform was "midnight".
And why would you want to get rid of the triple candlestick, and upset the old rhythm of fire and water, and make the Paschal Candle the centre of the first part of the ceremony only to suddenly mix in a completely new "rite": the renewal of baptismal promises?
The answer of course is, first, because they could; second, because a bunch of very clever people persuaded the Pope that he could do anything he liked to the Liturgy because he was Pope; third, because they then persuaded him that the Reform was, in some way, "needed"; and fourth, because they were looking much further ahead to a complete transformation of the Roman Rite. I mentioned some months ago here that Mediator Dei in 1948 had stood on its head the idea of Lex orandi lex credendi in order explicitly to say that rites should be changed to change people's beliefs.
If you want to see how out of tune the 1962 Missal is with what preceded it look not to the Triduum but to the Vigil of Pentecost. Pentecost until 1962 the second most important feast of the Church's year, had a vigil that in large parts mirrored the Easter Vigil: only six Prophecies; blessing of the font as on Holy Saturday though no new fire. This was all dispensed with. Every time I hear somebody bemoaning the loss of the Pentecost Octave, or telling the story of Pope Paul not realising what he had signed up to, I am reminded of all the times people don't bemoan the loss of the old Vigil. By the time of the 1970 Missal, Christmas has become the second feast in the Church's year: what was the problem the reformers had with the Holy Spirit?
I never expected that I would ever see a pre-1955 Triduum licitly celebrated - I never expect I will live anywhere where even a 1962 celebration will be available to me. I'm no longer worried about the second of these two facts, though. 1962 won't cut it.
23 April 2020
03 February 2020
How To Get A Synod To Agree With You
.
It was a couple of paragraphs in the live feed from the German Synod which set me thinking:
"The results of more than 5,000 emails that Catholics from all over Germany had sent to the Synod authorities in the past few weeks were also presented. Only a small majority of the letters had requested the acceptance of married priests. Many Catholics had emphasized that they wanted priests who were experienced pastors, and that priests should not get bogged down in administrative and committee work. The questions of sexual abuse and ordination of women were very rare in the emails.
In the debate that followed, the Professor of Theology from Erfurt University, Eberhard Tiefensee, called the current crisis-ridden priesthood a 'debilitating wound' that had to be studied very closely in order to be healed. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück said that in the future priests should be free to decide whether they wanted to live a celibate life or not."
Choose a sample of messages and don't give any clue to how representative the people who send them are (we'll come back to this theme), choose the subject you really want to change and say (again, without producing any evidence) that a small majority is in favour, and then get one hysterical and one outrageous comment from "leaders" so that down the line, these can be reined back in a "compromise" which will coincidentally be exactly where those who organised and are manipulating the Synod can get exactly the result they first thought of.
We have our own experience of this: the Catholic Church in England and Wales launched exactly such a "Synod" which assembled in Liverpool in 1980 (see the footnote for a discussion of what Canon Law thinks these two meetings actually are). What was then, and is being now, sold as a movement to reform the Church in the light of Vatican II (oh, and "prompted by the Holy Spirit"—always reference the Holy Spirit when you want to introduce significant, unwonted and probably unwanted change) was actually a heavily clericalist, top-down, solution to issues internal to the local Church hierarchy and which did not interest the vast majority of the knees-on-kneeler Catholics, who, en masse, tend to be treated as an amorphous, ignorant, pliable and barely-relevant-other-than-as-a-source-of-revenue, lumpenpewletariat.
Thus it was in England and Wales. A National Council of Priests had been set up by a number of activist priests in the wake of Humanae Vitae, whose main focus was the relationship between priest and bishop: not, as you will have guessed, a relationship based on filiality and docility, but on the "rights" of priests vis-a-vis Bishops, in particular the right of a priest in dispute with his bishop about a matter of theology to have arbitration from outside his diocese. Archbishop Worlock (who else!) had understood the threat to the episcopacy posed by the NCP and came up with a policy of neutralising its strength by furious agreement, ensuring a detailed exchange with the NCP to prevent confrontation before it could happen, and a compromise based on the bishops accomodating the demands of the priests which did not limit the bishops' authority.
One of the bees in the NCP's bonnet was the need for a 'national pastoral strategy' for England and Wales, and this was something Worlock, on behalf of the Bishops, decided should be embraced as a way of overcoming the NCP as a separate focus of authority. So a joint working party was set up between the Bishops' Conference and the NCP. As the 1970s progressed this became the major strategic initiative of the Church in England and Wales, and the idea developed that it needed a national conference, an assembly of bishops, priests and laity which would deliver the momentum needed if the strategy developed and endorsed was to take root. So far, so good, but the NCP asked for the working party to "give special consideration to the problems of married life in the contemporary world, taking note of the sensus fidelium concerning contraception and divorce in particular". It took a lot of time, and the expenditure of many of the brownie points Worlock had built up to remove references to the supposed sensus fidelium though the NCP priests who most vocally had supported this line were not removed.
The Bishops' Conference took on sponsorship of the National Pastoral Congress, with Worlock becoming Chairman of the organising committee; Fr Tom Shepherd, Chairman of the NCP became its secretary. Archbishop Dwyer wanted to make sure that contraception in particular should not be a dominant theme of the Congress, and in fact would have blocked it as a subject, but his term as chairman of the Bishops' Conference ended in 1979, and Cardinal Hume, who took over from him, ensured that a full section of the Congress would discuss 'marriage and family matters'.
You will have noticed that so far, mention of the laity taking part has been light. But the "representatives" of the laity were being selected. Mgr Mario Oliveri, deputy to Archbishop Heim at the Apostolic Delegation wrote to Rome complaining that Congress delegates "appeared to be drawn, on the whole, from either those holding progressive views or from amongst those who know little or nothing about the nature of the Church" but when Worlock found out, Heim was persuaded to go to Rome to sweep Oliveri's difficulties under Vatican blankets. The laity were told in 1978 that the Congress would take place in 1980 and that "in the eighteen months preceding the Congress every diocese in England and Wales will make its own preparation so that at the Congress itself a substantial representation of the Church, prepared in mind and spirit, will be able to reflect together on the developing life and mission of the Church." What would "substantial" mean? How would attenders be "prepared in mind and spirit"? They certainly didn't mean that the lay representatives would be representative of the laity at large.
It was decided that each diocese should send one delegate for each 1000 of its Mass attendance on any one Sunday. As dioceses varied dramatically from the rural to the densely populated industrial areas, each diocese was left to find its own method of choosing representatives, though with the encouragement of the organising committee, most representatives were chosen at deanery level. In the code of Canon Law in force at the time, the deanery was a unit or practical administration. Were priests resident in their parishes, preaching, catechising and anointing? Was Mass being celebrated worthily? Were instructions given by the Bishop following his visitations being implemented? Were sick priests being looked after? Were they being buried decently? For understandable reason Canon Law did not envisage the deanery as a way of by-passing parishes which weren't on-message, but that is what happened.
The report of the Bishops' Conference says: "Deanery 'link-men' were important in the chain. Each deanery consists normally of nine or ten parishes. Usually, one priest in each deanery, acting in close collaboration with the diocesan coordinator, was responsible for promoting the Congress in his deanery. It was an attempt to develop the deanery as a pastoral unit and a possible way of stimulating local interest even if individual clergy were not on occasions cooperative." The last sentence is a pretty blatant exercise in post-hoc justification: it was purely a way of ignoring recalcitrant priests. Only 70% of parishes bothered to respond to the paperwork, and no records have been published about how many of those responses were against what was clearly, from the paperwork, the direction of travel, but by changing the level at which representatives were being selected from that of the parish, the selection could be manipulated so that only people who were not going to be opposed to the party line would be chosen.
A series of discussion groups, pastoral councils, and small-group meetings prepared representatives in mind and spirit: of course the majority of the people who could attend so many meetings and read all the paperwork surrounding the preparations for the Congress were the educated middle class, who tended to be from the same background as the bishops and NCP priests. As Clifford Longley puts it: "Among the lay people from all over the country who attended the Congress were many who were prominent in their own careers and professions, experts in their field and well informed theologically." This isn't a description of anything other than a small proportion of the laity in any Catholic parish I have ever known, but it ensured that there would be no surprises in the resolutions of the Congress because everything was neatly stitched up beforehand.
Hume and Worlock got their way, and a reference to contraception formed part of the final report but they had made a major strategic error. Not only was the Pope, John Paul II, completely unimpressed by their views, he had announced that the Synod of Bishops, scheduled to take place a few months after the end of the Liverpool Congress, would discuss matters of family, marriage and sexuality. A papacy showing it self to be more and more conservative swept aside Hume and Worlock’s priorities, to the extent that the Cardinal felt it necessary to warn the Bishops’ Conference and the NPC that a period of reticence on the part of all of them would be a very good idea.
Hume and Worlock came close, bur didn't win the approval they sought. The effects of their Congress were dire and are with us still, but they didn't manage to "change doctrine". However, I bet the German Bishops haven’t got as far as they have without learning to make sure the Vatican has been squared off first.
Footnote: According to Canon Law (Canons 431-459) Liverpool 1980 and Frankfurt 2020 are both examples of 'Particular Councils': "Can. 445 A particular council, for its own territory, takes care that provision is made for the pastoral needs of the people of God and possesses the power of governance, especially legislative power, so that, always without prejudice to the universal law of the Church, it is able to decide what seems opportune for the increase of the faith, the organization of common pastoral action, and the regulation of morals and of the common ecclesiastical discipline which is to be observed, promoted, and protected. Can. 446 When a particular council has ended, the president is to take care that all the acts of the council are sent to the Apostolic See. Decrees issued by a council are not to be promulgated until the Apostolic See has reviewed them."
It was a couple of paragraphs in the live feed from the German Synod which set me thinking:
"The results of more than 5,000 emails that Catholics from all over Germany had sent to the Synod authorities in the past few weeks were also presented. Only a small majority of the letters had requested the acceptance of married priests. Many Catholics had emphasized that they wanted priests who were experienced pastors, and that priests should not get bogged down in administrative and committee work. The questions of sexual abuse and ordination of women were very rare in the emails.
In the debate that followed, the Professor of Theology from Erfurt University, Eberhard Tiefensee, called the current crisis-ridden priesthood a 'debilitating wound' that had to be studied very closely in order to be healed. Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück said that in the future priests should be free to decide whether they wanted to live a celibate life or not."
Choose a sample of messages and don't give any clue to how representative the people who send them are (we'll come back to this theme), choose the subject you really want to change and say (again, without producing any evidence) that a small majority is in favour, and then get one hysterical and one outrageous comment from "leaders" so that down the line, these can be reined back in a "compromise" which will coincidentally be exactly where those who organised and are manipulating the Synod can get exactly the result they first thought of.
We have our own experience of this: the Catholic Church in England and Wales launched exactly such a "Synod" which assembled in Liverpool in 1980 (see the footnote for a discussion of what Canon Law thinks these two meetings actually are). What was then, and is being now, sold as a movement to reform the Church in the light of Vatican II (oh, and "prompted by the Holy Spirit"—always reference the Holy Spirit when you want to introduce significant, unwonted and probably unwanted change) was actually a heavily clericalist, top-down, solution to issues internal to the local Church hierarchy and which did not interest the vast majority of the knees-on-kneeler Catholics, who, en masse, tend to be treated as an amorphous, ignorant, pliable and barely-relevant-other-than-as-a-source-of-revenue, lumpenpewletariat.
Thus it was in England and Wales. A National Council of Priests had been set up by a number of activist priests in the wake of Humanae Vitae, whose main focus was the relationship between priest and bishop: not, as you will have guessed, a relationship based on filiality and docility, but on the "rights" of priests vis-a-vis Bishops, in particular the right of a priest in dispute with his bishop about a matter of theology to have arbitration from outside his diocese. Archbishop Worlock (who else!) had understood the threat to the episcopacy posed by the NCP and came up with a policy of neutralising its strength by furious agreement, ensuring a detailed exchange with the NCP to prevent confrontation before it could happen, and a compromise based on the bishops accomodating the demands of the priests which did not limit the bishops' authority.
One of the bees in the NCP's bonnet was the need for a 'national pastoral strategy' for England and Wales, and this was something Worlock, on behalf of the Bishops, decided should be embraced as a way of overcoming the NCP as a separate focus of authority. So a joint working party was set up between the Bishops' Conference and the NCP. As the 1970s progressed this became the major strategic initiative of the Church in England and Wales, and the idea developed that it needed a national conference, an assembly of bishops, priests and laity which would deliver the momentum needed if the strategy developed and endorsed was to take root. So far, so good, but the NCP asked for the working party to "give special consideration to the problems of married life in the contemporary world, taking note of the sensus fidelium concerning contraception and divorce in particular". It took a lot of time, and the expenditure of many of the brownie points Worlock had built up to remove references to the supposed sensus fidelium though the NCP priests who most vocally had supported this line were not removed.
The Bishops' Conference took on sponsorship of the National Pastoral Congress, with Worlock becoming Chairman of the organising committee; Fr Tom Shepherd, Chairman of the NCP became its secretary. Archbishop Dwyer wanted to make sure that contraception in particular should not be a dominant theme of the Congress, and in fact would have blocked it as a subject, but his term as chairman of the Bishops' Conference ended in 1979, and Cardinal Hume, who took over from him, ensured that a full section of the Congress would discuss 'marriage and family matters'.
You will have noticed that so far, mention of the laity taking part has been light. But the "representatives" of the laity were being selected. Mgr Mario Oliveri, deputy to Archbishop Heim at the Apostolic Delegation wrote to Rome complaining that Congress delegates "appeared to be drawn, on the whole, from either those holding progressive views or from amongst those who know little or nothing about the nature of the Church" but when Worlock found out, Heim was persuaded to go to Rome to sweep Oliveri's difficulties under Vatican blankets. The laity were told in 1978 that the Congress would take place in 1980 and that "in the eighteen months preceding the Congress every diocese in England and Wales will make its own preparation so that at the Congress itself a substantial representation of the Church, prepared in mind and spirit, will be able to reflect together on the developing life and mission of the Church." What would "substantial" mean? How would attenders be "prepared in mind and spirit"? They certainly didn't mean that the lay representatives would be representative of the laity at large.
It was decided that each diocese should send one delegate for each 1000 of its Mass attendance on any one Sunday. As dioceses varied dramatically from the rural to the densely populated industrial areas, each diocese was left to find its own method of choosing representatives, though with the encouragement of the organising committee, most representatives were chosen at deanery level. In the code of Canon Law in force at the time, the deanery was a unit or practical administration. Were priests resident in their parishes, preaching, catechising and anointing? Was Mass being celebrated worthily? Were instructions given by the Bishop following his visitations being implemented? Were sick priests being looked after? Were they being buried decently? For understandable reason Canon Law did not envisage the deanery as a way of by-passing parishes which weren't on-message, but that is what happened.
The report of the Bishops' Conference says: "Deanery 'link-men' were important in the chain. Each deanery consists normally of nine or ten parishes. Usually, one priest in each deanery, acting in close collaboration with the diocesan coordinator, was responsible for promoting the Congress in his deanery. It was an attempt to develop the deanery as a pastoral unit and a possible way of stimulating local interest even if individual clergy were not on occasions cooperative." The last sentence is a pretty blatant exercise in post-hoc justification: it was purely a way of ignoring recalcitrant priests. Only 70% of parishes bothered to respond to the paperwork, and no records have been published about how many of those responses were against what was clearly, from the paperwork, the direction of travel, but by changing the level at which representatives were being selected from that of the parish, the selection could be manipulated so that only people who were not going to be opposed to the party line would be chosen.
A series of discussion groups, pastoral councils, and small-group meetings prepared representatives in mind and spirit: of course the majority of the people who could attend so many meetings and read all the paperwork surrounding the preparations for the Congress were the educated middle class, who tended to be from the same background as the bishops and NCP priests. As Clifford Longley puts it: "Among the lay people from all over the country who attended the Congress were many who were prominent in their own careers and professions, experts in their field and well informed theologically." This isn't a description of anything other than a small proportion of the laity in any Catholic parish I have ever known, but it ensured that there would be no surprises in the resolutions of the Congress because everything was neatly stitched up beforehand.
Hume and Worlock got their way, and a reference to contraception formed part of the final report but they had made a major strategic error. Not only was the Pope, John Paul II, completely unimpressed by their views, he had announced that the Synod of Bishops, scheduled to take place a few months after the end of the Liverpool Congress, would discuss matters of family, marriage and sexuality. A papacy showing it self to be more and more conservative swept aside Hume and Worlock’s priorities, to the extent that the Cardinal felt it necessary to warn the Bishops’ Conference and the NPC that a period of reticence on the part of all of them would be a very good idea.
Hume and Worlock came close, bur didn't win the approval they sought. The effects of their Congress were dire and are with us still, but they didn't manage to "change doctrine". However, I bet the German Bishops haven’t got as far as they have without learning to make sure the Vatican has been squared off first.
Footnote: According to Canon Law (Canons 431-459) Liverpool 1980 and Frankfurt 2020 are both examples of 'Particular Councils': "Can. 445 A particular council, for its own territory, takes care that provision is made for the pastoral needs of the people of God and possesses the power of governance, especially legislative power, so that, always without prejudice to the universal law of the Church, it is able to decide what seems opportune for the increase of the faith, the organization of common pastoral action, and the regulation of morals and of the common ecclesiastical discipline which is to be observed, promoted, and protected. Can. 446 When a particular council has ended, the president is to take care that all the acts of the council are sent to the Apostolic See. Decrees issued by a council are not to be promulgated until the Apostolic See has reviewed them."
12 January 2020
A Reflection On Calendars
.
If you are reading this, the chances are you are aware of my increasing conviction that the changes to the structure of worship, instituted by Pope St Pius X in Divino Afflatu, which began in 1911 were disastrous for several reasons: the complete reversal of the relationship between the sanctoral and the temporal; the idea that the Liturgy was a mutable object, able to be changed on a whim, instead of an immutable reality; the role of the Pope as autocratic ruler which no longer obtained across the Papal States being transferred into the inner life of the Church; the encouragement given to that wing of the Liturgical Movement which thought that lay participation in the Mass meant giving lay people things to do in, or at least during, Mass.
The more I study what happened, the less I understand how what happened actually came about. The changes happened because the Office was perceived as so burdensome to priests, especially priests in parishes who had other sacerdotal claims on their times. Hold that thought for a while: the calendar had to be changed for the whole Church because the daily Office was too much of a burden for some priests.
A look at parish life in England and Wales during the fifty years preceding Divino Afflatu shows that there was a rich liturgical and devotional life available for lay people in their parishes: Mass on Sundays, of course, but also catechism and instruction classes, Vespers and Benediction; parish Sodalities and Fraternities to encourage regular prayer; and a clear sense of cradle-to-grave practice of the Faith.
From the point of view of a parishioner, the priest’s role was pretty clear: it was completely set apart from the role of the laity, involving, as it did, knowing how to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and being ordained to do so; celebrating the other sacraments; teaching the Faith. Priests were set apart: even when from the people, not of the people; educated, but not for matters of this world. The Office was theirs. Parishioners would be aware of Vespers, for many parishes celebrated Vespers as a Sunday evening devotion (a taste of the Liturgy for those forced to work at a time when there were no anticipated Masses on Saturday evening, or Sunday evening Masses). Those attending Cathedrals would possibly be familiar with the celebration of Terce before major Masses, and may have come across other parts of the Office while waiting for Confession. But otherwise, the Office was something the priest said, possibly wandering about parish grounds, possibly seated in the Sanctuary, lips moving soundlessly.
How burdensome was it? There’s no way of knowing. Unlike today, the priest wasn’t hemmed in with a burden of non-priestly duties imposed by the state and the diocese. From Health and Safety at one end, to attending Safeguarding courses at the other, today’s priest has far more things to attend to outside Church than did his predecessors. But the fundamental reason for the question’s being unanswerable is lex orandi lex credendi: the fact that priests stopped praying the Office the old way has changed the Church into one where the old way is no longer imaginable as part of normal praxis.
This is one of the reasons why the 1962 Missal and the 1960 Breviary can be touted as part of a solution to the Church’s problems: simply because they represent a way of doing things that can still be remembered, at least by people in their sixties or older, as normative. Yet the fact that most Masses are celebrated in Green, instead of Green being almost as rare as Black, would be a visual assault on anybody who had attended Mass before Divino Afflatu. The idea that there could be a maximum of three collects in a Mass would be bizarre. And if our time traveller from 1910 attended EF Mass on Sundays in 2020, and asked why there was only one Last Gospel, he would be looked at as though he had lost his senses: surely everybody knows that only at the third Mass on Christmas Day can the Last Gospel be other than In Principio. Look at this comparison of the time since Christmas (clicking on it should make it legible):
How can anyone say that the worshipper in the pew simply wouldn’t have noticed?
The crisis in the Church goes, of course, much deeper than the Calendar, but its origin, I am increasingly convinced, is in a Pope who was persuaded that the practice of the Church—perhaps the Church itself—was something for him to control actively and directly.
If you are reading this, the chances are you are aware of my increasing conviction that the changes to the structure of worship, instituted by Pope St Pius X in Divino Afflatu, which began in 1911 were disastrous for several reasons: the complete reversal of the relationship between the sanctoral and the temporal; the idea that the Liturgy was a mutable object, able to be changed on a whim, instead of an immutable reality; the role of the Pope as autocratic ruler which no longer obtained across the Papal States being transferred into the inner life of the Church; the encouragement given to that wing of the Liturgical Movement which thought that lay participation in the Mass meant giving lay people things to do in, or at least during, Mass.
The more I study what happened, the less I understand how what happened actually came about. The changes happened because the Office was perceived as so burdensome to priests, especially priests in parishes who had other sacerdotal claims on their times. Hold that thought for a while: the calendar had to be changed for the whole Church because the daily Office was too much of a burden for some priests.
A look at parish life in England and Wales during the fifty years preceding Divino Afflatu shows that there was a rich liturgical and devotional life available for lay people in their parishes: Mass on Sundays, of course, but also catechism and instruction classes, Vespers and Benediction; parish Sodalities and Fraternities to encourage regular prayer; and a clear sense of cradle-to-grave practice of the Faith.
From the point of view of a parishioner, the priest’s role was pretty clear: it was completely set apart from the role of the laity, involving, as it did, knowing how to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and being ordained to do so; celebrating the other sacraments; teaching the Faith. Priests were set apart: even when from the people, not of the people; educated, but not for matters of this world. The Office was theirs. Parishioners would be aware of Vespers, for many parishes celebrated Vespers as a Sunday evening devotion (a taste of the Liturgy for those forced to work at a time when there were no anticipated Masses on Saturday evening, or Sunday evening Masses). Those attending Cathedrals would possibly be familiar with the celebration of Terce before major Masses, and may have come across other parts of the Office while waiting for Confession. But otherwise, the Office was something the priest said, possibly wandering about parish grounds, possibly seated in the Sanctuary, lips moving soundlessly.
How burdensome was it? There’s no way of knowing. Unlike today, the priest wasn’t hemmed in with a burden of non-priestly duties imposed by the state and the diocese. From Health and Safety at one end, to attending Safeguarding courses at the other, today’s priest has far more things to attend to outside Church than did his predecessors. But the fundamental reason for the question’s being unanswerable is lex orandi lex credendi: the fact that priests stopped praying the Office the old way has changed the Church into one where the old way is no longer imaginable as part of normal praxis.
This is one of the reasons why the 1962 Missal and the 1960 Breviary can be touted as part of a solution to the Church’s problems: simply because they represent a way of doing things that can still be remembered, at least by people in their sixties or older, as normative. Yet the fact that most Masses are celebrated in Green, instead of Green being almost as rare as Black, would be a visual assault on anybody who had attended Mass before Divino Afflatu. The idea that there could be a maximum of three collects in a Mass would be bizarre. And if our time traveller from 1910 attended EF Mass on Sundays in 2020, and asked why there was only one Last Gospel, he would be looked at as though he had lost his senses: surely everybody knows that only at the third Mass on Christmas Day can the Last Gospel be other than In Principio. Look at this comparison of the time since Christmas (clicking on it should make it legible):
How can anyone say that the worshipper in the pew simply wouldn’t have noticed?
The crisis in the Church goes, of course, much deeper than the Calendar, but its origin, I am increasingly convinced, is in a Pope who was persuaded that the practice of the Church—perhaps the Church itself—was something for him to control actively and directly.
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