Bishop R. Nickless of Sioux City has written a letter to his diocese: Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.
In it he denounces the false method of interpreting the Second Vatican Council:
On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture,” it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology.
The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council.
It is crucial that we all grasp that the hermeneutic or interpretation of discontinuity or rupture, which many think is the settled and even official position, is not the true meaning of the Council. This interpretation sees the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church almost as two different churches. It sees the Second Vatican Council as a radical break with the past. There can be no split, however, between the Church and her faith before and after the Council. We must stop speaking of the “Pre-Vatican II” and “Post-Vatican II” Church, and stop seeing various characteristics of the Church as “pre” and “post” Vatican II. Instead, we must evaluate them according to their intrinsic value and pastoral effectiveness in this day and age.
Nickless calls for the return to traditional practices:
We must renew our reverence, love, adoration and devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament, within and outside of Mass. A renewal of Eucharistic Spirituality necessarily entails an ongoing implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s reform of the liturgy as authoritatively taught by the Church’s Magisterium, the promotion of Eucharistic Adoration outside of Mass, regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Eucharist and our Mother.
He goes on to talk about defending the family, encouraging vocations etc.
All this is well and good, but the fact is that many of the bishops who were at the Vatican Council as a body presided over and indeed sometimes mandated the destruction of the customs and attitudes that Nickless wants to restore. Were those bishops wrong and Nickless right? Perhaps – I think so, but how is the laity to judge that one crop of bishops largely erred and the current crop is getting it right?
When I was an undergraduate at Providence College, I had a course in the Liturgy taught by a peritus, a Dominican priest, who had helped write the constitution on the liturgy. He fully accepted what Nickless called the hermeneutic of discontinuity. The liturgy of the post-Vatican II Church was supposed to be something in all externals completely different from the pre-Vatican II Church. But it is hard to distinguish mere externals from the essence, just as it is hard to distinguish the body from the soul.
In any case, it is always harder to build up good habits and customs than to destroy them. I am happy that some (not all) of the clergy have given up a mean-spirited persecution of the members of the laity who are attached to traditions of the Church, but it is going to be hard, probably impossible to restore practices that have disappeared, like widespread Eucharistic adoration and frequent confession.
Nickless denounces the “false spirit” of the Council:
The so-called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord’s work.
But this genie is out of the bottle and it will take more than a letter from a bishop to put it back in.
Q: Where do you find most Catholics who remember the good old traditional Mass?
A: In the cementary.
At 62, it is a distant memory from my youth. 75% of Americans are younger than I and have no meaningful experience of the pre Vatican II Church.
Yes we all need more respect for the Mass and the Eucharist and Reconciliation (Confession).. Inattentive reception of the Eucharist or standing in line for same chewing gum must stop.
Yet we dont have to resort to fiddle back vestments nor facing east!!!
I feel the great danger associated with the traditional movement is that it will artificially “restore” reverence (read that awe) for the clergy, where the conduct of their lives and the quality of their thought / spirituality does not warrant it.
I am concerned that we return to a “magical” quality of religion that approaches witch craft in our reverence for the clergy. Specifically, I am concerned that the new fogey clergy with their 1000 button cassocks want to bring us back to an authoritarian religious state where fancy robes and rituals replace honest spirituality as the foundation of leadership.
So let us develop deep respect for the Mass , the Sacraments and the Eucharist in our lives while remaining cautious about the posposity of those Pharisees that lead us.
As a professional catechist, I am all for a strengthening of Eucharistic spirituality and devotion but we have got to get it that Christ is present for us in the Eucharist so that we may become more present to each other. Beating each other up with versions of “truth” ain’t a way to be present that I am willing to teach.
I’m 52 and remember the ‘old’ Mass very well, but do not want to return to it. I’m happy with my parish’s reverent, orthodox, ad orientam Mass.
Re: getting the genie back in the bottle, my impression here in the South is that the genie is dying, and I’m content with that.
Oops, I should also mention we have trafiic-jam confessions, and adoration at a neighboring church, which my wife & I participate in. Maybe the South is different, but mostly I see lots of reasons for Catholics to be optimistic.
Now I know where the hot air came from that filled that experimental bubble craft in CO. All the way from Iowa via this Bishop.
“The Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).
Although some Catholics dissent from officially-taught doctrines, the Church’s official teachers—the pope and the bishops united with him—have never changed any doctrine. Over the centuries, as doctrines are examined more fully, the Church comes to understand them more deeply (John 16:12–13), but it never understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant?”.
“The Magisterium (CCC 85–87, 888–892)
Together the pope and the bishops form the teaching authority of the Church, which is called the magisterium (from the Latin for “teacher”). The magisterium, guided and protected from error by the Holy Spirit, gives us certainty in matters of doctrine. The Church is the custodian of the Bible and faithfully and accurately proclaims its message, a task which God has empowered it to do.
Keep in mind that the Church came before the New Testament, not the New Testament before the Church. Divinely-inspired members of the Church wrote the books of the New Testament, just as divinely-inspired writers had written the Old Testament, and the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit to guard and interpret the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
Such an official interpreter is absolutely necessary if we are to understand the Bible properly. (We all know what the Constitution says, but we still need a Supreme Court to interpret what it means.)
The magisterium is infallible when it teaches officially because Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles and their successors “into all truth” (John 16:12–13)”?.
http://www.catholic.com/library/pillar.asp
If the church became a church before the new testament, than could it also be agreed upon that the church was also formed before the Magisterium started to impose its own rules & regulations onto & adhere by for “Eternal Salvation?”
Not all are guarenteed heaven they say.
What is truth? is it real?
It was the same Pope Paul VI whom Bishop Nickless lauds in his letter that let the genie out of the bottle in the first place. The Novus Ordo Missae that Paul VI promulgated was intended to be a rupture to some degree from the traditional Latin Mass that came before it (certainly he was willing to part with those vital transmitters of the sacred, Latin and Gregorian chant, as he made clear in his Address to a General Audience, November 26, 1969, and that was bad enough).
Whether or not Paul VI intended that rupture to be as severe as has occurred in practice in the majority of dioceses around the world, it is beyond question that he allowed the profanation of the Mass to take place during his reign, as have subsequent Popes and countless bishops since then, and the Mystical Body of Christ has suffered greatly for it.
Perhaps Pope Benedict’s recent promotion of the Latin Mass will encourage more Catholics to seek out that spiritual oasis and thus provide a way to heal that rupture. I fear, though, that it will also take more than a motu proprio to put that genie back in the bottle. And yet souls are on the line.
I wonder if the one thing good about the priest facing east from the old days, is that their attention is focused on their God instead of themselves or wandering their eyes over potential victims?
Would not that be too modest for the return of the dramatic fashion clerical garb?. How would anyone be able to focus on their God watching the mascarade procession?.