The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum… The Wanderer Interviews Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
(Editor’s Note: The Wanderer first published this two-part article on Summorum Pontificum on July 19 and 26, 2007, and we are reprinting it here in view of the upcoming ten-year anniversary of Pope Benedict’s landmark motu proprio, which allowed priests to say the Traditional Rite of the Mass without asking for permission.
(Part one of this interview appeared in last week’s issue and we conclude it with the article below.)
+ + +
Part 2
Last week, The Wanderer featured an interview with Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ, regarding Pope Benedict’s letter to his brother bishops explaining his reasons for issuing the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. This week’s portion of the interview deals with the text of the motu proprio itself.
+ + +
Q. Fr. Baker, what are your first impressions of the motu proprio?
A. In the introduction, even before he gets down to the new juridical norms, Pope Benedict uses the word “Pontiff” seven times. After all, the document is named Summorum Pontificum.
The key to that is in the second paragraph, where he says that the local Church has to be in agreement with the universal Church. He is making the point that liturgical norms are established by Rome, and not by the local bishops.
In the past 30 years, Paul VI and John Paul II lost control of the liturgy and the bishops moved in and took it over. What Pope Benedict is saying here is, “I’m taking it back. The Pope is in charge of the liturgy, and the responsibility of diocesan bishops is to enforce the norms established by the Holy See.”
Q. What is the “particular Church”?
A. In Church language, the particular Church means the diocese. The Pope says, “Each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church’s law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.”
He’s talking about the rubrics of the Mass. That’s very strong language.
He goes on to list the Pontiffs, beginning with St. Gregory the Great, and says, “The Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.”
That is a strong statement about the spiritual effectiveness of the Traditional Latin liturgy.
Benedict XVI then points out that it has always been the Popes who have updated the liturgy, and describes how Pius V consolidated the Latin liturgy in the 16th century, and how eventually that spread over the whole world. And that’s the liturgy that we have all the way up to John XXIII in 1962.
The Pope then describes the importance of the Roman Missal — it is “eminent” — and he mentions six Roman Pontiffs who added new saints to the Missal of St. Pius V. However, those Popes did not make any changes in the basic structure of the Mass. The point he is making is that only the Supreme Pontiff has the right to make changes in the liturgy.
Q. Then what happened at Vatican II?
A. At Vatican II, the fathers wanted to make some adaptations to the age. Vatican II opened up the door for making some revisions in the Mass, but nobody at Vatican II ever dreamed of anything like the Novus Ordo. It was Archbishop Annibale Bugnini who did that, and Pope Paul VI approved it.
I would like to point out that there are twelve articles in the motu proprio. There may be a reference here by Benedict XVI to the twelve patriarchs in the Old Testament, to the twelve apostles, and to the twelve articles of the Creed.
In the first article, the Traditional Mass is put on the same liturgical level as the Novus Ordo Mass. The Pope seems to say: Let the forms compete — then we will see how many people are interested in the Traditional Mass.
One of my parishioners told me the day after Summorum Pontificum was published, “This is going to bring a lot of people to the Latin Mass, because Americans like things that are extraordinary, and when they find out that the Latin Mass is extraordinary, they’re going to be attracted to it.”
The Pope repeats that the Missal of John XXIII of 1962 was never abrogated and that Celebration of the Mass according to that Missal is licit. He then underscores the fact that the conditions laid down by John Paul in the 1980s are replaced by what follows — “All things to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Q. Is there any language that His Holiness could use that is more emphatic, binding, or authoritative?
A. No, he is establishing precise juridical norms: Paul VI and John Paul II rarely, if ever, used that kind of language. He is stressing the authoritative character of this motu proprio throughout the text. The most important number here is number two: It gives every priest the right to celebrate the Traditional Mass. This is what the Pius X Society wanted. Any priest can celebrate the Traditional Mass every day except for the Easter Triduum.
This is why article 2 is so important: For celebrations in accord with one or the other missal, a priest does not require any permission, either from the Apostolic See or from his ordinary. This rule takes the power of decision regarding the Latin Mass from the bishop and grants it to all priests.
Article 3 addresses religious communities of priests and nuns. If an entire community wants to switch to the Traditional Rite, the permission can be granted by the major superior.
And article 4 says that any members of the laity who want to attend these Masses can do so.
Q. What about the rights of the faithful?
A. The Pope addresses that in article 5.1. If a “coetus fidelium” — a group of the faithful — requests the Mass, the pastor should make arrangements for it. Now, some pastors might object that the “group” is not sufficiently large. But Webster’s College Dictionary describes a group as “two or more people.” In any event, if a group of people in a parish ask for the Latin Mass, the pastor should willingly accede to their request.
Q. But what if the pastor has no knowledge of Latin?
A. If the pastor pleads ignorance of Latin, that is not an excuse that relieves him of the responsibility of providing the Mass according to the Traditional Rite. He should either learn how to celebrate the Mass himself, or find a priest who can do it for him. Article 5.2 says that the Latin Mass can be said every weekday, but on Sundays and feast days, there may be one Traditional Mass, and the rest Novus Ordo.
Article 5.3 says that the pastor can use the Traditional Rite for weddings, funerals, and other occasions.
Article 5.5 says that when a church is not a parish church, but is a chapel or shrine, it is the rector of the church who grants the permission.
The Lectionary
Q. What about the readings? Can the Novus Ordo Lectionary be used at a Traditional Latin Mass?
A. This is an important point, because, in the English translation of the motu proprio, there’s a key word missing. The first time I read it, it appeared to say that you can use readings from the Novus Ordo Lectionary in the Traditional Mass. But if you go to the Latin, you’ll find that “the readings can also be proclaimed in the vernacular.” The English translation omits the “also.”
The Latin text is clear: It means that, after the priest reads the epistle in Latin, he can turn around and read the same epistle in English. Then when he goes over to the Gospel side, and reads the Gospel in Latin, he can turn around and read the same Gospel in English.
In France and Germany, both the FSSP and the SSPX do it that way. In some churches, there is a deacon up in the pulpit, who will read in the vernacular — German, French, or whatever — while the priest is reading it in Latin.
Once this passage is understood, we realize that this has nothing at all to do with the Novus Ordo Lectionary. For example, on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, the epistle is from Romans 6, and the Gospel from Mark 8. The corresponding Mass in the Missal of Paul VI is the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings there for the A, B, and C cycles are not appropriate for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.
So it is clear that article 6 does not allow readings from the new Lectionary.
Q. It appears that this might be a place where those who want to resist the motu proprio might try to make a stand.
A. Yes, many of those who oppose the 1962 Missal want to inject the Novus Ordo Lectionary into the Traditional Mass.
Q. I think it’s a very important contribution of this interview that you have clarified that mistake in the English translation. I know many good priests whose Latin skills are rusty at best. They’re trying to work up the Latin required to say the Mass correctly, and they might not realize this very fundamental aspect of the motu proprio — that the Novus Ordo Lectionary is never to be part of the Traditional Rite.
Now, what can the faithful do if the pastor does not grant permission?
A. Article 7 addresses that. If the pastor doesn’t grant permission, then the people should inform the diocesan bishop. “The bishop is earnestly requested to grant their desire,” the Pope emphasizes. If he cannot solve the problem, the issue is to be referred to Ecclesia Dei Commission.
And here is where the increased authority of the Ecclesia Dei Commission becomes apparent.
Q. What has the Ecclesia Dei Commission done in the past?
A. They didn’t do very much because they didn’t have any authority. They used to grant special indults to individual priests who wanted to use the Missal of 1962. But then a group of American archbishops met with John Paul II and complained that their authority was being eroded because the Ecclesia Dei Commission was handing out indults to individual priests and the bishop didn’t know anything about it. Rome acceded to the request of the archbishops, and stopped giving the indult to individual priests.
Q. What could the priest do then?
A. Any priest who wanted the indult had to go to his bishop. Some bishops granted it and some did not.
Now the next articles emphasize the authority of the Ecclesia Dei Commission and make it clear that it speaks for the Holy See.
Article 8 says that, if the bishop can’t solve a problem, he is to go to the Ecclesia Dei Commission and ask for an answer.
In article 9 you have the legal extension of the Traditional Rite to all the other sacraments except Holy Orders. So that is also now taken out of the hands of the bishop. And the bishop himself can use the old Rite of Confirmation if he wants to, and priests can use the old Breviary if they want to.
The Magisterial “We”
Q. Article 10 mentions a “personal parish.” What is that?
A. A personal parish is non-territorial, based on language, nationality, or some other determining factor. The bishop can erect a personal parish according to canon 518. A normal parish is territorial. But if the situation should arise, say, in a city with four or five parishes, and the bishop decides to erect one personal parish for the Traditional Rite, that parish would be determined by persons. You know, today, if you have an Italian parish, or Polish parish, that’s a personal parish.
That’s where you would have all your personal records of Marriage, Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, and so on. That would be your official parish.
But the Pope isn’t finished! In article 11, he says that the Ecclesia Dei Commission should have all the powers and functions that the Roman Pontiff should wish to assign it. The Pope is going to keep an eye on this and he is going to rule it through the Ecclesia Dei Commission.
The Pontiff goes further in article 12: Here Benedict says that the Ecclesia Dei Commission will exercise the authority of the Holy See by maintaining vigilance over the observance and application of these dispositions. They are given real power, and the Pope is spelling it out. They have the authority of the Holy See, to which every bishop is subject
Q. This represents a great change.
A. Yes, the Pope makes the Ecclesia Dei Commission a forum to oversee the implementation of the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum.
And Benedict means business. Notice how strong the conclusion is. He uses the royal “we,” the magisterial “we.” Paul VI and John Paul II rarely did that.
“Whatever is decreed by Us [a Nobis . . . decreta sunt] by means of this Motu Proprio, We order to be firm and ratified [servari iubemus] and to be observed as of 14 September this year, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, all things to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The Latin verbs are very strong: “decreta sunt” [equals “decreed”], “servari iubemus” [equals “we order to be firm and ratified”].
Here the Pope, as Supreme Pontiff, is establishing a new law for the whole Church. That he is legislating for the whole Church is also clear from the strong introduction to the twelve articles when he says: “by the present Apostolic Letter we DECREE [the Latin equals decernimus] the following.”
Q. Father, thank you for your very helpful insights.
