The Pope as the Custodian of Tradition

There have been rumors with respect to the future (or lack thereof) for the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in the average parish. In the post-Traditionis Custodes world, there have been a range of restrictions placed upon the celebration of the TLM that vary depending on the bishop of a particular local church.

A complete prohibition preventing diocesan priests from celebrating the TLM would certainly put the final nail in the coffin of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, and would be inimical to the role of the Church as a careful custodian of the living form of tradition. And this certainly would not be consistent with the constant calls for “listening” and “accompaniment.”

In The Spirit of the Liturgy, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger describes the Church as akin to a gardener:

Just as a gardener cares for a living plant as it develops, with due attention to the power of growth and life within the plant and the rules it obeys, so the Church ought to give reverent care to the liturgy through the ages, distinguishing actions that are helpful and healing from those that are violent and destructive.

By extension of this analogy, Ratzinger describes the Supreme Pontiff as the master gardener, who “can only be a humble servant of [the liturgy’s] lawful development and abiding integrity and identity.”

In a recent interview, the Italian liturgist Andrea Grillo expressed his misgivings with respect to Pope Benedict’s desire for a mutual enrichment between the two forms of the Roman Rite as a “totally inadequate strategy and theology, fueled by ideological abstractness.” I would contend that Pope Benedict XVI was motivated by concrete pastoral wisdom and charity. His theology was always ordered toward a hermeneutic of continuity and communion. Above all, he took seriously the exhortation to guard the deposit that was entrusted to him (1 Timothy 6:20).

Contrary to Grillo, what fueled Benedict XVI was the wisdom found in Scripture and Tradition. The latter is expressed well by St. Vincent of Lérins, who is invoked with great frequency by the present pontiff :

The true Church of Christ, the sedulous and cautious guardian of the dogmas entrusted to its cared, changes nothing in them, subtracts nothing, and adds nothing. The Church does not cut off what is necessary nor add what is superfluous. The Church does not lose what belongs to it nor usurp what belongs to another. But with all its knowing, the Church applies itself to this one point: treating with fidelity and wisdom the ancient doctrine, perfecting and polishing what may, from antiquity, have been left unformed and shapeless. The Church’s task is to consolidate and to strengthen doctrine, to guard what has already been confirmed and defined. (Commonitorium, 23.16-17)

As a humble servant to the deposit, Benedict XVI was driven by a concrete idea: the role of the Church is to guard both the lex credendi and the lex orandi. And for Benedict XVI, the TLM and the Novus Ordo are “the expression of the same lex orandi of the Church.”

Consistently, Benedict XVI wanted to correct the notion that the liturgy is something that can be manipulated, manufactured, or refashioned according to our own whims.  Benedict XVI wanted to correct the notion that the liturgy is something that can be manipulated, manufactured, or refashioned according to our own whims.Tweet This

The Fathers of Vatican II 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.” When there has been an inorganic overgrowth masquerading as an authentic development within the liturgy, the Church has the task of pruning and removing these accretions, so that the meaning and beauty of the liturgy can fully flourish as the work of God.

While it has been suggested that Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum was primarily a concession to the Society of St. Pius X, Benedict himself states otherwise in his interview with Peter Seewald in Last Testament: 

It was important for me that the Church is one with herself inwardly, with her own past; that what was previously holy to her is not somehow wrong now. The rite must develop. In that sense reform is appropriate. But the continuity must not be ruptured.

Should the hour actually arrive to limit severely the celebration of the TLM, then we should all continue to do what we should have always been doing: praying, fasting, and frequenting the sacraments consistently. It would also be a time to mourn because this would be another form of alienation of individuals, families, and communities who have been sustained by the living branch of the TLM. 

We can focus on considering again the prospect of the “reform of the reform” and pray that a subsequent pontiff may realize the wisdom in the words of Benedict XVI in his letter to the bishops that accompanied Summorum Pontificum: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” 

There is nothing to be gained from worrying about what may or may not happen to the TLM, but we must continue to reorient ourselves to Jesus Christ, who comes again upon the altar during the celebration of the sacred liturgy. As we approach the 25th anniversary of Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy, we could fortify the strength of the sensus fidelium by reading (or rereading) and studying this work and the rich treasures to be discovered in his liturgical legacy. This will give us a greater appreciation of his wisdom in restoring freedom to the celebration of the TLM; and, even more, it will help us to understand and to love Christ and the sacred liturgy.

In contemplating the gift of Benedict’s theology of liturgy, we will appreciate another insight from Last Testament: 

Institutionally and juridically one cannot do much about [the impoverishment and misuse of the liturgy] at all. What is important is that an inward vision emerges, and that people learn what liturgy is from seeing inwardly—learn what it really means. We need the Church to guide us in understanding the true spirit of the liturgy and to appreciate the gift of unity within liturgical diversity. Otherwise, the Church may not be received as mater or magistra.