The Catholic Sanctuary
and the Second Vatican Council
By Michael Davies
The
Catholic Sanctuary and the Mass Facing East
Protestant
Hatred of the Mass and Smashing of the Altars
Clear
Distinction Between Catholic Worship and Protestant Worship
What Did Vatican II
Really Say and Mandate?
The "Liturgical
Experts" Take Over
Pope Paul VI's
Rubrics Presume Mass Facing the Altar
Placement of the
Tabernacle
New Code of
Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Return to the
Altar of Sacrifice
The Catholic Sanctuary and the Mass Facing East
"A real change in the contemporary perception of the purpose of the Mass and the
Eucharist will occur only when the table altars are removed and Mass is again
celebrated at the high altar; when the purpose of the Mass is again seen as an
act of adoration and glorification of God and of offering thanks for His
blessings, for our salvation and for the promise of the heavenly life to come,
and as the mystical reenactment of the Lord's sacrifice on the Cross."
-----Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, 1993, p.175
In the Traditional Mass of the Roman Rite the Catholic priest offers Mass in a
sacred place, a sanctuary, set apart from the rest of the church for sacrifice,
as was the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple, to which the celebrant refers
explicitly in the silent prayer Aufer a nobis as he ascends to the altar of
sacrifice: "Take away from us our iniquities, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that with
pure minds we may enter the Holy of Holies." As he recites this prayer the
celebrant is filled with the thought of the holiness of God and the awesome
nature of the mysteries that he is about to celebrate.
Throughout the centuries the Catholic people have spared no effort and no
expense to build sanctuaries which provided a worthy setting for the awesome
Sacrifice, sanctuaries which provided a foretaste of the true Holy of Holies,
Heaven itself. In the Eastern Churches the faithful are not even permitted to
witness the most solemn moment of the liturgy as it takes place behind the
ikonostasis. However, in the past three decades tens of thousands of exquisite
Catholic sanctuaries have been destroyed-----in obedience, it is claimed, to the
requirements of the Second Vatican Council. Before examining this claim it is
necessary to make a brief examination of liturgical development in the Church.
The early Christians assembled for Divine worship in the house of one of their
number who possessed a large dining room. The reason was, of course, that as a
persecuted minority the Christians could erect no public buildings. A number of
present-day churches in Rome bear the name of Christians in that locality who
had dwellings where Mass was celebrated in the first centuries. Mass was also
celebrated in the Roman catacombs on the tombs of the Martyrs, which gave rise
to the practice of imbedding the relics of Martyrs in the altar when Christians
were eventually allowed to build churches.
Our knowledge of the way Mass was celebrated increases with each succeeding
century, since there is a gradual and natural development, with the prayers and
formulas and eventually the ceremonial actions developing into set forms. The
only liturgical book used up to the fourth century was the Bible, and we have no
actual copies of liturgical books extant prior to the seventh century.
Historical factors played a crucial role in the manner in which the liturgy was
celebrated. During times of persecution, brevity and simplicity were its
principal characteristics, for obvious reasons. The toleration of Christianity
under Constantine I [324-337] and its adoption as the religion of the Empire
under Theodosius I [379-395] had a dramatic effect on the development of
Christian ritual. Congregations increased in size, and benefactions for the
building and furnishing of churches resulted in the enrichment of vessels and
vestments. Those presenting such gifts would naturally want them to be the
richest and most beautiful possible. In a parallel development, the liturgical
rites became more elaborate, with solemn processions and stress upon the awesome
nature of the rite. This elaboration of the liturgy during the fourth century
came about throughout the Christian world as the result of the liturgy's change
from an illegal and private ritual into a state-supported and public one.
THE MASS FACING EAST
The most important consideration in the building of churches and the
construction of sanctuaries was the fact that, in the East and in the West, Mass
was always celebrated facing eastward. The rising of the sun in the East each
day was seen as a symbol of the Resurrection of the Saviour and of His Second
Coming. St. John Damascene
[c. 675-c. 749] wrote:
At His ascent into Heaven He went to the East, and so do the Apostles pray to
Him; He will come again as the Apostles saw Him going, and so the Lord Himself
says: "As the lightning comes forth from the East and shines even to the West,
so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." Since we wait for Him, we pray toward
the East. This is the unwritten tradition of the Apostles.
The Second Coming was awaited with great eagerness by the early Christians;
whereas today, alas, it is something to which the typical Catholic rarely if
ever devotes a moment's thought. The East was also seen as a symbol of Heaven,
the Jerusalem above, in contrast to the Jerusalem below, toward which the Jews
turned in worship.
An erroneous argument put forward by proponents of Mass facing the people is
that "Christ, Whom the priest represents at Mass, did not sit with His back to
the Apostles at the Last Supper." Quite true, but neither did He face them
across a table. They all reclined on the same side of the table, facing
Jerusalem, just as for nearly 2,000 years of Christian history priest and people
have offered or assisted at Mass on the same side of the altar, facing the East.
Nor, incidentally, was the Last Supper a vernacular celebration. The liturgical
language of Hebrew was used, which was as different from the everyday Aramaic
used by the Jews at that time as Latin is from contemporary French.
Archaeological research proves that from the moment the Christians were allowed
to build churches, they always did so along an east-west axis. By the end of the
fourth century, it was an invariable rule in the East that churches should be
built with the apse [the semicircular end which houses the altar] at the east
end, and the same procedure had been adopted in the West by the second half of
the fifth century.
A small number of the more ancient churches in the West, in Rome in particular,
still had an apse at the west end. But where this was the case, the altar would
be constructed so that the celebrant could stand on the west side of it and thus
offer the Sacrifice facing the East. He would indeed be facing the people;
however, his purpose would not be to celebrate Mass toward them but rather to
celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy facing the East. During the first part of the
Mass, the Liturgy of the Catechumens, the people would face the altar to hear
the readings and the homily. At the end of the Mass of the Catechumens, the
celebrant would say, "Conversi ad Dominum" -----"Turn toward the Lord"-----which
meant "Turn to face the East." Then, for the duration of the Eucharistic
liturgy, the people would turn to face the East, men on one side of the church
and women on the other, and hence they would have their backs to the altar.
Protestant
Hatred of the Mass and Smashing of the Altars
Before examining what Vatican II mandated concerning the
sanctuary, reference must be made to a widespread abandonment of the eastward
celebration of the Eucharist which took place 400 years before this Council was
convoked. This was a step taken by the Protestant; Reformers in the sixteenth
century. The use of the word "Reformers" for these people is certainly a
misnomer. In reality, they were not reformers, but revolutionaries of the first
order-----men out to overthrow the existing religion and replace it with one
which they had fabricated themselves on the grounds that it conformed to the
teaching and practice of primitive Christianity.
The Protestant Reformers were united in abolishing the eastward celebration of
the Eucharist because they understood, quite correctly, that the eastward
direction signified sacrifice, and the denial of the sacrificial nature of the
Mass was an axiom upon which the entire Protestant heresy was based. Martin
Luther regarded the concept of any true sacrifice in the Mass as an abomination,
and he expressed his viewpoint in the forceful manner for which he was noted:
It is indeed upon the Mass as on a rock that the whole papal system is built,
with its monasteries, its bishoprics, its collegiate churches, its altars, its
ministries, its doctrine, i.e., with all its guts. All these cannot fail to
crumble once their sacrilegious and abominable Mass falls. [Martin Luther,
Against Henry, King of England, 1522, Werke, Vol. X, p. 220.]
This viewpoint is put even more forcefully by John Hooper, the Anglican Bishop
of Gloucester in the reign of Edward VI [1547- 1553]:
I believe and confess that the popish Mass is an invention and ordinance of man,
a sacrifice of Antichrist, and a forsaking of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,
that is to say, of his death and passion; and that it is a stinking and infected
sepulchre, which hideth and covereth the merit of the blood of Christ; and
therefore ought the Mass to be abolished and the holy supper of the Lord to be
restored and set in its perfection again. [J. Hooper, Later Writings (Cambridge:
Parker Society, 1852), p. 32.]
Because Protestants believed the Mass to be a sacrifice of Antichrist, they did
indeed abolish it, replacing it with a communion service, a mere meal, a Lord's
Supper in which Our Lord is present only in the minds of the congregation. The
Real Presence was replaced by a Real Absence.
In order to eradicate any memory of the hated Mass from the minds of the
faithful, the Reformers resolved to obliterate every vestige of it from their
communion services and from the sanctuaries in which the Sacrifice had been
offered for centuries. The program of Thomas Cranmer, the apostate Archbishop of
Canterbury, in the reign of the puppet boy-king Edward VI [1547-1553], has been
summarized perfectly by Dr. Eamon Duffy in his recent and remarkable book, The
Stripping of the Altars. This book has been universally acclaimed as a classic
of historical research, and all who read it have been struck by the fact that it
could be describing what has happened throughout the Catholic world since the
Second Vatican Council. Dr. Duffy writes:
At the heart of the Edwardine reform was the necessity of destroying, of
cutting, hammering, scraping, or melting into a deserved oblivion the monuments
of popery, so that the doctrines they embodied might be forgotten. Iconoclasm
was the the central sacrament of the reform, and, as the programme of the
leaders became more radical in the years between 1547 and 1553, they sought with
greater urgency the celebration of that sacrament of forgetfulness in every
parish in the land. The church wardens' accounts of the period witness a
wholesale removal of the images, vestments, and vessels which had been the
wonder of foreign visitors to the country, and in which the collective memory of
the parishes were, quite literally, enshrined. [E. Duffy, The Stripping of the
Altars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 480.]
THE SMASHING OF ALTARS
The replacement of altars by tables was the first objective of the English
Protestants, and this was fully in line with what had taken place in continental
Europe. Calvin taught that since Christ has accomplished His sacrifice once and
for all, God "hath given us a table at which we are to feast, not an altar upon
which any victim is to be offered: he hath not consecrated priests to offer
sacrifices, but ministers to distribute the sacred banquet." [J. Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, xviii, n. 12 (London, 1838), Vol.
II, p. 526.] This was of course a direct contradiction of the traditional
Christian teaching, handed down from the Apostles, that the Eucharist is a
sacrifice-----the renewal of the one Sacrifice of Calvary-----as well as a
sacred banquet. In the New Testament St. Paul uses the term "altar" [Heb. 13:
10] as well as the term "table of the Lord" [1 Cor: 1: 21] when referring to the
Holy Eucharist.
On November 24, 1550, the King's Council ordered the destruction of all the
altars throughout the kingdom. In the future the "Lord's Supper" was to be
celebrated on a table covered with a cloth of linen. [P. Hughes, The Reformation
in England, Vol. II (London, 1950), p. 121.] The most notorious altar-smasher in
England and Wales was Nicholas Ridley, the Anglican Bishop of London. A letter
sent to Ridley by the Council in the name of the King included certain "Reasons
why the Lord's Board should rather be after the form of a Table than an Altar."
Among the reasons given were the following:
First, the form of a table shall more move the simple from the superstitious
opinions of the Popish mass unto the right use of the Lord's Supper. For the use
of an altar is to make sacrifice upon it: the use of a table is to serve for men
to eat upon. [Thomas Cranmer, Works, Vol. II (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1846),
pp. 524-525.]
A descendant of Bishop Ridley states, in a biography of his reforming ancestor,
that the destruction of the altars was considered as sacrilege by the ordinary
people and shocked them into a realization of the full extent of the revolution
which had taken place. J. G. Ridley writes:
The removal of altars brought home to every subject in the kingdom that the
central object which had stood in the churches for over a thousand years, and
which they had watched with awe every Sunday since their early childhood, was
condemned as idolatrous and thrown contemptuously away by adherents of the new
religion which had been forced upon them. [J. G. Ridley, Nicholas Ridley
(London, 1957), pp. 218- 219.]
How sad it is that countless Catholic bishops in our time have emulated Nicholas
Ridley and thrown away contemptuously the altar which the faithful of their
dioceses have watched with awe every Sunday since their early childhood.
Commenting on the destruction of the consecrated altars of the Christian
sacrifice throughout England and Wales, Fr. T. E. Bridgett writes:
Wherever church wardens' accounts exist, we find entries similar to this of
Burnham in Buckinghamshire: "Payd to tylars for breckynge downe forten (14)
awters in the cherche." It is only from such scraps of history that we can
rebuild and repeople in imagination the interior of the desolate old churches
where countless Masses were once offered. [T. E. Bridgett, C.S.S.R., A History
of the Eucharist in Great Britain (London: Bums & Oates, 1908), p. 63.]
Is it not heartbreaking that since the Second Vatican Council, in countless
churches and cathedrals, there are entries in the accounts stating that vast
sums of money have been spent in destroying beautiful altars on which countless
Masses have been offered?
DESTRUCTION OF ALTARS, DESTRUCTION OF THE LITURGY
The rite of Mass which had once been celebrated in the devastated sanctuaries
was destroyed by the Protestant Reformers as ruthlessly and totally as the
altars upon which it was celebrated. The sublime Latin prayers of the
traditional Mass, which dated back to the sixth century and beyond, into the
mists of antiquity, were replaced by an English service from which every
specifically sacrificial prayer
had been removed. Because the Mass is a solemn sacrifice offered to God by the
priest in the person of Christ, many of the prayers----- addressed directly to
God----- had been spoken inaudibly. The Protestant Lord's Supper was not a
mystical sacrifice, a mystery, but a meal and a service of prayers and
instruction, so it was mandated that every word spoken was to be heard by all
the people.
Communion on the tongue was replaced by Communion in the hand to make it clear
that the bread received was ordinary bread and that the minister who distributed
it was an ordinary man, not a priest. Communion under one kind was replaced by
Communion under both kinds, because in every meal there should be both food and
drink. Above all, the never-to-be-sufficiently-execrated eastward position of
the celebrant at Mass was to be abandoned forever.
One of the most appalling consequences of the change from a Latin to a
vernacular liturgy was that it cut the Catholic people off completely from the
entire liturgical and musical heritage of Western Christendom. Dr. Eamon Duffy
comments:
The switch from Latin to English immediately rendered obsolete the entire
musical repertoire of cathedral, chapel, and parish church. Not least of the
shocks brought on by the Prayer Book at Whitsun 1549 must have been the
silencing of all but a handful of choirs and the reduction of the liturgy on one
of the greatest festivals of the year to a monotone dialogue between curate and
clerk. [Duffy, op. cit., p. 465.]
Has not this also happened today? At a time when young people in the West are
flocking to record shops to buy compact discs by the million of our Gregorian
musical heritage, that heritage has been banished from almost all the Catholic
churches in the English-speaking world-----despite the fact that Vatican II
mandated it as the norm for sung Masses. ["Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,"
Art. 116]. One wonders why so many bishops claiming to be loyal to the Council
do not obey it in this important matter.
The Reformation in England by Msgr. Philip Hughes is the most authoritative
account of the English Reformation yet written. Msgr. Hughes proves beyond any
doubt that the faith of the Catholic people was destroyed primarily by
liturgical changes, and he insists Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer was a prime
instrument in this destruction:
Once these new sacramental rites had become the habit of the English people, the
substance of the doctrinal reformation, victorious now in northern Europe, would
have transformed England also. All but insensibly, as the years went by, the
beliefs enshrined in the old, and now disused, rites, and kept alive by these
rites in men's minds and affections, would disappear-----without the need of any
systematic missionary effort to preach them down. [Hughes, op. cit., p. 111.]
Monsignor Hughes is referring here to a principle fundamental to every form of
liturgy: Lex orandi, lex credendi-----"The law of prayer is the law of belief."
This means that the manner in which people pray will determine what they
believe. As Msgr. Hughes has explained, when the traditional Latin liturgical
rites were replaced by new vernacular services, when the altars were replaced by
tables, and when the celebrant turned to face the people, then almost
imperceptibly, as the years passed by, the people, who were praying as
Protestants, began to believe as Protestants.
Clear Distinction Between Catholic Worship and Protestant Worship
The line of demarcation between Catholic and Protestant worship was laid down
clearly at the Reformation. The most striking differences were as follows: The
Catholic Mass was celebrated in Latin; the Protestant Lord's Supper in English.
Much of the Mass was celebrated in an inaudible tone; the Lord's Supper was
spoken audibly throughout. The Mass began with the Psalm Judica me, in which the
priest stated specifically that he was going unto the altar of God, and ended
with the sublime Last Gospel; in the Lord's Supper the Judica me and the Last
Gospel and many traditional prayers were abolished, particularly the sacrificial
Offertory Prayers. The Mass was celebrated on a sacrificial altar facing the
East; the Lord's Supper was celebrated on a table facing the people. In the
Mass, Holy Communion was placed on the tongue of the communicant by the anointed
hand of a priest; in the Lord's Supper it was placed in the hand of the
communicant. In the Mass, Holy Communion was given to the laity under one kind
only; in the Lord's Supper it was always administered under both kinds.
This clear distinction between Catholic and Protestant worship remained
unchanged for four centuries [until the Second Vatican Council], making it
clear, as John Henry Cardinal Newman expressed it, that Catholicism and
Protestantism are two different religions, and not two ways of expressing the
same faith.
What Did Vatican II Really Say and Mandate?
This brings us at last to the Second Vatican Council, which was held in Rome in
four sessions between the years 1962 and 1965. The teaching of the Council on
liturgical reform is contained in its "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy"-----Sacrosanctum
Concilium-----which is dated December 4, 1963. What precisely does the Liturgy
Constitution mandate regarding changes in our sanctuaries? The answer is brief
and simple: Nothing!
There is not a single word in the entire Liturgy Constitution of Vatican Council
II requiring a single change to be made in a single sanctuary anywhere in the
entire Catholic world.
As very few Catholics have read the Liturgy Constitution, it will be useful to
examine precisely what it actually mandated. By no possible stretch of the
imagination can it be interpreted as mandating, sanctioning or even envisaging
the virtual destruction of the traditional Roman Rite of the Mass or of the
sanctuaries in which it was celebrated.
The Liturgy Constitution contained stipulations which appeared to rule out the
least possibility of any drastic remodeling of the traditional Mass or the
sanctuaries in which it was celebrated. The Latin language was to be preserved
in the Latin rites [Article 36], and steps were to be taken to ensure that the
faithful could sing or say together in Latin those parts of the Mass that
pertain to them [Article 54]. All lawfully acknowledged rites were held to be of
equal authority and dignity and were to be preserved in the future and fostered
in every way [Article 4]. The treasury of sacred music was to be preserved and
fostered with great care [Article 114], and Gregorian chant was to be given
pride of place in liturgical services [Article 116]. There were to be no
innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly required them
[Article 23].
[Emphasis added: No one asked for the doubtful changes until it was foisted on
them and then this was by way or rationalization long afterwards when their
faith had weakened and became something less that totally Catholic-----the Web
Master.]
The Council Fathers thus had no fears that the immemorial rite of Mass, "The
most beautiful thing this side of Heaven," according to Fr. Frederick Faber,
would be subjected to revolutionary changes that would leave it virtually
unrecognizable. They would never have voted for the reform that has been
inflicted upon us. You do not need to take my word for this. I will quote one of
the greatest liturgists of this century, perhaps the greatest, the late Msgr.
Klaus Gamber. His book, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, was published in
English in 1993 and is endorsed by three cardinals. Shortly before the death of
Msgr. Gamber, Cardinal Ratzinger, the present Prefect of the Sacred Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, remarked that he was "the one scholar who, among
the army of pseudo-liturgists, truly represents the liturgical thinking of the
centre of the Church." [Cited in Testimonial by Msgr. W. Nyssen in Klaus Gamber,
The Reform of the Roman Liturgy (Roman Catholic Books, P.O. Box 255, Harrison,
NY 10528, 1993), p. xiii.] It is the army of pseudo-liturgists referred to by
the Cardinal which has invaded and devastated our sanctuaries. "One statement we
can make with certainty," writes Msgr. Gamber, "is that the new Ordo of the Mass
that has now emerged would not have been endorsed by the majority of the Council
Fathers." [Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 61.]
Precisely the same point was made by Cardinal John Heenan of Westminster, who
explains in his book, A Crown of Thorns, that liturgical reform. It might be
more accurate to say that the bishops were under the impression that the liturgy
had been fully discussed. In retrospect it is clear that they were given the
opportunity of discussing only general principles. Subsequent changes were more
radical than those intended by Pope John and the bishops who passed the decree
on the liturgy. His sermon at the end of the first session shows that Pope John
did not suspect what was being planned by the liturgical experts [my emphasis].
[ J. Heenan, A Crown of Thorns (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974), p. 367.]
The "Liturgical Experts" Take Over
Cardinal Heenan's reference to "liturgical experts" is crucial if we are to
understand the reason for the orgy of destruction in our sanctuaries which
followed the Council. Those who exercised the greatest influence during Vatican
II were not the Council Fathers, the three thousand bishops and heads of
religious orders who had come to Rome from all over the world, but the expert
advisers they brought with them, referred to in Latin as the periti. Bishop
Lucey of Cork and Ross stated explicitly that the periti were the people with
power. [Catholic Standard (Dublin), October 17, 1973.] Cardinal Heenan warned
that when the Council was over the periti were planning to use the Council
documents in a manner which the Council Fathers had not envisaged. The documents
were to be interpreted and implemented by commissions to be established after
the Council. Cardinal Heenan warned against the danger of the periti taking
control of these commissions, thus gaining the power to interpret the Council to
the world. "God forbid that this should happen!" he cried-----but happen it did.
[Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (1967; rpt. Rockford, Illinois:
TAN, 1985), p. 210.]
Article 128 of the Liturgy Constitution provides a typical example. It reads:
The canons and ecclesiastical statutes which govern the provision of external
things which pertain to sacred worship should be revised as soon as possible,
together with the liturgical books, as laid down in Article 25. These laws refer
especially to the worthy and well-planned construction of sacred buildings, the
shape and construction of altars, the nobility, placing, and security of the
Eucharistic tabernacle, the suitability and dignity of the Baptistry, the proper
ordering of sacred images, and the scheme of decoration and embellishment. Laws
which seem less suited to the reformed liturgy should be amended or abolished.
Those which are helpful are to be retained, or introduced if lacking.
Looked at with the benefit of hindsight this passage provides an open-ended
mandate for drastic change. Read the passage carefully; all its objectives are
admirable, and what possible reason could bishops who "did not suspect what was
being planned by the liturgical experts" have had for objecting to it? Every
Catholic must wish to see worthy and well planned sacred buildings. The bishops
could not possibly have foreseen an epidemic of churches which resemble badly
designed airport car parks. This is particularly the case in view of the
safeguards which are listed in part 4.
The commission established to implement the Liturgy Constitution was known as
the Consilium, and it took the extraordinary step of asking six
Protestants-----six heretics-----to advise them in drawing up their plans to
reform the liturgy of the Mass, which has been the principal object of
Protestant hatred since the time of Martin Luther. These Protestants played a
very active part in all the discussions on the reform of the liturgy, as one of
them confirmed in a letter to me. [Michael Davies, Pope Paul's New Mass (Angelus
Press, 2918 Tracy Ave., Kansas City, Missouri 64109, 1980), Appendix III.]
The fact that the Liturgy Constitution did not mandate any changes in the
sanctuary did not in the least daunt the pseudo-liturgists once the Council was
over and the bishops had returned to their dioceses. A seemingly endless series
of documents was generated, and is still being generated, by the vast liturgical
bureaucracy that has proliferated since the Council.
THE COUNCIL MISQUOTED BY THE SACRED
CONGREGATION OF RITES
Where changes in the sanctuary are concerned, the first mention is found in the
"Instruction on the Proper Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy" [Inter Oecumenici] published by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on
September 26, 1964. This document is now generally referred to as the "First
Instruction," as others were to follow. Paragraph 90 of this document reads:
In building new churches and in repairing or adapting old ones, care must be
taken to ensure that they lend themselves to the celebration of the Divine
services as these are meant to be celebrated, and to achieve the active
participation of the faithful.
The Instruction claims that this is a quotation from Article 124 of the Liturgy
Constitution-----but it is not. The Liturgy Constitution refers only to the
building of new churches and makes no reference whatsoever to repairing or
adapting existing buildings. [Emphasis added]
It is this one word, "adapting," inserted into the First Instruction, thus
misquoting the Liturgy Constitution, which forms the basis of the altar-smashers'
mandate.
Having stated incorrectly that the Council authorized the adaptation of existing
churches, the Instruction goes on in the very next paragraph, No. 91, to state:
It is better for the high altar to be constructed away from the wall so that one
can move round it without difficulty, and so that it can be used for a
celebration facing the people.
This is the first reference to Mass facing the people, and note well that it is
only a suggestion that altars should be constructed away from the wall to make
such a celebration possible. It does not actually recommend that Mass should
ever be offered facing the people. In countries such as Holland, however, a
veritable orgy of altar smashing was already underway, causing such scandal that
in 1965 Cardinal Lercaro, President of the Consilium, found it necessary to
write to the presidents of episcopal conferences stressing the fact that there
was no pastoral necessity for Mass to be celebrated facing the people and
expressing regret at the hasty and irreparable destruction of existing altars,
violating values which should be respected. [Notitiae (journal of the Consilium),
Rome, September- October, 1965; Bold text added by web master.]
On May 25, 1967, in the Instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium published by the
Sacred Congregation of Rites, it was stated specifically that "In adapting
churches, care will be taken not to destroy treasures of sacred art" [par. 24].
I well recollect reading in the newsletter of a parish in southeast London an
account of a
Protestant stonemason who had been heartbroken at having to smash an exquisitely
beautiful marble altar in a convent and to replace it with what he described as
"two great hunks of stone." As a true craftsman, he found the task utterly
repugnant, particularly as he was sure that there is not a stonemason in Britain
who could produce such superb work today. The worthy gentleman would have been
even more surprised had he been told that this act of vandalism was intended to
promote the renewal of Catholic worship. What sort of renewal can be implemented
only by destroying the holy and the beautiful? To quote Dr. Duffy once more:
"Iconoclasm was the central sacrament of the reform."
ANOTHER MISQUOTATION
The next significant document is the "General Instruction on the Roman Missal,"
published in April of 1969. Article 262 of this Instruction, while purporting to
quote Article 91 of the First Instruction, actually misquotes it. Article 262
reads:
The high altar should be constructed away from the wall so that one can move
round it without difficulty, and so that it can be used for a celebration facing
the people.
We thus have the suggestion found in the First Instruction, "It is better for
the high altar to be constructed away from the wall" ["Praestat ut altare maius
exstruatur a pariete seiuncturn . . ."] misquoted by omitting "Praestat ut" ["It
is better that"] so that it becomes an implied command: "Altare maius exstruatur
a pariete seiunctum . . ." ["The high altar should be constructed away from the
wall . . ."]. The Liturgy Constitution was thus misquoted in the First
Instruction, and the First Instruction is misquoted in the General Instruction.
However, despite this misquotation, by no possible stretch of the imagination
can Article 262 of the General Instruction be interpreted as mandating the
destruction of existing altars to make possible a celebration facing the people.
Interpreted in the light of the authentic text of Article 124 of the Liturgy
Constitution, it can only refer to the construction of altars in new churches,
not the demolition of altars in existing churches.
Pope Paul VI's Rubrics Presume Mass Facing the Altar
There is, in fact, irrefutable proof that, whatever the
intentions of the pseudo-liturgists, the mind of the Pope was that the New Mass
should not be celebrated facing the people. [Partial emphasis added]
The rubrics of the New Mass, approved specifically by Pope Paul VI, presume that
the priest will be facing the altar in the traditional manner as the norm for
its celebration. The rubrics of the 1970 Missal instruct the priest to turn to
the congregation at specific moments of the Mass and then to turn back to face
the altar, e.g., Nos. 2, 25, 104, 105, 111 and 113. These rubrics can also be
found in the General Instruction, Nos. 107, 115, 116, 122, 198 and 199. Where
the rubrics governing the actual celebration of Mass are concerned, both in the
Order of Mass and in the General Instruction, there is not one which envisages a
celebration facing the people!
Msgr. Klaus Gamber, quoted earlier, stated, "One would look in vain for a
statement in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican
Council that said that Holy Mass is to be celebrated facing the people." [Gamber,
op. cit., p. 142.]
NO MANDATORY CHANGES
Anyone wishing to see a famous church which has stuck to the letter of the law
in reordering its sanctuary and made only those changes which are mandatory
should visit the Brompton Oratory in London. The Oratorian Fathers are certainly
the most liturgically literate group of priests in Britain, and they have not
made a single change in their sanctuary because there is no law requiring them
to do so. Their magnificent altar stands just as it always has, with the
prominent tabernacle in the center.
Cardinal Ratzinger-----who as head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith is second only to the Pope in his authority in the
Church-----stated recently that the change to Mass facing the people was a
mistake. Asked to comment, Paolo Portoghesi, one of the greatest architects in
the world, with a specialized knowledge of ecclesiastical architecture, said he
was in full agreement with the Cardinal and admired his courageous stand. [30
Days, June 1993, pp. 67-68.] It may well be that we are on the verge of a return
to liturgical sanity, what Cardinal Ratzinger has termed "a reform of the
reform."
On Friday, October 21, 1995, I visited the chapel of the American College in
Rome where, at the request of the seminarians, the tabernacle has recently been
restored to its traditional place of honor in the center of the high altar. This
would certainly not have been done if mandatory legislation existed requiring it
to be situated elsewhere.
On Saturday, October 22, 1995, during a meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger, I
informed him of what had happened in the American College, and he expressed
great pleasure at the news. I asked the Cardinal whether any sanctuary changes
had actually been mandated by the Liturgy Constitution or post-conciliar
legislation. He assured me that in this legislation there exists no mandate, in
the primary sense of the term as a command, to rearrange sanctuaries. While such
changes may have been inspired by the liturgical reform they could not be said
to be required by the legislation of the Church. The Cardinal gave me his
permission to quote him to this effect.
THE PRESIDENT'S CHAIR
Another argument in favor of altar-smashing can be disposed of easily. Article
271 of the General Instruction states that the celebrant's chair should draw
attention to his office of presiding over the community and leading its prayer,
and hence the place for it is the apex of the sanctuary, facing the people. One
must state immediately that this is a description of the function of a
Protestant minister and not of a Catholic priest, whose office is not to preside
over the community but to offer the Holy Sacrifice in persona Christi ["in the
person of Christ"]. But leaving that aside, Article 271 states specifically that
there are circumstances which might militate against the presidential chair
being at the apex of the sanctuary, and therefore this cannot be considered
mandatory.
There is thus no mandatory legislation within the Church today requiring that
Mass be celebrated facing the people, let alone that sanctuaries be vandalized.
Bishops who emulate 16th-century Protestant Bishop Ridley in smashing hallowed
altars built with the pennies of the poor do so not because they have to, but
because they want to!
THE ERROR OF "ARCHAEOLOGISM"
Modern liturgists may claim that these changes bring us closer to the way the
first Christians worshipped. This may be true, but as I have pointed out, the
early Christians worshipped in the way they did-----using a table, for
example-----because they were a persecuted
minority, forbidden to build places of worship. Once the persecution ended, they
built churches which were a fitting setting for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
which was offered in an increasingly elaborate rite inspired by the desire to
render the greatest possible glory to God, to whom all honor is due. The way one
worships in a time of persecution cannot be considered the norm for a time of
freedom. [Emphasis added]
The theory that the older a liturgical practice is the better it is was
condemned unequivocally by Pope Pius XII, the greatest and most erudite Pontiff
of this century, who possessed an unrivaled knowledge of the principles of sound
liturgy. In his encyclical Mediator Dei, published in 1947, he wrote:
The liturgy of the early ages is worthy of veneration; but an ancient custom is
not to be considered better, either in itself or in relation to later times and
circumstances, just because it has the flavor of antiquity . . . The desire to
restore everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition is neither wise nor
praiseworthy . . . It would be wrong, for example, to want the altar restored to
its ancient form of table; to want black eliminated from the liturgical colors,
and pictures and statues excluded from our churches; to require crucifixes that
do not represent the bitter sufferings of the Divine Redeemer . . . This
attitude is an attempt to revive the "archaeologism" to which the pseudo-synod
of Pistoia [1794] gave rise; it seeks also to re-introduce the many pernicious
errors which led to that synod and resulted from it and which the Church, in her
capacity of watchful guardian of "the Deposit of Faith" entrusted to her by her
Divine Founder, has rightly condemned. It is a wicked movement, that tends to
paralyze the sanctifying and salutary action by which the liturgy leads the
children of adoption on the path to their heavenly Father [pars. 65-68].
This condemnation of Pope Pius XII was aimed at an
influential faction within the hitherto papally approved liturgical movement.
Pope Pius did not hesitate to denounce in the strongest possible terms certain
theories and practices promoted by this faction: "false, dangerous, pernicious,
a wicked movement, a false doctrine that distorts the Catholic notion of faith
itself." One of the pernicious theses it promoted was that the impact of the
Sacrifice of the Mass was lessened if Our Lord were already present in a
tabernacle upon the altar. But in an address to a liturgical congress in Assisi
in 1956, this great Pope warned that their true motivation was to lessen esteem
"for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle." He insisted,
correctly, that "To separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things
which by their origin and nature should remain united." If this was true in
1956, it is still true today. It is to be regretted that one of the
post-conciliar documents has actually suggested that "it is more in keeping with
the nature of the celebration" not to have the Blessed Sacrament reserved on the
altar from the beginning of Mass. [Eucharisticum Mysterium, Instruction of the
Sacred Congregation of Rites on the Eucharistic Mystery, May 25, 1967, par. 55.]
There is not one word requiring the demoting of the tabernacle in any document
of the Second Vatican Council. The tabernacle is referred to in a passage of
Article 128 which says that ecclesiastical laws governing liturgical externals
should be revised as soon as possible, in accord with the revised liturgy. Such
laws were to be amended, abolished, retained, or introduced if lacking. These
laws included those relating to "the nobility, placing, and security of the
Eucharistic tabernacle."
As noted earlier, this passage provides a typical example of what Cardinal
Heenan warned against, that is, the manner in which the liturgical experts
inserted phrases into the Liturgy Constitution which they could interpret after
the Council in a manner that neither Pope John nor the Council Fathers suspected
could possibly happen. Every Catholic must be concerned with "the nobility,
placing, and security" of the tabernacle. The bishops could not possibly have
suspected the demotion of our Eucharistic Saviour to a little box perched on a
pillar in an out-of-the-way corner of the church, or literally in an obscure
hole in the wall. How correct Msgr. Gamber was in insisting that the reform that
has emerged "would not have been endorsed by the majority of the Council
Fathers."
The first reference to the tabernacle in a document subsequent to the Liturgy
Constitution occurs in the 1964 First Instruction on the Liturgy [Inter
Oecumenici]. As this document was published less than a year after the Liturgy
Constitution and while the Council was still in session, it must certainly
represent the thinking of the Council Fathers. Article 95 of the document reads:
The Blessed Sacrament is to be reserved in a solid, burglar-proof tabernacle in
the center of the high altar or of another altar if this is really outstanding
and distinguished. Where there is a lawful custom, and in particular cases, to
be approved by the local ordinary, the Blessed Sacrament may be reserved in some
other place in the church; but it must be a very special place, having nobility
about it, and it must be suitably decorated.
The next relevant document appears exactly a year later, on September 3, 1965,
the encyclical Mysterium Fidei of Pope Paul VI. In this encyclical, which is a
papal act and of greater authority than all the documents of Roman Congregations
issued subsequently, Pope Paul VI, basing himself upon Canons 1268-1269 of the
1917 Code of Canon Law, stated: "Liturgical laws prescribe that the Blessed
Sacrament be kept in churches with the greatest honor and in the most
distinguished position." Mysterium Fidei was published while the Council was
still in session. Pope Paul VI was dedicated to the teaching of the Second
Vatican Council and would certainly not have taught anything which conflicted
with its teaching.
It is thus beyond dispute that neither the teaching of the Liturgy Constitution
nor the first two authoritative documents that deal with the sanctuary-----both
published while the Council was still in session-----envisage the tabernacle
being anywhere but in the center of the high altar or of another very
distinguished altar, as the norm, except where it is already situated elsewhere
by legitimate local custom.
It could be claimed with some justification that there are directives and
recommendations in subsequent documents of the Holy See which authorize the
moving of the tabernacle, but no requirement of Vatican II can be invoked to
support them. The first of these documents is the Instruction Eucharisticum
Mysterium, which appeared in 1967, two years after the closing of the Council.
Cardinal Heenan has been quoted to the effect that the Council Fathers did not
suspect that the experts who drafted the Liturgy Constitution were planning to
introduce changes far more radical than those the Council Fathers had intended.
Article 53 of this document provides another typical example of the technique
adopted by these experts after the Council. The article is in two parts, which
will be examined separately. The first reads:
The place in a church or oratory where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the
tabernacle should be truly prominent. It ought to be suitable for private prayer
so that the faithful may easily and fruitfully, by private devotion also,
continue to honor Our Lord in this Sacrament.
Two references are given for this passage. The first is to the passage from
Mysterium Fidei which was cited above, but Pope Paul did not state that the
tabernacle should be in a "truly prominent place" but in the "most prominent
place" ("in nobilissimo loco"), which is a very different requirement. Nor did
Pope Paul VI or any previous conciliar or post-conciliar document recommend that
the tabernacle be situated in a place "suitable for private prayer." This is not
simply a complete innovation but also a misquotation of Mysterium Fidei. The
second source given is Article 18 of the Council's Decree on the Priestly
Ministry and Life, Presbyterorum ordinis, of December 7, 1965. Does this
document suggest that the tabernacle should be reserved only in a "truly
prominent" rather than the "most prominent" place in the church? Of course it
does not! Does this document recommend that the tabernacle be located in a place
suitable for private prayer? Of course it does not! This is what it does say:
To carry out their pastoral duties faithfully, priests need to hold daily
converse with Christ our Lord by making visits to the Blessed Sacrament and by
developing a personal devotion for the Holy Eucharist.
That is it. But alas, very few people ever go to the trouble of verifying
footnotes. Thus the first sentence of Article 53 of Eucharisticum Mysterium
purports to show that Pope Paul VI and the Council state that the tabernacle
should be in a place suitable for private prayer-----which they do not-----and
then in obedience to this mythical requirement the next sentence reads:
It is therefore recommended that, as far as possible, the tabernacle be placed
in a chapel distinct from the middle or central part of the church, above all in
those churches where marriages and funerals take place frequently, and in places
which are much visited for their artistic or historical treasures.
There is no reference for this sentence, as it is a complete innovation; and no
matter how hard they may have tried, the experts could not find one source even
remotely justifying this breach with tradition. It will be noted that it
completely reverses the explicit teaching of the First Instruction and of the
encyclical Mysterium Fidei that the norm should be for the tabernacle to be
positioned in the center of the high altar or of another very distinguished
altar and that it could be located elsewhere only as an exception. Also, note
carefully that Article 53 of Eucharisticum Mysterium gives this as no more than
a recommendation. No priest or bishop is required by it to move a single
tabernacle.
But as well as being misleading, this Instruction is also self-contradictory.
The very next article, No. 54, reads:
The Blessed Sacrament is to be reserved in a solid, burglar-proof tabernacle in
the center of the high altar or of another altar if this is really outstanding
and distinguished. Where there is a lawful custom, and in particular cases, to
be approved by the local ordinary, the Blessed Sacrament may be reserved in some
other place in the church; but it must be a very special place, having nobility
about it, and it must be suitably decorated.
This, of course, is the rule laid down in the First Instruction.
What sort of legislation are we faced with when one paragraph recommends that as
a rule the tabernacle should be placed in a chapel distinct from the center of
the church and the very next stipulates that, as a rule, it must be situated on
the high altar or another very distinguished altar?
Article 276 of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal, citing Eucharisticum
Mysterium as its source, repeats the recommendation of this document that the
Blessed Sacrament be reserved in a chapel suited to private adoration and
prayer. But the same article states specifically that the structure of the
church or legitimate local custom ["juxta legitimas locorum consuetudines "] can
provide reasons for not doing this.
There are cathedrals, such as Westminster Cathedral in London [where the Office
is sung in choir each day], where the Blessed Sacrament has always been reserved
in a separate chapel. But in a cathedral or church where the tabernacle has
always been placed upon the high altar-----a practice praised and commended by
Pope Pius XII and Pope Paul VI-----to move it from this central place of honor
can only be seen as a demotion of the Blessed Sacrament.
New Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The New Code of Canon Law [1983] contains no legislation
requiring the tabernacle to be demoted from the center of the high altar, even
though it does not state specifically that it should be placed there. Canon
938-§2 states:
The tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved should be placed in
a part of the church that is prominent, conspicuous, beautifully decorated and
suitable for prayer.
There is no place in a church that is more prominent and
suitable for prayer than the high altar [if it has not been destroyed]. The
latest pronouncement concerning the tabernacle can be found in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church [1994]. It states that "the tabernacle should be located in
an especially worthy place in the church, and should be constructed in such a
way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in
the Blessed Sacrament." [No. 1379]. In No. 1183 the Catechism quotes the
encyclical Mysterium Fidei of Pope Paul VI: "The tabernacle is to be situated
'in churches in a most worthy place with the greatest honor.' " The Latin
original "in nobilissimo loco" is better translated as "the most worthy
place"-----which, as Mysterium Fidei states explicitly, is the center of the
high altar. The official English text of the encyclical published by the
Catholic Truth Society of England and Wales in 1965 translates "in nobilissimo
loco" as "the most distinguished position." In view of the fact that the
Catechism cites Mysterium Fidei, it is not unreasonable to claim that it
recommends the center of the high altar as the most appropriate place for the
tabernacle. No. 1183 also states, referring to No. 128 of the Liturgy
Constitution of Vatican Council II: "The dignity, placing and security of the
Eucharistic tabernacle should foster adoration before the Lord really present in
the Blessed Sacrament of the altar." The dignity of the tabernacle is best
affirmed by placing it in the center of the high altar.
Return to the Altar of Sacrifice
How tragic it is that the objectives of what Pope Pius XII
condemned as a "wicked movement" are now being imposed upon us as the norm for
Catholic worship. See that your flocks are not deceived, he warned, "by a mania
for restoring primitive usages in the liturgy."
It was under the guise of a return to the primitive that the Protestant
Reformers were able to destroy the Mass. Today, in the service of false
ecumenism, the Catholic ethos of our churches is being replaced by a Protestant
ethos, precisely under the guise of a return to earlier practices. No good
fruits have come from this ecumenical surrender. In no country in the western
world have the changes been followed by an increase in fervor and piety among
the faithful-----only by a massive falling away from the Faith. [Cf. Michael
Davies, Liturgical Shipwreck: 20 Years of the New Mass (TAN, 1995), Part 8.]
Msgr. Klaus Gamber certainly agrees with Cardinal Ratzinger that the change to
Mass facing the people was a mistake. He has even stated that a return to
traditional belief in the Eucharist will only come about with a return to the
traditional altar:
A real change in the contemporary perception of the purpose of the Mass and the
Eucharist will occur only when the table altars are removed and Mass is again
celebrated at the high altar; when the purpose of the Mass is again seen as an
act of adoration and glorification of God and of offering thanks for His
blessings, for our salvation and for the promise of the heavenly life to come,
and as the mystical reenactment of the Lord's sacrifice on the Cross!
[Gamber, op. cit., p. 175.]
St. Richard Gwyn, a Welsh teacher and father of six children
who was executed in 1584 for recusancy [refusal to attend Protestant services],
looked upon the desecrated sanctuaries of Wales and remarked with sadness: "Yn
lle allol; trestyl trist"-----"In place of an altar, there is a miserable
table." God grant that the "miserable tables" that have replaced the traditional
altars of sacrifice throughout the Catholic world will one day themselves be
removed and replaced by traditional altars of sacrifice. God grant too that the
traditional liturgy of the Mass will be restored together with the traditional
altars, so that our priests can once again begin the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
with the timeless words, "Introibo ad altare Dei," and so that a manifestly
sacrificial rite of Mass will be offered once more upon a manifestly sacrificial
altar.