Catholic Sensibility

Our convenient labels, “conservative” and “liberal,” in their simplicity, often disguise as much as they reveal. Let’s look more closely at Pope Benedict XVI’s opinions on the liturgy. I will here depend on a recent essay by Fr John F. Baldovin, SJ, of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. Fr Baldovin first recounts some familiar details – Joseph Ratzinger, a systematic theologian, taught at Bonn (1959-1963), Münster (1963-1966), and Tübingen (1966-1969), before moving to the University of Regensburg in 1969. In 1977, he was made Archbishop of Munich-Freising in Bavaria. Perhaps the most important single event in this trajectory was Fr Ratzinger’s negative response to the student riots of 1968, which supposedly turned him toward more “conservative” sympathies. Benedict XVI’s constant theme in his writing on the liturgy has been that its subject has sadly become “neither God nor Christ, but the ‘we’ of the ones celebrating.” The Pope has worried about the ubiquity of concepts such as “celebration,” freedom,” and “creativity,” and their tendency to lead to “autocelebration.” Fr Baldovin acknowledges, “I think that Cardinal Ratzinger makes a telling point when he underlines the centrality of Christ, and thus divine activity, in the liturgy. How often does one participate in a Eucharist in a progressive American parish only to find that all of the music chosen emphasizes what we do in the celebration – ‘we are Church.’ No doubt, this is an extremely valuable insight – but like all good ideas, it goes awry when overused.” Benedict XVI’s vision instead “centers on a cosmic vision of God’s going (exitus) and drawing all back to himself (reditus). … History is creation returning to its source.” Fr Baldovin notes that Benedict draws on Teilhard de Chardin’s view of transubstantiation as “the anticipation of the transformation and divinization of matter in the Christological fullness.’” And when Benedict XVI has meditated on the Eucharist, he has written, “God gives himself so that we might give.” He remembers the phrase from the Roman Canon that we offer “from the gifts that you have given us” (de tuis donis ac datis). He denies the traditionalist argument that we must consciously limit the universality of the gift of Jesus’ sacrificial death by translating the biblical peri/hyper hymön as “for the many” instead of “for you and for all.” But Benedict XVI is very anxious to preserve the primacy of divine initiative – the ordination of women, to him, would signify that the Church could just take ordination into its own hands; intercommunion, to the Pope, would mean that the Church is trying to create a unity that must properly be a reality first given to the Church. While Benedict XVI does not deny the recovery of the corporate and the communal in God’s gift of the Eucharist, he claims that, in Fr Baldovin’s words, “we have also run the risk of forgetting the dimension of personal and individual encounter with the Lord which requires a certain reverential silence.” Fr Baldovin muses on this, and suggests that this might make a good argument for placing the greeting and exchange of peace between the prayer of the faithful and the presentation of the gifts. Joseph Ratzinger’s emphasis on reverence means that he has also supported Eucharistic Adoration - even though he knows that this is a medieval development – the Catholic tradition, he says, has recognized that the presence of Christ remains in the consecrated gifts and has always surrounded them with a “reverential fear.” Does Benedict XVI’s Christocentricity and emphasis on reverence present us with a unremittingly traditionalist vision? Not quite. Joseph Ratzinger knows that the correct translation of offerre is not “to sacrifice,” but rather “to bring,” and does not miss the offertory prayers of the medieval Mass. He knows that communion was received in the hand during the first nine Christian centuries and has read with profit St Cyril of Jerusalem’s moving 4th century description of receiving communion in the hand. Benedict XVI is very much aware that the Roman Church’s liturgical language was originally Greek until the 3rd century, and feels no loss with the move to the vernacular. His main critique of liturgical reform, it seems, is that it often seems too overtly engineered, too consciously created, too focused on diversity, to avoid the danger of, well, “autocelebration.” For instance, he has criticized the Missal of Paul VI as a creation of “professors,” rather than a liturgy that emerged organically and unconsciously over time from communal prayer. Perhaps Benedict XVI’s most controversial opinion has regarded the orientation of the priest at Mass. He believes, perhaps dubiously, that Christian churches were oriented to the east instead of Jerusalem, with the cross of Christ in place of the Ark containing the Torah. The priest must then face east in expectation of the coming of the Lord, towards the cross symbolizing the Christ who will return, rising like the sun in the east. The Pope has expressed concern that the conscious moving of worship away from facing God threatens to turn the liturgy into a “self-enclosed circle.” Fr Baldovin acknowledges this unexpected consequence, “I would agree that too much depends on the personality of the priest, who must exercise enormous self-discipline in not succumbing to the temptation to put himself forward.” And Joseph Ratzinger does not necessarily want the priest to face away from the people. That’s not really the point. He has even suggested symbolizing the “liturgical east” with a cross in the center of the altar toward which both priest and people can both face. The point, in his words, is “to be able to fix our gaze, all of us together, on him who is the Creator, the one who receives us into the cosmic liturgy, and who shows us also the path of history …” Regarding music, Benedict XVI has also been controversial, using words such as “glorification” and “spiritualization” to describe a Christian music that stands in contrast to the enthusiastic delirium of “Dionysian” contemporary music. Christian music, we might say, raises us to contemplation, Rock music, on the other hand, sinks us “beneath the elemental force of the universe.” Fr Baldovin’s attitude towards rock music in the liturgy is rather similar (there isn’t a praise and worship band at Weston, one concludes). But it might be interesting to speculate on what the Pope, a very traditional if cultured European, might think of the reverential quality in the jazz liturgical music of Duke Ellington or Dave Brubeck. Well, we can say that this is a “conservative” vision in many ways. It is critical of the present, it is anxious about subjectivism and individualism, it does not make any great use of historical/critical analysis. But, as Fr Baldovin concludes, Benedict XVI’s vision reminds us of the importance of centering the liturgy on Christ, maintaining a cosmic and eschatological vision, and respecting contemplation and inner engagement, even as we continue to recognize the importance of “active participation.” Surely, “liberals,” “moderates,” “radicals,” “traditionalists,” and those of us still without labels, in our own way, must appreciate his Christocentricity and reverence. What do you think? We’d be delighted to know.