Interview with Gianni Baget Bozzo on the Traditional Mass (‘Tridentine
Mass’)
Recently,
the Italian priest and writer Gianni Baget Bozzo, for many years a close
collaborator of Giuseppe Cardinal Siri of Genoa (who was twice almost elected Pope),
raised the issue of the restoration of the liturgy in the Italian press. In an
article in the newspaper Il Giornale on 26 August 1998 entitled "Why the Latin Mass is Not a Rite for Nostalgics
Only," Bozzo set forth the arguments in favour of the "old
Mass" which an increasing number in Rome are beginning to find compelling.
"There has been an increase, in many dioceses, of the permission
granted to the faithful to celebrate the traditional Catholic Mass, which dates
back 1,800 years," Bozzo began. "The Mass is called the Mass of St. Pius V because it
was this Pope who codified its authentic text. It is also known as the
Tridentine Mass after the Council of Trent. It is in Latin, and so starting to
celebrate it again has up until now been seen as the longing of a club of
nostalgics for the past in an age of globalization."
But
the desire for the "old Mass" is more than just nostalgia and anxiety
in the face of modernity, Bozzo argues.
"The groups in favor of the Mass of St. Pius V which sprang up
immediately after the introduction of the reformed liturgy in 1970 following
the Second Vatican Council loved the beauty of the Latin language and of
Gregorian chant, and so they wanted the Mass in Latin because it was in
Latin," he writes. "But
those who are interested in the Mass of St. Pius V today are not attracted by
the Latin alone, but rather by the text of that Mass, independent of the
language."
It's
not just the Latin and the chant that is at issue, but the content of the Mass,
Bozzo argues.
"The post-conciliar reformed Mass is a different thing from the
traditional Mass," he says. "It is certainly orthodox, but it does not have the
mystical spiritual quality of the ancient Mass. The old Mass has a personal
tone. The earthly celebrant is the priest, who feels himself to be a sinner
who, as such, asks forgiveness. The people feel the same thing, and seek
forgiveness in a personal self-accusation, not in a communal one. Each person
is a sinner; collective sin does not exist. The word 'we' appears only after
the end of the penitential part of the Mass."
"Finally," he writes, "the entire old Mass is dominated by the proclamation
of the real presence (not metaphorical or symbolic) of Christ under the
appearance of bread and wine. The signs of the cross over the bread and the
wine which accompany the Canon, indicate... the renewal of the sacrifice of the
Cross. The kisses of the altar express a form of tenderness.
"There are great things in the Mass of St. Pius V that are not
found in the Mass of Paul VI. The Mass of Paul VI is marked by an affective
sterility... It is a cold Mass, to which guitars are added as an extraneous
sound, with words without doctrine and music sometimes devoid of beauty.
Could it be that there is some connection between the great crisis that
invested the Church in the 1970s and the change in the Mass? Could it be that
the crisis in priestly vocations stems from the loss of the sacrality of the
priest, well-expressed in the ancient Mass?
"If the custom of celebrating this Mass should flourish once again
among Catholics, even if only alongside the monopoly, rigorously imposed, of
the reformed liturgy, it would be a good thing," Bozzo sums up. "The
Council recognized the religious freedom of non-believers and multiplied the
liturgical forms. Can there not be freedom in the post-conciliar Church to
celebrate the Mass of the Tradition?"
It
is a good question, and one that the Pope is clearly pondering.
Postscriptum: As of 7 July 2007 the Supreme Pontiff Pope Benedict XVI, with his
Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum’, has set free from the
approval of the local Bishop the Liturgy of the Mass, the Sacraments and the
Divine Office; has declared that the classical Roman Rite, sometimes referred
to as ‘Tridentine’ (called in this Motu Proprio ‘the extraordinary form of the Roman
Rite’) never has been abolished or forbidden and must be held in honour; and
has decreed that each and every priest, in the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Sacraments and the
Divine Office, may make free use of the liturgical books which were in use
before 1970. Let us pray, that, in spite of misinformation spread by a great
part of the secular and the official Catholic press, and in spite of the
attempts of many Bishops to thwart also this Motu Proprio, as they have for
many years thwarted the Motu Proprio ‘Ecclesia Dei’ issued by Pope John Paul II
in 1988, that the Catholic Faithful will be able to claim what is rightfully
theirs, and that the Mass of the Tradition once again shall be offered upon
every altar – ‘ad laudem et
gloriam Nominis Sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram, totiusque Ecclesiae Suae
sanctae.’ (‘to the praise and glory of God’s Name, as well as for our own
welfare and that of all His holy Church!’)