More on Cardinal Heenan on the New Mass

Part Time Pilgrim raised some interesting and important questions in response to my recent post quoting Cardinal Heenan.

I attempted an answer to the first here, so I am now turning my attention to the second: 

2. How exactly does the OF throw doubt on the doctrine of the Real Presence?

Here I think the source of my original quotation becomes very relevant.  In his three volume work on the Liturgical Changes, Michael Davies essentially makes the case for this proposition.

The first volume is 'Cranmer's Godly Order.'  It looks at the Protestant Reformation, and at how the Mass was repeatedly re-written in order to express a theology which denied the orthodox Catholic understanding of it as the Sacrifice of Calvary, in which Our Lord's body and blood are made truly present as the same victim, being offered by the same priest, to the Heavenly Father.

What is disconcerting is that the changes which Cranmer and others initiated find uncanny echoes in the changes made by the Consilium and subsequent initiatives.

One of these, clearly is the removal of the Offertory, about which I have already blogged here.

There is also the change from regarding the altar as primarily a place of sacrifice to treating it as a table, about which I have blogged here and here.

We have also witnessed the destruction of the notion of the sanctuary as a holy place, set apart for sacrifice, about which I have blogged here and passim.

Then in the actual language of the Mass (and in particular in the emasculated translation which, thanks to our Holy Father, has finally been replaced) we found that almost all references to sacrifice and oblation have been bowdlerised.

The ritual, too, has been stripped of those signs of reverence that acknowledged the Real Presence: the genuflections, signs of the Cross, the priest's holding his fingers together lest a crumb be dropped, kneeling for communion, receiving on a tongue, the use of pattens, the use of a hieratic language...

Then there was also the introduction of innovations that served as a rupture with the pre-existing sensus fidelium, often scandalising the faithful, and ultimately (in my view) numbing them: the use of EMHCs when not absolutely necessary, the deliberate destruction of the pervasive silence that was once a characteristic of any Catholic Church (particularly before and after Mass), the practical prohibition of kneeling for communion, the admittance of women to the sanctuary and to service at the altar,and so on and so on.

Also, there was the replacement of the fundamentally vertical orientation of the Mass, focused intensely on God, as Father, Sanctifier, Priest, Victim, and Spiritual Food,  with a much more horizontal orientation, with the people attending, at least in part, to themselves as a community: the new approach placed a new emphasis on the people, typified by Mass facing the people, and an emphasis on the Mass as a time of instruction. (Don't get me wrong: I think instruction in the Faith, and knowledge of Scripture are essential: but the Mass is not the place for them.  At Mass we are learning a yet more profound lesson). 

For me, one of the changes I think really unhelpful  - and emblematic of the thinking of the 'reformers' is in the Kyrie.

We used to have a three fold  - Trinitarian -  structure:

Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison,
Christe eleison, Christe eleison, Christe eleison, 
Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison.

That was replaced with the dialogue form:

Priest: Kyrie eleison
People: Kyrie eleison

Priest: Christe eleison
People: Christe eleison

Priest: Kyrie eleison
People: Kyrie eleison

(Though if you get it in Greek, you are very lucky. Yet this is a link with the very early Church...)

Thus the  whole feel of the Mass changes: the priest and the people are talking to each other, rather than united in the worship of God (and that's why orientation is so important...)

It is quite true that much of this was changed after Cardinal Heenan's remarks: he was prescient, I think, and spotted very early on the direction of travel - what followed later was implicit from the start, from the philosophy, theology, ecclesiology and sociology of the Concilium.

It is also quite true that few, if any, of these changes were mandated by the Council Fathers.

Perhaps what is hard to see from the perspective of those of us who grew up after the changes is the massive impact of change at all.

The iconic example of this is the Canon of the Mass.  The very word Canon means that which is unchanging.  Suddenly it was changed: the Canon itself was both edited, to become Eucharistic Prayer No. 1, and made optional, with three other regular options and, eventually, countless others.

Some of these, such as EP 2, when compared line be line with the Roman Canon, are clearly less explicit about the Sacrificial Action and the Real Presence.

So my thesis is that it is the cumulative effect of these changes which has undermined a clear Catholic sense of what the Mass is, and therefore belief in the Real Presence.

It is not the sole cause - the crisis in education and the apostasy of some priests and nuns are clearly contributory factors.  But Cardinal Heenan said what he said when he said it, and what he predicted came to pass - so I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that he may have been onto something.

In terms of protestantisation, if Davies' analysis is correct - and it certainly seems cogent to me - then that case is made: the New Mass is far more acceptable to many protestants than the Old could ever have been - and was designed to be.  Protestant advisors were consultors to the Concilium.

As for feminisation, I am less clear. I think the Cardinal was suggesting that the more community-focussed 'inclusive' approach to liturgy may appeal more to women than to men, but I am wary of generalisations about the sexes.  I think our own time is one in which it is hard to see these issues clearly (every age has its own blindspots!).