| When I read the names of other persons on whom the Federation has conferred its highest honor, I was overwhelmed. This Benedictine monk who lives on the mountains of the island of Mindanao in far away Philippines suddenly finds himself in very good company.
Monsignor Burton made me understand that the award is in recognition of my “study of the Church’s liturgy, particularly the relationship between culture and liturgy”. After years of tinkering with this delicate topic, I still ask myself what relevance it has for the postconciliar Church. Does it strengthen faith, does it nourish love, and does it shepherd hope? I realize that such musings on inculturation have become idle and unprofitable in some Church quarters that seek to reform the reform willed by the council and implemented thereafter.
Dark clouds are forming ominously on the western horizon. They move hurriedly and decisively toward the direction of the sun that burns radiantly in the sky. They cast upon it their somber shadows to hide it from view. Suddenly it is dusk before the appointed time.
This is how I would describe the state of liturgical reform some fifty years after the Second Vatican Council. The reform is being put to task by a movement known as the “reform of the reform”. It carries an agenda that can have a regrettable impact on the liturgical gains of the council. The agenda is an attempt to retrieve discarded liturgical practices and paraphernalia sometimes at the expense of active participation. Proponents of the movement call it “hermeneutic of continuity” with the Church’s worship tradition. By tradition they mean the Tridentine rites, which the Roman Church jealously safeguarded for four hundred years. My name for the movement is “romantic historicism”. It severs the ties of liturgy with culture.
Has the liturgical reform of the council failed the Church so that a new reform is now needed? What would be a reasonable gauge for the usefulness and validity of the conciliar reform? My answer is the reception by the local Churches. I speak about a reception that is global, especially among developing nations and continents. In a quarter of a century the postconciliar reform had taken deep root in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. There in the span of thirty years I had a first-hand experience of vibrant but prayerful liturgical celebrations. In October 1984 convincing testimonies of the world-wide success of the reform were read during the Convention of National Liturgical Commissions, which was organized by the Congregation for Divine Worship (Congregation for Divine Worship:
Atti del Convegno dei presidenti e segretari delle Commissioni nazionali di Liturgia, Padua 1986).
I venture to say that it is a myopic appraisal of the postconciliar reform to view it largely from the spectrum of some traditional Churches. It is desirable that the critics of the liturgical reform take time and effort to experience the global Church, especially outside the northern hemisphere, and realize thereby that the Church is indeed Catholic and embraces a variety of approved forms for celebrating the liturgy. Culture has something to say about differences in liturgical rites. In Asia alone the style of celebrating the liturgy varies according to the religious culture of the people. Catholic faithful in India and Thailand are comfortable with contemplative environment for public worship, while the islanders of the Philippines value festive or jovial songs, gestures, and symbols.
I suggest that when we evaluate the merit of the postconciliar reform, our chief criterion should not primarily be whether or not the reformed liturgy is in continuity with medieval tradition represented by the Tridentine rites. The issue about rupture of liturgical tradition is a polemic question that overlooks the history of the liturgy, which time and again has undergone adjustments in textual and ritual expressions. The true issue is whether the postconciliar reform has promoted the Church’s “earnest desire” that the faithful worldwide are led to “full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations” (SC 14) and are enabled to encounter Christ through the ritus et preces of Vatican II’s liturgy. It is a type of elitism to claim that the Tridentine liturgy is still the only effective means for all the faithful in the world to enter into the mystery of Christ. It is a narrow view to regard the culture of the medieval liturgy as the perennial culture of the universal Church.
Now that the Tridentine liturgy has been officially declared as “extraordinary form” of Catholic worship, the two forms should remain distinct from each other. A combination of elements derived from either form will result in a hybrid liturgy that will certainly cause confusion among the faithful. The two forms are intended to coexist, giving to each of the faithful the right to choose which liturgical form suits best their religious needs. For this reason Pope Benedict XVI wisely and prudently allowed the bishop of the diocese to establish a personal parish where the Tridentine rituals may be used. Thus I can see no cogent reason to “reform the reformed liturgy of Vatican II” using the criteria of Trent. We owe the 1970 Missal and the worldwide Catholics that claim it our respect. In a word, let us leave the reformed liturgy of Vatican II alone and insist rather on how to foster greater interiority in its celebration.
But dark clouds are forming ominously on the western horizon. They move hurriedly and decisively toward the direction of the sun that burns radiantly in the sky. They cast upon it their somber shadows to hide it from view. Suddenly it is dusk before the appointed time.
I am reminded of a historical tidbit that might shed light or cast shadow on the future of liturgical inculturation and on the movement to reform the reform. In the eighth century the pure or classical Roman liturgy migrated to Germany. There it merged with the local Franco-Germanic liturgies noted for drama, allegory, symbol, and piety. The result was a hybrid Roman-Germanic liturgy, which the German popes (Clement II, Damasus II, Leo IX, Victor II, and Stephen IX) introduced in Rome in the tenth century and which quickly eclipsed its classical liturgy. In 1072 a Benedictine monk was elected pope. A Roman by birth, Pope Gregory VII wasted no time to restore what he called
ordo romanus or the traditional liturgy that had existed in the City of Rome “before the Germans took over its government”. However, his effort to eliminate the Germanic accretions had little success. The liturgical reform of Vatican II, on the other hand, is closer to the mark, but only time can tell when the reform of the reform will at last deflect it from its target.
Dark clouds are forming ominously on the western horizon. They move hurriedly and decisively toward the direction of the sun that burns radiantly in the sky. They cast upon it their somber shadows to hide it from view. Suddenly it is dusk before the appointed time. In reality however the dimness is caused by the passing clouds. I am confident that these cannot put the clock back to yesterday’s evening hours.
That in all things God may be glorified.
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FATHER ANSCAR CHUPUNGCO, OSB is a monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat in Manila. He is the former president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute at Sant' Anselmo in Rome, where he taught courses in the history of the liturgy and liturgical inculturation. He has served on the Philippine Episcopal Commission on Liturgy is the director of Paul VI Institute of Liturgy in Malaybalay, Philippines and is secretary of the Asian Liturgy Forum. He has served as consultor to the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, was a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy
(ICEL) for ten years and served as Chair of ICEL'S Translations and Revisions Subcommittee.