Quote of the Day

"Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was, in the history of the Church, one of the composers who most contributed to the promotion of sacred music, for «the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful» (Saint Pius X, Motu Proprio Inter Plurimas Pastoralis Officii Sollicitudines, November 22, 1903, 1), in the delicate and at the same time passionate context of the Counter-Reformation. His solemn and austere compositions, inspired by the Gregorian canon, closely unite music and liturgy, «both giving prayer a sweeter expression and fostering unanimity, and enriching the sacred rites with greater solemnity» (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilum, 112)."

--Pope Leo XIV, Address to Participants in Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci Foundation event, June 18, 2025

Pentecost Reflection

"On the completion of the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth (cf. Jn 17:4) the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost to be the perennial agent of the Church's sanctification; in this way believers were to have access to the Father in one Spirit through Christ (cf. Eph 2:18). He is the Spirit of life or the spring of water welling up to eternal life (cf. Jn 4:14; 7:38-39). By him the Father gives life to men, who are dead because of sin, until he shall raise their mortal bodies in Christ (cf. Rom 8:10-11). The Spirit has his dwelling in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19); that is where he prays and bears witness to the fact of adoption (cf. Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15-16, 26). He guides the Church into all the truth (cf. Jn 16:13): he makes her one in fellowship and service; he fits her out with gifts of different kinds, hierarchical and charismatic, and makes his fruits her adornment (cf. Eph 4:11-12; 1 Cor 12:4; Gal 5:22). By the power of the Gospel he gives the Church youth and continual renewal, and he brings her safe to the consummation of union with her Bridegroom. For the Spirit and the Bride say to the Lord Jesus: 'come' (Rev 22:17)."

--Lumen Gentium, 4

Synod on the Family: Perception v. Reality

by Justin Soutar

(Note: This article previously appeared on the website Catholic Online June 16, 2015 at http://www.catholic.org/news/blog/story.php?id=61153                                                           
and on the website Catholic365 July 1, 2015 at http://www.catholic365.com/article/1783/synod-on-the-family-perception-v-reality.html )


In recent months, some devout and well-meaning Catholics have been organizing and sending petitions to Pope Francis urging him not to change the Church's teachings on marriage and the family during the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family scheduled for this coming October. Most, if not all, of these petitioners are basically good, faithful Catholics who sincerely try to believe everything the Church teaches and strive to practice their faith with admirable consistency. At a time when the Church is under enormous and constantly growing pressure from an increasingly secularist world society to change her teachings on morality, human life and sexuality, marriage and the nuclear family, these loyal sons and daughters of the Church are full of concern that their Holy Mother will cave in to the wishes of her enemies—or, that she is in fact already beginning to do so, as evidenced by the controversial midterm report issued by the Extraordinary Synod last fall. These apparently rock-solid Catholics see themselves as faithful defenders of the one true Church of Christ against the malignant forces of heresy and radical secularism. Their goal is to ensure that the Church of our time will continue to faithfully adhere to and proclaim her 2,000-year-old doctrines on marriage and family life in all their splendor and integrity.


False Assumptions

But these otherwise praiseworthy and well-intentioned Catholics appear to have overlooked the fact that they have grounded their seemingly noble campaign on a few blatantly false assumptions. One of these assumptions is that the Bishop of Rome has the ability to make changes to the Church's teachings as he sees fit. If that were true, the teachings would have been changed many times by 265 Popes throughout the last 2,000 years, and the deposit of faith would never have survived intact to our own day. As Catholics, we believe that the office of the Successor of Peter is protected in a special way by the charism of infallibility, which means that the Pope is incapable of erring when teaching the whole Church on a matter of faith or morality. Pope Francis can no more change any part of the Church's doctrine than could Pope Benedict XVI, or Saint John Paul II, or any of the other Popes preceding them.

Another false assumption undergirding this petition campaign is that Pope Francis himself, in his heart of hearts, is intending to change Church teachings on marriage and family life to accommodate modern viewpoints, or is at least considering doing so under pressure from a handful of heterodox bishops, clergy, and laity. Nonsense. Anyone who really knows this man knows better than to even think such a thought. From his earliest days as a Jesuit priest right up to the present, and often amid difficult and hostile circumstances, Bergoglio's spoken and written words demonstrate an unswerving commitment to Catholic orthodoxy. Anyone who reads his homilies, letters, addresses, interviews, and other public statements as priest, bishop, Archbishop and Pope can verify his record as a faithful son of the Church in that regard. There is no talk whatsoever of changing any part of Catholic doctrine to better suit modern tastes. On the contrary, Bergoglio's clear affirmations of traditional Church teaching on all manner of topics is both refreshing and reassuring.

But the worst assumptions of all by these Catholic petitioners are 1) that the Church herself has the ability to change some of her teachings, and 2) that she is actually going to do this at the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family, that it will be a “heretical” Synod. Both these fears are groundless. To begin with, the Church cannot change any of her teachings any more than the Pope can do so. As Catholics, we believe that the charism of infallibility is bestowed not only on the visible Head of the Church on earth, i.e. the Pope, but on the Church herself as a whole as well. We believe that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error. Specifically, the Church is infallible when the Pope, and the bishops united with him, declare that such and such a doctrine of faith or morality is to be definitively held by all the faithful.


An Advisory Body

Secondly, it should be pointed out that the primary task of the Synod of Bishops—a relatively new institution in the Church which was created by Blessed Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council—is to advise the Pope on matters of Church governance and discipline, and thereby to assist His Holiness in applying Church doctrine to current pastoral situations throughout the universal Church. The purpose of the Synod is to foster greater collegiality within the Church by facilitating more effective collaboration between the Pope and the bishops in the governance of the Church. By means of the Synod, bishops from every part of the Catholic world in union with Rome freely and frankly communicate to the pontiff the problems and concerns of their particular Churches, along with their discussions and opinions on such problems and concerns, related to a certain theme chosen by the Holy Father (i.e., “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization”). The Pope listens to all of this feedback and, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, uses it to make wise and sound decisions for the future of the Church.

The Holy Father then communicates his decisions to the bishops and the whole Church by means of a written document called a post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, in which he “confirms his brothers” (cf. Luke 22:32) in their faith and issues binding pastoral guidelines. Such an infallible papal document is the only text having anything to do with a Synod that carries official magisterial teaching and decision-making authority for the whole Church. As a representative institution, the Synod of Bishops is first and foremost an advisory body to the Holy See; it has no decision-making authority or magisterial teaching authority apart from the Successor of Peter. Thus, the idea that a Synod can alter Church doctrine is contrary to the fundamental nature of the Synod itself as an advisory organ. Every few years, the Pope calls his brother bishops to meet with him in the Vatican for a few weeks to hear what they have to say. The bishops do not go to Rome to help the Pope change Church teaching, which he can’t do anyway—and even if they were to try to abuse the Synod to that end, their efforts would come to nothing thanks to the charism of infallibility.


Unofficial Documents

Upsetting and misleading as some of its statements were, the highly controversial 2014 Synod midterm report issued last October was not an official teaching document of the Magisterium and was never intended to be treated as such. It was nothing more than an inaccurate and heavily biased summary of the bishops' discussions up to that point that reflected a heretical agenda by certain groups of people who are attempting to manipulate the Church's internal affairs in order to advance their own agenda. Such attempts to influence the Church to change certain of her teachings have been made by rebellious bishops, priests, and laypeople on numerous occasions over the course of 2,000 years—most recently in the decades following the Second Vatican Council—but none have ever proven successful. In each case, what actually happened was that those bishops, priests, and laity who pridefully rejected certain Church doctrines found themselves ipso facto estranged from their Holy Mother—i.e., instead of changing Church teaching to suit their own ideas, they found that they had voluntarily renounced their membership in the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church and were now marked for all time as heretics and schismatics.

Although not an official teaching document itself, the final report of the 2014 Extraordinary Synod clearly reaffirmed traditional Church doctrines on marriage and family life and the incompatibility of certain lifestyles with Catholic moral teaching, thus offering considerable reassurance to the troubled and confused faithful that the Synod on the Family is indeed on track to fulfill its mission. Even the three most controversial paragraphs in the document, nos. 52, 53, and 55, did not attack Catholic doctrine or indicate that the norms regarding reception of Holy Communion are about to be changed in any significant way; nos. 52 and 53 merely called for close theological examination of sacramental and spiritual Communion in regard to those who are divorced and remarried. It does not necessarily follow that there will be any change in the current discipline. Pope Francis will certainly listen to and consider the recommendations he is given by theologians who are commissioned to study the subject, but it is he who will make the final decision for the whole Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Following the Second Vatican Council, many Catholic theological experts urged Paul VI to approve the use of artificial contraception by Catholic married couples. The pontiff proceeded to write and publish his magnificent encyclical Humanae Vitae, which explicitly reaffirmed unchangeable Church teaching on the matter, and the rest is history.


Myth v. Reality

Catholic doctrine cannot change; that much is clear. Church discipline and pastoral practice, on the other hand, is subject to a certain degree of flexibility in order to suit the needs of different times; therefore, it has gone through various, necessary, and occasionally even significant revisions over the past two millennia, usually as a result of Church councils and for purposes of reform. This legitimate mutability of discipline has some people very worried at present. One of the chief fears of the good Catholics referred to above is that, as a result of the upcoming Synod, traditional Church teachings on marriage, family life, and mortal sin will be severely undermined by the official approval of new pastoral practices that directly contradict the teaching. But, as with the other false assumptions discussed above, it is simply not possible for this to occur. Official Church discipline must always reflect official Church doctrine; it cannot be altered to the point where it flies in the face of Church teaching. The discipline can only change within the narrow limits set by canon law. For example, a Catholic who is conscious of being in the state of mortal sin has always been forbidden to partake of Holy Communion until he or she receives the Sacrament of Penance. That norm cannot and will not be changed by Pope Francis or the upcoming Synod.

On the other hand, however, as a result of fallen human nature, the implementation of ecclesiastical discipline is not always a straightforward affair. As with Church doctrine, so also with Church discipline throughout history certain bishops, priests, and laypeople have attempted to substitute their own preferences for what the Church says, based on some excuse or other. This is exactly what happened with the Second Vatican Council, when all manner of heretical notions and illicit practices were justified under the vague mantle of "the spirit of Vatican II." Although the teachings of the Council itself were entirely orthodox and the liturgical, pastoral and disciplinary changes it introduced were fully in accord with those teachings, the general public perception of the Council was a far cry from the reality of what the Council Fathers officially said and did. As a result of this unfortunate discrepancy between the myth and the facts of Vatican II, the post-Conciliar period was marked by a great deal of confusion and difficulty for the Catholic Church. Heretical ideas proliferated among the hierarchy, clergy and laity; liturgical experimentation knew no bounds; millions left the Church, no longer recognizing their beloved Mother; small groups of schismatic traditionalists claimed to be the remnant of the “true faithful.” Blessed Paul VI, who had brought the Council to a successful conclusion, famously lamented that “the smoke of Satan has entered the Church.” At least for a time, the Bride of Christ appeared to have lost her way.

Here we must acknowledge that there is in fact a certain real danger for the Church at the present moment in her history. This danger is that—just as happened with the Second Vatican Council--certain bishops, priests, and laypeople will view the Synod on the Family through the colored lenses of their personal whims and wishes, and as a result will end up saying and doing anything they please using "the spirit of the Synod" as a cover. Unfortunately, those in the secular news media, which is increasingly hostile to the Church, have already embedded in the public mind their own grossly inaccurate portrayal of the 2014 Extraordinary Synod as the first clear step by the Church hierarchy toward a radical transformation of Catholic doctrine and discipline on the subjects of marriage and family life. By projecting this false and misleading image of the Synod on the Family—which is the brainchild of Pope Francis and has nothing whatsoever to do with changing Church teachings—unscrupulous journalists are raising vain expectations among the Church's enemies, including heretical dissenters, of official doctrinal and disciplinary changes that cannot and will not take place, while providing fresh fodder for schismatic traditionalist conspiracy theorists who claim that the Church is “going heretical” and that they are the sole remaining guardians of orthodox doctrine.

 
Reasons for the Synod

Given the considerable risks involved, one may ask why Pope Francis has called this Synod on the Family—an unusual double Synod at that—and what he hopes to accomplish by it. As someone who grew up in a closely-knit Italian family in Argentina, Francis understands the critical importance of the traditional nuclear family in God's plan for human society in general and for the Church in particular. He is painfully aware that this traditional family unit, the basic cell of society, is under tremendous attack and facing many difficult challenges in our increasingly secularized contemporary world. He realizes that the Church has a duty to reaffirm the truth of her beautiful teachings on marriage and family life and to examine how these timeless teachings should be applied to Catholic families and family members within the context of the present situation. Thus, Pope Francis has called this Synod primarily for pastoral reasons, in order to reassure modern Catholic families that the Church is there to offer them meaningful help and sound guidance in addressing the challenges they currently face.

As to what he hopes to accomplish through this Synod, clearly Pope Francis wants to strengthen intact Catholic families in order to help them more fully live out their beautiful witness of God's plan for marriage and family life in an increasingly individualist and radically secularist environment. At the same time, Francis wants the Church to more effectively reach out to the hundreds of millions of Catholics who are in mortally sinful "irregular situations"--e.g., drug addicts, those who are cohabitating, married couples who use artificial contraception, the divorced and remarried, those in homosexual relationships, those who no longer practice their faith, and so forth—in order to invite them to experience the Lord's mercy by repenting of their sins and returning to full communion with the Catholic Church. In this regard, Pope Francis simply wants the Church to do what Christ would do, which is to seek out sinners and call them to repentance and conversion—to go in search of the lost sheep that have strayed from the fold. Francis correctly perceives that the modern Church has grown a bit lax in this area, with many of her shepherds preferring to stay comfortably inside the fold with the "good sheep" while ignoring and forgetting about those wayward sheep in the wilderness who are in danger of being lost forever. Thus Francis, an experienced and genuine pastor, wants Church leaders to step outside of their comfortable offices and their comfort zones, to reach out to the peripheries of their parishes and dioceses and invite the lost sheep to return home.

In this context, the Synod on the Family is meant to help rebuild a worldly and weak Church, first by strengthening good Catholic families that are “inside the fold,” and secondly by healing and repairing many of those wounded and damaged Catholic families that are “lost in the wilderness”—the latter to be accomplished primarily by inviting many individual grave sinners to repentance and conversion. Altering Church doctrines on marriage, family life, and sin will not be part of this equation; nor will the basic norms currently in force regarding the proper reception of Holy Communion see any significant change. So regardless of unfortunate misunderstandings and misperceptions that swirl around the Synod on the Family generated by media pundits, heretics, and schismatics, and regardless of serious problems that may arise with its implementation, it is the opinion of this author that the Synod itself—like the Second Vatican Council—is the fruit of a genuine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who “leads us into all truth” (cf. John 16:13), who protects the Church from teaching error, and who in every age is the real Protagonist of needed reform and renewal within the Mystical Body of Christ.


Opposing Viewpoints

As a result of last year’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Pope Francis is keenly aware of two opposing viewpoints within the Church today: there are some who correctly understand and heartily support his Christ-like mission to have the Church reach out more effectively to sinners, and there are others—misled by the mainstream media and their own irrational fears of doctrinal changes—who reject this courageous initiative for seemingly laudable reasons, preferring to take shelter within the secure confines of the Church they have always known and which they are afraid to lose. Francis himself neatly summed up this dichotomy and the merciful mission of the Church in his homily to newly created Cardinals on February 15, 2015:

There are two ways of thinking and of having faith: we can fear to lose the saved and we can want to save the lost. Even today it can happen that we stand at the crossroads of these two ways of thinking. The thinking of the doctors of the law, which would remove the danger by casting out the diseased person, and the thinking of God, who in his mercy embraces and accepts by reinstating him and turning evil into good, condemnation into salvation and exclusion into proclamation....

The Church’s way, from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, has always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement. This does not mean underestimating the dangers of letting wolves into the fold, but welcoming the repentant prodigal son; healing the wounds of sin with courage and determination; rolling up our sleeves and not standing by and watching passively the suffering of the world. The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for eternity; to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart. The way of the Church is precisely to leave her four walls behind and to go out in search of those who are distant, those essentially on the ‘outskirts’ of life. It is to adopt fully God’s own approach, to follow the Master who said: ‘Those who are well have no need of the physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call, not the righteous but sinners’ (Lk 5:31-32).

A Divine Institution

So while the petition drive currently underway to Pope Francis may in one respect be considered a hopeful sign of certain lay Catholics' fidelity to Church doctrine, it is a wholly unnecessary, quite useless, and ultimately misguided endeavor. If the Church were exclusively a human institution, built on the sand of fallible human ideas and protected and defended by human effort alone, their grave concerns about her future would indeed be fully justified. The Church, however, although comprised of weak and sinful human members, is fundamentally a divine institution, built by Christ Himself on the Rock of Peter, and we have His word that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (cf. Matt. 16:18). The fundamental problem with these otherwise good Catholics who are pleading with Pope Francis not to change Church doctrine on marriage and family life is that they do not really fully believe that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error, nor do they really fully trust that God is in command of His own institution. Because of this reprehensible lack of faith and trust, at the root of which is the original sin of pride, these Catholic fundamentalists run the risk of refusing to obediently submit to the magisterial teaching authority that God Himself has established and guaranteed, and instead taking it upon themselves to decide what the Church should do and teach. They share this lack of faith and trust in common with schismatic traditionalists, and in fact are just one step away from joining their ranks.

These worried and fearful Catholics would do well to reread certain parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and rediscover the basic truth that the Church ultimately belongs not to us, but to the Lord. As Pope Benedict XVI candidly declared not so long ago in his final General Audience address of February 27, 2013, at a time when many Catholics were filled with grave concern for the Church’s future: “I have felt like Saint Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee:…there were also moments when the waters were rough and the winds against us, as throughout the Church’s history, and the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I have always known that the Lord is in that boat, and I have always known that the barque of the Church is not mine but his. Nor does the Lord let it sink; it is He who guides it.” We should also recall the oft-repeated words of Saint John Paul II, the simple words of Christ Himself: “Do not be afraid!” This is not a time for illogical fears and useless anxiety, but rather a time for renewed faith and lively hope. Instead of wringing our hands anxiously about what may happen to our Holy Mother the Church in the near future, let us take this wonderful opportunity of the Synod on the Family to renew our faith and trust in God, who will continue to protect His Church and guide her safely through the storms of temporary difficulties to the glory of eternal life.


Copyright © 2015 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

To an Authentic and Renewed Conversion: Vatican II and the Year of Faith

(Note: I've already published two much longer versions of this article, one as a four-part series on EzineArticles and one here on my blog, but this much shorter version is neat and tidy and just gives you the essentials. Since I have not found a home for it elsewhere and since the Year of Faith is now drawing to a close, I thought I'd share it with my readers here.)

“To an Authentic and Renewed Conversion”: Vatican II and the Year of Faith

by Justin Soutar

***(Note: All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Bible.)***

On October 11, 2011, in an Apostolic Letter entitled Porta Fidei (The Door of Faith), Pope Benedict XVI declared a Year of Faith from October 2012 through November 2013 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. This Holy Year, according to Benedict, "is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world.” [1]

Why did Benedict declare this Year of Faith? In his message to young people gathered for World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, in August 2011, he observed: “Today we are seeing a certain ‘eclipse of God’ taking place, a kind of amnesia which, albeit not an outright rejection of Christianity, is nonetheless a denial of the treasure of our faith, a denial that could lead to the loss of our deepest identity.” [2]

Benedict was aware that Europe and the West today are gradually losing touch with their Christian heritage, allowing God to fade into the background and become irrelevant to social and political life. This insidious “amnesia” not only threatens to cut modern Western civilization completely off from its Christian roots—with disastrous consequences for the entire world—but has also begun to subtly infect the minds and hearts of individual Christian believers, weakening their faith and leading them away from Christ.

What better way to respond to this “’eclipse of God’” and combat this “amnesia,” this “denial of the treasure of our faith,” than to summon the whole Church “to an authentic and renewed conversion” to her Lord Jesus Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2) and “the one Savior of the world”? This Year of Faith is meant to revitalize and reform the Church so that it can more effectively carry out its mission of proclaiming Christ to the whole world.

The Holy Spirit obviously inspired our previous Vicar of Christ to proclaim this Year of Faith in response to the needs of the Church and the world at this particular moment in human history. In light of "a profound crisis of faith" that has gripped contemporary human society and culture, Benedict pointed out "the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ.” [3]

The primary objective of the Second Vatican Council was to preserve and hand on the deposit of faith. Although they include pastoral instructions and guidelines, the documents of Vatican II are primarily official dogmatic (teaching) documents of the Church’s Magisterium, written by the Catholic bishops of the world in union with the Successor of Saint Peter and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In Porta Fidei, quoting his great predecessor, Benedict says:

…the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church’s tradition…I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” [4]

According to Benedict XVI, the Second Vatican Council can only fulfill its potential for renewing the Church “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic.” [5] In an address to the Italian bishops’ conference last year, our previous Holy Father identified this “right hermeneutic” as “a hermeneutic of continuity and reform.” [6] This double hermeneutic points to the essentially twofold nature of Vatican II and is the “key” to unlocking the Council’s inner meaning.

The fundamental objective of the Council was to preserve and transmit Catholic doctrine “in continuity with the 2,000-year-old Tradition of the Church.” [7] In his opening address to the Council on October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII stated: “The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.” [8] In accord with this directive, the Council Fathers carefully examined, further developed, and handed on to succeeding generations—while preserving fully intact—the unchanging doctrines of the Faith in a series of authoritative documents called dogmatic constitutions.

The second key term in the “right hermeneutic” for correctly understanding and implementing the Council is “reform.” While carefully preserving and handing on the deposit of faith, the Sacred Liturgy, the sacraments, and prayer in unbroken continuity with the Church’s ancient tradition, the Council introduced many liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms into the Church’s life to enable the Church to more effectively carry out her mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying believers and of evangelizing non-believers in the context of the modern world. Thus the Council’s liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms must be kept within the framework of doctrinal and liturgical continuity.

Due to incorrect interpretation and implementation of the Council in the decades following it, Vatican II and its documents have often been misconstrued as a radical break with the Church’s tradition, when in fact they are an organic growth and development of that tradition. None of the Council documents contain new teachings; they merely re-enunciate, synthesize, and develop further what the Church has always believed and taught, and thus are meant to be read and understood within the context of the Church’s 2,000-year tradition.

By summoning us “to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world” during this Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI called us to return to the basic essentials of our Christian faith that the Second Vatican Council proclaimed anew to the modern world. Benedict said that “we should learn the simplest and most fundamental lesson of the Council: namely, that Christianity in its essence consists of faith in God which is Trinitarian Love, and in a personal and community encounter with Christ who orients and gives meaning to life. Everything else flows from this.” [9]

As an “eclipse of God” slowly darkens our modern age and “a profound crisis of faith” takes hold on it, the basic truths of our faith proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council—and proclaimed anew to the Church and the world by Popes John Paul, Benedict, and Francis—shine ever more brilliantly: God exists. He is real. He loves us and hears our prayers. Man is an essentially religious being made in the image and likeness of God, and only in relationship to God, his Creator, does man discover his true identity and dignity and grasp the real meaning and purpose of life.

Perhaps no better prayer for this Year of Faith can be said than that of Benedict XVI: “May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and of the whole Church, help us to achieve and to bring to completion what the Council Fathers, motivated by the Holy Spirit, pondered in their hearts: the desire that all might know the Gospel and encounter the Lord Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” [10]

Copyright © 2012, 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

ENDNOTES

1. Porta Fidei, no. 6.

2. Message for the Twenty-Sixth World Youth Day (2011), no. 1 [Bold/italics added] http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/youth/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20100806_youth_en.html

3. Porta Fidei, no. 2.

4. (Porta Fidei, no. 5 [Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 57]) [Bold/italics added].

5. Porta Fidei, no. 5 [Bold/italics added].

6. Address to the General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, May 24, 2012 [Bold/italics added]. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2012/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20120524_cei_en.html

7. Ibid.

8. Quoted in Address to Italian Bishops, May 24, 2012 [Bold/italics added].

9. General Audience, October 10, 2012.

10. Ibid.

To an Authentic and Renewed Conversion: Vatican II and the Year of Faith

by Justin Soutar

***(Note: All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Bible unless otherwise noted.)***



On October 11, 2011, in an Apostolic Letter entitled Porta Fidei (The Door of Faith), Pope Benedict XVI declared a special Year of Faith from October 2012 through November 2013 to comemmorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. This Holy Year, according to Benedict, "is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world" (Porta Fidei, no. 6). By declaring this Year of Faith, our former Supreme Pontiff invited all members of the Church to reflect seriously on their faith, to rediscover its tremendous riches, to strengthen and deepen their personal faith, and to practice that faith more fully and defend it more courageously in their everyday lives.


“A Profound Crisis of Faith”

Why did our previous Holy Father declare this Year of Faith? A hint to the answer may be found in a statement Benedict made in his message to young people gathered for World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, in August 2011, two months prior to the release of Porta Fidei: “Today we are seeing a certain ‘eclipse of God’ taking place, a kind of amnesia which, albeit not an outright rejection of Christianity, is nonetheless a denial of the treasure of our faith, a denial that could lead to the loss of our deepest identity.” [Bold/italics added]

As a man of deep faith, great learning and profound wisdom, Benedict XVI has a sincere appreciation for the priceless treasure of our Catholic religion. He knows that the Catholic Church built Western civilization and that all the great cultural, intellectual, political, social, economic, scientific, and technological achievements this civilization has bestowed on the world over the centuries have their roots in a Christian society built on faith in God. Benedict is also aware that, under the increasing influence of a radically secularist ideology, Europe and the West today are gradually losing touch with their Christian identity and heritage, allowing God to fade into the background and become more and more irrelevant to social and political life. This insidious “amnesia” not only threatens to eventually cut modern Western civilization completely off from its Christian roots—with disastrous consequences for the entire civilized and globalized world—but has also begun to subtly and unconsciously infect the minds and hearts of individual Christian believers, weakening their faith and leading them away from Christ.

What better way to respond to this “’eclipse of God’” and combat this “amnesia,” this “denial of the treasure of our faith,” than to summon the whole Church “to an authentic and renewed conversion” to her Lord Jesus Christ, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb. 12:2) and “the one Savior of the world”? In other words, the Year of Faith is meant to revitalize and reform the Church so that it can more effectively carry out its mission of proclaiming Christ to the whole world. It is meant to strengthen believers in their Christian commitment so that they can help rebuild a crumbling civilization on its basic foundational principles—and through this rebuilding, the entire world will be renewed. The Holy Spirit obviously inspired our previous Vicar of Christ to proclaim this Year of Faith in order to respond to the needs of the Church and the world at this particular moment in human history.

Benedict XVI observed in Porta Fidei that whereas in the past, the vital importance of faith in shaping human society and culture was taken for granted, today this is no longer the case (cf. Porta Fidei, no. 2). Radical secularism increasingly confronts religious believers with the strange idea that faith is an exclusively private and individual matter that must not be allowed to shape or influence public life in any way. This notion contradicts the intrinsic nature of authentic Christian faith, which must be publicly professed and shared with others. “A Christian may never think of belief as a private act,” maintained the Holy Father, echoing similar words of Pope John Paul II. “Faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with him…Faith, precisely because it is a free act, also demands social responsibility for what one believes” (Porta Fidei, no. 10). In light of "a profound crisis of faith" that has gripped contemporary human society and culture, Benedict pointed out "the need to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ" (Porta Fidei, no. 2).


The Journey of Faith—An Encounter with Christ

What is faith? “Faith is the virtue by which we firmly believe all the truths God has revealed, on the word of God revealing them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived” (Baltimore Catechism #3, no. 122). Faith is “the full surrender of ourselves to God and the acceptance of his truth insofar as it is guaranteed by the One who is truth itself” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 25). “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the proof of things that appear not” (Heb. 11:1) [Douay-Rheims Version]. Christian faith is not a blind groping in the dark for some cosmic Deity that we vaguely suspect may exist or a set of abstract intellectual speculations about some Higher Power. On the contrary, it is based on the light of divinely revealed truth. Faith presupposes that God has revealed himself to man and that man can know the truth about God with certitude. “We live faith, not as a hypothesis, but as the certainty on which our life is based.” (Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005, pp. 19-20 [Bold in original]) Faith is a free gift from God and man’s free response to that gift with the help of divine grace.

For us Christian believers, faith is an encounter and a relationship with a Person who loves us—Christ, the Son of God, who became man, suffered, died, and rose from the dead to take away our sins. This encounter and loving relationship gives meaning and direction to our lives. The “journey of faith” begins with Baptism, which gives us a share in God’s Trinitarian life and incorporates us into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church (cf. Porta Fidei, no. 1). We are aided on the journey by various sacraments: Confirmation, which strengthens us in our commitment to Christ; Penance (or Reconciliation) and Anointing of the Sick, in which we receive God’s mercy and healing; the Holy Eucharist, which renews Christ’s living presence within us; Holy Orders and Matrimony, which help us follow Christ faithfully in specific states of life. The journey of faith “ends with the passage through death to eternal life” (Porta Fidei, no. 1). Christ’s Resurrection from the dead—a real historical and physical event—is the basis of our Christian faith: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain” (1 Cor. 15:17).

Unfortunately, due to poor catechesis, some Catholics today have an inadequate and undeveloped view of faith, seeing it in negative legalistic terms. For them faith is simply the grudging acceptance of a set of boring, archaic dogmas imposed by an authoritarian hierarchy that unnecessarily burdens and constricts their lives. This minimalist, distorted version of faith is utterly powerless in the lives of its adherents and completely unattractive to potential believers. These persons have never experienced faith as the exciting journey and positive liberating force that it is meant to be. There is nothing boring about an authentic personal encounter with Christ. Such an encounter is a transformative, life-changing experience that fills a person with joy and motivates him or her to witness Christ to others.


“An Authentic and Renewed Conversion”

During this Year of Faith, we are invited to rediscover the challenge and adventure of the journey of faith through “an authentic and renewed conversion” of mind and heart to Christ. The word “conversion” comes from a Greek word metanoia, which means “change of life” or “change of perspective.” So we members of the Church—who already call ourselves Christians and believers—are called to change our ways of thinking and living so that they conform more closely to those of Christ and His Gospel. Some people think of conversion as a once-in-a-lifetime, “road to Damascus” experience that is only necessary for nonbelievers or for those who have abandoned the practice of their faith. Not true! Conversion is also necessary for those of us who already call ourselves Christ’s followers, and for us it’s an ongoing, lifelong process because we are weak, sinful human beings who often fail to live up to our vocation as Christians. Moreover, our faith in Christ tends to grow weak as we allow our ways of thinking and living to be (often unconsciously and gradually) corrupted by the anti-Christian attitudes of the world in which we live. Thus in order to remain strong in our faith, we must constantly be turning towards Christ, renewing our commitment to follow Him faithfully, and allowing our ways of thinking and living to be shaped by his Gospel. Saint Paul reminds us: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).

Being a disciple of Christ means first of all believing that He is the Son of God, but it also means listening to His teachings, obeying His commands, and following His example. Christ challenges us: “’Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me’” (Mt. 16:24). He says, “’Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you’” (Jn. 6:53). He says, “’Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me’” (Mt. 25:40), and “what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me’” (Mt. 25:45). He also says, “’Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand’” (Mt. 7:26), and “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt. 7:21). In these and many other teachings in the Gospels, Christ makes it clear that authentic discipleship is not merely an intellectual exercise of belief in Him; it is an ongoing personal relationship with Him, and it demands certain things of us. Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, but (contrary to the claim of Protestant reformer Martin Luther) “faith alone” is an unbiblical concept and insufficient for salvation. Our faith must be put into action, or else it is useless. “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Jas. 2:17).

All of the recent Popes have made a general observation that there is an unacceptable gap between what we Catholics believe and how we live our daily lives. In other words, while we call ourselves Christians, our faith in Christ is superficial and compartmentalized, failing to profoundly affect our whole lives as it should. In fact, a convincing case could probably be made that most of the great evils of the twentieth century—and many of those of the preceding Christian centuries—had their origin in the failure of Catholics to properly live out their faith. Moreover, this failure is certainly at least partly to blame for the current crisis of faith in the modern world. When Christian believers act in a manner contrary to the demands of the Gospel, they betray Christ and his Church, give scandal to fellow Christians and discredit the faith in the eyes of nonbelievers. The Year of Faith is a reminder to all of us followers of Christ that what we believe and how we live must go together in a single, harmonious whole.

The blessed in Heaven, those who followed Christ faithfully on earth throughout the past twenty centuries, are our exemplars for how to live the Christian journey of faith. In a special way, the Church holds up for our imitation the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, she who was called “blessed because she believed” (Lk. 1:45), as the perfect model of Christian discipleship. Pope Benedict also called Mary “the Mother of Missionaries” because she was the first person to joyfully share her experience of Christ with someone else when, after having conceived Him in her womb, she traveled to visit her relative Elizabeth (cf. Lk. 1:39-56). In our own time, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Blessed John Paul II gave us powerful examples of what persons authentically and totally converted to Christ and His Gospel could accomplish for the Church and the world. The secret to their spectacular success is that they were unafraid to allow the full potential of the Christian faith to be unleashed in their lives. They were not perfect human beings, but they were constantly aware of their need for repentance and conversion, constantly renewing their commitment to Christ. Their witness should inspire and encourage us as we walk the journey of faith. Furthermore, since we’re united with them in the Communion of Saints, we should request their intercession for the graces we need to persevere on the journey towards our heavenly destination.


Vatican II and the Year of Faith

But what does the Year of Faith have to do with the anniversary of the start of Vatican II? A great deal, because the primary objective of the Second Vatican Council was to preserve and hand on the deposit of faith. According to Benedict XVI, the timing of the Year of Faith to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican II provides an opportunity to help people better understand and appreciate the great potential of the Second Vatican Council and its documents for the renewal of the Church today. In the following significant excerpt from Porta Fidei, Benedict quotes his great predecessor and then adds a quote of his own on the subject:


…the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance. They need to be read correctly, to be widely known and taken to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church’s tradition…I feel more than ever in duty bound to point to the Council as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century: there we find a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.” [Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 57]

I would also like to emphasize strongly what I had occasion to say concerning the Council a few months after my election as Successor of Peter: “If we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic, it can be and can become increasingly powerful for the ever necessary renewal of the Church.” (Porta Fidei, no. 5) [Bold/italics added]


These statements are immensely important. First of all, our Popes made the point that the documents of Vatican II have not become outdated or useless by the passage of forty or fifty years. On the contrary, they are timeless and brilliantly written, and thus they continue to speak to us today and will continue to do so in the coming years.

Second, Popes John Paul and Benedict emphasized that the conciliar documents must be properly read and understood if they are to bear the fruit intended by the Council Fathers. They are not meant to be simply ignored and left on the shelves while we get on with the real business of reforming the Church based on our own ideas and opinions under the pretext of a nebulous “spirit of Vatican II.” Nor are the documents—as small groups of schismatic traditionalists claim—mainly pastoral in nature, riddled with dubious theological opinions and largely devoid of binding doctrinal content. Rather, the Council documents are “’important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church’s tradition.’”

In other words—and the following observation will strike many Catholics as revolutionary—although they do contain pastoral instructions and guidelines, the documents of the Second Vatican Council are first and foremost official dogmatic (teaching) documents of the Church’s Magisterium. Written by the Catholic bishops of the world in union with the Successor of Saint Peter and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the conciliar texts are the product of a legitimate exercise of the Church’s divinely instituted magisterial teaching authority and thus carry the full weight of that authority. The doctrines they contain—even those not infallibly proclaimed—are binding on all the faithful. The Holy Spirit, which has always protected and will always protect the Church from teaching error in matters of faith and morals, guided the Council Fathers in their authorship of the documents of Vatican II. Thus the texts are completely trustworthy and reliable from the dogmatic point of view and must be accepted by all Catholics in obedience to the authority of the Church. Such submission to ecclesial authority naturally requires humility, however. Heretical dissenters on one side and schismatic traditionalists on the other pridefully refuse to accept the Council’s documents because they think they know better than the Church herself what the Church really teaches or should be teaching.

Due to incorrect interpretation and implementation of the Second Vatican Council in the decades following it, Vatican II and its documents have often been misconstrued as a radical break with the Church’s tradition, when in fact they are an organic growth and development of that tradition. None of the Council documents contain new teachings; they merely re-enunciate, synthesize, and develop further what the Church has always believed and taught, and thus are meant to be read and understood within the context of the Church’s 2,000-year tradition.


“A Hermeneutic of Continuity and Reform”

According to Benedict XVI, the Second Vatican Council can only fulfill its potential for renewing the Church “if we interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic.” Our previous Holy Father identified this “right hermeneutic” in an address to the Italian bishops’ conference last year:


The Pope [John XXIII] asked the [Council] Fathers to examine in depth and to present this perennial doctrine in continuity with the 2,000-year-old Tradition of the Church: “to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion”, but in a new way, according “to that work which our era demands of us” (Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Second Vatican Council, 11 October 1962). With this key to interpreting and applying it — not of course in the perspective of an unacceptable hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture but rather of a hermeneutic of continuity and reform — listening to the Council and making its authoritative instructions our own is the way to identify the modalities by which the Church can offer a meaningful response to the great social and cultural changes of our time which also have visible consequences on the religious dimension. [Bold/italics added]

The “right hermeneutic” for an accurate understanding and correct implementation of the Second Vatican Council is the “hermeneutic of continuity and reform.” This double hermeneutic points to the essentially twofold nature of Vatican II and is the “key” to unlocking the Council’s inner meaning and purpose.

The fundamental objective of the Second Vatican Council was to preserve and transmit Catholic doctrine “in continuity with the 2,000-year-old Tradition of the Church.” Pope John XXIII made this clear in his opening address to the Council on October 11, 1962, when he stated: “The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.” [Bold/italics added] In line with this directive, the Council Fathers carefully examined, further developed, and handed on to succeeding generations—while preserving fully intact—the unchanging doctrine of the Faith in a series of authoritative documents called dogmatic constitutions. So the first key to properly understanding Vatican II is to realize that it was first and foremost a dogmatic (teaching) council of the Magisterium in faithful continuity with the Church’s 2,000-year tradition.

The second key term in the “right hermeneutic” for correctly understanding and implementing the Second Vatican Council is “reform.” At crucial moments throughout Church history, the Holy Spirit has inspired certain reforms in liturgical rubrics, canon law, Church governance, and pastoral discipline for the purpose of renewing the Church and helping her better fulfill her mission in the context of the times in which she finds herself. The Second Vatican Council was inspired by the Holy Spirit to address the needs of the Church in the modern world. While carefully preserving and handing on the deposit of faith, the Sacred Liturgy, the sacraments, and prayer in unbroken continuity with the Church’s ancient tradition, Vatican II introduced many liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms into the Church’s life to enable the Church to more effectively carry out her mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying believers and of evangelizing non-believers in the context of the modern world. Thus the second key to properly understanding Vatican II is to keep the Council’s liturgical, pastoral, and disciplinary reforms within the framework of doctrinal and liturgical continuity.

The reform of the Sacred Liturgy was a major element of the Second Vatican Council’s mission to help the Church teach the faith, sanctify believers and evangelize non-believers more effectively in the modern age. The Holy Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Church’s life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1324 [Lumen Gentium, no. 134]) and the greatest mystery of our Catholic faith, “is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church” (Sacrosanctum concilium (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), no. 2). According to Vatican II, the liturgical reforms were designed to encourage “fully conscious and active participation” in the Sacred Liturgy on the part of the lay faithful while retaining its essential character in continuity with the Church’s ancient tradition (Sacrosanctum concilium, no. 14). Through careful reform and authentic renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, the Council Fathers intended that modern Catholics enter more deeply into this awesome mystery of Christ’s Sacrifice, experiencing the full power of his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist and drawing from it the strength to live holy lives and witness Christ to the whole world.

Unfortunately, the Council’s full potential for renewing the Church has not yet been realized due to a general failure to interpret and implement it guided by a right hermeneutic. The application of a false “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” has led to widespread confusion and error regarding Vatican II, with disastrous consequences for the faith of millions of Catholics. Pope Benedict reminded the Italian bishops that only by applying the proper “hermeneutic of continuity and reform,” by listening to and following the instructions of the Council, can the Church find ways to respond meaningfully to the challenges of the modern world.


Proclaiming the Faith Anew

Through the declaration and observance of the Year of Faith, Benedict XVI has reminded the Church of today to look to the Second Vatican Council as the “sure compass” by which to chart her course through the stormy and turbulent waters of our time. In his Wednesday audience at the Vatican on October 10, 2012, the eve of the opening of the Year of Faith, Pope Benedict stated: “The Second Vatican Council Documents, to which we must return, freeing them from a mass of publications which instead of making them known have often concealed them, are a compass in our time too that permits the Bark of the Church to put out into the deep in the midst of storms or on calm and peaceful waves, to sail safely and to reach her destination.” [Bold/italics added]

By summoning us “to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world” during this Year of Faith, the previous Vicar of Christ called us to return to the basic essentials of our Christian faith that the Second Vatican Council proclaimed anew to the modern world. Pope Benedict said that “we should learn the simplest and most fundamental lesson of the Council: namely, that Christianity in its essence consists of faith in God which is Trinitarian Love, and in a personal and community encounter with Christ who orients and gives meaning to life. Everything else flows from this.” The pope further stated: “What is as important today as it was for the Council Fathers is that we see — once again, and clearly — that God is present, concerns us and responds to us. And when, instead, man lacks faith in God, the essential collapses because man loses his profound dignity.”

As an “eclipse of God” slowly darkens our modern age and “a profound crisis of faith” takes hold on it, as man becomes less and less aware of God’s existence and of his fundamental need for God, the basic truths of our Christian faith which the Second Vatican Council proclaimed—and which Benedict XVI more recently proclaimed anew to the Church and the world—shine ever more brilliantly: God exists. He is real. He loves us and He hears our prayers. Man is an essentially religious being, a creature whose “profound dignity” comes from being made in the image and likeness of God, and only in relationship to God, his Creator, does man discover his true identity and grasp the real meaning and purpose of life. Only God can satisfy the deepest yearnings of the human heart, as Saint Augustine wrote: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Faith in God is essential to the wellbeing of man and of society. Man cannot save himself by his own efforts. Christ is “God-with-us,” “the one Savior of the world,” the only hope for humanity. Salvation comes only from Christ through His Church. All Christians are called to sanctity of life (hence the “universal call to holiness”) and to find new ways of preaching the Gospel in our modern world (hence the “new evangelization”).

Pope Benedict observed in Porta Fidei that despite its forgetfulness of God and the denial of its need for him, a profound hunger for God nonetheless exists in our modern culture: “The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn. 4:14)” (Porta Fidei, no. 3). Tens of millions of people all over the world today—some consciously, some unconsciously—are searching for meaning and purpose in their lives, presenting us with a truly immense opportunity for evangelization. However, the radically secularist and anti-religious attitudes permeating our modern culture tend to obscure the reality of this vast mission field and intimidate us into keeping the Christian faith to ourselves rather than sharing it with others as we are called to do by virtue of our baptism. But we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated out of our duty to preach the Gospel by word and example and so to help those who are searching for God find the right path to “the door of faith” (cf. Porta Fidei, no. 7; Acts 14:27). Saint Paul wrote, “Woe to me if I do not preach it [the Gospel]!” (1 Cor. 9:16), and our previous Holy Father maintained: "We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt. 5:13-16)" (Porta Fidei, no. 3). We Christian believers must be loyal and courageous public witnesses to Christ and His Gospel; in doing so, we will be the salt of the earth and the light of the world that Christ is calling us to be. “Caritas Christi urget nos [The love of Christ impels us] (2 Cor. 5:14): it is the love of Christ that fills our hearts and impels us to evangelize” (Porta Fidei, no. 7).


Rediscovering, Knowing, Living our Faith

In the final paragraph of his October 10, 2012 audience address, Pope Benedict declared: “The Second Vatican Council is a strong appeal to us to rediscover every day the beauty of our faith, to know it deeply for a more intense relationship with the Lord, in order to live our Christian vocation to the full.” How can we Catholics rediscover the beauty of our faith, intensify our relationship with Our Lord, and more fully live out our Christian vocation during this Year of Faith? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Read, study and meditate on the Faith. Start by reading Porta Fidei (The Door of Faith), the charter document for the Year of Faith. It’s concisely written and will properly orient your mind and heart for this Holy Year. Next, study the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which summarizes all the basics of Catholic doctrine in concise question-and-answer format. Then dig into the main volume, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Benedict XVI called “an authentic fruit of the Second Vatican Council” (Porta Fidei, no. 4) and which contains the entire deposit of faith. Read the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Unfortunately, for the most part these precious jewels of our Catholic faith have remained buried in the five decades since the Council. Now is the time to unearth these teaching documents and bask in their full brilliance by “reading them correctly” and “taking them to heart as important and normative texts of the Magisterium, within the Church’s tradition.” Pope Benedict recommended in particular the four Constitutions, which he referred to as “the four cardinal points of the compass that can direct us” : Sacrosanctum concilium (On the Sacred Liturgy); Lumen Gentium (The Light of the Nations); Dei Verbum (On Divine Revelation); and Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the Modern World). The papal encyclicals of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, which explore Church teachings from within the perspective of Vatican II, are excellent. All of these resources are available on the Vatican website. Also, read the Bible, the divinely inspired Word of God, especially the daily Mass readings. According to Pope Benedict, “We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God” (Porta Fidei, no. 3), and Saint Jerome famously wrote, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” If we’re serious about experiencing “an authentic and renewed conversion” to Christ, we cannot afford to remain ignorant of Him. Read the Early Church Fathers such as St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Iranaeus, St. Justin, Origen, Tertullian, St. Geogory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine, who wrote passionately and brilliantly about the same faith we hold today. Another good book for this Year of Faith would be Jesus of Nazareth by Benedict XVI. Although not an official text of the Magisterium like most of the others here recommended, it is written by a man of great faith, wisdom, and knowledge and offers amazing insights into the figure of Jesus as presented in the Gospels.

2. Get the indulgence for the Year of Faith. During this Holy Year, the Church offers us special graces to help us grow in our relationship with Christ. The greatest of these graces is a special plenary indulgence. In a solemn decree issued on May 10, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI announced that this indulgence will be granted to all the faithful who fulfill certain prescribed conditions in addition to the usual conditions of going to Confession, receiving Holy Communion, and praying for the intentions of the Holy Father. The special conditions for obtaining this particular indulgence may be found on the official Year of Faith website at the following link: http://www.annusfidei.va/content/novaevangelizatio/en/annus-fidei/indulgentia.html .

3. Receive the Sacraments frequently. The sacraments are channels of grace through which we receive the strength necessary to follow Christ faithfully in our everyday lives. We should especially receive the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist often to be cleansed of our sins and spiritually nourished for the journey of faith.

4. Spend some time in prayer. Christ says, “’Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me’” (Jn. 15:4), and “’without me you can do nothing’” (Jn. 15:5). When Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once asked how she was able to accomplish so much, she replied simply, “I pray.” If faith is an encounter with Christ and a loving personal relationship with Him, prayer is the heart and soul of that relationship. The more time we spend in prayer, the more closely united with Christ we will be, the deeper our faith will become, and the more fruit we will bear in the Lord’s vineyard. Scripture says, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17) Simple daily prayers, such as morning and evening prayers and grace before and after meals, are important to nourish our Christian life (cf. Compendium of the Catechism, no. 567). The Church also recommends the Liturgy of the Hours and the daily rosary; the latter is an excellent method of drawing closer to Christ through meditation on the mysteries of his life in union with Our Blessed Mother Mary, the perfect follower of Christ and the one through whom all graces come to us. Above all, during this Year of Faith we should enter more deeply into the Sacred Liturgy, “the great prayer of the Church.” Lex orandi, lex credendi: “As we pray, so we believe” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1124).

5. Share the faith with others. The priceless gift of faith we have been given is not meant to be selfishly hoarded within ourselves, but rather to be freely shared with others. “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Mt. 10:8). We can all find little opportunities in our everyday lives to witness Christ and evangelize others through word and example. The more we take advantage of these opportunities, the more our faith will grow and the stronger it will become. In his Message for the 1992 World Youth Day, Blessed John Paul II declared:


All baptized persons are called by Christ to become his apostles in their own personal situation and in the world: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn. 20:21). Through his Church Christ entrusts you with the fundamental mission of sharing with others the gift of salvation. He invites you to participate in building his kingdom. He chooses you, in spite of the personal limitations everyone has, because he loves you and believes in you. This unconditional love of Christ should be the very soul of your apostolic work, in accord with the words of St. Paul, “The love of Christ impels us” (2 Cor. 5:14).

Being disciples of Christ is not a private matter. On the contrary, the gift of faith must be shared with others. For this reason the same apostle writes: "If I preach the Gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!" (1 Cor 9:16). Moreover, do not forget that faith is strengthened and grows precisely when it is given to others.


Perhaps no better summary of the Christian life can be found than that contained in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “I, then, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:1-6).

And perhaps no better prayer for this Year of Faith can be said than that of Benedict XVI: “May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and of the whole Church, help us to achieve and to bring to completion what the Council Fathers, motivated by the Holy Spirit, pondered in their hearts: the desire that all might know the Gospel and encounter the Lord Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”



Copyright © 2012, 2013 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

Roman Missal, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II

November 27, 2011 will be a historic day for the Roman Catholic Church across the English-speaking world. On that day the United States will join other English-speaking countries in implementing a new translation of the Third Typical Edition of the Missale Romanum (Roman Missal), the official liturgical text for the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. This implementation will mark a watershed in the reform of the Sacred Liturgy that was set in motion by the Second Vatican Council. At the same time, this latest edition of the Roman Missal is part of an organic liturgical development within the 2,000-year history of the universal Church.

In the Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II issued a motu proprio in which he announced a forthcoming Third Edition of the Missale Romanum. Once this became available in 2002, bishops all over the world began a rigorous and time-consuming process of translating it into the vernacular languages used in the liturgy. The task of translation into English was assigned to the International Committee on English in the Liturgy in coordination with the bishops’ conferences of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other English-speaking countries. Once ICEL completed a draft English translation of the Roman Missal, it was submitted to the bishops’ conferences for review and approval. On June 15, 2006, after lengthy discussion and debate, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved the draft ICEL text of the Roman Missal, while forwarding some minor suggested changes in this text to the Vox Clara Committee (which assists the Vatican with English liturgical translations) and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Congregation and Vox Clara reviewed the bishops’ suggestions, made some slight changes to the new English text based on them, and then returned it to the bishops for their final approval. On November 20, 2009, the U.S. bishops approved the new English translation of the Missale Romanum, and their approval was confirmed by the Holy See on March 26, 2010. After undergoing a final review and edit by Vatican officials, the English translation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal was officially sanctioned by the Holy See in July 2010. Now the new missals for use at Mass could be printed, and catechesis efforts could be launched to prepare English-speaking Catholics for implementation of the new Roman Missal the following year.

Translating the Liturgy

Since Vatican II, the Church has issued certain norms for the translation of liturgical texts from Latin into the vernacular. In 1969, the Council issued an Instruction titled Comme le Prevoit, which set guidelines for liturgical translators. This document established a guiding principle called “dynamic equivalence,” which involved the translation of basic thoughts rather than words. Translators working on this principle tried to convey the meaning of the original Latin text of the Roman Missal rather than the text itself. The result was a Mass translation into the English vernacular that sounded very modern and was easily understood, but at the price of significantly deviating from the original Latin text. In several subsequent Instructions issued by the Vatican, translation guidelines were adjusted somewhat but the central principle of dynamic equivalence was retained. The 1974 and 1985 English translations of the First and Second Editions of the Missale Romanum, respectively, followed this principle. Scriptural translations for use in the liturgy, such as the 1970 English translation of the New American Bible from Hebrew, were also based on the principle of dynamic equivalence.

In 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the Church’s fifth Instruction for liturgical translators since the Council. This document, entitled Liturgiam Authenticam, marked a paradigm shift in the translation of liturgical texts, as it replaced dynamic equivalence with a new guiding principle for translators called “formal equivalence.” Formal equivalence involves rendering the Latin text of the Roman Missal as faithfully as possible into the vernacular. Liturgiam Authenticam defines this principle as follows: “While it is permissible to arrange the wording, the syntax and the style in such a way as to prepare a flowing vernacular text suitable to the rhythm of popular prayer, the original text insofar as possible, must be translated integrally and in the most exact manner, without omissions or additions in terms of their content, and without paraphrases or glosses.” (LA, § 20) The result is an accurate and dignified translation of the Mass into English that allows the beauty and grandeur of the original Latin text to shine through. The new English translation of the Missale Romanum, Third Edition, follows this principle of formal equivalence. So do scriptural translations for use in the liturgy, such as the 1998 translation of the New Testament NAB from the traditional Latin Vulgate.

Why has the post-Vatican II Church shifted from one translation principle to another? To answer this question, we must clarify our understanding of the vision for authentic liturgical renewal set forth by the Second Vatican Council. The Third Edition of the Roman Missal, soon to be implemented in thousands of parishes, is more faithful than either of its predecessors to that vision for true renewal. It presents a golden opportunity for us English-speaking Catholics to review and reflect on the reality of what the Mass really is, as well as to deepen our appreciation for the rich liturgical heritage of the Catholic Church’s Latin Rite.

Worship and Liturgy

The Sacred Liturgy, which we call the Mass in the Latin Rite, is our formal public worship of God as Catholics. It’s “the great prayer of the Church” offered with Christ to God the Father in the Holy Spirit. In the Mass, Jesus offers Himself to the Father in atonement for our sins, and his Body and Blood become food for our souls. At the heart of the Sacred Liturgy is the Eucharist, which is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus physically present under the appearances of bread and wine. Thus the Mass is the celebration of the Eucharist and a re-presentation of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross for our salvation two thousand years ago. The word “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving,” and in its Eucharistic worship, the Church is always giving thanks to God the Father for our deliverance from sin and our reconciliation to Him through the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. The Eucharist is of paramount importance since it is the source, center and summit of the Church’s life according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Thus the matter of how the Mass should be celebrated, called “liturgy,” takes on great importance as well.

How should we worship God? This fundamental human question has rung through the ages. When Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God at the beginning of human history, God promised to send a Savior to free human beings from sin and reconcile them to Himself. His grand plan of salvation began in the Old Testament when God chose a people for Himself—the Jewish people. He delivered them from slavery in Egypt; brought them into the Promised Land; and revealed to them how He wanted to be worshiped. He gave Moses careful, detailed instructions for the building and furnishing of the Temple, the vestments to be worn by the priests, the prayers to be recited, and the offering of various animal sacrifices for sin. This instruction manual for Jewish worship comprised a large portion of the latter four Books of Moses (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). The practice of Jewish liturgy according to the Mosaic Law not only gave due honor and glory to God, but it also united the Israelite community and formed the core of their identity as a people. The summit of the Jewish religion was the annual celebration of Passover, when the Israelites converged on Jerusalem to sacrifice and eat the Paschal lamb in joyful remembrance of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt.

God established the worship rituals of the Old Testament not as permanent and complete in themselves, but as a preparation for the perfect New Testament worship to be offered by His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, the Temple priests would offer animal sacrifices to God in atonement for sin, but these sacrifices were imperfect because they could not take away sin. Jesus, the mediator of the New Testament, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by His sacrifice on the Cross. His obedience repairs the damage done by Adam’s sin of disobedience. The summit of our Catholic religion is the celebration of Mass, which is the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. When we attend Mass, we participate in this perfect sacrifice of Christ. Thus our Catholic worship is a natural and logical descendant of Jewish worship.

The early Church spontaneously developed its own basic form of Eucharistic worship based on the Jewish Sabbath liturgy. Over the course of centuries, in the varied soils of the Middle East and Europe, this same liturgical seed grew into slightly different rites watered by theological reflection and increasing awareness of the riches contained in the mystery of the Eucharist. Today there are twenty-one approved rites for the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy within the universal Church, of which the Latin Rite (also called the Roman Rite because the Vatican uses it) is the largest. Although slightly different in their external rituals and ceremonies, all these rites share the same basic form of Eucharistic worship that has remained unchanged through the ages. Saint Justin’s description of the Eucharistic liturgy written in 155 A.D. is remarkably similar to our modern Latin Rite Mass.

In his classic work The Spirit of the Liturgy, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) makes the point that we’re supposed to worship God the way He wants to be worshiped, not the way we want to worship Him. This is because liturgy is not our work but our participation in God’s work of redemption. In the Old Testament, God promised the Israelites that if they obeyed the Ten Commandments, kept the Law of Moses and worshiped Him faithfully according to the divinely prescribed rubrics, He would remain with them and bless them and they would prosper. On the other hand, if they disobeyed the Commandments, disregarded the Law and substituted their own liturgical ideas for the divine ordinances, God would punish them. God kept His promises, and the Jewish people flourished as long as they remained obedient to God. But when they rebelled against God, they incurred His wrath and dreadful punishments.

These same principles apply to Catholics, who are the New Testament people of God. With authority given by Christ Himself, the Church teaches the truth, makes certain laws and sets the rules for New Testament worship. If we believe everything the Church teaches, obey her laws and participate faithfully in the proper celebration of the Eucharist, we will glorify God and be the holy people God is calling us to be. However, if we pick and choose which Church doctrines to believe, ignore Church laws and elevate our personal ideas for worship above the Church’s established liturgical rules, we insult God and risk His just punishment.

Evidently, humility and obedience are essential components of true worship. In fact, the interior dispositions of the heart are even more important than external liturgical practice. In the Old Testament, God made clear that the sacrifice of animals was meaningless without the sacrifice of obedience in the human heart: “More precious than sacrifice is obedience, submission better than the fat of rams!” (RSV, 1 Sam. 15:22) “Sacrifice or oblation you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me…Behold, I come to do your will, O God!” (NAB, Psalm 40:7, 9) Obedience, the humble sacrifice of our preferences to God’s Will, is the most perfect form of worship.

When it comes to Catholic worship today, there are those who think they know better than God and the Church. Their concept of liturgy has more in common with the feel-good pop psychology of the sixties than with ancient Jewish and Catholic worship traditions. “Authority” and “tradition” are bad words to them. They treat the Church’s regulations for worship as suggestions and reject its rich 2,000-year liturgical history out of hand in favor of their own innovative worship preferences. Such privately determined “worship” has no place in the Church. It is built on disobedience, the prideful exaltation of human ideas and preferences above God’s Will. In fact, it is the ultimate form of idolatry: the worship of ourselves.

The Language of Catholic Worship

But how did Latin come to be the official language of Catholic worship in the Roman Rite, and why does the Church give it so much importance? To answer these questions, let’s take a brief look at the development of this lingua franca within the Church.

In the early centuries of Christianity, the dominant formative cultural influence on the Church was the Roman Empire, whose official language was Latin. Rome became both the center of the universal Church and the capital of the Western Church. Latin was the universal language of the known world at that time; this, combined with its stable and unchanging nature, led to its adoption as the common language of the Western Church by the fourth century and eventually to its official adoption as the language of the Roman Rite about the year 1030. Saint Jerome translated the ancient Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into Latin near the end of the fourth century, and the resulting “Latin Vulgate” edition became the official Bible of the Western Church for the next 1500 years. Latin became a common bond uniting Catholics across the European continent and a vital element in the development of Western Catholic learning and culture. As the Roman Empire fell apart and barbarians ravaged Europe during the Dark Ages, Saint Benedict founded a chain of monasteries where monks painstakingly hand copied the Latin Bible; preserved Gregorian Chant for the singing of the Mass; and translated great literary works from Latin into the various European languages. These monasteries were little oases of civilization where literature, art, architecture, music, gardening and scientific knowledge were quietly preserved during a hostile time.

When conditions improved, these seeds of culture sprouted, bursting into full flower during the Middle Ages. The Latin Mass was then the focal point of European society and the wellspring of its culture; the best art, architecture and music were produced for the glory of God to enhance Catholic worship. Latin Rite Catholicism was the driving force behind the towering cultural achievements of this era including magnificent Gothic cathedrals, polyphonic chant, Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, the medieval universities, the poetry of Dante, the invention of the printing press, and the discovery of America. Knowledge of Latin remained widespread even as the cultural influence of the Church gradually decreased during the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The ancient language of the Roman Catholic liturgy has profoundly shaped our modern Western culture; from science and medicine to law and politics and even to our English language, not a single area of life remains untouched by it.

The Latin Mass is our religious inheritance as Latin Rite Catholics and our cultural inheritance as members of Western civilization. Unfortunately, this heritage has been forgotten in the last forty years, to the point where many Catholics are not even familiar with Latin. Moreover, the relationship between liturgy and culture has been reversed: whereas liturgy used to shape culture, now popular culture influences the liturgy. Modern Catholic worship is often adapted to “fit in” with the surrounding pop culture, a culture that has completely broken off from the Church and is often hostile to it. These developments are part of a serious liturgical and cultural crisis that has gripped the Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

Vatican II and Modern Liturgical Reform

Ever since Vatican II, a popular misperception has spread among Catholics as to what the Council intended concerning the Sacred Liturgy and, in a broader sense, concerning the Church herself. The sweeping liturgical and other reforms of the Council were widely misinterpreted as implying a radical change in the nature of the Mass and of the Church. Celebration of the liturgy in Latin, strict adherence to the prescribed rubrics, the concept of the Mass as sacrifice, and the dignity of the priesthood (in the case of the liturgy)—the Church as the Bride of Christ with infallible teaching authority, preserving and handing on the deposit of faith (in the case of the Church)—all of these suddenly became old-fashioned, “pre-Vatican II” ideas and were replaced with an “anything goes” mentality in “the spirit of Vatican II.” The Mass was no longer seen as the Church’s worship offered to God but as a celebration of human togetherness subject to the whims of the local community. Similarly, it was now up to the individual Catholic to believe and live as he pleased regardless of official Church doctrine and laws. Vatican II transformed the Church from a monarchy into a democracy. This unfortunate heresy known as “the spirit of Vatican II” has done catastrophic damage to the faith of millions of Catholics. It has even spawned an opposite myth adhered to by some traditionalist Catholics that the entire Second Vatican Council was heretical and its reforms null and void.

Yet despite these grave misperceptions and their accompanying fallout, there was nothing wrong with the Second Vatican Council. It simply applied traditional Church doctrine to the modern world, introduced reforms into the Church’s liturgy and calendar, and changed certain Church laws, all to help Catholics better live their faith and to enable the Church to effectively evangelize the modern world. The chief problems for the Council’s liturgical reforms have been misinterpretation and incorrect application of its directives by the clergy, and a lack of proper education with resulting misunderstandings by the laity. After the Council, many bishops and priests rushed into the liturgical changes and did a poor job of explaining to the faithful the reasons for those changes. This left lay Catholics unsettled and confused and even led some to abandon the Church altogether because the Mass appeared no longer recognizable. Very few Catholics bothered to read the actual documents of Vatican II, including the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium), although good English translations of these documents were widely available. Moreover, in addition to problems from within the Church, the prevailing spirit of rebellion against authority in 1960s society influenced many Catholics to interpret and embrace Vatican II as a rebellion against traditional Catholicism. Even today many lack a proper understanding of what the Second Vatican Council had in mind for the Church in general and the Eucharistic liturgy in particular.

What did the Second Vatican Council intend—and not intend—with regard to the Church’s liturgy, specifically in the Latin Rite? To answer these questions, we can do nothing better than refer to the Council’s charter document for liturgical reform, Sacrosanctum concilium (in the Vatican’s official English translation). Glancing at the text, we notice immediately that one of the most frequently recurring words in this document is “tradition.” It’s obvious from the opening paragraphs that Vatican II never intended to radically change the Church or do away with liturgical tradition. Paragraph 23 of Sacrosanctum concilium, which sums up the Council’s guidelines for reform of the liturgy, dispels the myth that Vatican II fundamentally redefined the nature of the Mass:

That sound tradition may be retained, and yet the way remain open to legitimate
progress, careful investigation is always to be made into each part of the liturgy which is to be revised. This investigation should be theological, historical, and pastoral. Also the general laws governing the structure and meaning of the liturgy must be studied in conjunction with the experience derived from recent liturgical reforms and from the indults conceded to various places. Finally, there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.

In other words, Vatican II did not erect a massive wall of separation between the pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II Mass. Even after the Council, liturgical tradition was to be given preference to innovation; only necessary changes were to be made in the rubrics; and these innovations must have some connection to preexisting liturgical forms. The paragraph above encapsulates the true spirit of Vatican II: careful, measured reform within the context of sound tradition.

Furthermore, the Council fathers never intended that Latin Rite Catholics lose all touch with their splendid liturgical heritage. Supposedly, Vatican II put the Latin Mass in the Church’s closet and gave official preference to Mass said in the vernacular. Not so. While acknowledging that increased use of the “mother tongue” (the vernacular) in the liturgy “frequently may be of great advantage to the people,” Sacrosanctum concilium stipulated that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (SC, § 36, 1) The document also directed that “steps should be taken so that the faithful may be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.” (SC, § 54) Whether any parts of the Mass at all were to be said in the vernacular, and if so which parts, was to be determined by “the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2,” that is, by the local bishops’ conference. However, it’s important to clarify that Vatican II did not intend to impose on the Church through the bishops a stiff rigidity in this matter. During an interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN in 2003, Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was then Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said that “there should be flexibility” in the use of the Latin and the vernacular in the liturgy.

Supposedly also, Vatican II did away with Gregorian chant in favor of new, privately composed arrangements of liturgical music in the vernacular. Here again, the Council did no such thing; in fact, it intended that Gregorian chant be retained in the Roman Rite liturgy and that Catholics remain familiar with it. Sacrosanctum concilium states: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.” (SC, § 116) In April 1974, Pope Paul VI issued a booklet for Latin Rite Catholics called Jubilate Deo. This prayer book, which is still in print and includes simple and easy-to-sing chants for the Ordinary parts of the Mass (such as the Kyrie, Gloria and Sanctus), was issued with the stated purpose of promoting “a minimum repertoire of plain chant” among the Catholic faithful.

The intention of Vatican II regarding the liturgy was to encourage “fully conscious and active participation” (SC, § 14) in the Mass for the greater spiritual benefit of the faithful worldwide. To this end, a revised Order of Mass (Novus Ordo) was compiled in Latin that simplified the text and rubrics of the Latin Rite Mass. Moreover, permission was given for the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy in the vernacular languages of the world; for the use of various musical instruments in addition to the traditional pipe organ; for priests to celebrate Mass facing the people if they wished; and for the reception of Holy Communion in the hand. Such extensive advantage has been taken of these permissions that Catholics have come to think of each as being the norm. However, all of these permissions are actually temporary indults, or special privileges granted in exception to permanent Church laws governing the Roman Rite. None of them are mandated or required by Vatican II, and the Church has the authority to extend these indults indefinitely or to revoke any of them at any time.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy clearly indicates that the purpose of the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms was not to jettison liturgical tradition or destroy the sacred character of the Mass but to preserve and hand on the Church’s greatest treasure to the Catholics of the modern world.

The aim of the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms was to promote a period of careful and strictly regulated liturgical experimentation to determine what would best help Catholics in the pews participate with their whole being in the Sacred Liturgy. The goal of the Novus Ordo and of the indults was not to diminish the sacred character of the Mass, to eliminate the use of Latin from it, or to make it plainer and more acceptable to contemporary social tastes. Unfortunately, these unintended consequences of Vatican II have become commonplace in the decades since the Council. As a result, millions of Catholics are now accustomed to an informal, casual style of worship exclusively in the vernacular that diminishes the sacredness of the Mass and makes them feel more comfortable. Some don’t like the upcoming changes in the Roman Missal, which they see as amounting to a repudiation of Vatican II and as discouraging active lay participation in the liturgy. Such misperceptions arise from a lack of proper education and understanding of what the new Roman Missal is all about, and more fundamentally, of what Vatican II was all about. Unfortunately, the somewhat inferior English Mass translation that has been in use for the last forty years has only reinforced these misperceptions.

Prior to Vatican II, the average Catholic never thought of complaining about the way Mass was celebrated; he simply accepted it the way it was in obedience to the Church. Now, however, many Catholics claim the right to have a say in how Mass is said. This stems from one of the biggest myths about Vatican II: that the Council authorized lay Catholic liturgists to manipulate the liturgy according to their own private whims and fancies. But Vatican II never gave laypeople authority to decide how the Mass is celebrated. It’s up to the Church—specifically, to the Pope and the bishops united with him—to set the rules for Catholic worship: “…no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.” (SC, § 22, 3)

The only significant liturgical change mandated by Vatican II was the replacement of the 1962 Order of Mass (commonly known as the “Tridentine” Mass) with the Novus Ordo as the Ordinary Form of the liturgy in the Roman Rite. However, this was not a radical liturgical revolution as it is often perceived. The traditional Latin Mass and the Latin Novus Ordo are much closer akin than many people realize. Much of the Latin text of the Tridentine Mass was retained verbatim in the Novus Ordo. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, Vatican II did not scrap the traditional Latin Mass altogether. Acknowledging its important place in the Latin Rite liturgical tradition, the Council retained the Latin Mass of 1962 as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite liturgy, giving bishops the authority to allow its occasional celebration in their dioceses. Unfortunately, very few bishops have granted permission for this since the Council.

Roman Missal 3.0

When many of us first heard that a new English translation of the liturgy was being prepared, the news brought some angst. We’re used to the way Mass has been said in the Latin Rite our whole lives, and we’d like it to stay that way. Change is unwelcome. Fortunately, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI understands the challenge as well as the opportunity that the new Mass text poses for English-speaking Catholics. “Many will find it hard to adjust to unfamiliar texts after nearly forty years of continuous use of the previous translation,” His Holiness remarked to members of Vox Clara in April 2010. Because of this, he added, “The change will need to be introduced with due sensitivity.”

But, some Catholics object, why can’t the Church retain the familiar English Mass translation it has been using since Vatican II? This objection indicates a narrow and distorted vision of the Church’s liturgy based on a mere few decades of experiencing the Latin Rite Mass exclusively in English. The answer to it is that the translation we’re used to was intended by the Church to be part of the period of careful experimentation following the Council. The Council’s Instruction Comme le Prevoit stated: “Above all, after sufficient experimentation and passage of time, all translations will need review.” The Instruction did not say that some translations might need review, but that all translations would. This clearly indicates that the new liturgical translations following Vatican II were not meant to be carved in stone, but to be eventually reviewed and revised.

The foundational text for the Novus Ordo Mass in the Latin Rite from which all vernacular liturgical texts are translated is the Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) issued in Latin by the Holy See. This contains both the Ordinary of the Mass (the unchangeable parts of the liturgy) and Propers for Mass (parts of the liturgy such as Scripture readings and certain prayers that change from day to day and season to season). Three editions of the Missale Romanum have been promulgated since Vatican II—one in 1969, one in 1975 and one in 2000. There have been very few changes to the Latin text of the Ordinary of the Mass through these three editions. Their main features have been additions to the Ordinary and the Propers and changes in some of the Proper prayers, with most of the additions and changes to the Propers resulting from revisions in the liturgical calendar. In this tradition, the Third Edition of the Roman Missal adds several new Prefaces for Eucharistic Prayers to the Ordinary, as well as new Votive Masses and prayers for the feasts of new saints to the Propers. Most of the differences we’ll be noticing in the English words of the Ordinary of the Mass on November 27, 2011 will stem from changes in translation based on the new principle of formal equivalence, not from changes in the Latin text of the Missale Romanum.

Many Latin Rite Catholics today lack familiarity with the original Latin words of the Mass. As a result, they are comparing, analyzing, and judging the old and new English Mass translations based solely on their perceived merits and demerits in the vernacular. This is unfortunate, because being cut off from the mother language of the liturgy presents a barrier to the proper understanding of any vernacular Mass text that comes from it. The true standard by which a vernacular Mass translation may be judged is its fidelity to the Latin text of the Missale Romanum. That text deserves considerable respect because it contains the accumulated riches of 2,000 years of Catholic liturgical tradition.

The new English translation of the Roman Missal includes a Mass text that is much more faithful to the original Latin than the 1974 and 1985 English Mass texts. For example, the first sentence of the Gloria in the Missale Romanum reads, “Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.” The new English translation of this passage reads: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.” This is a precise, word-for-word rendering of the Latin text. By contrast, the previous translations read: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.” This rendering deleted the words “bonae voluntatis,” “good will,” and replaced “people of good will” with the more ambiguous term “his people,” thus losing some of the meaning of the original text. Another example is the first word of the Creed in the Missale Romanum, “Credo,” which literally means “I believe” and is rendered this way in the new translation. The outgoing translation reads “We believe,” diluting the significance of the Creed as a solemn statement of faith pronounced by each individual believer. Another part of the Creed that in the Missale Romanum reads “consubstantialem Patris” is accurately rendered “consubstantial with the Father” in the new translation. The same text appears in the outgoing version as “one in being with the Father,” which is similar in meaning but not as accurate a translation of the original Latin. The new Mass text also includes a literal translation of the traditional Latin response, “Et cum spiritu tuo”—“And with your spirit.” The previous translation, “And also with you,” is a paraphrase that has no precedent in our liturgical tradition. A fifth example of the fidelity of the new Mass text to the Missale Romanum is the prayer of priest and people before Communion, which reads in Latin: “Domine, non sum dignus ut inters sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.” The new translation is a faithful rendering of that text: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” The 1985 translation, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed,” changes some of the literal Scriptural text of this passage and dilutes some of its meaning.

Besides fidelity to the Latin, the new English Mass text has many other positive qualities that reflect its linguistic origin. One of these is a more formal and reverent tone that is better suited to divine worship. This is evident in a passage from the first Eucharistic Prayer, which in the outgoing translation reads: “Look with favor on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedech.” Here is the same passage in the new translation: “Be pleased to look upon these offerings with a serene and kindly countenance, and to accept them, as you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of your high priest Melchizedech, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.” This example also makes clear that intelligibility, good taste and beauty have not been sacrificed to accuracy in the new translation. Although traditional and dignified, there is nothing archaic or arcane about it. It is not a turning back of the liturgical clock to before Vatican II as some contend. There is no “Holy Ghost” or “thee” or “thou” to be found in it. The words of the new English liturgical text are simple and modern, yet they join together to form a beautiful, poetic rhythm reflecting the rhythm of the Latin and suited to the great prayer of the Church.

And even if we cannot fully grasp the reason for the wording of any part of the new Mass text, we ought to trust our Holy Mother the Church regarding it and accept it in a spirit of humble obedience to her. The new English translation of Mass is not the hasty work of one bishop or one translator, but the product of many thousands of hours of intense labor by all the English-speaking bishops of the world working together in careful collaboration under the direction of the Holy See. These prelates deserve recognition and hearty gratitude for providing English-speaking Catholics of the Latin Rite with a new and sound translation of the Sacred Liturgy that grows organically from their liturgical tradition while also fulfilling the aims of the Second Vatican Council.

Naturally, it will take some time for priests and laity alike to adjust to the words and phrases of the new Mass translation. The burden of adjustment will fall on our priests, since there are many more changes in the words of the priest than in the words of the people. In fact, a majority of the changes in the English Mass text occur in the four Eucharistic Prayers, where nearly every sentence has been reworded to better match the original Latin. Yet through all the changes in words of priest and people, the familiar prayers of the Novus Ordo Mass are still recognizable, and the basic form of the liturgy remains unchanged.

Catechesis, Catechesis, Catechesis

Widespread failure to correctly understand and implement the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council has produced a decades-long liturgical crisis in the Catholic Church, leaving the true aims of the Council fathers largely unrealized to date. However, during this dark and turbulent period for the Church, scattered glimmers of light have reflected the Council’s true vision for liturgical renewal. Two of these have been the Adoremus Society and Ignatius Press, both founded by Father Joseph Fessio, a Jesuit priest who studied for the priesthood under Cardinal Ratzinger in the 1970s. A close friend of our current pontiff, Father Fessio is deeply familiar with his traditional Catholic vision of the liturgy, and has conveyed that vision for many years in publications such as the Adoremus Bulletin, the Adoremus Hymnal and numerous books by Ratzinger, especially The Spirit of the Liturgy. These materials have helped familiarize American Catholics with the true spirit of Vatican II regarding the liturgy.

Another bright glimmer of light in the darkness of the post-Vatican II era has been the daily celebration of Mass in the tiny chapel of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery founded by Mother Angelica in Irondale, Alabama. Here, as in few other places in America, the celebration of the Novus Ordo liturgy has consistently followed the terms of Sacrosanctum concilium: certain parts of the Mass are always said or sung in Latin; Gregorian chant is a mainstay of the liturgical music; and missals are available to help people follow along with the Latin parts of the Ordinary. Different priests vary in their use of Latin and English in the liturgy, offering a good example of the flexibility that Cardinal Arinze referred to. Like the Benedictine monasteries of the European Dark Ages, Our Lady of the Angels has helped preserve the rich liturgical tradition of the Latin Rite and the true spirit of Vatican II through difficult times for the Church in the United States. Not only has it done that, but through daily broadcast of the Mass on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), it has communicated that tradition and that spirit to millions of Catholics across the United States, providing invaluable catechesis and promoting liturgical renewal in fidelity to the Second Vatican Council.

The implementation of the Missale Romanum, Third Edition, presents an excellent opportunity to correct the widespread misperceptions regarding the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. However, this educational opportunity must be seized and taken proper advantage of, not allowed to slide by. Pope Benedict underlined the importance of this in his April 2010 address to members of Vox Clara when he stated that “the opportunity for catechesis that it [the new Roman Missal] presents will need to be firmly grasped.”

Education is the key to understanding. Without proper catechesis, English-speaking Catholics of the Latin Rite will not correctly understand the reasons for the changes or appreciate the new translation. This catechesis should currently be going on in parishes across the United States to prepare parish staff and musicians for the new Roman Missal. However, the author is concerned that not enough is being done at the parish level to prepare the average Catholic in the pew for the changes in the Mass text. The extent of catechesis he has seen in his parish so far has been a brief mention in the bulletin of an invitation to a meeting being held at a neighboring parish to discuss the upcoming changes in the Roman Missal. This approach is simply not going to cut it for the millions of American Catholic laypeople who make up the lion’s share of the Church in the United States. These people shouldn’t have to go out of their way to learn about the new Roman Missal that will soon be taking effect. The catechesis should be brought to them on a platter when they come to church on Sunday. It should be served by the priest from the pulpit, on color inserts in the bulletin, in flyers in the pews, in the parish newsletter, and in pamphlets in the back of the church that people can take home with them. Catechesis about the new Mass translation must take the form of an all-out informational campaign based on the premise that all Catholics must be informed and prepared; otherwise, it will be ineffective, and the vast majority of Catholics in the United States will be unprepared for November 27, 2011.

All the same, there are many things that lay Catholics can and should do to educate themselves about the liturgical changes. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a special section of its website devoted to the new Roman Missal at usccb.org/romanmissal that gives basic information and includes, under “Sample Texts,” the full new text of the Order of Mass as well as side-by-side comparisons of the old and new Mass text for the people and the priests. Every Catholic with access to the Internet should take advantage of these resources and print them out for closer study and review in preparation for implementation. In addition, Catholics who lack knowledge of Latin should start getting familiar with it. Two excellent resources for this purpose are the Adoremus Hymnal, which includes the Order of Mass in Latin and English side by side, and Jubilate Deo, both available from Ignatius Press and through the EWTN Religious Catalogue. Every Catholic of the Latin Rite should at least know the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, the Pater Noster, and the Agnus Dei in Latin. For a better understanding of what the Mass is, Pope Benedict XVI’s little book The Spirit of the Liturgy offers a brilliant presentation of the theology of Catholic worship and the 2,000-year history of the Church’s liturgy. And finally, Catholics who have not yet done so should pore over Sacrosanctum concilium to soak up the true spirit of Vatican II and clarify their understanding of the Council’s liturgical reforms.

Yet even with proper catechesis, some Catholics will still object that changing the words of the liturgy now after forty years is a recipe for pastoral disaster, as it will cause people to leave the Church. This objection stems from all the misperceptions of the Second Vatican Council recounted in this article. Ironically, it is being made by those who are themselves predisposed to leave the Church because they disapprove of the changes. If some Catholics can’t live with the changes, that is their problem. For its own good, the Church must remain faithful to the true spirit of Vatican II, even if that means alienating some people. When the Vatican approved the new Roman Missal translation in July 2010, Cardinal Francis George, then president of the USCCB, admitted that some people will not like it but that in the end, “it will be the text the Church uses for prayer.” The implementation of the new Roman Missal will be a litmus test of fidelity to the Church. It will separate the wheat from the chaff—true, faithful members of Christ’s Mystical Body from parasites who hitch onto it for their own comfort and convenience. This pruning process will render the Church slightly leaner but stronger and healthier, in line with Pope Benedict XVI’s vision for the “new springtime” of the Church originally predicted by John Paul II.

The Dawn of Real Liturgical Renewal

A major priority of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI has been correct implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, especially the reform of the Sacred Liturgy. The Third Edition of the Missale Romanum and the Instruction for its translation, Liturgiam Authenticam, were both issued during John Paul’s pontificate. Liturgiam Authenticam marked the close of a four-decade period of experimentation with liturgical translations authorized by the Second Vatican Council, while the Third Edition of the Roman Missal represents a consolidation and integration of the Council’s liturgical reforms into the Church’s Latin Rite tradition. This project of correct implementation of Vatican II has been carried on with vigor by Pope Benedict XVI, who sees the proper understanding and faithful celebration of Catholic worship and liturgy as the key to renewal of the Church and effective evangelization.

In 2007, Pope Benedict took the bold step of issuing a universal indult that allowed the occasional celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form in any diocese of the Latin Rite without the necessity of obtaining the local bishop’s permission. This move may have been somewhat controversial at the time, but it was a stroke of genius. Pope Benedict recognized that lack of Catholic exposure to the traditional Latin Mass was impeding the authentic liturgical renewal envisioned by the Second Vatican Council. The pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo of Vatican II are not strangers to each other, nor was one ever intended to be radically different from the other. By giving modern Latin Rite Catholics the opportunity to experience the traditional Latin Mass, it allows them to reconnect with their liturgical (as well as religious and cultural) tradition and can help them better understand how the Novus Ordo Mass fits into that tradition.

Furthermore, a major theme running through the pontificates of John Paul and Benedict has been the prediction of a “new springtime” for the Church in the third millennium, particularly based on a revival of interest in Catholicism among young people. Both Popes have understood that there’s an important connection between the implementation of Vatican II and this theme of a new springtime for the Church: Renewal of the liturgy will lead to renewal of the Church from within. But what will the new springtime look like?

In an interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN in 2003, then-Cardinal Ratzinger opined that the new springtime would not be characterized by mass conversions to Catholicism all over the world. Rather, he said, it would consist of small, “convinced communities” of believers, especially young people, who would celebrate the liturgy together and witness the joy of their Christian faith to the modern society around them. That joyful witness of faith would be the primary method of evangelization, attracting other people to the Church and leading to a renewal of society as well.

This hope-filled yet realistic vision of the new springtime for the Church resembles not so much a flood of sunlight as an ever-growing number of lighted candles in the darkness. It has a particularly Benedictine flavor, and is part of the reason why our current Holy Father took the name Benedict. He did this to honor Saint Benedict, whose little monasteries scattered throughout Europe preserved Catholic faith and culture during the Dark Ages. The Church today confronts a certain kind of “dark ages,” as it is surrounded by the manifold evils of modern Western society and culture. In the Eucharistic liturgy, the heart of the Church’s life, the burning light of Christ can set each small, faithful, “convinced community” of believers ablaze, empowering them to spread the light of Christ to others.

A tantalizing glimpse of Pope Benedict’s vision for the new springtime can be seen in the hunger for liturgical tradition among Catholic young people. In dozens of places across the United States where Mass is now occasionally celebrated in Latin in the Extraordinary Form, the churches are packed with Catholics in their twenties and thirties. These small, “convinced communities” of young believers, with their devotion to truth, enthusiasm for Catholic tradition, respect for authority and commitment to fidelity to the Church, are already helping to make the Second Vatican Council’s vision for liturgical renewal a reality.

As the inauguration of the English translation of the Missale Romanum, Third Edition approaches, we are standing on the threshold of an exciting and historic moment for the Roman Catholic Church. The dark and difficult period of the post-Vatican II era is vanishing, and the dawn of real liturgical renewal as envisioned by Vatican II is upon us. In April 2010, Pope Benedict XVI expressed to Vox Clara his hope that the new Roman Missal will serve “as a springboard for a renewal and a deepening of Eucharistic devotion all over the English-speaking world.” With the realization of this hope, the new Mass translation will play a vital role in the new springtime for the Church. Its theological riches will help priests and people alike enter more deeply into the mystery of the Eucharist, the source, center and summit of the Church’s life. Its prayers will elevate Catholic worship and inspire and enrich our personal prayer lives. Along with a rediscovery of our rich liturgical and cultural heritage in the Latin Rite tradition, this renewal of the Sacred Liturgy will stimulate a new flowering of Catholic culture and enable the light of Christ to more brightly illuminate the world of the twenty-first century.


Copyright © 2011 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.