Over the next few weeks I want to share some important new insights from recent research, as well as some of my own work that I think throws new light on some contested issues around the history of the Office.
In this, I
want to particularly draw on the evidence of the oldest antiphoner for the
Benedictine Office, which dates from the ninth century, and which has only very
recently become accessible to researchers.
Are the
1962 books 'traditional?!
Before I do
that though, prompted by what seems like round 500 of an ongoing debate in
other places, I've decided to put out now some material I've been pondering for
a while over, that perhaps serves to help translate some findings that have
thus far largely been discussed in a purely academic context, into debates on
the current practices of the Divine Office.
In what
follows, I'm going to focus primarily on the Benedictine Office, but I'll try
and draw out the implications for the Roman books as well.
Before we
move back a millennia and more though, I want to take brief look at
the increasingly loud campaign that claims that the 1962/3 Office
books and Mass are not actually traditional, and are irredeemably bad news.
Instead,
the 'restore the 54' crowd would have us ditch the currently approved
Office books, such as the 1963 Benedictine breviary, altogether, in favour of
those for the 1950s, or depending on which particular sub-group you subscribe
to, some earlier date.
Some of the
claims made around this topic seem to be causing considerable confusion amongst
many well-intentioned people, and so I think, are worth scrutinising.
Shadow-boxing
Some of the
recent agitation, I think, has been incited by Traditiones Custodes,
and the understandable fear that its supporters will ultimately win the
day altogether, and succeed in officially banning the older forms of the
liturgy altogether. Unsurprisingly then, many are looking for ways
to legitimately narrow the scope of papal authority in this area, and using the
1962 books as a test platform for this.
In other
cases the overreach involved in the arguments made in support of the reforms
made after Vatican II seem to have provoked an overreaction in the opposite
direction: instead of everything in the liturgy being 'adapted to the times',
as some spirit of Vatican IIists would like, some are now arguing that nothing
at all can ever be changed, for example.
In some
cases, I suspect, what we are seeing is just human nature playing
out. Some, for example, seem to suffer from 'complexity bias', the
belief that the more complex you make something, the better it is.
Others seem to have fallen victim to that syndrome whereby when a resistance or
reform group's patience is tried sorely for long enough, the temptation is to
forget about the real war, and turn on each other instead, claiming that only
the pure can bring about victory.
Legitimate
debate vs liturgical abuse
Regardless
of the root causes of this push though, I think it is important to note that
the Church has long made distinctions between legitimate debate, which is what
I hope we can have here; legitimate resistance to institutional overreach (a
good example of which is the longstanding push to force Benedictine monasteries
abandon the provisions of the Rule relating to the Office); special, usually
emergency situations that sometimes justify disobedience; and outright
rejection of the Church's law and authority.
The Code of
Canon Law makes it clear for example that it is perfectly legitimate for
laypeople to debate questions such as whether there are flaws in the 1962
books, and whether they should therefore be amended, or even replaced by
something else altogether; or to debate questions of what the limits of papal
authority in relation to the liturgy might be. provided one has sufficient
expertise to do so.
And though
anyone who says the Office may be able to follow many of these debates,
contributing to some of them often requires some degree of genuine expertise
and training, as they involve complex questions of canon law, theology,
history, musicology and/or liturgy.
I'm not a
great believer in credentialism as such (never forget those liturgists who
disparaged Pope Benedict XVIs credentials in this area!), preferring to judge
things on their merits. But at least one recent book in my view, seems to
me to fail even the most basic requirements in this regard.
The book,
(whose name I will withhold for the moment), is written by an anonymous married
layperson who claims no theological or canon law qualifications whatsoever;
presents a set of convoluted arguments he has dreamed up that are directly at
odds with the clear consensus of canonists who are prepared to go on record as
well as by dubia responses; and on the basis of this, urges individual priests
to set about implementing what amounts to outright liturgical abuse.
I do plan
on coming back to some of the arguments included in the book by various author
as well as the main text itself, but in the meantime I would direct those
advocating for it to the following posts by actual canonists:
- When does a custom have the force of law?
- What does it mean to abrogate or derogate from a law?
- Does a priest have obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (1)?
- Does a priest have an obligation to say the Office under pain of mortal sin (2)
I would
also recommend the clear treatment of the requirement to use the currently
approved books in Beale's standard commentary on the Code.
Obedience
is a virtue
More
fundamentally, what is not within the scope of legitimate debate, in my view,
is to then act unilaterally to implement our personal theories.
It needs to
be kept in mind, I think, that liturgy is ultimately something we receive, not
decide on for ourselves: there is surely something to the old adage of 'say the
black do the red' for example.
It is one
thing, for example, to select an option from those officially approved; quite
another to reject the officially approved books altogether without very strong
reasons indeed.
Priests and
religious have more serious obligations in this regard, but even for laypeople
who can arguably do whatever provided they choose to stick to purely devotional
prayer, the Catholic, and particularly the Benedictine mindset, I think, should
surely be to strive for obedience wherever possible, not look for ways to avoid
it.
There are,
of course, times when resistance or outright rejection of laws and particular
liturgies is indeed warranted.
And there
are also nuances in what constitutes legitimate variation, and who has the
authority to authorise particular things.
But if an
older book has been outright suppressed, as all of the Office books prior to
the 1963 breviary have been; and if the traditional institutes and monasteries
have long used the 1962 books, it is hard for me at least to see how refusing
to accept them can be justified as an 'emergency'.
Nor is it
an argument in my view that 'everyone else is doing it' when it comes to
liturgical 'innovation': we are all called, after all, to be saints, not join
the throng going the other way!
Yet every
day, it seems, a new book or blog post drops claiming that the forms of the
Mass and Office accepted after due consideration by the original leaders of the
traditionalist movement and their successors, and used now for many years
should be rejected, or that this or that particular element of the Office
and Mass cannot be changed by mere papal legislation (despite a very long
history indeed of Popes doing just that).
Singing the
Office in 525 and 2025…
Let me
conclude this opening post by seeking to put the debate over the 1962 books in
a longer perspective.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the debate has largely focused on the
Roman books, whose place in tradition is rather harder to pin down than the
Benedictine.
In these
weeks after the Epiphany, for example, using the 1963 breviary (or the other
books used for it, such as the Antiphonale of 1934, and the Monastic Diurnal)
we are saying the same hours, with the same components that make up them, in
the same order, as St Benedict laid out in his Rule dating from circa 510-30
AD.
The
contents of the Roman Office, it is true, were not documented until much later,
and are ordered somewhat differently. Some, such as hymns were added even
later still. But it is clear the core elements of the Roman office too have
ancient roots.
In the 1963
Office we are also saying exactly the same psalms and ferial canticles that St
Benedict specified should be said at each hour of each day.
When it
comes to the psalms, it should be noted, the 1962 Roman Office, which has
always had a somewhat different psalm ordering to the Benedictine, is in a
slightly different situation - its ancient psalm cursus, which almost certainly
dates back to at least the late sixth century, was suppressed in 1911.
Even so, it still follows the same basic principle of saying all of the psalms
each week.
In the
Benedictine Office too, we are singing ancient hymns that mostly date from the
fourth to seventh centuries in their original form, with later additions for
some feasts and saints. And we have been spared the neo-classicised
versions imposed on the Roman Office by Pope Urban VIII in 1632 that left
barely a single line of these ancient gems intact.
At Matins,
we are reading the same books of the Bible that are laid out in an early to
mid-eighth century reform of the ferial Matins reading cycle, with many of the
same responsories that are recorded as being in use some 1100 years or
more ago.
So how can
all this be ‘untraditional’?
There seem
to be two main camps (with some overlap between them) in this argument.
The first
camp defends its position largely on the basis of changes to the 1962 books
that unwind some high to late medieval practices, drawing primarily (and
somewhat ironically in my view), on the liturgical scholarship of the twentieth
century. That scholarship, just as for the Mass, sought to find the
elusive holy grail of the original, pure Roman Office, and claimed to find
it in a set of manuscripts that mostly date from the twelfth century onwards.
Recent scholarship though, has severely challenged or outright overturned many
of those conclusions.
The second
camp is rather more focused on recent history, and aimed at 'restoring the 54'
in particular because, it seems, inter alia, they reject the views of the
assorted popes (and/or those associated with them) who promulgated assorted
liturgical 'reforms' from the late 1950s onwards. But we should judge
reforms on their merits in my view, and not on such arbitrary criteria.
But more on all this anon.
