@Sean Johnson! “Non qui accusatur, sed qui convincitur, reus est.” (S. Bernard). Well, first you have to prove it that my comment has nothing to do with yours, because, as the old scholastic axiom runs: what is gratuitously assumed may be gratuitously denied. You wrote a comment on the liturgy of the Holy Week, and I wrote as well on the liturgical reform of the Holy Week. At least, we're both talking on liturgy. You see that my post has something to do with yours :) You're starting with the wrong foot!

You wrote: “Pius XII condemned liturgical archaeologism (Mediator Dei).” This statement without any exact reference is false, and merely mentioning the name of Pope's encyclical on liturgy (Mediator Dei) is not enough. Show us, please, with exact references, where in this encyclical and how does the Pope condemn the liturgical archaeologism, as you call it? On the contrary, in my previous comment, I brought you a passage from the aforementioned encyclical that states the contrary.

You wrote: “The experimental rites of 1951-1956 are primarily based upon archaeological principles.” Show us, please, from the Magisterium and with exact references, where is it written that the rites of 1951-1956 are experimental and based primarily on archaeological principles ! Without exact magisterial references, your gratuitous claims are gratuitously rejected.

The main reason for restoring the Holy Week is not based primarily upon archaeological principles, or on some attachment to ancient rites; on the contrary, the restoration of the Holy Week was based primarily upon pastoral grounds, in order to increase the liturgical participation of the faithful, to enhance their liturgical comprehension of the Church's most holy days, and thus to greatly contributing to their sanctification: “Salus animarum, suprema lex.” This is explained very clearly in the Decree of the Restored Holy Week, Maxima redemptionis nostræ mysteria. Some English translations mention it wrongly the “Revised Holy Week”, thus giving an opportunity to ill-intentioned people to attack the Holy See of “exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism” and even of anti-traditional liturgical reforms. The original title of the Decree in Latin is not “The Revised Holy Week” but “The Restored Holy Week”: DECRETUM GENERALE QUO LITURGICUS HEBDOMADÆ SANCTÆ ORDO INSTAURATUR.

In the year 1951, only the restored liturgy of the sacred Easter Vigil was to be celebrated temporarily according to the desire of Ordinaries and as an experiment. But in 1955, after the promulgation of the general Decree on the Restored Holy Week, every Catholic of the Roman rite is bound to follow it. It is not a temporal experiment, nor a facultative choice. Roma locuta est, causa finita est. (Cf. Maxima redemptionis nostræ mysteria)

“In the beginning these rites were celebrated on the same days of the week and at the same hours of the day at which the sacred mysteries took place... But in the middle ages, for various concomitant reasons, the time for observing the liturgy of these days began to be anticipated to such a degree that – toward the end of the middle ages – all these liturgical solemnities were pushed back to the morning hours; certainly with detriment to the liturgy’s meaning and with confusion between the Gospel accounts and the liturgical representations referring to them...

“In more recent times, moreover, another change took place and this most serious from a pastoral point of view. For many centuries the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of Holy Week were numbered among the festive days, with the manifest purpose that the whole Christian people, freed from servile works, might be present at the sacred ceremonies of these days. But in the course of the seventeenth century the Roman Pontiffs themselves were compelled – on account of the completely changed conditions of society – to reduce the number of festive days. Urban VIII, therefore, in the Apostolic Constitution, “Universa per orbem,” of September 24, 1642, was constrained to list the sacred triduum of Holy Week also among the ferial days, and no longer among the festive days. From that time the attendance of the faithful at these sacred rites necessarily decreased, especially because their celebration had long since been put back into the morning hours when, on weekdays, schools, businesses, and public affairs of all kinds were and are conducted everywhere. In fact, common and almost universal experience teaches that these liturgical services of the sacred triduum are often performed by the clergy with the body of the church nearly deserted...

“This is certainly much to be regretted. For the liturgical rites of the Sacred Week possess not only a singular dignity but also a particular sacramental power and efficacy for nourishing the Christian life; nor can these rites be sufficiently compensated for by those exercises of devotion which are usually called extraliturgical and which are performed during the sacred triduum in the hours after noon. For these reasons, outstanding experts in liturgical matters, priests who have the care of souls, and principally the Most Excellent Bishops themselves have presented strong petitions to the Holy See in more recent years, asking that the liturgical services of the sacred triduum be returned to the hours after noon, as was once the custom, to the end that all the faithful might more easily assist at these rites.” (Extract from the Decree Maxima redemptionis nostræ mysteria, 16 November 1955)

You wrote: “The revised Holy Week rites are based upon principles condemned by Pius XII himself.” Your conclusion is utterly wrong and even blasphemous, because it tries to show as if HH Pius XII was contradicting himself.

There are no contradictions between Mediator Dei and Maxima redemptioni nostræ mysteria: they are part of the same liturgical movement inspired by God Himself, as Pope Pius XII stated publicly in the Assisi-Rome Liturgical Congress:

“If one compares the present state of the liturgical movement with what it was thirty years ago, it is obvious that undeniable progress has been made both in extent and in depth. The interest brought to the liturgy, the practical accomplishments and the active participation of the faithful have developed to an extent unthought of at that time.

“The chief driving force, both in doctrine and in practical application, has come from the hierarchy, and especially from Our saintly Predecessor Pius X, who in his Motu Proprio Abhinc duos annos of October 23, 1913, gave the liturgical movement a decisive impetus.

“The faithful received these directives with gratitude and showed themselves ready to respond to them. The liturgists turned to the work with zeal and before long developed interesting and fruitful initiatives, even if, at times, certain deviations from the right paths called for correction by ecclesiastical authority. Among the many recently published documents on this subject, it will be sufficient for Us to mention three: the encyclical Mediator Dei on the Sacred Liturgy, of November 20, 1947; the new decree on holy Week, dated November 16, 1955, which has helped the faithful to a better understanding and closer participation in the love, suffering and triumph of our Lord. Finally there was the encyclical De musica sacra of December 25, 1955.

“The liturgical movement is thus shown forth as a sign of the providential dispositions of God for the present time, of the movement of the Holy Ghost in the Church, to draw men more closely to the mysteries of the faith and the riches of grace which flow from the active participation of the faithful in the liturgical life.” (POPE PIUS XII: Extract from the ALLOCUTION TO THE ASSISI LITURGICAL CONGRESS, 1956.)

"Hence We teach and declare that by the appointment of our Lord the Roman Church possesses a sovereignty of ordinary power over all other Churches, and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; to which all, of whatsoever rite and dignity, both pastors and faithful, both individually and collectively, are bound, by THEIR DUTY of hierarchical subordination and TRUE OBEDIENCE, TO SUBMIT, NOT ONLY in matters which belong to FAITH AND MORALS, but also in those that appertain to the DISCIPLINE AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH throughout the world; so that the Church of CHRIST may be one flock under one supreme Pastor, through the preservation of unity, both of communion and of profession of the same faith, with the Roman Pontiff. THIS IS THE TEACHING OF THE CATHOLIC TRUTH, FROM WHICH NO ONE CAN DEVIATE WITHOUT LOSS OF FAITH AND OF SALVATION.

". . . If then any shall say that the Roman Pontiff has the office MERELY of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which belong to faith and morals, but also in those things which relate to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the world; or assert that he possesses merely the principal part, and not ALL the fullness of this supreme power; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches and over each and all the pastors of the faithful; let him be anathema.” (Vatican Council, 1870, Dogmatic Constitution PASTOR AETERNUS)

“And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.” (S. Matth. 18, 17)

Excerpt:

“ The self-contradictory nature of the Easter Vigil reform

The Church was ordered to return to the catacombs. It is perplexing that the same Pope who had condemned such a retrograde step in the strongest terms as “antiquarianism” only four years earlier, could have countenanced this reversal of his own teaching:

“The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.” (8)

A post-Vatican II Easter Vigil celebration in the Los Angeles Cathedral
But the point about his 1955 Decree Maxima Redemptionis was that it did state that the early Christian Easter Vigil was “more suitable and proper” than what had developed over the intervening centuries; and it didreject the principle that “the more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect.” There is no mistaking the language used in the Decree to denigrate the liturgical tradition as it had developed up to the 1950s. Maxima Redemptioniscarried a note of reprobation of what had been approved and maintained as Catholic practice for centuries, with the scarcely veiled implication that for most of her history the Church had conducted her worship on wrong lines.

In it, the accusation was made that the Easter Vigil had lost its original clarity and the meaning of its words and symbols when it was “torn” from its “proper” nocturnal setting and was no longer in line with the Gospel accounts. According to the reformers, it had even become “harmful” to the symbolic meaning of the Vigil. (9) Anyone would think they were referring to a monstrous iniquity that must be removed from the Church.

In other words, the Holy See (echoing the reformers) was claiming that the public prayers of the Church celebrated continually for many centuries, sanctified by long usage and codified by the Council of Trent were theologically defective and liturgically “improper.”

Is it conceivable that the traditional manner of celebrating the Easter Vigil in the daytime was a disastrous mistake and that the Church had to wait 14 centuries for Bugnini and his henchmen to put the matter right?

Of course not, and in the next instalment we will be examining the spurious reasons for the Easter Vigil changes, which were published in the 1951 and 1955 Decrees.

Continued

Bugnini continues to explain his condemned antiquarianism behind the Pian Holy Week revisions:

An Incoherent Liturgical Reform - Dialogue Mass XVI - Dr Carol Byrne