The Catholic Church lives or dies on the basis of liturgy. Only a return to tradition can revive the Church’s worship and faith life.
Editor’s note: The following article is a critical analysis of developments in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council by Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Marian Eleganti.
(LifeSiteNews) — I was born in 1955 and was an enthusiastic altar boy in my childhood. At first I served in the old rite, always a little nervous not to mess up the Latin responses, then I was retrained in the middle of the action for the so-called New Mass.
As a child, I witnessed the iconoclasm in the venerable Church of the Holy Cross in my hometown. The Gothic carved altars were torn down before my child eyes. What remained was a people’s altar, an empty choir room, the cross in the choir arch, Mary and St. John on the left and right on white bare walls. New stained glass windows flooded with the rising sun in the east. Nothing more: it was an unprecedented clear-cutting. We children found everything normal and appropriate, and diligently saved for the new stone floor in order to make our contribution to the reform or renovation of the church.
The euphoria of the council was carried everywhere by the priests, synods were convened, in which I myself participated as a teenager. I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
As a 20-year-old novice, I experienced firsthand – and painfully – the liturgical tensions between the traditionalists and progressives among the reformers. New ecclesiastical professions were introduced, such as that of the (mostly married) pastoral assistant. I remember my critical comments on this, because the slowly dawning tensions and problems between the ordained and the non-ordained were foreseeable from the outset. The decline in the number of candidates for the priesthood was predictable and soon became apparent.
As a young man, I was unreservedly supportive of the council, and later I studied its documents with faithful confidence. Nevertheless, since the age of 20, I have noticed a number of things: the desacralization of the choir room, the priesthood, and the Holy Eucharist, as well as the reception of Communion, and the ambiguity of some passages in the council documents. As a young layman who was still uneducated in theology, I noticed all of this very early on.
Even though the priesthood had been the strongest option in my heart since childhood, I was not ordained a priest until I was 40. I grew up with the council, came of age, and was able to observe its effects since it took place. Today I am 70 years old and a bishop.
Looking back, I have to say that the springtime of the Church never came; what came instead was an indescribable decline in the practice and knowledge of the faith, widespread liturgical formlessness and arbitrariness (to which I myself contributed in part without realizing it).
From today’s perspective, I view everything with increasing criticism, including the council, whose texts most people have already left behind, always invoking its spirit. What has not been confused with the Holy Spirit and attributed to Him in the past 60 years? What has been called “life” that did not bring life, but rather dissolved it?
The so-called reformers wanted to rethink the Church’s relationship to the world, reorganize the liturgy, and reevaluate moral positions. They are still doing so. The characteristic feature of their reform is fluidity in doctrine, morality, and liturgy, alignment with secular standards, and post-conciliar, ruthless disruption with everything that has gone before.
For them, the Church is primarily what it has been since 1969 (Editio Typica Ordo Missae. Cardinal Benno Gut). What came before can be neglected or has already been revised. There is no going back. The most revolutionary among the reformers were always aware of their revolutionary acts. But their post-conciliar reform, their processes, have failed – across the board. They were not inspired. The people’s altar is not an invention of the Council Fathers.
I myself celebrate Holy Mass in the New Rite, even privately. However, due to my apostolic activity, I have relearned the old liturgy of my childhood and see the difference, especially in the prayers and postures, and of course in the orientation.
In retrospect, the post-conciliar intervention in the almost 2,000-year-old, very consistent form of the liturgy seems to me to be a rather violent, provisional reconstruction of the Holy Mass in the years following the conclusion of the council, which was associated with great losses that need to be addressed. This was also done for ecumenical reasons. Many forces, including from the Protestant side, were directly involved in this effort to align the traditional liturgy with the Protestant Eucharist and perhaps also with the Jewish Sabbath liturgy. This was done in an elitist, disruptive, and reckless manner by the Roman Liturgical Commission and was imposed on the entire Church by Paul VI, not without causing major fractures and rifts in the mystical body of Christ, which remain to this day.
One thing is certain for me: if you can tell a tree by its fruit, a ruthless and truthful reassessment of the post-conciliar liturgical reform is urgently needed: historically honest and meticulous, non-ideological and open, like the new generation of young believers who neither know nor read the council texts. They also have no problem with nostalgia because they only know the Church in its present form. They are simply too young to be traditionalists. However, they have experienced how parishes function today, how they celebrate liturgy, and what remains of their own religious socialization through the parish: very little! For this reason, they are not progressives either.
From today’s perspective, liberal Catholicism or progressivism since the 1970s, most recently in the guise of the Synodal Way, has had its day and has driven the Church into a dead end. The frustration is correspondingly great. We can see it everywhere. Sunday and weekday services are attended mainly by old people. Young people are missing, except in a few church hotspots, which are few and far between. The reform is taking care of itself because no one goes there anymore or reads the results, an iron law.
How can the post-conciliar reform still be viewed so uncritically and narrow-mindedly at this point in time, measured by its fruits? Why is an honest examination of tradition and our own (Church) history still not possible? Why do people not want to see that we are at a crossroads and should take stock, especially liturgically?
To be or not to be in terms of faith and Church life is decided on the basis of liturgy. This is where the church lives or dies. Traditionalists and progressives have correctly assessed this since 1965. So why is tradition on the rise among young people? What makes it so attractive to young people? Think about it! Feet vote, not councils. Maybe we should just change direction! Do you understand?
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