THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDECH
A Defence of the Catholic Priesthood
by Michael Davies
1979 AND 1993
Appendix IX
The Revised Ordinal of 1989
On 29 June 1989 the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments promulgated, with the approval and the
authority of Pope John Paul II a revised edition of the 1968 Ordinal (Editio Typica Altera).
Only the rite for the ordination of priests will be examined in this
appendix. The first point that must be made is that the "native
character and spirit" of the 1968 rite remain, and that the 1989 rite
is manifestly inferior to the traditional rite as a liturgical
expression of Catholic teaching on the priesthood, even if somewhat
less inferior than that of 1968. Anglicans would be unlikely to modify
to any great extent the enthusiastic welcome with which they greeted
the 1968 Ordinal because it was "an 'ecumenical' ordinal in the best
sense, in that it avoids much questionable terminology and is clearly
expressive of the theological aggiomamento
of Vatican II" (see Chapter VIII). By questionable terminology
Anglicans mean, of course, prayers in the traditional rite which make
explicit the fact that a priest is ordained primarily to offer
sacrifice. The Anglican Church Times
specified prayers in the traditional rite of which it disapproved, the
suppression of which it claimed, with every justification, signified "a
distinct movement away from medieval and Counter-Reformation theology" (Ibid.). It stated with considerable satisfaction that:
For instance, that prayer has gone which spoke of the power of a priest
to "transform bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ by an
immaculate blessing". The former words at the delivery of paten and
chalice have also disappeared: "Receive the power to offer sacrifice to
God and to celebrate Masses (sic) for the living and the dead."
The official teaching of the Church of England in Article XXXI of
its Thirty-Nine Articles, to which every Anglican minister must
subscribe in their strictest literal interpretation, is that the Mass
is a "blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit". Cardinal Newman
insisted, having tried to evade the literal meaning of the article
himself in his Oxford Movement days, that this means the Mass itself is
"in all its daily celebration from year's end to year's end, toto orbe terrarum, a blasphemous fable." 1
The prayer containing the form of the Sacrament of Order is referred to either as the Oratio Consecrationis Presbyterorum or the Prex Ordinationis Presbyterorum. For the sake of consistency the latter term only will be used, abbreviated to Prex. The traditional Prex
is one of the most venerable texts in the liturgy of the Roman Rite. It
can be found with only minor differences in the Leonine Sacramentary of
the early seventh century. 2 This
Sacramentary has been attributed to Pope Leo I, who died in 461, but
his authorship is far from certain, although he may well have composed
some of its prayers. It is, however, certain that the prayers it
contains were already of great antiquity when included in the
collection, some of them dating back in all probability to the fifth
century and beyond. The manuscript itself is housed in the Chapter
Library at Verona, and is hence referred to frequently as the Veronese
Sacramentary. [See Special Note.]
The Prex itself in both the
traditional and 1968 ordinals is, like the actual form of ordination
which it contains, indeterminate. The form does indeed state that the
ordinands are to be raised to the priesthood, but so does the form in
the Anglican Ordinal. The traditional Prex
is, the essential form apart, primarily of a narrative character. It
describes the growth of the Old Testament hierarchy in which men of
lesser degree and lower rank were chosen to be associates and helpers
of the high priests. Reference is made to the fact that the priestly
ministry of the Old Testament did not lack the means to offer
sacrifices for the people's welfare and perform sacred rites, which
could be taken as implying that the men about to be ordained would
fulfill the same function, but this is not stated specifically. It
could be argued quite reasonably that this passage in the Prex
does no more than state what happened before the advent of Our Lord,
whose Apostles are cited only as having teachers of the faith (doctores fidei) to assist them in their work of spreading the good tidings (praedicationibus impleverunt)
the world over. No mention is made of any sacrifice being offered by
the Apostles or by their teaching companions who are not actually
designated as priests within the text of the Prex.
After the form which ordains the new priests has been pronounced there
follows in the traditional rite a prayer expressing the hope that they
will be "prudent helpers of their bishops", and in the 1968 rite, in
the only significant change made to the Prex
itself, this prayer has been replaced by one that the new priests may
be fellow-workers of the bishops "so that the words of the Gospel may
reach to the farthest parts of the earth", echoing the reference to
those who helped the Apostles with their preaching (doctores fidei) in the prayer that preceded the form.
As was explained in Chapter VII, the traditional Ordinal contained
numerous prayers which gave explicit sacerdotal signification to the
indeterminate Prex, and every
one of these prayers was removed during the composition of the 1968
rite. This meant that although the 1968 Ordinal still retained the Prex
from the traditional rite virtually unchanged, the Prex no longer
received a sacrificial connotation from the actual rite in which it was
situated, but, as Dr. Francis Clark is cited as accepting in the
introduction to this book, from a determinatio ex adiunctis
external to the rite itself. He explains that this supplies "due
meaning which is no longer explicit in the ritual forms". The
allegation that I made in the first edition of this book that the
indeterminate Prex of the
traditional rite no longer received a sacrificial signification from
other prayers of the 1968 Ordinal, an allegation confirmed by Dr.
Clark, was also conceded in a very dramatic manner in an explanation of
the rationale behind the revision given by a spokesman for the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
(CDWS), written in Spanish, and published in the February 1990 issue of
Notitiae, Number 283. The
commentary was signed Pere Tena, and will be referred to throughout
this appendix as the CDWS commentary. What I have termed a dramatic
confirmation of the thesis of this book occurs in the following
passage:
Until the year 1968, the theology of the Roman Prex
was made explicit and otherwise corroborated by other elements
occurring in the rite . . . With the reform of 1968 these elements
which I have just mentioned disappeared in the First Editio Typica. . . . The theology of the Prex
of the Veronese Sacramentary became isolated within the rite
unconfirmed by euchological and ritual explanations, in order to
express the identity of the priestly ministry in a more concrete
fashion.
The CDWS also conceded that:
It must be admitted that the reception given to the text of the Prex ordinationis since the time of the First Editio Typica
(1968) has not been totally positive. It has, in fact, aroused frequent
criticism from both bishops and priests as well as the ordinands
themselves.
Archbishop Bugnini, the principal architect of the 1968 rite, also
conceded that the reception given to it was "not totally positive". He
claimed that "the reformed rites of ordination were generally accepted
as satisfactory", 3 but admitted that:
"Some were of the opinion that the rite had been impoverished and was
now less solemn and impressive. There were requests that the suppressed
actions be restored, at least in some form". 4
As was explained in Chapter VII, among those who protested was Cardinal
John Heenan, the Archbishop of Westminster, England. He expressed
publicly his outrage that the bishops of the world had not been
consulted during the reform of the Ordinal, and that it had arrived on
their desks as a fait accompli.
He protested that this was the kind of thing that broke the bishops'
hearts, and insisted that the new form was far less attractive than the
old (Chapter VII).
An English bishop who wrote to congratulate me on my book remarked:
Many of the omissions in the New Ordination Rite, e.g. "Receive
the power to offer sacrifice to God and to celebrate Mass both for the
living and the dead in the name of the Lord", and the reference to the
forgiveness of sins at the end of the Mass are an impoverishment
indeed. The Episcopal Conference of England and Wales was very upset
about them. Cardinal Heenan wrote to ask if they could be retained. The
reply received was an emphatic "No".
The most evident manner of overcoming the isolation of the Prex within a rite from which the CDWS admits the prayers imbuing it, with a sacrificial connotation had been removed in the First Editio Typica,
would have been to restore at least some of these prayers' whose
disappearance had so distressed the Bishops of England and Wales, while
giving such satisfaction to the Editor of the Anglican Church Times. The restoration of the Accipe potestatem
alone would have removed the ambiguity of the new rite by the inclusion
of one unequivocally sacrificial prayer within the ordination rite
itself. But, alas, the ecumenical ethos which evidently pervades the
Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments made such a simple and effective remedy unthinkable. The
Fathers of this Congregation decided, incredible as it may seem, to
attempt to remedy the deficiencies of the 1968 rite by making drastic
changes in the only appreciable portion of it preserved intact from the
traditional Ordinal-----the Prex itself. In its commentary upon the 1989 rite, the CDWS accepts the necessity for this Second Editio Typica
to make "the actual celebration of the priestly Ordinal a sufficiently
eloquent presentation of the mystery and identity of the priests, who,
through the ministry of the Bishop, Christ the Lord makes participants
in His priesthood through the power of the Holy Spirit." In other
words, the 1989 rite of ordination itself should make clear the nature
of the priesthood without the need to resort to the kind of external ex adiunctis
factors cited by Dr. Clark as imparting a Catholic determination to the
indeterminate rite of 1968. The CDWS claims that the 1989 revision has
achieved this aim, and it will now be examined in detail to discover
the extent to which its claim is justified.
The Bishop's Charge
It is explained in Chapter VII that the Bishop's Charge in the 1968
rite makes specific the intention of ordaining a sacrificing priest,
although in muted tones when set beside the prayers of the traditional
rite which have been abolished. No Evangelical Protestant could
possibly use the Bishop's Charge with a good conscience. But, as
is made clear in that Chapter, the words printed in the ordinal
constitute no more than a model homily, and the ordaining bishop is
free
to substitute his own homily for it. It is not mandatory as was the
Bishop's Charge in the Traditional Ordinal. Nonetheless, even though
not mandatory, the inclusion of this specific affirmation of the
sacrificial nature of the priesthood within the New Ordinal must be
considered as imparting a sacrificial signification to the rite as a
whole. The 1968 Bishop's Charge remains unchanged in the 1989 rite
except for two variations which are both insignificant. They occur in
the opening paragraph and in the seventh paragraph beginning: Munere item sanctificandi.
The changes are printed in italic. Wherever texts from the 1968 and
1989 rites are set in parallel columns the new material will be
indicated in this way.
1968 Rite
Fratres dilectissimi, cum isti filii nostri, quos inter propinquos vel amicos habetis, mox ad ordinem
Presbyterorum sint provehendi, attente perpendite ad quale in Ecclesia gradum sint ascensuri.
Dearly beloved brothers, these men, our sons, who are your relatives or
friends, are about to be raised to the order of priest. You should
therefore
consider carefully the position in the Church to which they will be promoted.
| 1989 Rite
Fratres dilectissimi, cum isti filii nostri, quos inter propinquos vel amicos habetis, mox ad ordinem
Presbyterorum sint provehendi, attente perpendite ad quale in Ecclesia ministerium sint ascensuri.
Dearly beloved brothers, these men, our sons, who are your relatives or
friends, are about to be raised to the order of priest. You should
therefore
consider carefully the position in the ministry of the Church to which they will be promoted.
|
This change does nothing to clarify the nature of the priesthood.
Munere
item sanctificandi in Christo fungemini. Ministerio enim tuo
sacrificium spirituale fidelium perficietur, Christi sacrificio
coniunctum, quod per manus tuas super altare incruenter in celebratione
mysteriorum offeretur.
In the same way you must carry out your mission of sanctifying in the
power of Christ. Your ministry will make perfect the spiritual
sacrifices of the faithful by uniting them to Christ's Sacrifice, which
is offered sacramentally through your hands upon the altar in an
unbloody manner.
| Munere
item sanctificandi in Christo fungemini. Ministerio enim tuo
sacrificium spirituale fidelium perficietur, Christi sacrificio
coniunctum, quod una cum iis per manus tuas super altare incruenter in celebratione mysteriorum offeretur.
In the same way you must carry out your mission of sanctifying in the
power of Christ. Your ministry will make perfect the spiritual
sacrifices of the faithful by uniting them to Christ's
Sacrifice, which is offered sacramentally through your hands in union with them upon the altar in an unbloody manner.
|
This change also does nothing to clarify the nature of the
priesthood, but, if anything, could appear ito endorse an error
condemned by Pope Pius XII in
Mediator Dei, that is to say that the sacrificial immolation of the Mass is not performed by the priest alone acting in
persona Christi, but acting as the representative of the faithful:
To avoid any mistake in this very important matter we must
clearly define the exact meaning of the word "offer". The unbloody
immolation, by which after the words of consecration have been
pronounced, Christ is rendered present on the altar in the state of
victim, is performed by the priest alone, and by the priest in so far
as he acts in the name of Christ, not in so far as he represents the
faithful.
Pope Pius went on to explain that there is a perfectly orthodox
sense in which the faithful can be said to offer with the priest:
But when the people are said to offer with the priest, this does
not mean that all the members of the Church, like the priest himself,
perform the visible liturgical rite; this is done only by the minister
Divinely appointed for the purpose. No, they are said to offer with him
inasmuch as they unite their sentiments of praise, entreaty, expiation,
and thanksgiving with the sentiments or intention of the priest, indeed
with those of the High Priest Himself, in order that in the very
oblation of the victim, those sentiments may be presented to God the
Father also by the priest's external rite. The external rite of
sacrifice must of its very nature be a sign of internal worship; and
what is signified by the Sacrifice of the New Law is that supreme
homage by which Christ, the principal offerer, and with Him and through
Him all His mystical members, pay due honour and veneration to God.
As the 1989 Ordinal has been approved by the Pope, our presumption must
be that the words "in union with them" mean that the faithful offer
with the priest in this orthodox second sense, but this does not alter
the fact that the addition does nothing whatsoever to clarify the
nature of the priesthood.
The Bishop's Charge must, then, be accepted as imparting a Catholic
signification to the entire rite, but it cannot be considered as making
"the actual celebration of the priestly Ordinal a sufficiently eloquent
presentation of the mystery and identity of the priests", which the
CDWS claims is now the case. Some equally clear affirmation of the
sacrificial ethos of the priesthood within the mandatory section of the
ordination rite itself would be necessary to achieve this.
The Examination of the Candidate
The questions put to the candidates contain very few changes
from the 1968 Ordinal. There is one completely new question which does
nothing whatsoever to clarify the specifically sacrificial role of the
priest, which makes one wonder why it was added. It does, however, echo
part of the explanation of the duties of a priest given by the bishop
in the Anglican Series III Ordinal (see Chapter IX): "He is to lead his
people in prayer and worship, to intercede for them, to bless them in
the name of the Lord, and to teach and encourage by word and example."
New Promise
Vis nobiscum misericordiam divinam pro populo tibi
commisso implorare orandi mandato indesinenter
instans?
|
Are you resolved to beg with us for Divine mercy upon the people entrusted to you, persevering in the commandment of prayer?
|
One of the promises has had words added which do refer
specifically to the priestly vocation of offering sacrifice and
absolving the faithful from their sins. The additional words are
indicated in italic.
Vis
mysteria Christi ad laudem Dei et sanctificationem populi christiani,
secundum Ecclesiae traditionem, pie et fideliter celebrare?
Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ for the glory of
God and the sancitification of the Christian people, according to the
Tradition of the Church, faithfully and religiously?
| Vis mysteria Christi ad laudem Dei et sanctificationem populi
christiani, secundum Ecclesiae traditionem, praesertim in Eucharistiae sacrificio et sacramento reconciliationis, pie et fideliter celebrare?
Are you resolved to celebrate the mysteries of Christ for the glory of
God and the sancitification of the Christian people, according to the
Tradition of the Church, especially the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, faithfully and religiously?
|
It is said that even here the compilers could not bring themselves
to use the term "sacrifice of the Mass", but it would be unreasonable
to conclude that anything else could be meant by the term "Eucharistic
Sacrifice" in a rite approved by the Pope in which the nature of this
sacrifice had been made clear in the Bishop's Charge, but this involves
once more looking outside the actual rite of ordination to clarify one
of its texts, whereas had the term "Sacrifice of the Mass" been used it
would have removed the least trace of ambiguity. It is equally sad that
the term "Sacrament of Reconciliation" is used rather than the
traditional term "Sacrament of Penance" which had been used hitherto in
official documents such as the Code of Canon Law. The term
"reconciliation" is far more compatible with the Anglican concept of
absolution as either a prayer to God or a statement about God, which
was explained in Chapter VI. This is, as far as I can discover, the
first time that the term "Sacrament of Reconciliation" has been used in
a document of the Magisterium or in the
editio typica of a liturgical text.
Up to this point, the only improvement in the mandatory text of "the
actual celebration of the priestly Ordinal" has been the addition of
the words
praesertim in Eucharistiae sacrificio et sacramento reconciliationis,
to a question in the Examination of the Candidates, and, as has been
explained, despite the refusal to use the term "Sacrifice of the Mass",
the term "Eucharistic Sacrifice" in this context is one which it could
be imagined that Anglicans would find difficult to use in good
conscience, but is, in fact, a term which they could reconcile with
their belief that in their own Eucharistic celebration their "priests"
join with the people in offering spiritual sacrifices to God. The
"form" for the Ordination of a Priest in the Anglican Series III
Ordinal makes clear how easily this could be done:
The Bishop and priests lay their hands on the head of each candidate and the Bishop says:
Send down the Holy Spirit upon your servant N for the office and work of a priest in your Church.
When the Bishop has laid hands on all of them, he continues:
Almighty Father, give to these your servants grace and power to fulfill
their ministry among those committed to their charge; to watch over
them and care for them; to absolve and bless them in your name; and to
proclaim the gospel of your salvation. Set them among your people to
offer with them spiritual sacrifices acceptable in your sight and to
minister the sacraments of the New Covenant. As you have called them to
your service, make them worthy of their calling. Give them wisdom and
discipline to work faithfully, with all their fellow servants in
Christ, that the world may come to know your glory and your love.
Accept our prayers, most merciful Father, through your Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and your Holy Spirit belong glory
and honour, worship and praise, now and for ever.
The people say: Amen.
These words provide a very salutary reminder of the need for
sacramental rites which are totally unambiguous, and which enshrine the
principle
lex orandi, lex credendi.
Reading the Series III Anglican "form" it could easily be imagined that
it was intended to ordain a priest in the Catholic sense of the word,
i.e. one who differs not simply in degree but in essence from those who
are not ordained, but nothing could be further from the truth. In a
commentary upon the Series III Ordinal, the Reverend Michael Sansom,
Tutor at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, stresses the importance of the use of
the term
"president"
rather than "celebrant" in the Series III Communion Service which has
very close parallels with the new Catholic Rite of Mass when it is
celebrated with Eucharistic Prayer II:
It is more than a mere question of terminology, since the switch
from "celebrant" to "president" underlines the priest's function as one
of the whole celebrating congregation. Strictly speaking, it is the
whole congregation that concelebrates; the priest is a member of the
congregation performing a presidential function. [See Special Note 2.] 5
This explanation makes it clear that Mr. Sansom would certainly welcome the addition of the words
una cum iis (in union with them) to the paragraph beginning
Munere item in the Bishop's Charge of the 1989 Catholic Ordinal (see above):
If the essence of the Catholic priesthood, as enshrined in the traditional formula
Accipe potestatem, has not been manifested without ambiguity up to this point, the question of the revised
Prex now emerges. The CDWS assures us that the revisions made to the 1968
Prex are
in themselves sufficient to make the 1989 Ordinal "a sufficiently
eloquent presentation of the mystery and identity of the priests who,
through the ministry of the Bishop, Christ the Lord makes participants
in His priesthood through the power of the Holy Spirit."
The
Prex
In its commentary upon the revision of the
Prex, the CDWS explains that: "The first line of revision in the
Prex
needed to address the problem of the lack of explanation of the
functions of the priestly ministry." The complete text of the new
Prex
will be examined to discover how successfully this objective has been
achieved, bearing in mind what has already been stated, that the
function of a priest could have been made clear by replacing some (or
all) of the prayers which were removed in 1968. In the translations of
the
Prex for the 1968 and 1989 rites the singular is used, i.e. it is presumed that only one priest is being ordained.
1968 Rite
Adesto
Come to our aid, O Lord, holy Father,
almighty and eternal God, author of all honours
the bestower of all dignities
| 1989 Rite
Adesto
Come to our aid, O Lord, holy Father,
almighty and eternal God, author of human dignity the bestower of all graces
|
Henri Fesquet, the liberal Catholic journalist, author, and
commentator upon Vatican II was, according to Michael Novak, the writer
who "set the mark against which other journalists of the world in
reporting the Council measured themselves."
6 Fesquet was jubilant at the result of the final vote of the Council Fathers for
Dignitatis humanae,
the Declaration on Religious Liberty. He concluded that the affirmative
vote for the Declaration represented the acceptance by the Council of
the glorious motto of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity".
7 Was Fesquet
exaggerating?
It is, of course, incompatible with the French Revolutionary ethos for
any person to possess honours and dignities not shared by all. Titles
were abolished and the common designation "citizen" shared by those of
every social class, although, as George Orwell has made clear in
Animal Farm,
after any revolution some citizens very quickly become more equal than
others. Needless to say, the Church did not adopt the Revolutionary
motto as its watchword in any official document, but a democratic
ethos, in which honours, titles, and special marks of respect are an
embarrassment, is certainly part of the all-pervasive "spirit of the
Council"
-----witness the abandonment of the papal tiara and the
sedia gestatoria.
There is no more effective manner of embarrassing a bishop today than by kneeling to kiss his ring. It is, therefore, not in accord with the "spirit of Vatican II" to refer to the priesthood as an honour or a dignity.
The
priesthood is now seen as a service performed by one equal member of
the Christian community for other equal members of the community.
In its commentary on the
Prex,
the CDWS admits, without the least trace of embarrassment, that one
object of the revisions is to "place the ministry within its
ecclesiological context". It goes on to explain that: "The words
honor and
dignitas
have been suppressed, because they are not acceptable in this context,
in spite of their historical value." God is changed from the source (or
author) of all "honours" to the source of "human dignity"; and from the
bestower of all "dignities" to the bestower of all "graces" (or gifts)
which, of course, He is, and the reference given is 1 Cor. 12:4. But,
as Dr. Clark has observed with regard to Cranmer's ordination rite, "It
was not what was expressed but what was suppressed that gave
significance to the whole . . ." (see Chapter VIII). It is interesting
to note that the CDWS actually used the word "suppressed" to describe
the removal of the terms "honour" and "dignity" ("Se han suprimido los
palabras
honor y dignitas,
que en la actualidad son dificilmente aceptadas en este contexto, a
pesar de su valor historico.") The dignity of the priesthood is, in
fact, referred to explicitly in the form for this sacrament later in
the
Prex. We must be thankful that the revisers stopped short of making changes here.
The suppression of "honours" to be replaced by "human dignity"
constitutes the mutilation of a venerable liturgical text, and is a
change that almost defies credibility. A footnote is provided in the
official
Notitiae commentary confirming that it is a direct quotation from
Dignitatis humanae,
the Declaration on Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Council, and
its most controversial document. The footnote cites the first paragraph
of the Declaration as the source for the innovation. One must wonder
what degree if any of a true
sensus catholicus is
possessed by those who do not hesitate to mutilate an ancient rite by
inserting into it a new phrase with no relevance to the ordination of a
priest simply to impart credibility to a controversial document by
using it as a liturgical source.
per quem
by Whom all things make progress, by Whom all things are
strengthened, all that by an ordered progression develops rational
nature to further excellence.
Unde
And so the priestly orders and the offices of the Levites, established with sacred rites, grew when
Thou didst choose men of the next rank and dignity to be the associates
and helpers of the high priests whom Thou didst appoint to rule the
people.
Sic in eremo
Thus in the desert through seventy prudent men Thou didst spread abroad
the spirit of Moses, and with their aid he was able to rule easily the
vast multitude of people.
Sic in filios
So too the sons of Aaron Thou didst richly endow with their father's
plenty, so that there should be sufficient priests to offer saving
victims and perform the sacred rites more frequently.
| per quem
by Whom all things make progress, by Whom all things are strengthened,
and Who to fashion a priestly people, appoints ministers of Christ Thy
Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the different orders within
it.
Iam in priore
Now in the former Covenant, offices, established with sacred rites, grew so that when Thou didst place Moses and Aaron in authority to rule and sanctify the people Thou didst choose men of the next rank and dignity to be their associates and helpers in the work of their order.
Sic in eremo
Thus in the desert through seventy prudent men Thou didst spread abroad
the spirit of Moses, and with their aid he was able to rule easily Thy people.
Sic in filios
So too the sons of Aaron Thou didst richly endow with their father's plenty, that for the sacrifices of the tabernacle which were a shadow of good things to come, there should be sufficient priests according to the Law.
|
The changes in the prayers from the
per quem to the
Sic in filios
cannot be said to clarify the nature of the Catholic priesthood which
the CDWS accepted is absent from the text of the 1968 rite. The nearest
that it comes to doing so is the allusion to Hebrews 10:1 and
Colossians 2:17
-----quae umbra erant futurorum bonorum
("a shadow of good things to come") which could be interpreted as a
reference to the Sacrifice of the Mass, but not necessarily, and would
be perfectly acceptable to Anglicans as it is scriptural and, they
would reason, must be in accord with their own doctrines.
[
See Special Note 3.]
Hac providentia
This same providence of thine, Lord, as companions of Thy Son's
Apostles, provided teachers of the second rank who aided by them spread
the faith the world over.
| Novissime vero
Last of all, holy Father, Thou
didst send Thy Son into the world, Jesus, Apostle and Pontiff of our
faith. Immaculate, He offered Himself to Thee, through the Holy Spirit,
and made His Apostles, sanctified in truth, participators in His
mission, to whom Thou hast added companions for preaching and effecting
the work of salvation the world over.
|
The prayer is entirely new, replacing the traditional
Haec providentia. The new material in the
Novissime vero
is adapted from the Liturgy Constitution of Vatican II (n. 6) but does
not specify that the essential function of a Catholic priest is to
offer the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass as did, for example, the
Accipe potestatem.
It refers to Our Lord as Apostle and Priest, states that His Apostles
participated in His mission, and that God gave them companions for
preaching and effecting the work of salvation. This is all true and
admirable, but there is not a word here that is not perfectly
compatible with Protestantism. Catholics, of course, believe that
participating in the mission of Christ, and effecting this work of
salvation, includes pre-eminently making the Sacrifice of Calvary
present daily upon the altars of the Church, but Protestants deny this,
believing that their ministers participate in the mission of Christ and
effect His work of salvation by dispensing faithfully His word and His
(two) holy Sacraments. The CDWS lays great stress on the fact that the
adaptation of the conciliar text "excludes any dichotomy between
evangelization and liturgical celebration, and on the other hand
stresses the intimate connection between the two aspects as part of a
single mission in which what is proclaimed through the word is
communicated through the sacrament." It is significant that the CDWS
does not claim that the adaptation of the text made clear that what is
proclaimed through the word is communicated through sacrifice and
Sacrament. It could have done this easily by quoting from the very text
of Vatican II that it cites. No. 6 of the Liturgy Constitution teaches
with admirable clarity that:
Accordingly, just as Christ was sent by the Father so also He sent the
Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit. This He did so that they might
preach the Gospel to every creature, and proclaim that the Son of God
by His death and resurrection had freed us from the power of Satan and
from death, and brought us into the Kingdom of His Father. But He also
willed that the work of salvation which they preached should be set in
train through the sacrifice and Sacraments, around which the entire liturgical life revolves (my emphasis).
How sad that ecumenical considerations prompted those who composed the prayer
Novissime vera
to censor even a text of the Council rather than include an unambiguous
reference to the fact that the Eucharist is a sacrifice as well as a
Sacrament.
Quapropter
Wherefore, O Lord, we beseech Thee
to grant us this help for our weakness,
our need is the greater because our strength is less.
| Nunc etiam
Now also, O Lord, we beseech Thee
to grant us this helper to support us in our weakness to exercise the apostolic priesthood.
|
The traditional
Quapropter prayer asks for the bishop to be given help to support his weakness, and the new
Nunc etiam
asks for him to be given helpers, which amounts to precisely the same
request. The change does nothing to clarify the nature of the Catholic
priesthood.
Da, quaesumus
GRANT, WE BESEECH THEE, ALMIGHTY FATHER, TO THIS THY SERVANT THE DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD:
RENEW TIJE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS WITHIN HIM: MAY HE HOLD FROM THEE, O GOD,
THE SECOND RANK IN THY SERVICE
AND BY THE EXAMPLE OF HIS BEHAVIOUR
AFFORD A PATTERN OF HOLY LIVING.
| Da, quaesumus
GRANT, WE BESEECH THEE, ALMIGHTY FATHER, TO THIS THY SERVANT THE DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD:
RENEW THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS WITHIN HIM: MAY HE HOLD FROM THEE, O GOD,
THE SECOND RANK IN THY SERVICE
AND BY THE EXAMPLE OF HIS BEHAVIOUR
AFFORD A PATTERN OF HOLY LIVING.
|
The form of the Sacrament is identical to that in the 1968 rite.
Sint probi
May he be a worthy cooperator with our Order (the episcopate), so that
the words of the Gospel may reach to the farthest parts of the earth.
| Sint probi
May he be a worthy cooperator with our Order, so that the words of the Gospel may, through his preaching, bear fruit in the hearts of men, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, reach to the farthest parts of the earth.
|
All that the new material in the
Sint probi
does is to emphasize the preaching function of the the priest, which
could hardly be more in accord with Anglican doctrine. In its
commentary the CDWS states that the amplification of this prayer
"describes the collaboration of the priestly ministry with that of the
bishop in evangelization, the celebration of the sacraments, and prayer
for the people." Its explanation, like the prayer itself, could hardly
be in more perfect accord with Anglican doctrine.
| Sint nobiscum
May he, with us,
be a faithful dispenser of Thy mysteries that Thy people
may be renewed by the waters of Baptism and be refreshed from Thine
altar, that sinners may be reconciled, and the sick raised up.
|
The new material in the
Sint nobiscum
would not simply be acceptable to but welcomed enthusiastically by
Anglicans with its echoes of words from the "form" for ordaining a
priest in Cranmer's ordinals of 1550 and 1552: "Be thou a faithful
dispenser of the word of God and of his holy sacraments." Nor
would the word "altar" cause problems for Anglicans as it is included
in the 1549 Communion Service.
and all nations gathered together in Christ, may become one holy people of God.
Per Dominum
Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, Who with Thee lives and reigns
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.
| Sint nobis
May he be united with us, O Lord, in beseeching Thy mercy for the people entrusted to him, and for the whole world.
Sic nationem
so that all nations gathered together in Christ,
may become Thy one holy people gathered together in Thy kingdom.
Per Dominum
Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, Who with Thee lives and reigns
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.
|
There is not one word in the rest of these amended prayers that would
not be totally acceptable to Anglicans. The drastic changes made to the
Prex,
the only substantial portion of the traditional rite retained in the
1968 version, are both unnecessary and unjustified. The new
Prex
does indeed refer to the priesthood of Christ, a point which the CDWS
stresses as of great importance in its commentary, but no Anglican,
Cranmer included, ever denied the priesthood of Our Lord. How could any
Protestant do so in view of the unequivocal teaching of the Epistle to
the Hebrews? What the new
Prex
nowhere makes clear is that Our Lord makes present the same sacrifice
which He offered once and for all upon Calvary each time a validly
ordained priest offers the Sacrifice of the Mass in His person (
in persona Christi). It is nothing less than scandalous that the
Prex
from the Leonine Sacramentary has been sacrificed to compensate for
what the CDWS accepted was "the lack of explanation of the functions of
the priestly ministry" in the 1968 ordination rite, when there is not a
word in the revised
Prex that either clarifies this function or is not totally compatible with Protestantism.
Determination
ex adiunctis
In order not to overlook any possible evidence that can be adduced in favour of the 1989 rite the full
ex adiunctis
case will be presented here. These arguments all deal with elements
external to the rite and in no way concede the CDWS' claim that the
revised
Prex constitutes a
sufficiently eloquent presentation of the nature of the priesthood. Dr.
Francis Clark listed the most important of these factors in his review
of the first edition of this book, which is cited at length in the
introduction.
There is not the slightest doubt that the supreme authority that
sanctioned the changes, the Holy See, was determined to maintain intact
the full Catholic doctrine of the Mass and the priesthood. The new
forms, liturgically impoverished though they are, are nevertheless
still vested with the sacred significance which the supreme authority
of the Catholic Church attaches to its Sacraments, ministry, and rites.
The documents of the Second Vatican Council and the teaching of Pope
Paul VI are the contemporary overall context which objectively supplies
the due meaning which is no longer explicit in the ritual forms.
While stressing Dr. Clark's agreement with me that the nature of the
priesthood "is no longer explicit in the ritual forms", I accept that
the
ex adiunctis case that he
puts here cannot be contested. (It should be noted that his acceptance
of the inadequacy of the ritual forms is based only on the 1968 rite
and not the revised ordinal of 1989.) Other
ex adiunctis
factors in favour of the New Ordinal are the fact that in 1968 it was
celebrated within the context of the Tridentine Mass. There are also
prayers in the rite of Mass for ordinations found in the new Ordinal
that must be accepted as imparting a Catholic
ex adiunctis
setting to the rite, above all the presence of the Roman Canon. The
modifications made to it in the 1970 Missal do not detract from its
explicitly sacrificial terminology. Even if the Roman Canon is not used
for an ordination Mass, that Mass will be celebrated with an Ordinal
which includes it.
The decisive factor where the validity of any sacramental rite is
concerned is the approval given to it by the Pope. As Appendix XI makes
clear, no Pope could impose or authorize for universal use any
sacramental rite that was either invalid or intrinsically harmful to
the faith. In
Anglican Orders and Defect of Intention, the most authoritative examination of Anglican Orders written since
Apostolicae Curae, Dr. Francis Clark explains that:
The ultimate test of the validity of sacramental rites is not to
be found in scholarship and liturgical research alone. When the
sufficiency or insufficiency of a rite is in question, the decisive norm is the acceptance or rejection of it by the Catholic Church.
So it can be argued that when the head of the Church officially rejects
a rite as incapable of mediating sacramental efficacy, as he did in the
constitution Apostolicae Curae,
he is not only judging authoritatively about a past dogmatic fact, but
is also exercising in the present what may be called "practical
infallibility". Even by itself, prescinding from anything that had gone
before, this solemn act of the Holy See was sufficient to disown the
Anglican rite as not a sacramental rite of the Catholic Church. Thus there has been since 1896 an added source of certainty about the invalidity of the Anglican rite-----a
certainty based on the "practical infallibility" of the Church's
determining decrees, which in the sacramental sphere effectively
guarantee what they decree (my emphasis). 8
Needless to say, the authority of the Church is as decisive in
affirming the validity of a sacramental rite as in affirming its
invalidity. The papal approbation given to the Latin Typical Editions
of all the post-conciliar sacramental rites places their validity
beyond dispute.
The Latin Typical Edition of the 1989 Ordinal includes (page 216) a
proper preface for the ordination of a priest which, after the
traditional opening which states our duty of offering praise to the
Father almighty, includes the following:
Who, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, appointed Thine only
Son as the High Priest of the new and everlasting covenant, and by a
wonderful design, saw fit to ordain that His one priesthood be
preserved in the Church.
For He not only adorns the people He has won with His Royal Priesthood,
but He has also out of fraternal kindness, chosen men to share in His
sacred ministry by the laying on of hands.
They are to renew, in His name, the sacrifice of man's redemption, by
making present the Paschal Feast for Thy children, and to lead Thy holy
people in charity, to nourish them with the Word, and refresh them with
the Sacraments.
Offering their lives for Thy sake and for the salvation of the
brethren, they are to endeavour to conform themselves to the image of
Christ Himself, and steadily manifest to Thee their faith and love.
This preface has been included as an
ex adiunctis
factor testifying to the orthodoxy of the new ordinal as it states that
ordination gives men a share in Christ's ministry by the laying on of
hands, thus distinguishing the ministerial priesthood from the
universal priesthood of all the faithful. It also refers to the fact
that the ordained priest renews the sacrifice of man's redemption,
which is good, but then claims that this is done by making present the
Last Supper (
paschale convivium),
which is a depressing reminder of the extent to which the spirit of
Archbishop Bugnini permeates the Congregation created in 1975 when Pope
Paul VI suppressed the Congregation for Divine Worship of which he was
secretary.
9 The promulgation of the New
Order of Mass in 1969, prefaced by the General Instruction to the new
Roman Missal (which was not published until the following year), caused
great scandal. The General Instruction was so severely criticised for
statements of dubious orthodoxy, and its entirely unCatholic ethos,
that extensive and important revisions needed to be made to the version
that prefaced the actual Missal in 1970. (A detailed examination of the
original Instruction and the subsequent amendments is provided in
Chapter XIII of my book
Pope Paul's New Mass.)
One of the most serious deficiencies in the original version was
Article 48 which stated that it is the Last Supper that is made present
whenever Mass is celebrated. The 1970 version of Article 48 corrected
this by stating that "the sacrifice of the Cross is continually made
present in the Church", whenever Mass is celebrated. It is, of course,
in the original German Instruction, and not in the conciliar Liturgy
Constitution, which it claimed to interpret, that the theological
rationale of the New Mass can be found. It is deplorable that the
preface in the 1989 Ordinal, composed specifically for use in the
ordination of priests, conforms to the uncorrected Article 48 by
claiming that it is the Last Supper that is made present in the Mass
where priests "renew, in His name, the sacrifice of man's redemption,
by making present the Paschal Feast (
paschale convivium) for Thy children."
The Postcommunion
The proper postcommunion for the Mass of priestly ordination,
found on page 207 of the Latin Ordinal, states with admirable clarity
that the Divine Victim is offered in the Mass, and employs the word
hostia for victim. The use of the word sacerdotes for priests is also welcome:
Sacerdotes
tuos, Domine, et omnes famulos tuos vivificet divina, quam obtulimus et
sumpsimus, hostia, ut, perpetua tibi caritate coniuncti, digne famulari
tuae mereantur maiestati.
| O
Lord, may the Divine Victim which we have offered and consumed, bring
new life to Thy priests and all Thy servants that, united with Thee in
unceasing charity, they may merit worthily to serve Thy Divine majesty.
|
The Profession of Faith
A final ex adiunctis
factor is the Profession of Faith taken prior to ordination to the
diaconate. The ordinand places his hand upon the Book of the Gospels
while making the profession which begins with the recitation of the
Creed, which is followed by these words:
Furthermore, I embrace and uphold each and every doctrine concerning
faith and morals which the Church has taught and declared in solemn
definition or by ordinary teaching authority and in the sense in which
the Church has proposed such doctrine especially the teaching
concerning the mystery of the Holy Church of Christ, the Sacraments,
the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.
Deacons must logically presume that the rite used to ordain them to the
priesthood is intended to make them priests who will offer the
Sacrifice of the Mass in the sense defined by the Church.
In its commentary upon the 1989 revision of the Prex, the CDWS accepts
that: "The first line of revision in the Prex needed to address the
problem of the lack of explanation of the functions of the priestly
ministry." It concludes the commentary by praising the 1989 Prex with
words which have already been quoted several times, as "an aid to the
understanding of what this Second Editio Typica offers in order to make
the actual celebration of the priestly ordinal a sufficiently eloquent
presentation of the mystery and identity of the priests who, through
the ministry of the Bishop, Christ the Lord makes participants in His
priesthood through the power of the Holy Spirit and for the service of
the holy people of God."
The reader must judge for himself whether or not the revised Prex does
constitute a sufficiently eloquent presentation of the nature of the
Catholic priesthood. The full text in Latin and in English is available
in this appendix for scrutiny. However carefully one examines it, and
with no matter how much good will, the claim that it is a sufficiently
eloquent presentation of the mystery and identity of priests cannot be
substantiated from the text itself. In order to do this it is necessary
to resort to ex adiunctis factors.
The nearest that the actual rite of
ordination comes to an explicit mandatory affirmation of the nature of
the Catholic priesthood is the question put to the ordinand and cited
above, asking whether he is resolved to celebrate the Eucharistic
Sacrifice and the Sacrament of Reconciliation faithfully and
religiously according to the tradition of the Church. Even with
considerable good will, and a resolve to interpret liturgical texts
approved by the Pope according to the tradition of the Church, it can
hardly be considered a sufficiently eloquent presentation of Catholic
teaching when set beside the
venerable and explicitly sacrificial prayers expunged from the
traditional rite by Archbishop Bugnini in 1968 and, alas, not restored
in 1989.
If Cardinal Martinez, who was Prefect of the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments when the 1989 Ordinal was
published, insists that the actual celebration of the priestly ordinal
now constitutes a sufficiently eloquent presentation of the mystery and
identity of the priesthood, then perhaps he would be gracious enough to
point out to us precisely where and precisely how.
A sacramentary was a liturgical book used in the celebration of
Mass until the thirteenth century. It contained the Canon of the Mass
and such prayers as the Collects and Prefaces, but not the Epistles and
Gospels or such sung parts as the Gradual. It also contained ordination
formularies, blessings, and other prayers used by bishops and priests.
In order to simplify the celebration of the liturgy, Missals containing
all the prayers and readings necessary to celebrate Mass began to
appear from the tenth century, and all the ceremonies involving bishops
began to be collected into Pontificals, and these two books eventually
replaced the sacramentary completely. The sacramentary had been
preceded by what were known as Libelli Missarum.
They were small books containing the formularies for parts of the Mass
for the Church in a particular diocese or locality, but not the Canon
which was fixed, the readings, or the sung parts. They provided the
intermediary between extempore celebrations and the fixed formularies
of the Sacramentary. No actual examples are known to have survived, but
the certainty of their existence is known through literary references
and above all through the Leonine Sacramentary in Verona which consists
of a collection of libelli. The uninterrupted use up to 1968 of a Prex that had come down to us virtually unchanged from a libellum
originating in the mists of Christian antiquity provided a priceless
link with our fathers in the faith which should have been preserved as
a sacred trust to be handed on unchanged to future generations.
I have shown in my book Pope Paul's New Mass
that the three new Eucharistic Prayers in the 1970 Missal have all been
drafted in a manner that allows precisely such an interpretation, i.e.
the priest is no more than a member of the congregation, differing from
them in degree but not in essence, who does no more than preside at the
Eucharist. Only the Roman Canon makes the necessary distinction between
celebrant and congregation. The presence of the Roman Canon, now known
as Eucharistic Prayer I, in the 1970 Missal, gives a Catholic
signification to the ambiguities of the three new prayers.
The actual reference to Hebrews given in the Notitiae commentary (p. 118 [g]) is 8:5 which does not contain even the least allusion to futurorum bonorum, but the phrase does occur in 9:17 and 10:1; the latter is probably intended as it also refers to a "shadow".
1. Via Media, vol. n (London,
1901), p. 316.
2. Enchiridion Euchologicum Fontium
Liturgicorum (CLV. Edizione Liturgiche 00192 Roma. Via Pompeo
Magno, 21, 1979, Italy), pp. 633-4.
3. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the
Liturgy 1948-1975 (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota,
1990), p. 721.
4. Ibid., p. 70, n. 29.
5. M. Sansom, Liturgy for
Ordinations: The Series III Services (Grove Books, Bramcote,
Notts, 1978), p. 10.
6. H. Fesquet, The Drama of Vatican
II (New York, 1967), p. xviii.
7. Ibid., pp. 814-15.
8. F. Clark, Anglican Orders and
Defect of Intention (London, 1956), p. 10.
9. The complete background to the suppression of the Congregation and
"the "exile" of Archbishop Bugnini, as he described it himself, can be
found in Chapter XXIV of my book Pope Paul's New Mass.
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