Question 10.166

10.166 On July 7, 2007, Benedict XVI promulgated Summorum Pontificum, the Motu proprio on the Roman liturgy previous to the reform in 1970. What is your point of view on this document?

I personally welcomed Summorum Pontificum with confidence, joy, and thanksgiving. It is, so to speak, a sign and a proof that the Church, Mater et Magister (our Mother and Teacher), is still attentive to all her children, taking into account their different sensibilities. Benedict XVI intended to promote the wealth of various spiritual expressions, provided they lead to a real, genuine ecclesial communion and a more luminous radiance of the Church’s sanctity.

I think that this beautiful Motu proprio is right in line with the will of the Council Fathers. And so we must not pretend to forget that Sacrosanctum concilium declared: “For the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change. These not only may but ought to be changed with the passage of time if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become unsuited to it” (SC 21).

In the letter that accompanied Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI wrote: “For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. … The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.”

Probably in the celebration of Mass according to the old missal, we understood better that the Mass is an act of Christ and not of men. Similarly, its mysterious and mystagogical character is more immediately evident. Even if we participate actively in the Mass, it is not our action but Christ’s. In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “What does this active participation come down to? What does it mean that we have to do? Unfortunately, the word was very quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity, as if as many people as possible, as often as possible, should be visibly engaged in action. However, the word ‘participation’ refers to a principal action in which everyone has a ‘part’. And so if we want to discover the kind of doing that active participation involves, we need, first of all, to determine what this central actio is in which all the members of the community are supposed to participate. … By the actio of the liturgy the sources mean the Eucharistic Prayer. The real liturgical action, the true liturgical act, is the oratio. … This oratio-the Eucharistic Prayer, the ‘Canon’-is really more than speech; it is actio in the highest sense of the word. For what happens in it is that the human actio (as performed hitherto by the priests in the various religions of the world) steps back and makes way for the actio divina, the action of God” (171-72).

The Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum attempts to reconcile the two forms of the Roman rite and above all seeks to help us rediscover the sacrality of Holy Mass as an actio Dei and not a human act. We are touching here on an extremely important point: the problem of the widespread lack of discipline, the lack of respect and of fidelity to the rite, which can also affect even the validity of the sacraments.