THE LITURGY AS BATTLEFIELD: What do 'restorationists' want?

Complaining about the liturgy is a favorite--and probably healthy--pastime of Catholics, lay and clerical alike. Few dispute the fact that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II have been implemented with mixed results. There is a widespread sense that the liturgy can be improved and that the quality of liturgical practice is crucial to the life of the church as a whole. What many lay Catholics may not realize is that the welcome desire for better liturgy has, in some quarters, taken a highly polemical and potentially divisive turn. Some proponents of this new wave of criticism like to describe their plan as a "reform of the reform," or more accurately, a restoration, a return to the Vatican II documents and a new start at implementation. I fear, however, that the liturgical restoration envisioned by these proponents threatens the unity of the church as well as the coherence of our common worship. Some of their thinking, however, is now pervading Roman liturgical documents.

Recent documents and decisions of the Congregation for Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments call for a new reflection on the restorationist movement in liturgy. Many of the current controversies concerning the translation of liturgical texts center around the instruction Liturgiam authenticam (March 2001) from the Congregation for Worship. It is a clear rejection of Comme le prevoit, the instruction on translations of liturgical texts published in 1969 by the Consilium for the Implementation of the Liturgy. Hand in hand with this change has come a reorganization of the "mixed commissions" which were set up in 1969 so that nations speaking the same language would use the same translation of liturgical texts. This reorganization has been seen as a criticism, if not a repudiation, of the work of ICEL (International Commission for English in the Liturgy). Although criticisms of ICEL's work have not been lacking through the years, most of these dealt with the lack of a poetic and elevated style in the translations. Now the criticism involves a thrust toward more literalism and a concern for orthodoxy. In March 2000 a new version of Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (General Instruction of the Roman Missal) appeared, supplanting that of 1975. The controversies here center around more restrictive positions concerning the placement of the tabernacle, the gestures of the faithful, the involvement of the laity in the distribution of Holy Communion, the nature of the sanctuary (now called in these texts the "presbyterium"), and so on.

The congregation is now evidently operating on a different model from the one we have been using since Vatican II. Liturgiam authenticam states it without equivocation: "This instruction therefore envisions and seeks to prepare for a new era of liturgical renewal, which is consonant with the qualities and the traditions of the particular churches, but which safeguards also the faith and the unity of the whole Church of God" (7). The church is said to be starting a second phase of renewal after the council, but it is not yet evident what the underlying theology of this second "reform" entails.

The restorationist movement

How is the restorationist movement affecting liturgical renewal? Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger offers the key to understanding the direction this pontificate has taken over the last two decades with respect to Vatican II in general and liturgical renewal in particular (see especially his book-length interview with Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report, Ignatius Press, 1985). The cardinal does not like the word "restoration" and yet his own words seem to justify the term as a label for this new development. He responds to Messori's question on whether a restoration is in motion in the church by saying: "If by 'restoration' is meant a turning back, no restoration of such a kind is possible....But if by restoration we understand the search for a new balance after the exaggerations of an indiscriminate opening to the world, after the overly positive interpretations of an agnostic and atheistic world, well, then a restoration understood in this sense (a newly found balance of orientations and values within the Catholic totality) is altogether desirable and, for that matter, is already in operation in the church. In this sense it can be said that the first phase after Vatican II has come to a close." Ratzinger implies that the restorationist movement rejects not the documents of Vatican II but only the optimistic interpretation of the period when they were implemented. The bark of Peter--now better described as the "ocean liner"--somehow got off course because of this "positive" interpretation. A restoration involves a shifting of its ecclesiastical rudder to set the church again on the right course intended by the council.

This restorationist movement should be distinguished from the ongoing search for liturgical renewal according to the norms already established. Liturgists who were involved in the first liturgical reforms after the council consider that the renewal was halted in midstream and agree that many valid criticisms of the present state of affairs are in order. For example, in citing the low quality of some translations, they call for a more elevated and poetic style. They seek a closer examination of the selection of texts for the lectionary cycles and a broader debate about the way passages, in particular from the Old Testament, have been selected. The use in the liturgy of many biblical texts in a transferred meaning that goes back to patristic times must also be clarified. Studies still abound about the placement of the Kiss of Peace, the redundancy of the opening rites, and other structural issues in the Mass. Above all else, the quality of the music used in the liturgy has come under the sharpest criticism. But these and many other observations are seen as refinements of the first directions given in the postconciliar years and should not involve a total change of direction that would cancel out the earlier documents. The restorationist movement talks instead about a new beginning.