c. 2005 Religion News Service
BEVAGNA, Italy _ On a recent Saturday morning, dozens of worshippers gathered in a sun-dappled park just beyond the medieval walls of town to celebrate Mass. At the edges of the ceremony, priests occupied park benches to hear confessions. The rest of the congregation knelt in the grass with their eyes directed at the back of the Rev. Luigi Moncalero as he raised a chalice to the heavens.
The worshippers, members of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), call themselves observant Catholics. But according to the Vatican, they are rebels referred to as “Lefebvrists” for their loyalty to the late Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988 by John Paul II for committing “schismatic acts.” Lefebvre died in 1991.
Their Mass cannot be celebrated inside a Catholic church, because it follows outdated rules that were dramatically altered in the 1960s by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As a result, the Mass has become the organization’s battle cry.
“Liberate the Mass!” said Haakan Lindstrom, a 27 year-old seminarian from Sweden, preparing for the priesthood at an SSPX campus in the Alban hills south of Rome. Wearing a black full-length cassock and a pair of running shoes, Lindstrom was half way through a 20-mile pilgrimage to Assisi, planned in anticipation of Lefebvre’s 100th birthday in November.
“For centuries (the Mass) was the same, so I don’t see why it should’ve changed,” he said.
The increasing diversity of a global church is what ultimately moved the Second Vatican Council to change the Mass, rendering it more accessible to non-European faithful. Decades later, however, the Vatican is concerned that local dioceses have gone too far in relaxing the rules, diluting the very rituals that anchor Catholic teaching.
The shift has given the Lefebvrist movement a new platform to makes its case, and many wonder if Pope Benedict XVI is listening.
To the non-Catholic eye, the differences between the modern Catholic Mass and the Latin, or Tridentine, Mass celebrated by the Lefebvrists appear mostly technical.
Where the post-Vatican II Mass permits the use of modern music, the Tridentine mass calls for Gregorian hymns; when Catholics at a modern Mass stand to receive the Eucharist in their palm, their counterparts at a Tridentine Mass kneel and receive the host directly in their mouth. Catholic priests author their own homilies and deliver them in the vernacular; Lefebvrist priests read homilies contained in a 1962 missal and composed in Latin.
According to the Society, these differences aren’t just technical; they are essential to producing the state of “fear and trembling” that all Catholics are supposed feel before taking Communion.
The devil is quite literally in the details.
“This new Mass is dangerous to the faith and the faithful, because there is less precision,” said the Rev. Marc Nely, the SSPX superior in Italy. Nely accuses the reforms of Vatican II of transforming the Mass from a ritual focused on “sacrifice” to a “banquet” that caters to modern consumerism.
The debate over how Catholics receive Communion generally gets overshadowed in the media by hot-button issues like women’s ordination, abortion and bioethics. Inside the church, however, few topics generate more debate than the Eucharist, because it cuts straight to the core of Catholic identity.
In October, hundreds of Roman Catholic bishops from around the world will gather in Rome for a special synod, or assembly, dedicated to the Eucharist. The synod’s working paper, or “instrumentum laboris,” states that Catholics who publicly defy church teaching on abortion and stem cell research, or vote for a political candidate who opposes these teachings, are in a state of mortal sin and therefore unfit to receive Communion.
“Such attitudes lead to, among other things, a crisis in the meaning of belonging to the church and in a clouding of the distinction between venial and mortal sin,” the document reads, voicing concern “that some Catholics don’t always act in a way which distinguishes them from other persons.”
Many blame poor discipline for the fading belief among observant Catholics in the literal presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist _ the church’s most fundamental teaching on Communion.
“Reverence towards the mystery of the Eucharist and awareness of its sublime character are much needed today,” the synod working paper states, calling for “places which can serve as models, places where the Eucharist is truly believed and properly celebrated, places where people can personally experience what the sacrament is.”
As a schismatic group, the Lefebvrists are not invited to attend the synod, but they nevertheless regard their organization as a model to other Catholics. Reverence in the mystery of the Eucharist runs high at SSPX, they say, because their followers celebrate Mass “properly.”
Nely and others also see an opening in the papacy of Benedict XVI. Just as John Paul II once raised eyebrows for adding contemporary music and African dance to the papal Mass, Benedict has created a stir with the reintroduction of Gregorian hymns and Latin prayer.
These traditionalist touches, Nely said, suggest the new pope might sympathize with the Lefebvrist struggle.
In early September, Benedict held secret talks with Lefebvre’s successor, Bishop Bernard Fellay, at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence south of Rome. Both sides emerged from the encounter with statements saying they planned to continue dialogue “by degrees.”
Benedict’s relations with the group predate the schism of 1988 when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) was the Vatican’s lead negotiator responsible for keeping SSPX in the ecclesial fold.
Those negotiations collapsed after Lefebvre ordained Fellay and three other priests as bishops, prompting their excommunication.
Reports indicate that current efforts to reintegrate the Lefebvrists hinge on whether the Vatican would permit the group to celebrate the Trindentine Mass without the required approval from local bishops.
But critics warn that the liturgy is not the real issue separating the Lefebvrists from Rome.
“The liturgy has become a kind of flag. It’s not the main doctrinal conflict,” said the Rev. Philip Goyret, a professor of dogmatic theology at the Vatican-linked Holy Cross University in Rome, who is also a priest with the conservative Opus Dei movement.
The Rev. Robert Taft, a liturgical expert at the Pontifical Institute of Oriental Studies, called the Lefebvrist loyalty to the Tridentine Mass a “smokescreen” for disobedience. “The issue is do you accept the authority of the Church or not. You do if you’re in communion with the church,” Taft said.
Although Nely and other members of the Lefebvrist hierarchy insist they are in communion with Rome and loyal to the current pope, Catholic theologians interviewed for this article say they are not.
According to Goyret, the Lefebvrists represent the only formal schism to hit the Catholic Church since Vatican II.
Although SSPX clergy is regarded as canonically “illicit,” their bishops are still theologically valid as successors to St. Peter. That means that, with or without the Latin Mass, they are free to build a parallel “Catholic” church outside the authority of the pope.
SSPX currently claims more than 200,000 followers in 27 countries. It has 456 priests, 180 seminarians at six seminaries, three universities and dozens of grade schools.
Currently the Lefebvrist “church” not only dissents from Vatican II teaching on liturgy, but also rejects the Council’s hallmark embrace of interreligious dialogue and ecumenism _ the effort to unite Rome with other Christian churches. Benedict, who served as a “peritus,” or theological expert, at the Council, has identified ecumenical dialogue as one of the cornerstones of his papacy.
Any effort to normalize relations between Rome and SSPX, therefore, might be undercut by a refusal to acknowledge Vatican policies toward other faiths and denominations.
“You know the church has a problem when it’s friendly with any other religion but not with us,” said Matteo D’Amico, 41, an SSPX member who was making the 20-mile trek to Assisi.
Just as Pope Pius X fought against modern currents at the turn of the 19th century, D’Amico sees himself as a spiritual soldier enlisted to continue a centurieslong struggle against modernity. “You can’t understand the Society until you understand the dimensions of the crisis,” he said, adding: “The Society is extending the battle that all the great popes fought.”
KRE/JL END MEICHTRY
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