The protagonist of Pre-Vatican II liturgy (Tridentine Liturgy)

Cardinal Burke, during these past six or so years in Rome, has emerged as perhaps the most liturgically and doctrinally retrodox prelate in the Church.

Nov 20, 2014

Cardinal Burke, during these past six or so years in Rome, has emerged as perhaps the most liturgically and doctrinally retrodox prelate in the Church. His name has become synonymous with the cappa magna and other outlandish ecclesiastical attire dating to a bygone era. He prides himself on being a fervent pro-life activist, though others would call him an overzealous anti-abortionist, given his insistence that capital punishment and war, though rarely permissible, are not intrinsically evil. On the flip side, he makes his the loudest voice in the room — as he showed during the last synod gathering — in order to remind the whole world that sexual love between two people of the same sex is always an intrinsic evil.

The cardinal’s fan base is made up mainly of Tridentine Mass devotees and proponents of the so-called “reform of the reform” of the liturgy, as well as other socially conservative Catholics. They all march (though some seem to just sleepwalk) under the banner of the “hermeneutic of continuity,” a phrase they mistakenly attribute to Benedict XVI. (The retired pope actually espoused a “hermeneutic of reform,” defining it as “a combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels” and “innovation in continuity.”)

Fortunately, the Burke groupies are a tiny minority within the much, much wider Church. But, unfortunately, a good part of this minority seem to be seminarians (especially in English and French-speaking areas), and a good number of priests ordained in the last five to 10 years. And then, there are the bishops. Lamentably, there seems to be no lack of them. At least the loudest ones. And the United States would seem to have more than its fair share.

Make no mistake: Fascination with the unreformed rituals that predated Vatican II is not just about aesthetics or style. It is fundamentally about ecclesiology; that is, what we believe about the Church, the nature of its inner life, and its relation to other faiths and the rest of the world. The liturgy was reformed and renewed after Vatican II to reflect the renewed ecclesiology that had been developing for decades and was then officially embraced and ratified at the great ecumenical council.

This is why Paul VI warned that once the Novus Ordo, or reformed rite, was in place, there could be no going back to that which preceded it. He knew that doing so would throw into question everything about the council, not just the way we worship. His successors, especially Benedict XVI, did not heed his warning. And, in turn, they have created a situation where a tiny, vocal minority — with his patronage and the patronage of “great cardinals” such as Burke — had become the tail wagging the dog. Though miniscule, they have been very noisy. Just as after the council, their Old Mass forebears bombarded sympathetic cardinals and Vatican officials with complaints and relentless letter-writing campaigns, so they have dominated the Internet to promote their desires for a further return to the past. In doing so, many of them have mocked and scorned anyone who does not agree with them.

And now Pope Francis has arrived, whom theologian Richard Gaillardetz has called “the pope of Vatican II ecclesiology.” The “reform of the reform” group and fans of Burke have been deeply demoralized and even angered by the unfolding of pontificate, marked by its extremely welcoming, evangelical and informal style.

It is within this group of Catholics that the dark prognostications of schism issue forth, despite the fact that questions of marriage and divorce that have prompted this veiled threat are not articles of faith and are not found in any creedal statements. It is quite troubling that such a miniscule group of people has gained far more prominence in the Church than justified, even to the point that it has been able convince many people that an extreme centrist such as Cardinal Walter Kasper is a “progressive.”

Those who really do consider themselves “progressive” or reform-minded Catholics, people who found it hard to keep hopeful during the last pontificate, need to be magnanimous with Burke and his supporters. This is not a time for paybacks. There should be no gloating over Catholic brothers and sisters who are now feeling angry and demoralized, not even if they are caustic.

They should be pitied rather than scorned. -- NCR

--Robert Mickens is editor-in-chief of Global Pulse. He studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University before working 11 years at Vatican Radio and then and then another decade as correspondent for The Tablet of London.

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