I assume these books can be purchased at the usual suspects (Amazon, B&N, here, etc.)?

Pedro, your conclusion seems valid. I think those of us on the musical side of the "reform of the Reform" are wanting to make that organic development happen. I would need to read both of these books first, but I like the idea of a study text. Put me down as a big "maybe" leaning toward "yes".

I think the EF should be left alone. It developed organically over time and is a finished product. At the same time, I would resist efforts to make the OF into the EF. Many of the changes from Vatican II were long overdue and much needed. I am not convinced everything the Council did was great, but organic development can repair the things that need fixing in the OF. Under Pope Benedict, that process is already underway.

I think I should add some personal background. I grew up with the Novus Ordo, having made my First Holy Communion with the first class after the promulgation of the Missal of Pope Paul VI. The only Latin I can remember was the occasional singing of Tantum ergo at Benediction and an occasional Salve Regina at the jubilee of a priest's ordination. My parents held on to their hand missals, however, and as a very small child I can recall being fascinated by them: the ribbons, the Latin text, the illustrations and descriptions of the ceremonies, vestments, stational churches, etc. That fascination never left me and I can honestly say that I developed a life-long attachment to the EF even though I never attended a traditional Latin Mass until a year ago.

I agree in part with Chrism, CharlesW and BGP that the OF is too unstable to be a point of departure for further development of the Roman Rite, partly because it was designed to be more "flexible." The liberation of the classical Roman Rite is a great blessing to the Church, and Summorum Pontificum is still very much in its "first-fruits" stage. Until every Catholic of the Roman Rite has free and ready access to the EF in every parish church and every priest receives his formation under the influence of its doctrinal perspicacity (if one can use such a term in speaking of the Church's liturgy) no further substantive changes should be made to the EF. Furthermore, nothing is to be gained vis-a-vis the regularization of SSPX and other traditionalist groups by further tinkering with the EF by so-called liturgical experts. But the present situation is certainly an anomaly: one rite with two rather different forms, calendars, etc., and one of them frozen in 1962!

The Holy Father has made it clear that the wholesale rejection of an oecumenical council of the Church is unacceptable. What is needed (and thankfully is happening) is a critical re-reading of the Council under the hermeneutic of continuity. Study and not precipitous change should be the order of the day. Every day new books and articles are appearing in print about the development of the classical Roman Rite. Perhaps it is time to uncover in detail the process and rationale of the Consilium for the post-conciliar liturgies it produced. I suspect they will not hold up so well under such critique. Nevertheless, there is a way forward that does not reject out of hand some of the more positive elements of the reform which constitutes the most widely celebrated liturgy in Christendom today. I refer in particular to those elements called for by the Council itself: expanded reading of Scripture at Mass, wider use of the vernacular, some of the new prefaces, and so forth. Professor Dobszay's proposal is only one man's view, and should be judged on its own merit. I think it is consonant with that of Pope Benedict as evidenced by his writings over many years and his own ars celebrandi.

Pedro, I think you're right.

What we saw in the 1970s, at least in the USA, was the liturgical rudder of the Church being thrown extremely hard to one side. This was deliberate: radicals (Marx, Adorno, Marcuse, Alinsky) always know the value of throwing things very hard in a certain direction so that any compensatory move toward the opposite side will have that much further to go. Thus the culture's overall course will tack in the radical direction. This tactic (deliberate dialectic), in their radical scale of values, has been enormously successful.

Benedict knows how they operate and has provided a surprise move that has alarmed them: a re-opening of dialectical possibilities in the direction of tradition. This opening has the radicals, as we say, in a lather. They are aging and feeling desperate. The time is ripe to press on with the (adult) task of piecing back together, intelligently, the process of organic development they so enthusiastically threw aside. Professor Dobszay's book sounds like a superb contribution to that effort of asserting a living continuity, an organic development.

By the way, Pedro, we are roughly the same age. I share your experience of forming attachments to the culture of the EF without ever having attended it as a child or young adult. The reasons for attachment are classically Catholic: physical signs and objects, and the care with which they were created and maintained, is greatly congenial to a sacramental mode of thinking.

Chrism and others: it seems to me that a strictly "preservationist" approach to the EF represents a denial of the very process of its development and elaboration, the process by which it was formed. There has to be some opening, it seems to me, for tradition to grow. Otherwise, it will not be tradition but museology. I realize the danger of loopholes, but it seems to me we have to allow for the exercise of inspired and holy intelligence. No?

Although popes have tinkered with the EF throughout its history, some would argue that organic development ceased with Trent. That council appears to have frozen the rite in place, and suppressed all other organic developments in place at the time. Whether or not one agrees, I think a case could be made that the 1962 missal created a finished product. It isn't the dominant rite of either the church, or even the "Latin" Rite anymore, so how does it develop from 1962 onward?

Now that Easter Season and Ordinary Time are ahead,
I hope to read these books.

In the mean time, my gut feeling is:
Tinker less with the EF liturgy; tinker more with the EF people.

Still hoping my rare visits to an EF parish will one day find an
Ordinary-singing happy congregation rather than silent angry glares
because I vocalize any content of the first 150 pages of the Gregorian Missal.

eft94530: tinker more with the EF people

If you're going to have that attitude, I'd rather never run into you, and I'm sure all the "EF people" would agree, whether they meet your stereotype or are completely opposite of it.

Oh, we're agreed there, Chrism. As I say, intelligent development in holiness. Tall order, but that's how we got the EF in the first place.

Chrism, I am sorry I stepped on your toes; I seem to have been chastized by you before for my EF comments.
I was just summarizing my multi-year semi-annual local music experiences.

The "baggage" I have as I seek to acquire and read the books ...

There is lack of catechesis on both sides of the 1963 document.
I have repeatedly read the pre-1962 documents and the post-1962 documents,
and find lack of implementation for both, and am annoyed by that lack in both.

I have no influence in the EF, and a weak influence in the OF.
It is not the EF or OF liturgies that need changing; it is the people of those liturgies.
I hold the same argument for morals:
no tweaked or new commandments, just greater fidelity to the given.
WE ALL need tinkering, whether in moral or liturgical realms.

But, if the great day of compliance were to arrive,
I would be interested in knowing what the next step(s) might be,
and that is my interest in this discussion and the books it has as its focus.

Chrism, I am not sure Sacrosanctum Concilium applies to the OF, as practiced in the U.S. The rite itself has been changed since it was written and the missals and rubrics have changed, as well. It's a document I can agree with, but I am not sure it has any legal force on the OF rite as it exists today.

I agree that the EF should be largely untouched, as far as reform goes. The original Latin text should not be tampered with, and people should have access to the EF in Latin everywhere.

However, I think the EF would be well-served with two reforms: one, a good translation into the vernacular; two, speaking more of the Eucharistic and presider's prayers out loud, possibly all of them.

Notice that I already said people should have access to the EF in Latin. But I think that there ought to be translations of the EF that are acceptable to use, also. It's not like God only speaks Latin (or Greek, or Slavonic, or insert your liturgical language here). I understand the point of liturgical languages, but at the same time Vatican II seemed to understand the point of the vernacular. Remember, it's the church's use of the vernacular in its early days that got Latin to be a liturgical language to begin with. Also, I don't think it's too much of a rubrical change to speak some of the silent prayers out loud, for the edification of the faithful. There's wonderful, wonderful theological stuff in all the prayers of the EF which, sad to say, a lot of people don't get in the pews. Many people will follow along with missals, but not everyone does. There's a reason silent prayers were very limited in the OF reform: they are conducive to private internal prayer, but the main point of the Mass is public, liturgical prayer, which is best symbolized by the people praying together with the priest as they hear him pray.

In fact, in my opinion, if the EF were translated into a good vernacular, perhaps organic development could go from there, in its proper context. That is, it seems to me that V2 was trying to unfreeze the liturgy frozen at Trent, if you will. but writing an entirely new liturgy didn't seem to work so well. They ought to have started with what they already had, I think.

Pes: intelligent development in holiness

Too often--and I am not accusing you of this--people interpret lofty words like "development" to fit preconceived notions of "how things should be". For example, Americans often consider "development" to mean another country becoming more like America. (The Church doesn't.)

In the case of the EF, people can fall into the trap of reducing it to a position on a timeline, the Liturgy of 1962 as opposed to the Liturgy of 1967 or the Liturgy of 1947. "Development", whether prefixed by "organic" or not, is thus misunderstood to mean borrowing elements from posterior dates, whereas "tradition" is seen as borrowing from anterior dates. The EF is the Extraordinary Liturgy of 2010, and is a continuous living tradition from the time of Pope Gregory I if not before.

The EF is already a highly developed liturgical system. This does not mean it cannot be developed further. In fact, the authentic, organic development of the EF is happening right now, and it has been happening since the dawn of the traditionalist movement when the EF was abandoned and then neglected by the Roman Pontiffs. This development is happening primarily in the hearts and minds of laymen and laywomen, clerics and religious, who are coming to the EF and learning and living and breathing its liturgy and its calendar, and its devotional life. This is not an overnight process. The fruits of this development are slowly showing forth visibly: the Last Confiteor and Leonine Prayers are retained in most places, while certain unfortunate options like the "office of commentator" are falling into desuetude. Great expense is being undertaken in buying hand Missals and printing Propers for the congregation, in a massive vote-by-feet against vernacularization of the parts of priest, server and choir. Parochial and local customs are being cultivated and guarded. "Tradition" means what is handed down, not what is dug up from history (viz., antiquarianism). The EF is handed down from people who have practiced it all these years; the books alone are not enough.

At the same time, the EF remains under threat. A deluge of newcomers unfamiliar with the EF and searching it out is a wonderful opportunity, but in their ignorance they can too easily be led astray by those who claim to want to provide the EF but who are themselves uneducated in it, or even have other agendas. Monstrosities have been reported from time to time. The pressure to change seems always to come from those who have not fully formed themselves in the EF: the layman who has been coming to the Latin Mass once a month on average for a little under a year, but will never stop chattering about his ideas for changes, for example. (This is about as welcome as a dinner guest telling you your home is mismanaged.)

Some individuals, and it appears that Prof. Dobszay is one, openly state a desire to "change the EF", and even to "merge" it with a reformed OF. This would certainly be a change, but would it be organic development? It rather sounds like an alteration, accomplished with the sharp weapons of remote power. If the Holy Father intended "mutual enrichment" to mean "eventual merger", than who could trust his other words? Do people wish the extinction of the other Uses of the Roman Rite? Mutual enrichment cannot be the only vector of organic development.

BTW, there is certainly an important role for the Roman Pontiff in keeping custody of and guiding the organic development of the EF. It would be nice to see the Last Confiteor and the Leonine Prayers officially included in any reprint of the Missale. Many saints have been raised to Latin altars since 1962, and it is fitting that they be added to the EF Martyrology and to local and particular calendars, perhaps with new Masses and Offices written for any new local and particular feasts.

I have asked for some years, never with the intent of provoking an argument, if Pope Gregory would recognize the EF after Trent was done with it. Certainly, elements may go back to his time, but that mass has undergone significant changes over time. You really could choose a point on a timeline and see the EF as practiced at that particular time. I am glad to see the return of the EF, and actually worked several years for its return in my area - not for my benefit, by the way. But I would not even begin to suggest that all is perfect and harmonious in the EF world.

"However, I think the EF would be well-served with two reforms: one, a good translation into the vernacular; two, speaking more of the Eucharistic and presider's prayers out loud, possibly all of them."


There's a name for this. I think it's Vatican II. There's some mention of it in history books if you dig far back enough.

On the level of practice and appearance, the differences are marked, but when you compare the texts of the two forms, the differences are much smaller. So whether you call the OF a reform of the EF or call it a newly invented liturgy probably depends on how you approach the question.

True, chonak. At any rate, I don't think the original "translations" count. They needed GOOD and extremely faithful translations of the EF in order to get the ball rolling in the right direction... and obviously that didn't happen. It's that attitude of being free with the translations which led to the attitude of being free in other regards, imho. In the East we are almost obnoxiously reluctant to change any words of the liturgy... so we still call for the catechumens to leave (in very emphatic language, too) at a certain point in the liturgy, where in most parishes they stay. I remember wondering when I was first visiting an Orthodox church if I, as a visitor, should leave at that point. It was pretty confusing.

Nevertheless, it was adding a change here, a change there, which introduced other changes. If they had been extremely strict and were like, "we're ONLY going to translate this and do NOTHING ELSE for the time being" and from there moved a lot more slowly, then perhaps the sensus fidelium would not have been lost along the way.

Of course, it's all just speculation. I still think, though, that there ought to be vernacular EF Masses alongside the Latin EF and the OF.

Yes, we have seminaries. http://www.byzcathsem.org/main/home.php

The Ukrainian Catholics are probably more numerous in Canada than in the United States.

Just to be clear about the Eastern churches near me--by "low" attendance, I mean that they are not being overwhelmed by Western Catholics looking for a reverent, vernacular, Catholic liturgy, at least not nearly in the same numbers that one sees for growth at the EF.

Wen I was working for a local OF parish, I wasn't really dissatisfied. I just didin't know better. But since I started to sing Gregorian chant, and started to pay more attention to Liturgy and read documents, which came as a natural course, I discovered the beautfy of the tradtional Mass. I'm actually thankful for those two Masses. Vernacular in OF for better understanding, since I'm not a master in Latin, at least not yet, and the reverance and sacredness in Traditional Mass. They both help me for the better understanding and reinforce my appreciation of the Mass. (Of course there is a lot of room for improvement for OF Masses in many local parishes, but it's coming.) If you come to Colloquium, you will experience beauty and reverance both in OF and EF, you will not see much boundaries. And I don't think I'll throw out either one, at least for a long time or ever.
Even when I read Bible, Church documents or liturgical prayer books, I like having Latin next to vernacular texts. Not that I understand Latin better, but because Latin gives me a security and remindes me of the sacredness of what I'm reading more than vernacular does.
Again, one may insist that Latin wasn't a sacred language, but by the pracitcie and the tradition of our Church it is now for us. There are saints who didn't always have pius life before they started 'holy' life, but that doesn't make them less saints. God seemed to call the lowly and place them in a high place to show His great power so those who open their hearts to Him can see.

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Mr Dobszay, you are welcome here, indeed. Thank you for your scholarship on the liturgy. I agree about the 1962 liturgy. It has its own moments of smaller ruptures.

Is this book available on MusicaSacra.com? I know his The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform is. thanks