Press
Release:
CDF
Decrees on new Prefaces and Saints for the Extraordinary Form
From the President and
Officers of the FIUV
26th March
2020
Yesterday the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), now exercising the functions of the
Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, has issued two decrees, one on Prefaces to
be added to the 1962 Missal (Quo Magis), and the
other on the possibility of saints, canonised since 1962 to have Masses celebrated in their honour (Cum Sanctissima). (English
summary here.)
The Federation was
consulted on both issues, and we would like to thank the CDF for taking the
views of our members into account in developing these decrees.
The Federation welcomes
in particular the possibility of making a liturgical commemoration of saints
canonised since 1962, without excessive disruption to the Sanctoral Calendar as
it has come down to us. We wish, however, to issue some notes of caution.
On Prefaces, we note that
the Note presenting the decree explains that while three of the seven newly
permitted Prefaces are of the ‘Neo-Gallican’ tradition (of 18th
century French origin), the other four are Prefaces used in the Ordinary Form,
though not composed from scratch for the reformed Mass: ‘their
central section(s), known as the “embolism”, appear in ancient liturgical
sources’.
This implies
that these ancient Prefaces have been adapted for use in the Ordinary Form, a
process which makes them conform less, rather than more, with the spirit of the
Extraordinary Form. If the value of these Prefaces lies in their antiquity, it
is not clear what is to be gained by their being used in the Extraordinary Form
in a redaction designed to make them conform to the themes and preferences of
the Ordinary Form.
Further, we
would like to appeal to priests celebrating the Extraordinary Form to bear in
mind the great antiquity, theological importance, and centrality to the ancient
Roman liturgical tradition, of the Preface of Trinity Sunday, and the Common
Preface, whose use would become less frequent if the newly optional Prefaces
were systematically employed. These two Prefaces have been of such centrality
to the celebration of ancient Mass up to this point, that to downgrade them to
mere options among others would be to make a fundamental change in the balance
of texts and theological ideas which the Missal presents to the Faithful over
the course of the year.
On the Saints,
we note the list of saints celebrated as 3rd Class feasts, whose
celebration remains obligatory. We recognise that in order to make possible the
celebration of the new saints room must somehow be made for them, and we endorse
the method proposed. We have reservations, however, about the composition of
this list.
We note with particular
dismay that the only male lay saints on the list are SS Cosmas and Damian: this
seems an omission in need of correction, particularly as the excluded category include
men central to the development of their countries: St
Louis of France, St Stephen of Hungary, St Henry the Emperor of Germany, St
Edward the Confessor of England, and St Wenceslas of Bohemia, outstanding
examples of the vocation of the laity to ‘to penetrate and perfect the temporal
order with the spirit of the Gospel’.[1]
Also
completely absent are female founders of religious orders, such as St Angela
Merici, St Juliana of Falconieri, and St Jane Francis de Chantal.
Although
we are pleased to see two widows on the list—St Monica and St Francis of
Rome—it would seem in general that non-clerical vocations, of the active or the
religious life, which are richly represented in the ancient sanctoral calendar,
have been set aside as of marginal importance.
Another
category poorly represented on the list are Doctors of the Church. Some of the
highest importance have been excluded: St Isidore, St John Damascene, St Bede,
and St Irenaeus.
The
imbalance represented by the list of obligatory saints appears to have been inherited
from the list of non-optional Memorials found in the sanctoral cycle of the
Ordinary Form, which it closely resembles. The lack of interest in the lay
vocation and in the Doctors of the Church shown by the reformers of the 1960s
should not be allowed to distort the presentation of the Church’s great
patrimony of saints in celebrations of the Extraordinary Form today.
In
choosing when to avail themselves of the option to celebrate newly canonised saints, we would like to appeal to priests celebrating the Extraordinary Form
to consider carefully the balance of the categories of the saints, the
importance of maintaining the connection to the distant past represented by the
most ancient saints, and the value of the Marian devotional feasts also now
rendered optional, such as Our Lady of Lourdes and the Presentation of Mary.
As
an indication of feasts which we regard as particularly worthy of continued
celebration, we give the following, non-exhaustive, list.
14/01 St
Hilary
10/02 St
Scholastica
11/02 Apparition
of the Blessed Virgin Mary (of Lourdes)
17/03 St
Patrick
18/03 St
Cyril of Jerusalem
27/03 St
John Damascene
4/04 St
Isidore
27/05 St
Bede
3/07 St
Irenaeus
15/07 St
Henry, Emperor
25/08 St
Louis, King
30/08 St
Rose of Lima
2/09 St
Stephen, King
28/09 St
Wenceslas, Duke and Martyr
8/10 St
Bridget, Widow
13/10 St
Edward, King
24/10 St Rafael
the Archangel
15/11 St
Albert the Great
21/11 Presentation
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
25/11 St
Catherine of Alexandria
[1] Second
Vatican Council Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam actuositatem 5
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