Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos Address to the Homily for Mass at Westminster Cathedral on June 14th 2008 “The New Situation that has Come About...”

Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos
Address to the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales
London - 14th June 2008
A New Juridical Reality

The Latin Mass Society was greatly honoured when Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, accepted an invitation to speak to its 2008 Annual General Meeting. In his address, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos confirmed that the goal of the LMS’s forty-three year struggle for the Traditional Mass had been won, and that the ancient liturgical rites of the Church were now re-established by law and not by concession. The true historical significance of Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio of July 2007 is only now beginning to sink in with both bishops and laity. Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos underlined this significance with very frank language which has already reverberated around the world. Below is the full text of his address.

Mr Chairman, Reverend Monsignori and Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am grateful for your kind invitation and for your warm welcome. It is a pleasure to be present with you today in London and to address the Annual General Meeting of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. I look forward to the joy of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the great, historic and beautiful Westminster Cathedral for you this afternoon.

Today I would like to speak about three related subjects.
Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos

1. The first thing that I wish to say is that I appreciate the work which the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales has undertaken in the past four decades. You have worked with and under your bishops, at times without all of the results which you desired. Yet in all that you have done you have remained faithful to the Holy See and to the successor of St Peter. And you have been loyal during a very difficult time for the Church - a time that has been especially trying for those who love and appreciate the riches of her ancient liturgy.

Quite evidently these years have not been without many sufferings, but Our Blessed Lord knows them and will, in His Divine Providence, bring about much good from your sacrifices and from the sacrifices of those members of the Latin Mass Society who have not lived to be here today. To all of you, on behalf of the Church, I say: “Thank you for remaining faithful to the Church and to the Vicar of Christ; thank you for not allowing your love for the classical Roman liturgy to lead you outside of communion with the Vicar of Christ!”

I also say, “Take heart!” for it is obvious from the many young people in England and Wales who love the Church’s ancient liturgy that you have done very well in preserving and handing on a love for this liturgy to your children.

2. Secondly, I wish to speak about the Motu Proprio, ‘Summorum Pontificum’ of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. I know what great joy the publication of ‘Summorum Pontificum’ brought to your members and indeed to many faithful Catholics around the world. In response to the prayers and sufferings of so many people in these past four decades, Almighty God has raised up for us a Supreme Pontiff who is very sensitive to your concerns. Pope Benedict XVI knows and deeply appreciates the importance of the ancient liturgical rites for the Church - for both the Church of today and for the Church of tomorrow. That is why he issued a juridical document - a Motu Proprio - which establishes legal freedom for the older rites throughout the Church. It is important to understand that ‘Summorum Pontificum’ establishes a new juridical reality in the Church.

It gives rights to the ordinary faithful and to priests which must be respected by those in authority. The Holy Father is aware that in different places around the world many requests from priests and lay faithful who desired to celebrate according to the ancient rites were often not acted upon. That is why he has now authoritatively established that to celebrate according to the more ancient form of the liturgy - the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as well as the sacraments and other liturgical rites - is a juridical right, and not just a privilege accorded to all.

Certainly this must be done in harmony with both ecclesiastical law and ecclesiastical superiors, but superiors also must recognise that these rights are now firmly established in the law of the Church by the Vicar of Christ himself. It is a treasure that belongs to the whole Catholic Church and which should be widely available to all of Christ’s faithful. This means that parish priests and bishops must accept the petitions and the requests of the faithful who ask for it and that priests and bishops must do all that they can to provide this great liturgical treasure of the Church’s tradition for the faithful.

In this period immediately following the publication of the Motu Proprio our most immediate task is to provide for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite where it is most desired by the faithful and where their “legitimate aspirations” have not yet been met. On the one hand no priest should be forced to celebrate according to the Extraordinary Form against his will. On the other hand those priests who do not wish to celebrate according to the 1962 Roman Missal should be generous in meeting the requests of the faithful who desire it.

As I see it, two factors are necessary: a) It is first of all important to find a centrally located church, convenient to the greatest number of the faithful who have requested this Mass. Obviously, it must be a church where the parish priest is willing to welcome these faithful from his own and surrounding parishes. b) It is crucial that there be priests willing to celebrate according to the 1962 Roman Missal and thus to provide this important pastoral service on a weekly Sunday basis. Often there may be one or more priests in a given deanery or section of a diocese who would be willing to, and even desirous of, celebrating this Mass. Bishops need to be sensitive to such pastoral provisions and to facilitate them. This is a fundamental intention of ‘Summorum Pontificum’. It is particularly sad where priests are prohibited from celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Mass because of restrictive legislative measures which have been taken and which run counter to the Holy Father’s intentions and thus to the universal law of the Church.

In this regard I am also pleased to commend the Latin Mass Society for its provision of the training session for priests at Merton College, Oxford, last summer, allowing many priests unfamiliar with the Usus Antiquior to learn how to celebrate it. I am very pleased to give my blessing to this initiative which will take place again this summer.

Let me say this plainly: the Holy Father wants the ancient use of the Mass to become a normal occurrence in the liturgical life of the Church so that all of Christ’s faithful - young and old - can become familiar with the older rites and draw from their tangible beauty and transcendence. The Holy Father wants this for pastoral reasons as well as for theological ones. In his letter accompanying ‘Summorum Pontificum’ Pope Benedict wrote that:

In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. (Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of the Apostolic Letter ‘Motu Proprio Data’, ‘Summorum Pontificum’ on the use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970; 7 July 2007.)

3. This brings me to my third point. You are rightly convinced that the Usus Antiquior is not a museum piece, but a living expression of Catholic worship. If it is living, we must also expect it to develop. Our Holy Father is also of this conviction. As you know, he chose ‘motu proprio’ - that is on his own initiative - to alter the text of the prayer ‘Pro Iudæis’ in the Good Friday liturgy. The intention of the prayer was in no way weakened, but a formulation was provided which respected sensitivities.

Likewise, as you also know, ‘Summorum Pontificum’ has also provided for the Liturgy of the Word to be proclaimed in the vernacular without being first read by the celebrant in Latin. Today’s Pontifical Mass, of course, will have the readings solemnly chanted in Latin, but for less solemn celebrations, the Liturgy of the Word may be proclaimed directly in the language of the people. This is already a concrete instance of what our Holy Father wrote in his letter accompanying the Motu Proprio, ‘Summorum Pontificum’:

The two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The ‘Ecclesia Dei’ Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the Usus Antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard.

Naturally we will be happy for your input in this important matter. I simply ask you not to be opposed in principle to the necessary adaptation which our Holy Father has called for.

This brings me to another important point. I am aware that the response of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei with regard to the observance of Holy Days of Obligation has caused a certain amount of disturbance in some circles. It should be noted that the dates of these Holy Days remain the same in both the Missal of 1962 and the Missal of 1970. When the Holy See has given the Episcopal Conference of a given country permission to move certain Holy Days to the following Sunday, this should be observed by all Catholics in that country. Nothing prevents the celebration of the Feast of the Ascension, for example, on the prior Thursday, but it should be clear that this is not a Mass of obligation and that the Mass of the Ascension should also be celebrated on the following Sunday. This is a sacrifice which I ask you to make with joy as a sign of your unity with the Catholic Church in your country.

Finally I ask your prayers for those of us called to assist the Holy Father in Rome in this delicate work of facilitating the Church’s ancient liturgical tradition. Please be patient with us: we are very few and there is much work to be done. And there are many questions to be studied and sometimes we may make mistakes!

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, intercede for all in this land which is so beautifully called “the Dowry of Our Lady,” and through her prayers may all Christ’s faithful come to draw ever more deeply from the great riches of the Church’s sacred liturgy in all of its forms.


Darío Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos
President
Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

In the afternoon of Saturday 14 June 2008, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos became the first Cardinal to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in Westminster Cathedral since the liturgical changes of 1969. He offered the Mass of the Feast of St Basil the Great as a Pontifical High Mass at the Throne. His homily continued some of the themes touched on in his previous address to the LMS’s AGM but also developed a meditation on the deepest meaning of the Second Vatican Council’s call for “full, conscious and active participation” in the Mass.

In medio ecclesiæ aperuit os ejus: et implevit eum Dominus spiritu sapientiæ et intellectus: stolam gloriæ induit eum.

(In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth and the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding. He clothed him with a robe of glory.)
Saint Richard Gwyn

Reverend Monsignori and Fathers, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I am very pleased to be able to celebrate the feast of St Basil the Great with you in this magnificent cathedral dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Christ. My gratitude goes to His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor for his kindness in welcoming me to celebrate this Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and to the Latin Mass Society for having made this possible.

Saint Basil, the well-known Father of the Church, is a figure from one of the most crucial periods in the Church’s bi-millennial history, a bishop and father of eastern monasticism, a man equally venerated in both the Christian east and west. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in his general audience address of 4 July 2007 said of him: “He was an important bishop in the fourth century to whom the entire Church of the east, and likewise the Church of the west, looks with admiration because of the holiness of his life, the excellence of his teaching and the harmonious synthesis of his speculative and practical gifts.”

The Holy Father, quoting from ‘Sacrosanctum Concilium’ and from St Gregory Nazianzus, said:

Aware that ‘the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed’, and ‘also the fount from which all her power flows’ (Sacrosanctum Concilium 10), and in spite of his constant concern to do charitable acts which is the hallmark of faith, Basil was also a wise ‘liturgical reformer’ (cf. Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 43, 34 in laudem Basilii: PG 36, 541c).

Thus it seems particularly appropriate for us to celebrate his memory today in this cathedral, so evocative of Byzantium, with the Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, for St Basil is a saint who transcends any narrow ‘provincialism’ and belongs to the entire Church. The Holy Father tells us that St Basil the Great was also “a wise ‘liturgical reformer’ ”, a bishop who was ready to adapt so that his flock could better integrate the liturgy into their lives.

My dear brothers and sisters, I know that you are here because you want to integrate the Church’s liturgy into your lives especially through the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. I am aware that over the years the Latin Mass Society has been promoting the celebration of the Usus Antiquior in all of the dioceses of England and Wales in obedient cooperation with your bishops and in loyalty to the Vicar of Christ.

The Holy See is mindful of your love of the Extraordinary Form. The recent Motu Proprio is one of the principal ways that our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, wishes to encourage you and to extend and facilitate opportunities for the celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of 1962, promulgated by his predecessor, Blessed Pope John XXIII. My visit today and my celebration of this Pontifical Mass in the classical Roman Rite is an indication of my personal support for your worthy aims and of the desire also of the Holy See to identify with them. It is also intended to encourage a greater understanding of the new situation that has come about in the pastoral provision for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. As Pope Benedict has written in his letter to the bishops, which accompanied the Motu Proprio, “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching”, and I sincerely hope that your love for the classical form of the Roman Rite will never be translated into polemics against the ordinary form of the same rite and will be open to any subsequent directions of the Holy See for its celebration.

Indeed the object of the sacred liturgy of the Mass is to re-live in every celebration of the Mass, however solemn or humble, the sacrifice which Jesus offers to the Father. As He renews the offering of Himself, we are invited to join the offering of ourselves with Him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts this very succinctly:

The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering (CCC #1368).

This needs to be the fundamental orientation of all Catholics at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. All of us, priests and faithful, are called to unite ourselves and our sufferings to the offering of Christ. This is the most fundamental dimension of “active participation” in the Mass in any recognised rite of the Catholic Church.

Is this not precisely the message of today’s Gospel? “Whoever does not take up his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:27). The Mass in its simplest or most solemn form is always an invitation for us to unite ourselves with the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary and sacrifice, by definition, always costs. Without the discomforts, pains and the sufferings of this earthly life – physical mental, moral, emotional, spiritual – willingly offered to the Father in union with Christ, we are not fully and actively participating in the Mass. And, indeed, the way that we live the Mass is to unite ourselves with the Holy Sacrifice in all that we do throughout the day.

As we honour St Basil’s memory in the Mass of today, may we also ask him to aid us. May his prayers support us and teach us that liturgical renewal is primarily about the constant work of interior conversion and learning how to unite ourselves with the sacrifice of Jesus ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiæ suæ sanctæ – for our good and the good of all his holy Church.

fonte:http://www.latin-mass-society.org