Mutual enrichment: on the right track: A book on the new liturgical movement is proving attractive to French readers. Authored by the abbé Claude Barthe, who is known for his earlier writings on the traditional liturgy, this booklet is titled "La Messe à l'endroit" ["Mass--The Right Way"] and deals with the reordering of the Paul VI Mass.

 

Letter 10 - 17 November 2010

  It is here presented in the form of an interview granted by the abbé Barthe to the French journal Monde et Vie.


1/ Father, your most recent work (*) takes us by surprise, since we know you as a thoughtful defender of the traditional Mass, and here you are addressing the so-called "Paul VI" Mass. Why this interest on your part?
A very active defense of the former, the traditional Mass, has never kept me from taking an interest in the transformation of the latter--the Paul VI Mass. In 1997, ten years before the Motu Proprio, I had published a book of interviews: "Reconstruire la liturgie. Entretiens sur l’état de la liturgie dans les paroisses" (F-X de Guibert editions) ["Rebuilding the Liturgy. Interviews on the State of the Liturgy at the Parish Level"]. Its theme was precisely the same as this booklet's. Clearly the 2007 Motu Proprio has revived the issue, which consists in noting that the two parallel critiques of the changes effected under Paul VI, namely the frontal critique that seeks to promote a broad diffusion of the ancient liturgy, and the reformist critique, termed reform of the reform, that seeks to bring about a change from within the Paul VI liturgy, are more than ever allied.

The reform of the reform project cannot be implemented without the spinal column of the most widespread possible celebration according to the traditional Mass, which in turn cannot hope to be reintroduced on a large scale in ordinary parishes without the recreation of a vital milieu through the reform of the reform. Read...