REVIEW: Lumen Christi: Defending the Use of the PRE -1955 Roman Rite – UPDATED LINK

You may recall that a little while ago I posted a video of my unboxing of a new reprint of a pre-1955 Missale Romanum, beautifully bound. There is a growing interest in the pre-1955 Roman Rite. In most places the 1962 Missale Romanum is used where the traditional Roman Rite is celebrated.

There are differences, and not just for Holy Week which are the most notorious.

I’m looking at a book called Lumen Christi: Defending the Use of the PRE -1955 Roman Rite by A Benedictine Oblate (Foreword by Peter Kwasniewski)

HERE

The title is clear.   Here is the TOC:

If you have a Kindle, you can read it instantly.
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There is a good resume of the history of the Roman Rite here.  The author defends the position that Quo primum really was intended to be “in perpetuity” and not merely until another Pope decided to make major changes.

The book goes into the infamous secret 1948 Commission for Liturgical Reform.  This lead to the changes to Holy Week.  Here’s a sample:

THE 1948 LITURGICAL COMMISSION
The Commission for Liturgical Reform was established by Pope Pius XII in Rome on May 28, 1948, and overseen by the Congregation of Rites. This Commission marked the beginning of deliberate efforts to adapt the liturgy of the Catholic Church to the modem world. This is a peculiar idea. The idea of adapting the Mass to a world entrapped in modernism was quite foolish. This Commission was the beginning of the end of the authentic Roman rite. The Commission was led by Fr. (later Cardinal) Ferdinando Antonelli, OFM; its secretary was Fr. (later Arch-bishop and alleged Freemason) Annibale Bugnini, CM. These men were also among the architects of the Noma Ordo Mime. As Bugnini stated, the Commission revolved around “ranking feasts on theological grounds,” which, “although complicated, artificial and practically impossible to implement,” laid the groundwork for the reform.²⁶ A significant step was the third supplement, which considered “historical, hagiographical and liturgical mate-rial” in order to conceptualize a calendar that later influenced the Pauline rite of 1969.²⁷ Bugnini notes how the Commission’s efforts marked the first step in a movement that saw the supposed restoration of the ancient Easter Vigil, accomplished in 1951, “which elicited an explosion of joy throughout the Church.”²⁸ However, Bugnini stated that the work of the group was no longer about preserving tradition. Rather, it was about the “liturgy [being] at last launched decisively on a pastoral course,”²⁹ which culminated in the destruction of the ancient Holy Week rites and in the new code of rubrics established in 196o. The aim of the group was to outline the steps needed to bring to birth a new liturgy in the Church, one that was adapted to the times. The Commission was officially disbanded in 1959, with the establishment of the Conciliar Preparatory Commission for the reform of the liturgy. This reveals a connection between the 1948-1959 reforms and the establishment of the Novae Ordo Mitrae. Reflecting upon the Pian Commission, Bugnini stated that when “the Council was announced and new reforming currents of thought exerted their superior pressure, the Johannine liturgical renewal lost a good deal of energy.”³⁰ This energy would later be recovered and concentrated on the reforms that emerged from 1964-1974.

[…]
It is important to note that although the Commission “worked in absolute secrecy,” its members “enjoyed the full confidence of the pope.”” This ensured that Pius XII was kept informed on their intentions and plans. Bugnini was asked to join the Commission as its secretary; he was at the time the director of a publication that spoke of supposed errors in the liturgy and the ways in which these could be mitigated.³³ The Commission enjoyed its secrecy and papal approval to the extent that its “publication of the Ordo Sabbati Sancti instaurati at the beginning of March 1951 caught even the officials of the Congregation of Rites by surprise.”³⁴ Although the reforms were created by a group of individuals, they had to be signed into force by Pope Pius XII. This, in effect, implicates Pius XII for the reforms. Being the Vicar of Christ upon earth, it was his personal responsibility to safeguard the doctrine and liturgy of the Church. In Assisi, Pius XII claimed that the reforms started by the Commission were “a sign of the providential dispositions of God for the present time [and] of the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church?”³⁵

BTW… John XXIII refused to use the 1955 Holy Week and, instead, used the pre-55!  There is a photo in the book.

The author has a sense of humor.  This footnote amused me.  I had the same reaction.

²⁵ Cantors note that chanting the Bea psalter is quite nauseating. It is often lamented that the Propers of Masses created under the reign of Pius XII use the Bea psalter. Some examples include the new Assumption Mass and the feast of Pope St. Pius X. When a person accustomed to the Vulgate reads the antiphons, it is like hitting massive speed bumps.

A sad note: I have a one volume – for the whole year – Roman Breviary, an exciting find.  What a let down that it has the appallingly bad Bea Psalter.  I digress.

This note is great also:

¹⁶ One may jest and say that Traditionis Custodes refers neither to the missal of 1962 nor to the missal of the classical Roman rite, but rather the 1965 missal simply because it uses the term “the missal antecedent to the reform of 1970.”

Excellent.

I learned a great deal from this book.   It reads easily.  It does suffer from the lack of an index.   I warmly recommend it for the history if for nothing else.