Paix liturgique

Last week, Bastille Day was celebrated amidst the pomp of the Macronist festivities, commemorating the “freedom” won after the storming of the Bastille.

Those of us who fight for the freedom of the liturgy know that this freedom has nothing to do with those other freedoms. It is essential to emphasize this. Some tell us (especially sociologists of religion, such as Danièle Hervieu-Léger) that the defenders of the traditional liturgy are, in reality, “modern,” enemies of the authority they venerate in word only, but then go on acting according to their own whims. This is not true. While it is true that this temptation exists in our paradoxical situation, given the omnipresence of modernity, to avoid succumbing to it, or to avoid giving the impression of succumbing and causing scandal, it is important to have clear ideas and firm principles.

There are two points to consider:

- On the one hand, there is concrete action, where we ask ourselves: if the liturgical reform allows a thousand things in ten thousand variations, why shouldn't it also allow us to celebrate according to the previous liturgy? Because, in a certain sense, we have been liturgically “invaded” and “occupied”, and not only liturgical (see the difficulty of teaching the traditional catechism). The new liturgy, imperfect in its dogmatic expression, prevails; the Tridentine liturgy, a clear expression of the Catholic faith, is, at best, tolerated.

- However, it is necessary that it may live. Thus, our situation is somewhat similar to that of the "reactionaries" in the decades following the Revolution: for the principles they defended, they also demanded the same "freedom" falsely proclaimed by the new principles. In other words, they made use of the good and noble part of the new freedom to serve the truth. We too, since our pastors allow everything to happen, claim this right to exist for the Tridentine liturgy. Moreover, it is granted to us with moderation, for “there is no freedom for the enemies of freedom!” But in doing so, and assuming certain risks of which we are well aware (relativizing the rights of truth), we at least show to all Catholics of good will the true face of liturgical innovation: persecution.

- The other point concerns general principles. Indeed, there are two meanings of the word freedom, as Leo XIII rightly reminded us in Immortale Dei (1885) and Libertas (1888):

- True freedom, which comes from God, supremely free, and which can only unfold infallibly in the supreme good that He Himself is, without the possibility of sin. On the human level, this freedom can fail, which is clearly an imperfection, for the capacity to sin is not freedom, but servitude. That is why the law—human law when it deserves this name as a concrete application of natural law, and the law of the Church—helps us, like a teacher, to do good with wisdom and freedom.

- On the other hand, there is the false and objectively diabolical freedom of modernity, which dictates that each person is solely responsible for themselves, that they can, in complete “freedom,” think and believe whatever they want and act according to their own convenience. The sovereignty of God is replaced by that of man, both individually and socially (the “general will”).

Without claiming that the liberal Catholicism that governs us has simply enthroned July 14th in the Church, there is no doubt that, to a greater or lesser degree, it compromises with it. Just as the doctrines currently in vogue (ecumenism, new morality, synodality) circumvent dogmatic norms, the reformed liturgy is also weaker in its message, more inventive, and more freely interpretable, taking or leaving whatever it sees fit from the protective “rubricism” of the old liturgy. The new liturgy is a “freer” liturgy than the old one, and not for the better.

On the contrary, what we defend is that true liturgical freedom which is inherent to the freedom of the Church herself. We affirm that no one can prevent the Church from preaching the truth according to the Creed, nor from worshipping God and administering the sacraments in such a way that this worship, the law of prayer, may be the pure expression of the law of faith. Therefore, it is not for aesthetic reasons, however pious, spiritual, or mystical they may be, that we defend the rights of the traditional liturgy, but simply because it expresses, without weakness or any attempt to pander to the world, the Mass as a sacramental sacrifice, Holy Orders as a mandate given to men to cooperate in the sacrifice of Christ for the living and the dead, Baptism as liberation from the diabolical chains of original sin, etc.

Dear Parisian sentinels, you who tirelessly demand freedom for the Tridentine liturgy, may you in the end be able to say like Saint Paul that you have fought the good fight (2 Timothy 4:7), you who pray the rosary at number 10 rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, from Monday to Friday, from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Saint-Georges de La Villette, 114 avenue Simon Bolivar, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:00 p.m., in front of Notre-Dame du Travail, on Sundays at 6:15 p.m.