The 'ecumenical value' of the New Rite of Ordination
Jan 2, 2020 14:53:47 GMT
Post by Admin on Jan 2, 2020 14:53:47 GMT
"Got a revolution, got to revolution!"
40 years of Pontificalis Romani and the new Roman Rite
Rorate Caeli [excerpt] | June 2008
It was not a mere liturgical reform, but a brand new product, a fruit of the frenetic work of the Consilium ad Exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, under the presidency of Cardinals Lercaro and Gut and with the unifying influence of Monsignor Annibale Bugnini. After the profound reforms of some liturgical texts and rubrics in the post-Conciliar years, the New Rite of Ordination was something else entirely: a radically new text for a new People of God.
Dom Bernard Botte, chairman of the subcommittee for the New Pontifical inside the Consilium, recalled with his characteristic modesty the events which led to the new text of the rite of Episcopal Consecration (or, rather, Ordination):
The reform of these rites imposed a delicate problem: was it necessary to return purely and simply to the primitive tradition ["Pope Pius XII specifically condemned "certain attempts to reintroduce ancient rites and liturgies" on the grounds that they were primitive"] and to suppress all the subsequent additions, or should these alterations, which were justified by a largely millennial tradition, be preserved? ... To suppress with one stroke all which had been added throughout the centuries would be against the very laws of life. On the other hand, the Roman Pontifical could not anymore be considered an untouchable monument elevated to its perfection by a master of ceremonies of the 13th century. The study of the early tradition, on the other hand, made clear that, in many of its points, a deviation of the true tradition had taken place. A superficial revision of the text, therefore, could not be enough.
The commission charged with the reform chose an intermediate way: to preserve, in the Roman tradition, whatever could be kept or adapted without compromising the essence. I say keep or adapt for certain rites, while themselves legitimate, could appear falsified by the formula which accompanied them. ...
Formula of Ordination:
What bolstered the formula of Hippolytus was, in first place, its doctrinal wealth and its clarity.
After the reading of the text [of the new formula of episcopal ordination], many Fathers [members of the Consilium] were delighted, yet others remained in doubt, and some were certainly hostile to the idea. What prevailed in the decision [favorable to the new text] was the ecumenical value of the text.
["L'ordination de l'évêque". Published in La Maison-Dieu, 98, 1969/2, p. 113-126]
The commission charged with the reform chose an intermediate way: to preserve, in the Roman tradition, whatever could be kept or adapted without compromising the essence. I say keep or adapt for certain rites, while themselves legitimate, could appear falsified by the formula which accompanied them. ...
Formula of Ordination:
What bolstered the formula of Hippolytus was, in first place, its doctrinal wealth and its clarity.
After the reading of the text [of the new formula of episcopal ordination], many Fathers [members of the Consilium] were delighted, yet others remained in doubt, and some were certainly hostile to the idea. What prevailed in the decision [favorable to the new text] was the ecumenical value of the text.
["L'ordination de l'évêque". Published in La Maison-Dieu, 98, 1969/2, p. 113-126]
In his short memoir (published in English as "From Silence to Participation: An Insider's View of Liturgical Renewal"), Dom Bernard Botte would recall the almost feverish mood of the Consilium which needed the temporary approval of the new text by the appropriate Roman authorities as soon as possible so that the first "New Episcopal Ordination" might take place - it was the ordination of the famous Swiss liturgist Anton Hänggi as Bishop of Basel, which took place on February 11, 1968.
The text of the new Rite, "De Ordinatione Diaconi, Presbyteri et Episcopi", was then approved by Pope Paul along with his Apostolic Constitution on June 18. Other new texts for rites included in the Roman Pontifical would be published in the following years.
What was then considered "solid scholarship" regarding the reliability of the liturgical formulas of "The Apostolic Tradition", by the Pseudo-Hippolytus, is very much disputed today (an introduction to contemporary criticism of the Pseudo-Hippolytus is available here).
Such formulas were, nevertheless, the basis for the Consilium's decision on the new rites of ordination in the Latin Church.