• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

Pope Saint Paul VI (3 April 1969): “Although the text of the Roman Gradual—at least that which concerns the singing—has not been changed, the Entrance antiphons and Communions antiphons have been revised for Masses without singing.”

  • Donate
  • Our Team
    • Our Editorial Policy
    • Who We Are
    • How To Contact Us
    • Sainte Marie Bulletin Articles
    • Jeff’s Mom Joins Fundraiser
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • Repository • “Spanish Music”
    • KYRIALE • Saint Antoine Daniel
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Catechism of Gregorian Rhythm
    • Father Enemond Massé Manuscripts
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
    • Feasts Website
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Secrets of the Conscientious Choirmaster
    • “Wedding March” for lazy organists
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
    • The Eight Gregorian Modes
    • Gradual by Pothier’s Protégé
    • Seven (7) Considerations
Views from the Choir Loft

Keep Calm and Carry On

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · February 21, 2013

N FR. ZUHLSDORF’S memorable phrase, the liturgy is the “tip of the spear” in the battle against modernism and secularism. It is where our Catholic identity is forged and deepened. If we want to become all that we are called to be as Catholics, the first thing to pursue is the worship of God “in spirit and in truth”―and that means not only with personal humility and doctrinal truth, but also with the institutional humility to maintain continuity with the heritage handed down to us, and to recover it whenever and wherever is has been lost.

One vexing problem, however, is this.  Patiently, over the years of his glorious pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has asked us, in his words and in his example, to recover continuity with the Tradition.  But the hermeneutic of discontinuity is present at the very heart of the Ordinary Form―a form inherently discontinuous with the unbroken, organic tradition, as many liturgical theologians have argued, including then-Cardinal Ratzinger. It is a rupture of unprecedented magnitude in the history of the Church.  Nothing like it has ever happened or will ever happen again.  It marks the point at which the Church, for some mysterious reason known only to Divine Providence, suffered amnesia of her own past and parted with much of her sacred patrimony.  This is the massive obstacle to restoration: when the Church herself appears to enshrine, canonize, inculcate rupture, how is the recovery supposed to take place sanely and peacefully?

If, seeking solace and sacredness, we go back to the Extraordinary Form, that afford us an extremely good temporary solution―but it, too, is artifically isolated in 1962―a year already squarely within the period that had seen the first disastrous experiments of Bugnini and his minions (e.g., the 1955 Holy Week reforms, which show a deformative tendency).  The Missal of 1962 is a rock of stability, no doubt about it; but it is also an island on which one cannot expect to camp out permanently.  How is this Missal to become a living Missal again, not one frozen in 1962?  And the moment we ask that question, the floodgates of discontinuity are once more flung open, as this expert and that expert step forward with their proposals about how to modify the ‘62 missal in accordance with Sacrosanctum Concilium or many another Vatican instruction.  Some will clamor for vernacularization, others for more readings and prefaces, still others for rubrical simplifications, and soon a cacophony of changes will threaten to drown out the sweet and sober music that the old Missal has only just begun to restore to us.

In short: as Martin Mosebach once observed, the curse of the era of liturgical reform is that we are all self-conscious reformers with as many strategies and programs as there are heads on shoulders.  Few, it seems, are content with Tradition as it stands, and no one who understands liturgical theology and history can be content with the experiment of the Novus Ordo.  No one knows exactly when a chaste love of reform became an unbridled passion for rupture.  Some think Pius X is to blame with his major modifications of the Roman Breviary.  Others would blame Pius XII for entrusting key liturgical reforms to soft modernists, or John XXIII for his temerarious, although in retrospect miniscule, change to the Roman Canon.  Most would squarely blame Paul VI.  Do we not see all along a papal predilection to overreach, to indulge a monarchical Petrine power of modifying the liturgy when they should be its foremost preservers?  Should not the popes, above all, see themselves as servants of what has been handed down, rather than judges of its supposed defects?

Paul VI thought he could abolish the traditional Mass with a stroke of the papal pen. Time has proved the vanity of his intention. All over the world, in every corner, the Mass of the Ages is rising again. And the irony is that the internet has become a major tool for the success of this movement of restoration―the restoration of a liturgical tradition that long predates the technology of the printing press, let alone any electric or electronic machinery. In this convergence of the very old and the very new there is both pathos and humor. The divine, the sacred, the holy, cannot be buried, cannot be banished, cannot be bartered away. The voice of the Church at prayer cannot be silenced. It will, in due time, re-emerge, erupt anew, wherever it may have been suppressed. We are just beginning to see the Catholic renaissance, even while the rest of the modern Western world rushes at a mad pace to populate the circles of hell.

Whatever mistakes have been made, whatever colossal errors and breathtaking blunders, we ourselves who love the Church and her Tradition must “keep calm and carry on,” cherishing, defending, and promoting the precious inheritance we, all unworthy, have received.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
    It’s always amusing to see old diocesan newspapers—in huge capital letters—advertising the Cheapest Catholic Paper in the United States. The correspondent who sent this to me added: “I can think of certain composers, published by large companies in our own day, who could truthfully brag about the most tawdry compositions in the world!” I wonder what she could have meant by such a cryptic comment…
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    PDF Download • Dom Murray Harmonies
    Along with so many others, I have deep respect for Dom Gregory Gregory Murray, who produced this clever harmonization (PDF) of “O SANCTISSIMA.” It’s always amazed me that Dom Gregory—a truly inspired composer—was so confused when it came to GREGORIAN CHANT. Throughout his life, he published contradictory statements, veering back-and-forth like a weather vane. Toward the end of his life, he declared: “I see clearly that the need for reform in liturgical music arose, not in the 18th and 19th centuries, but a thousand years earlier—in the 8th and 9th centuries, or even before that. The abuses began, not with Mozart and Haydn, but with those over-enthusiastic medieval musicians who developed the elaborate and flamboyant Gregorian Chant.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 14 September (Holy Cross)
    Readers have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for 14 September 2025, which is the Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross. If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. As always, the Responsorial Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, and Mass Propers for this Sunday are conveniently stored at the spectacular feasts website alongside the official texts in Latin.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Karl Keating • “Canonization Questions”
    We were sent an internet statement (screenshot) that’s garnered significant attention, in which KARL KEATING (founder of Catholic Answers) speaks about whether canonizations are infallible. Mr. Keating seems unaware that canonizations are—in the final analysis—a theological opinion. They are not infallible, as explained in this 2014 article by a priest (with a doctorate in theology) who worked for multiple popes. Mr. Keating says: “I’m unaware of such claims arising from any quarter until several recent popes disliked by these Traditionalists were canonized, including John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. Usually Paul VI receives the most opprobrium.” Mr. Keating is incorrect; e.g. Father John Vianney, several centuries ago, taught clearly that canonizations are not infallible. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen would be another example, although clearly much more recent than Saint John Vianney.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Vatican II Changed Wedding Propers?
    It’s often claimed that the wedding propers were changed after Vatican II. As a matter of fact, that is a false claim. The EDITIO VATICANA propers (Introit: Deus Israel) remained the same after Vatican II. However, a new set of propers (Introit: Ecce Deus) was provided for optional use. The same holds true for the feast of Pope Saint Gregory the Great on 3 September: the 1943 propers (Introit: Si díligis me) were provided for optional use, but the traditional PROPRIA MISSAE (Introit: Sacerdótes Dei) were retained; they weren’t gotten rid of. The Ordo Cantus Missae (1970) makes this crystal clear, as does the Missal itself. There was an effort made in the post-conciliar years to eliminate so-called “Neo-Gregorian” chants, but (contrary to popular belief) most were retained: cf. the feast of Christ the King, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and so forth.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Solemn “Salve Regina” (Chant)
    How many “S” words can you think of using alliteration? How about Schwann Solemn Salve Score? You can download the SOLEMN SALVE REGINA in Gregorian Chant. The notation follows the official rhythm (EDITIO VATICANA). Canon Jules Van Nuffel, choirmaster of the Cathedral of Saint Rumbold, composed this accompaniment for it (although some feel it isn’t his best work).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

“There are some so restless that when they are free from labour they labour all the more, because the more leisure they have for thought, the worse interior turmoil they have to bear.”

— Pope Gregory the Great

Recent Posts

  • Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
  • Children’s Repertoire: “3 Recommendations”
  • PDF Download • Dom Murray Harmonies
  • “Music List” • 14 September (Holy Cross)
  • Do You Recognize This Hymn? Do You Like It?

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2025 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.