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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.”

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Views from the Choir Loft

What does Cicero have to do with the Breviary?

Guest Author · April 16, 2018

Editor’s Note: We were delighted to receive this (unsolicited) guest submission from a young college student. This subject is of particular interest to the committee creating the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal—a publication doing something unique and remarkable with the ancient hymn texts. Therefore, if you like this topic, fasten your seat belts!


89505 Pope Urban VIII HEN POPE Emeritus Benedict XVI promulgated Summorum Pontificum ten years ago, he expressed a hope that the celebration of both forms of the Roman Rite would be an opportunity for the two forms to mutually enrich each other. To some extent, this hope has borne fruit. There is a relatively small but growing movement to celebrate Mass in the Ordinary Form maintaining elements from the Extraordinary Form that are compatible with the 1969 rubrics, such as facing ad orientem and maintaining priestly digits. I think many who have attended such Masses would agree with me that these elements truly “enrich” the Ordinary Form. But could the Ordinary Form enrich the Extraordinary? Enter the Italian Renaissance.

The Renaissance was a revolution that was not only artistic but also linguistic. At the time, Latin was the universal language of educated Europeans. At the same time that artists looked to Greco-Roman models for inspiration, humanist scholars began to eschew the lexical and grammatical features that characterized Patristic Latin and instead to turn to pre-Christian Rome. The most extreme of these scholars even refused to use any word or grammatical construction not found in the writings of Cicero. Caesar and Livy were not good enough for them. Not all went to such extremes, but the humanists generally agreed that Christian writings could not be the standard of “good Latin.”

In 1623, Maffeo Barberini was elected pope and took the name Urban VIII. Himself a classical scholar by training, he was troubled that liturgical hymns did not always follow ancient rules of grammar or poetry composition. Accordingly, he set a group of Latin scholars to the task of rewriting the hymns of the Roman Breviary. They made approximately 952 “corrections” to the ancient hymns, and two verses from the Breviary hymn “Rex Sempiterne” illustrate the difference in style:

Ancient Version|
UI MUNDI in primórdio
Adam plasmásti hóminem:
Cui tuae imágini
Vultum dedísti símilem.

3. Quem diábolus decéperat
Hostis humáni géneris:
Cujus tu formam córporis
Assúmere dignátus es.

Ancient Version|
2. At the beginning of the world
you made the man Adam
to whom you gave a countenance
similar to your image;

3. Whom the devil, the enemy
of the human race, had deceived;
and whose form of body
you deigned to assume.

1632 Edition|
ASCÉNTE qui mundo faber
Imáginem vultus tui
Tradens Adámo, nóbilem
Limo jugásti spíritum.
.

3. Cum livor et fraus daémonis
Foedásset humánum genus,
Tu, carne amíctus, pérditam
Formam refórmas ártifex.
.

1632 Edition|
2. When the world began
You created Adam and gave him
the image of Your own likeness,
joining a soul of noble destiny
with slime of the earth.

3. But when an envious, deceitful enemy
had covered mankind with the filth of sin,
You clothed Yourself in man’s flesh and,
a creator once again, gave man
back the beauty he had lost.


Immediately, there was an outcry. Some of these hymns were over a millennium old, and many Catholics were unhappy to be replacing hymns written by Church Fathers with hymns written by Latin scholars. All monastic orders that had been allowed to maintain their own breviaries after Trent uniformly rejected the new hymns. However, diocesan clergy had never been allowed to use the Breviarium Monasticum and were required to pray the Breviarium Romanum, which after 1632 contained Urban VIII’s revised hymns. Until 1985.

By the time the Liturgy of the Hours was promulgated in 1985, it was universally acknowledged that Urban VIII’s reforms had not been a good idea. Accordingly, the new LOTH eliminated them and officially restored the ancient hymns to the liturgy. 1 However, since those who pray the new Liturgy of the Hours generally do so in the vernacular, these hymns have gone largely unacknowledged, except by those monastic orders, such as the Carthusians, who pray the Breviarium Monasticum anyway and therefore never gave up the ancient hymns in the first place.

Now, the rubrics do not allow “mixing and matching” in the liturgy. Clergy must either pray the 1961 Breviary with Urban VIII’s hymns or the 1985 Breviary. Here is where my proposal comes in: wouldn’t it be wonderful if the ancient hymns could be restored to the Extraordinary Form, allowing those who are loath to give up the more complete psalter of the 1961 Breviary to sing hymns written by St Ambrose and St Gregory the Great? In this case, perhaps the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms could truly be a source of enrichment.


We hope you enjoyed this guest article by Miss Sophia Decker.



Photo: “Urban VIII Consecrates St Peter’s Basilica”



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   It should be noted that the Vatican II restoration under Dom Anselmo Lentini also modified the ancient hymn texts in a reprehensible way. If mutual enrichment is to occur, the “corrections” by Lentini’s team must be fixed. This fact is probably overlooked because the Urbanite revisions have been condemned so universally, and the 1891 quote from M. Ulysse Chevalier sums up the matter succinctly: “The Jesuits have spoiled the work of Christian antiquity, under pretext of restoring the hymns in accordance with the laws of metre and elegant language.” —Ed.

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Offertory” for this Sunday
    This coming Sunday, 12 October 2025, is the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). Its OFFERTORY ANTIPHON (PDF) is gorgeous, and comes from the book of Esther, as did the ENTRANCE CHANT last Sunday. Depending on a variety of factors, various hand-missals (all with Imprimatur) translate this passage differently. For instance, “príncipis” can be rendered: King; Prince; Lion; or Fierce lord. None is “more correct” than another. It depends on what each translator wants to emphasize and which source text is chosen. All these pieces of plainsong are conveniently stored at the blue-ribbon feasts website.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Why A “Fugue” Here?
    I believe I know why this plainsong harmonizer created a tiny fugue as the INTRODUCTION to his accompaniment. Take a look (PDF example) and tell me your thoughts about what he did on the feast of the Flight of Our Lord Jesus Christ into Egypt (17 February). And now I must go because “tempus fugit” as they say!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Reminder” — Month of October (2025)
    Those who don’t sign up for our free EMAIL NEWSLETTER miss important notifications. Last week, for example, I sent a message about this job opening for a music director paying $65,000 per year plus benefits (plus weddings & funerals). Notice the job description says: “our vision for sacred music is to move from singing at Mass to truly singing the Mass wherein … especially the propers, ordinaries, and dialogues are given their proper place.” Signing up couldn’t be easier: simply scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    New Bulletin Article • “12 October 2025”
    My pastor requested that I write short articles each week for our parish bulletin. Those responsible for preparing similar write-ups may find a bit of inspiration in these brief columns. The latest article (dated 12 October 2025) talks about an ‘irony’ or ‘paradox’ regarding the 1960s switch to a wider use (amplior locus) of vernacular in the liturgy.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “American Catholic Hymnal” (1991)
    The American Catholic Hymnal, with IMPRIMATUR granted (25 April 1991) by the Archdiocese of Chicago, is like a compendium of every horrible idea from the 1980s. Imagine being forced to stand all through Communion (even afterwards) when those self-same ‘enlightened’ liturgists moved the SEQUENCE before the Alleluia to make sure congregations wouldn’t have to stand during it. (Even worse, everything about the SEQUENCE—including its name—means it should follow the Alleluia.) And imagine endlessly repeating “Alleluia” during Holy Communion at every single Mass. It was all part of an effort to convince people that Holy Communion was historically a procession (which it wasn’t).
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Canonic” • Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Fifty years ago, Dr. Theodore Marier made available this clever arrangement (PDF) of “Come down, O love divine” by P. R. Dietterich. The melody was composed in 1906 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958) and named in honor of of his birthplace: DOWN AMPNEY. The arrangement isn’t a strict canon, but it does remind one of a canon since the pipe organ employs “points of imitation.” The melody and text are #709 in the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

At the Catholic gathering (Katholikentag) held at Breslau in August, the Papal Nuncio celebrated Mass for 80,000 participants, facing the people (the “Missa versus populum”).

— “Orate Fratres” Magazine (23 Jan. 1927)

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