Cardinal Burke reflects on fifth anniversary of “Summorum Pontificum”

From Catholic News Service:

Five years after Pope Benedict XVI lifted most restrictions on celebration of the Tridentine Mass, a senior Vatican official says that much work remains to make the traditional liturgy fully accessible to the faithful, and to bring its influence to bear on the form of the Mass most Catholics attend.

“There’s no question that there remains in certain places a resistance to what the Holy Father has asked, and that’s sad,” says Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and a former archbishop of St. Louis. “It’s sometimes even an expression of disagreement with the Holy Father’s discipline and even an expression that this is harmful for the church.” …

Among the other elements of tradition that Cardinal Burke hopes the church eventually will restore to the Mass in its newer version are the opening prayers at the foot of the altar, which he says provide an “immediate tie-in” to the liturgy’s Jewish heritage: the psalms once sung by the high priest in the temple in Jerusalem.

Other features of the Tridentine Mass that the cardinal would welcome in the newer liturgy include the priest softly reciting the prayers before Communion, a period of near-silence that, he explains, “draws our attention to this most sacred part of the Holy Mass”; and the closing recitation of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John, a “hymn to the redemptive incarnation” that “sets in your mind once again the great reality which you have encountered and in which you have participated.”

On the other hand, Cardinal Burke says, the practice of reading scriptural passages in modern languages has been a “tremendous gift” of the post-Vatican II liturgy that should be incorporated in the Tridentine Mass. And he says that the newer version of the Mass, in which the priest typically faces the congregation, can encourage a deeper appreciation of the “transparent devotion” with which priests should celebrate both forms of the liturgy.

Read the entire piece. On a related note, I’ve been reading Cardinal Burke’s new book, Divine Love Made Flesh:The Holy Eucharist as the Sacrament of Charityand have found it to be a catechetically-rich work that reflects with great clarity on writings by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI about the Eucharist. Recommended!


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About Carl E. Olson 1229 Articles
Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"?, co-editor/contributor to Called To Be the Children of God, co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius), and author of the "Catholicism" and "Priest Prophet King" Study Guides for Bishop Robert Barron/Word on Fire. His recent books on Lent and Advent—Praying the Our Father in Lent (2021) and Prepare the Way of the Lord (2021)—are published by Catholic Truth Society. He is also a contributor to "Our Sunday Visitor" newspaper, "The Catholic Answer" magazine, "The Imaginative Conservative", "The Catholic Herald", "National Catholic Register", "Chronicles", and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @carleolson.