The following citation has appeared on this blog before.
“Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: ‘Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.’ We too have forbidden this practice in the same words in Our oft-repeated constitution Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 21. ” – Benedict XIV, enc. Allatae sunt, 1755
An interesting question arises. Was Gelasius’s 494 condemnation of serviettes dogmatic? If so any purely disciplinary statements made since to the effect that serviettes are allowed would be null and void. The only passage from Gelasius’s letter I have been able to find online reads,
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“Nihilominus impatienter audivimus, tantum divinarum rerum subisse despectum, ut feminae sacris altaribus ministrare firmentur, cunctaque non nisi virorum famulatui deputata sexum, cui non competunt, exhibere.”
“Nevertheless we have heard to our annoyance that divine affairs have come to such a low state that women are encouraged to officiate at the sacred altars, and to take part in all matters imputed to the offices of the male sex, to which they do not belong.”
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the reference given is:
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Ep. 14, in A. Thiel, Epistulae Romanorum pontificum genuinae (New York: 1974, first ed., 1867), 360-79.
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If anyone has access to this and can check the wider context that would be great.
Laodicea 
May 19, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Have a look here.
May 19, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I thought you were busy getting the goods on Tony Blair.
May 19, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Well, if he can prove that Tony Blair has spoken positively female altar servers AND that this is a dogmatic matter, then ,i>case closed!
Remember, they nailed Al Capone on tax evasion.
May 20, 2008 at 12:57 am
There doesn’t seem to be much extra from the context. Certainly the case for it being dogmatic is strong. The Holy See did not normally regulate the liturgy in either of these contexts (Greek rites under Benedict XIV and generally under Gelasius). The practice of female serving is described as an abuse independently of the actual norms prevailing in the times and places in question. This implies the condemnation is doctrinal.
May 20, 2008 at 7:24 am
I thought you were busy getting the goods on Tony Blair.
It’s an all-round attack to stamp out heresy.
May 20, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Quite apart from any dogmatic declaration against it, there is also a good pastoral prudential case based on empirical eveidence to be put.
Ask almost any Anglcian convert of recent years and you will find confirmation of the hypothesis that admitting women to the service of the altar almost inevitably leads to their increased demand for admittion to holy orders.
This is bad for the unity and obedience to apostolic truth of the Church at large, but more especially for the women and girls themselves: implanting the the vain expectation of orders by tacitly fostering misplaced vocations in these ladies is a serious offence against charity and is sowing the seeds of strife.
Yes, it’s a “slippery slope” type of argument, but the risks are extremely well evidenced empirically.
Bª
May 20, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I am of two minds on this one. But I confess I do not think that altar girls “look right” in surplices. If a soberly dressed adult woman serves at the altar, in lieu of the tinies, especially outside of a parish Sunday Mass context, I don’t see a problem with that.
May 20, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Seraphic – Presumably Gelasius, Innocent IV and Benedict XIV condemned the practice because the minor orders are sacerdotal functions exercised by delegation and as the sacred priesthood is reserved to men by Divine Law that means the minor orders are too. Serving at the altar by individuals not in minor orders is the extraordinary exercise of the functions of the minor orders by those not yet admitted to them. Consequently, it is unfitting for persons to exercise these functions who cannot be admitted to minor orders. This is why it is impossible to institute women as Acolytes or Lectors. If, as seems to be the case, Gelasius issued a doctrinal condemnation of women functioning as extraordinary acolytes (which is what altar servers are) then it must be contrary to Divine Law for them to do so. Thus, it is objectively gravely sinful. As Benedict XIV says it is an ‘abuse’ and an ‘evil practice’. A dispensation from a curial dicastery cannot overthrow the teaching of three Popes (including a formal condemnation) and the immemorial tradition of two millennia.
May 20, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Dear me.
May 20, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Quite
May 20, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Serviettes. Truly?
I am comforted by Scripture, and often by the passage describing the angels themselves being unable to distinguish wheat from tares, and forbidden to do so, prior to the Parousia.
I trust turning to Scripture doesn’t account me a heretic.
I’ll leave it to the angels, thanks.
May 20, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Are you suggesting women are tares?
May 20, 2008 at 8:06 pm
“I trust turning to Scripture doesn’t account me a heretic.”
Well, wouldn’t that depend on what point you were “turning to Scripture” to make?
As it is, I have no idea what you are getting at by quoting the above. Er, is it that you think we should refer the matter of women serving at the altar directly to St Michael, et al? No? Well then I’m stumped…
Bª(ffled)
May 20, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Maybe Gelasius, Innocent IV and Benedict XIV just didn’t like women very much. Or the women were wearing too much makeup and jingly earrings and bracelets.
May 21, 2008 at 2:38 am
What I am getting at, good sir Ambrose, is perhaps lost to you because my Zeno’s arrow of logic was pointed in a direction you were not looking. You appear to be gazing fixedly to your right.
You seem to expect me to argue from ‘serviettes’ upwards inductively.
I was in fact engaging in the venerable tradition of deducing principle from Scripture. This is what I thought and think you may think schismstic.
I was in fact hoping to introduce the idea, no doubt too heterodox to enter your mind, that claiming the power to make penetrating judgments excluding one person or another on grounds according to taste, using words not in fact supported by, or drawn by the common wisdom of the Spirit leading the Bride, from Scripture, is an error. Not, in other words, the substance of the Truth into which the Spirit will lead us.
Only that.
May 21, 2008 at 2:42 am
ahhh. Schismatic. Old and blind.
May 21, 2008 at 2:46 am
btw berenike; no. Men.
Grain is feminine. Viz. Demeter.
May 21, 2008 at 9:20 am
I fully agree with BAs argument: Apart from theological reflections experience shows in a way that altar serving is “extraordinary exercise of the functions of the minor orders by those not yet admitted to them” and that very often being an altar server contributes in some way to young men considering whether or not they are called to the priesthood. So by having female altar servers you not only might let the wrong people consider that. You also, in many cases, rob boys of the opporunity of having this stimulus to discern their priestly vocation as it frequently happens that the girls take over the whole alter serving business in a parish – for boys of the usual alter serving age generally are either intimidated or put of by the presence of large groups of same aged girls.
May 21, 2008 at 9:32 am
Dear Felix Culpa, it seems you entirely misunderstand the reasons not only for the undesirability or forbiddenness of having female altar servers but also why it is not possible for a woman to receive holy orders (for the latter is the reason for the former). You seem to think that there is some judgement of ‘worthiness’ or inherent ‘value’ implied. Which is obviously not the case.
Being a priest is not primarily about being more holy than someone else, or closer to God (though of course someone offering the Sacrifice of Calvary every day would do well to try and become so – which is, again, what everyone of us should do). It is first: a job. An important one, no doubt, but one deriving its honor not, in the first place, from the person who does it but from the dignity of the sacrament of holy orders. Being a priest is not the culmination of being a Christian. (Living the Evangelical Counsels would be that, and everyone can do that.) Priests are there so that all the Faithful receive what they need to become really holy, namely the sacraments, and that the Holy Sacrifice is offered in behalf of them. It is in no way, inherently, intended for self-fullfillment. The aim is to become holy, and if God wants you to be a priest, you will have the chance to become holy as a priest. If you are a cook, you have the chance to become holy as a cook. And that’s the only thing that matters.
May 21, 2008 at 10:36 am
So are you calling men tares?
May 21, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I think Notburga has the right of it here. If I understand you correctly, Felix, you object to: 1) the term “serviettes” and that is fair enough, but it was intended lightheartedly I’m sure and does has a lengthy provenance; 2) disrciminating against women when choosing “extra-ordinary ministers of the altar”, and I think Notburga and Aelianus have given enough material for argument to grapple with there: what is your response to their arguments?
Supposing the bare words of Scripture were the sole criterion of authority (which none of us here does suppose), do you really think Scripture on balance would provide a good basis for an argument in favour of female minsters at the altar?
BA
May 21, 2008 at 2:41 pm
It is a very controversial issue, and 1994 interpretation of the Canon did not help much. But as Aelianus points out the practice of women serving at the altar was forbidden for centuries. It was condemned even after Vatican II.
In this case,I think, as women of the church, we need to refrain from causing any schism, and be more like Our Lady in humility. After all, serving at the altar is nobody’s “right”, let alone women’s. Also, if anything, Scripture is very clear about women being modest, humble, and submissive.
It also says silent, but I am not going to bring it up at the moment 😉
May 21, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Derya – it only says silent in church. It isn’t a question of contradictory statements of doctrine as the teaching office has only ever taught one thing: that women shouldn’t serve at the altar. The problematic statement is an exercise of the disciplinary office of the Holy See which has divine warrant but no divine guarantee. Thus, it cannot validly stray beyond the boundaries of divine law as defined by the infallible teaching office.
Seraphic – I don’t think the Pope’s teaching authority is vitiated by possible private motives of hostility to persons or groups nor is it possibly to imply into his statements sweeping qualifications found nowhere in the text. Were this the case it would of course be impossible to know when he was teaching authoritatively and when he was not, or to know the content of his teaching when he gave it. We must therefore give (at he very least) religious submission of intellect and will to the clear condemnations of women serving at the altar issued by Gelasius, Innocent IV and Benedict XIV.
Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 25
“This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.”
May 21, 2008 at 3:26 pm
notburga, I bow to your courtesy and mastery of mysteries.
berenike, the short answer is yes, the proper answer is it’s not for me to judge.
Benedict Ambrose, just so, more or less. I enjoy the wit of the term serviettes and am grateful for the amusement; it did seem to be tainted with a covert disdain for the female.
I am no schoolman and thus cannot casually cast a deft argument in my defense.
If others here with whom my sympathies are more likely to lie cannot or will not, I am wiser to refrain.
I do wish parenthetically to inquire (foolishly, no doubt; many volumes must exist on the subject) why the Magdalen, who our Lord found meet to greet first on the mortal plane after His breaking of its bonds, should not be taken as a model of Divine ministry. You of course need not respond; If you do, I will make an effort to elaborate an admittedly rather threadbare question.
With regard to your final query; no, I do not think so, which was my point. The schismatic heterodoxy to which I expected to find myself assigned, accurately, was the Lutherine doctrine of Sola Scriptura. I understand speaking so here verges on trolldom, and if I am so judged, I will withdraw, blushing.
But yes, I hold Scripture as the Word of God, with all its ambiguities, and the effort of men to pin down details that suit them best as adiophora (which may in fact be a less-than-useful category among the worthies here).
Hoping to not be anathema, I thank you for your courtesy.
May 21, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Felix – Scripture is indeed the word of God and every part of it is inspired and inerrant. God is the principle author of Scripture and it contains everything God intended it to contain and nothing else. It is as impossible for it to err as it is impossible that God Himself be the author of any error whatsoever. However, it is not possible to know the true sense of Scripture without reading it in context and interpreting it correctly. Consequently a divinely guaranteed tradition and magisterium is a hypothetical necessity for the existence of inspired scripture. For which reason, scripture itself teaches that “no prophecy of scripture is matter of private interpretation” that we must “hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” and that “the Church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth”.
St Mary Magdalene was the first to preach the resurrection and for this reason she is the patron of preachers. Nevertheless, she was not told that whatever she bound on earth would be bound in heaven or to “do this in memory of me” nor was she promised that she would be enthroned to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Only the twelve were given divine authority to define doctrine, offer the sacrifice of the mass, and govern the faithful. Scripture explicitly excludes the possibility of women speaking or exercising authority in the Church. No doubt this arises from the sacramental signification of gender explained by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. This does not apply to the activities of the laity as laity. The mission to preach ad extra is common to all the faithful be they laity, clergy or religious.
CIC Can. 211 “All the Christian faithful have the duty and right to work so that the divine message of salvation more and more reaches all people in every age and in every land.”
Nor has the Church ever objected to the authority of women as temporal rulers. The apostles on the morning of Easter Sunday had lost the faith and so St Mary’s mission to them was indeed ad extra. Furthermore, it is entirely within the rights of the laity of either sex to rebuke the hierarchy if the circumstances are sufficiently serious. As St Thomas says “if the faith is endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly”. This is well illustrated in the life of St Catherine of Sienna. In taking such a step the laity may base themselves only on what has already been authoritatively taught by the sacred magisterium and in public revelation up to the death of the last Apostle. The laity may not usurp the teaching authority of the successors of the Apostles. It is exclusively in the exercise of this authority that God has promised the hierarchy will not err.
John Paul II exercised this authority when he said,
“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
May 21, 2008 at 7:16 pm
aelianus; thank you again for your courtesy, care, and welcome.
I am happy to find us in accord in significant principles.
I do find the issues raised in citation of I Cor.11 to be a fruitful ground for illuminating our perhaps divergent views of the matter at hand. It seems to me a tapestry woven from threads spun in heaven and threads spun on earth. Taking such a view allows me to speak of time-bound matters as given us by God in His Word as matters for critical judgment under conditions of our own time-bound consciences and in the context of our submission to the will of God’s Spirit leading the Church.
(With apologies I refer to the NIV; I would prefer to use Fr. Knox’s translation, but my copy is packed away at the moment. And Early Church Texts seems to offer either the Douay or NJB.)
There is, obviously, the matter of covered heads. “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head.” Does this apply to bishops? Then, the injunction to shave a woman’s head if she does not cover it; is this a rubric you follow faithfully? “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him [?]” direct your judgments, and your judgment regarding every image of Our Lord of which I might be aware?
These seem to me fruitful and in their own way central questions with which to wrestle.
As well they seem to me to bear on the question at hand.
St.Paul here appears to grant Divine authority to things we are compelled to regard (or at least I am) as time-specific cultural practices, and not as transcendent principles; where I would in fact regard “do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” as a theme woven through the entirety of the Bible, and unbound by constraints of history.
Please note my use of the word ‘appears’, intended to encourage a searching of prior judgments and their roots on earth or in Heaven.
Much gratitude for your grace.
May 21, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Darn again. ‘offer neither the Douay…”
May 21, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Felix – I hold all of scripture to be inspired. I thus consider the obligation for a man to uncover his head and a woman to cover her head during the liturgy to be a precept of Divine Law. Bishops do not wear their Mitres when performing sacerdotal functions. The injunction about shaving womens’ heads is a reductio ad absurdam it is not intended by the Apostle that women should sin by not covering their heads in the first place.
Re: Long hair I would say as a rule of thumb if you are a chap have hair shorter than Our Lord’s on the Holy Shroud and if you are a girl, longer.
https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/gender-and-sacrament/
May 21, 2008 at 11:07 pm
One point of clarification.
I am not claiming a relativity of inspiration with regards to Scripture.
I am holding forth a notion of God’s Word that calls for us to weigh the substance and meaning of its examples. This is not a matter of private interpretation; it is, as it has always been, a matter for corporate and responsible sacrifice of self-interested and self-aggrandizing judgments, individual and corporate, in the act of interpretation.
By way of example; in boarding school a writer came to speak to us, Franklin Logsdon, about the substance of his commentary The Victory Life in Psalm 119. published by Moody Colportage Press. Yes, not an imprint I would otherwise recommend.
What I have carried with me all these years (this would have been ca. 1958) is his pointing first to “Thy word have I hid in my heart…” as representing the Psalmist’s youthful self confidence, and the Psalm’s final verse showing the Psalmist’s chastened and purified, enduring devotion. By this account God places before us examples of pride and foolish self-confidence for our careful and reflective consideration and caution.
In short, the Bible is properly read as a call, with “he who is spiritual” to “judge all things.” Among other things, this means rooting out those elements in our reading that derive from self-interested comfort with injustice around us.
Perhaps my favorite instance lies in the transition from Romans 1 to Romans 2. The first chapter, of course delineates the moral descent of humankind, beginning with “they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful” through “God gave them over to their vile imaginations” including of course the traditional anti-homosexuality passage, and concluding “they which commit such things are worthy of death”. The second chapter begins, “Therefore thou art without excuse, O man, whosever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself: for thou that judgest doeth the same things.” (KJV)
It is probably the passage most often cited in support of homophobia; but the chapter break is treated as a great gulf fixed, when it is nothing of the sort. There is in fact a consequential continuity inconvenient to some of the biggest cheerleaders for the first chapter. That is, they are in no position to judge others’ disturbing behavior, because they too are guilty.
There is likewise a consequential continuity between chapters 7 and 8; but it is much neglected, because it casts a shadow on proud triumphalism by reminding us of our weakness.
Such are the challenges and responsibilities of attending to God’s Word; but I imagine you knew that.
I suppose the moral of my comment as I hope it to be taken is that received interpretations which suit our comfort, self-confidence, and self-congratulation require wariness and caution.
This may or may not have any bearing on serviettes. I rather think it does.
May 21, 2008 at 11:18 pm
and your point is …?
May 21, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Perhaps finally, again with gratitude; I do not imagine myself your equal in intelligence or scholarship, but am driven to dispute by a conviction that women have suffered unjustly from the results of male self-interested eyes looking at Scripture; and by a notion that the Renaissance Popes were noted for pride, lust, and greed more than trustworthy piety, such that the 19th Century doctrine of Papal Infallibility is subject to question and not the product of the Spirit’s wisdom expressed by all Christians everywhere throughout the ages.
Hoping I am not a stink in your nostrils, I submit my respect, and again, thanks.
May 21, 2008 at 11:40 pm
All you seem to have demonstrated is that scripture is incapable of accurate interpretation by sinful man unless God institutes an infallible interpretive authority. This is true an God has indeed established an infallible interpretive authority. Nor do we need to look far to find this authority as only one entity claims to be the infallible interpretive authority founded by Jesus Christ and guaranteed to endure until the end of time.
St Paul is forthright and clear in 1Corinthians 11 it is not possible to hold to any meaningful doctrine of inspiration if we dispense with his words. The fact that all adult human beings (who were not also God or His mother) have sinned does not prejudice the power of Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition or the Magisterium to teach definitively concerning the moral order. It is God who condemns (and has mercy) not His Apostles or their successors. Without the charism of infallibility mere men would certainly lack the courage in an age such as ours to teach the grave immorality of homosexual acts.
As too the spiritual man, let me quote Boniface VIII
“According to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms’ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man’ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven’ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
May 22, 2008 at 12:18 am
Thanks ever so much. We must disagree.
May 22, 2008 at 12:40 am
I am sorry.
May 26, 2008 at 9:24 pm
To return to the original question: if a Pope condemns a practice as an abuse, that obviously doesn’t necessarily mean that it is heretical for someone to hold that it could ever be licit. To say that something is an “abuse” is to use a disciplinary category. There are different reasons why a given practice can be abusive. Some things are simply contrary to good order or established norms. However, some things are abusive because they are implicitly contrary to the faith. Thus, attempting to ordain a woman to the priesthood is abusive not simply because it is against canon law, but also because it only makes sense if one rejects certain truths of sacramental theology which have been definitively taught by the Roman Pontiff.
Is this really true concerning women serving during the liturgy? It’s far from clear that Gelasius’ letter to the bishops of a region involves his acting as pastor and doctor of all Christians, or that the text quoted here proposes teaching concerning faith or morals to be definitively held by all the faithful. In the light of this, it’s hard to see how it could involve a dogmatic definition.
That said, I’d certainly be fascinated to see more of the text, and indeed that of Innocent IV too. “Allatae sunt” and “Etsi pastoralis” address questions related to various eastern rites, but while the former is an encyclical and quite readily available, the latter is not. I’d also be interested to see the terms of Benedict XIV’s prohibition in that document.
However, while it would be remarkable to come across a definitive dogmatic statement on this question, one is hardly needed to resolve it. Those who are willing to be guided by the Church’s ordinary means already know her authentic mind, and those who are not would not accept a definition anyway.
It’s already evident from the whole of the Church’s tradition, across all her Rites, that liturgical ministries are essentially clerical, and may therefore only be undertaken by those who could be admitted to the orders to which they are proper. Whether dogmatic or not, the acts of Gelasius, Benedict XIV and even John Paul II are witnesses of this.
The practice of women and girls undertaking liturgical ministries was begun by individuals for whom conscious ruptures with tradition, and disobedience to existing law, were not to be seen as reprehensible. As with many other such abuses, it was eventually permitted as being the path of least resistance, though the novel and unusually duplicitous method of canonical “interpretation” employed in this case is worthy of note.
The best answer in this situation, as with all the others, is to take a balanced and honest view of the Church’s tradition and to be faithful to it. Let us remember that Benedict XVI is Pope, take courage and rejoice.
May 26, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I agree of course with your comments and sentiments. However, I was not suggesting that Gelasius et al were pronouncing solemn definitions simply that they were teaching rather than disciplining. This seems to be established by the fact that they call something an ‘abuse’ which is by definition not outside the practice of the churches in question and in areas where at the time the Holy See did not directly regulate the liturgy anyway. Thus it can hardly be an ‘abuse’ unless it is offensive for universal doctrinal reasons. If the Holy See is teaching that it is offensive for such reasons then the teaching commands an obsequium religiosum which would nullify any purely disciplinary edict to the contrary.
May 27, 2008 at 1:44 pm
It may not have been outside the practice of the churches in question at the time, but it may have been contrary to their law. There are plenty of instances in history of abuses being reprobated, where the law was clear, but prevailing practice flouted the law. That raises a factual question to which we don’t seem to have the answer at present.
However, I take your main point. If something that wasn’t contrary to any express law of the local church at the time was being forbidden by the Pope, it would seem to be because of some higher principle, which would indicate that magisterial weight ought to be attached to this letter. Even so, are there issues connected with its local nature?
May 27, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Would there have even been written liturgical law in Gelasius’s time?
I see what you mean about the local character of the letters. It could be argued that Benedict is saying to one half of the Church that the practice of the other half (in forbidding women serving at the altar) is normative regardless of the particular law or practices of the former. This effectively makes it universal.
What is the authority for the proposition that immemorial tradition cannot be abrogated?
May 27, 2008 at 4:11 pm
As to the first question: maybe not, and even if there was, it’s probably not extant. It’s perfectly possible that there were canons of provincial councils or other local synods. Acolytes certainly existed as an order by this time, if I’m not mistaken. So, there could have been law regulating the exercise of their functions, and who could be admitted to the order.
My point about the local character of the letters goes to the magisterial weight attached to them. If a letter is actually addressed to the bishops of a given area, and is not promulgated to the whole church, does that also limit the scope of those who owe it the religiose obsequium? That doesn’t defeat the point that the substance of the letters relies on doctrine rather than just discipline, but it may limit the theological weight of that teaching.
Your last question is truly the great theological question of our time, in my view, and one that I don’t feel especially well-equipped to address. Evidently, it has been addressed by some traditionalist critcisms of the new liturgy. These have drawn on some classical treatments on the limitations of papal authority, notably Bellarmine and Suarez. I think Gamber mentions this in the book to which Cardinal Ratzinger wrote his famous foreward.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed a very interesting possible reference about this issue in “Summorum Pontificum”, by the way. The Pope states, without discussion, that the older liturgy was never abrogated. It seems clear that this was not the position of the Holy See in the pontificate of Paul VI; it was thought that the Pope had abrogated it, and had intended to do so.
Was he wrong? If so, was it because of some technical defect of legal form, or because he had attempted to act beyond his powers, in a way that the present Pope wished to correct without explicitly so stating?
This might incidentally explain the fact that the report of the 1986 Commission of Cardinals remains unpublished. We know from Cardinal Stickler’s published comments that its conclusion agreed with what the Pope has now declared, but we don’t know what its reasoning was. I had thought that the Pope might publish this report as part of preparing the way for the Motu Proprio, but if its reasoning were as explosive as this, he might well have judged it imprudent to do so presently.
May 27, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Most interesting. I understand entirely what you are saying about the limited theological note of a document addressed only to “Missionaries Assigned to the Orient” and to the oriental churches in general. I was trying to find a way around this on the basis that if was invoking the practice of the west and teaching the east and so was effectively universal. A bit tenuous perhaps.
On the more interesting point, how would immemorial tradition be defined? Anything whose origin is so remote we can’t tell when it began? It would be hard to prove that Bugnini de jure abolished anything that fell into that category however misconceived (or should that be ill-conceived) his hatchet job on the Roman Rite may have been. The NO doesn’t actually abolish the eastward posture and the other elements can be dated. Didn’t he claim he was restoring the rite to its condition circa 750AD?
May 27, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Tenuous perhaps, but going more to the substance than the form.
The whole point of tradition is that is a continuous whole, and not just a collection of discrete items of individual date and provenance. The problem with the new rites is not that they involve discarding individual precious historical elements. It is rather that, being “fabricated”, as the Pope says, they are not part of the Church’s continuous tradition. Objectively, they constitute a rupture, although of course we must interpret them in accordance with the hermeneutic of continuity.
May 27, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Right, but that is a (legitimate) objection to the NO not to the abrogation of the ‘former’ Missal. Or rather, to play (modernist liturgist’s advocate) if the NO is a dramatically altered version of the Roman Rite but it remains the Roman Rite then even if the Rite itself represents immemorial tradition as the Rite itself has not been abrogated neither has immemorial tradition. I suppose the answer to that would be that, whatever may be the case judicially, objectively speaking the NO is not the Roman Rite….and the principle of immemorial tradition’s unabrogatability touches the substance not the legal fiction. But is that true? Are the (for example) Byzantine Rite and 1962 Missal closer in essence than the 1962 and 1970 Missals?
And what is to be done? I can’t imagine the abrogation of the NO anytime soon. Do you favour its abrogation, incremental reform and merger with the 1962 Missal or transformation (with the novelties removed) into a Missa Simplex placed as an appendix to the older Missal?
What about serviettes? Will Vatican III or Lateran VI have to define that women cannot receive the minor orders and so should not perform their functions? If that is true does it mean it is objectively sinful for a woman to serve Mass now? What about women reading against which there is an even stronger scriptural injunction?
May 27, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I exactly agree with your hypothetical answer. The fact that a book is called “Missale Romanum” does not make it part of the traditional Roman Rite. The Pope’s solution that there are now two “forms” of the Roman Use of the Roman Rite is a purely juridical one; a legal fiction, as you say, precisely because he cannot prudently abolish the new form in the forseeable future. What was attempted in the late 60s was precisely the opposite, the suppression of the whole traditional Roman Rite, as was occasionally frankly acknowledged. (Cf. Gelineau, “Le Rite Romain tel que nous l’avons connu n’existe plus; il est détruit.”)
I don’t think, however, that this requires one to hold that the 1962 Missal is closer to eastern liturgies than the 1970 one, except in the sense that the eastern rites are genuine traditional Catholic rites which do not suffer from the problems that the modern Roman one does. They are actually different rites, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they were more different in form from the traditional Roman Rite than the modern Roman use is, which obviously partially draws on traditional Roman texts.
As to what is to be done; well, apart from acknowledging the immensity of the problem… Eventually, there must be a visible single Roman Rite again, which must be genuinely continuous with its own tradition. There could various routes to this, with various prudential factors to be weighed. I don’t think 1962 is the right place to start for an authentic reform (though I accept it is the current law). But somehow the modern form has to be reformed into line with wherever the traditional form is going; which in my view, is not far from where it already is, but certainly can’t be at any completely fixed point.
The first steps are what the Pope is already doing: creating the conditions for the traditional rite to be available for people to become accustomed to and informed by; and celebrating the new form progressively in greater continuity with the old, so that people develop some concept of what the liturgy is, rather than finding it completely alien.
A conciliar or papal definition about the minor orders generally would be most helpful! At present, what we have is basically Trent, sess. XXIII, c. II and canon II, which seem to be contradicted by “Ministeria quaedam.”
I’ve no doubt that it’s objectively wrong for women to act as acolytes or lectors (though I don’t think the Pauline text speaks directly to the latter). It is clearly against any traditional understanding of the mind of the Church. Obviously, sin is committed only if the person doing it (or encouraging it) knows that, or should know that, and most people now sadly don’t.
May 27, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Oh dear. That bizarre winking character after the Gelineau quotation is the result of a typo! However, it’s not entirely inappropriate, considered as part of the quotation…
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