Many would like to deny it but every year that passes brings home the fact that the most fundamental issue and consequently the bloodiest life-and-death struggle taking place within the late 20th century Roman Catholic Church organization concerns the central ceremony of Roman Catholic worship. It would have been easy to have written the end of the previous sentence as "the central ceremony of Roman Catholic liturgy". But, in a profound sense, that would not reflect authentic Roman Catholic usage.
In this context, the word "liturgy" is awkward on Catholic lips. Not many if any parish bulletins list Sunday masses as "Sunday liturgies". We speak about Requiem (or funeral) Masses, not funeral liturgies. A newly ordained priest doesn't say (or conduct) his first "liturgy". Even the most diehard modernist-minded prelate Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles comes perhaps to mind will speak of revitalizing "the Mass" not the "liturgy". And, in the Confessional, I have yet to hear an ordinary Saturday Catholic penitent confessing that they "missed the liturgy three Sundays in a row" or whatever. Whether Modernist or Conciliarist or Traditionalist, the operative word for all is "Mass". And, as I said, it is in relation to the Mass that today the Roman Catholic Church organization stands or falls.
There is no way one can beneficially discuss this vitally important matter, unless we clean up some current confusions in the terms we use. For example, you hear people complaining about this or that situation in the "Church", and asking why the Church doesn't do such-and-such. But, clearly, when they speak of the "Church", they are talking about churchmen. To confuse Christ's Church with the persons of churchmen is a fatal mistake.
We have to distinguish carefully (but not separate) two distinct realities. There is the union of all Roman Catholic believers as the mystical body of Christ-whether they are alive on this earth (its pre-Vatican II term was: the Church Militant), or undergoing purification in Purgatory (the Church Suffering), or enjoying the Beatific Vision of God's glory in Heaven (the Church Triumphant). That is one reality.
Then there is the visible organization of the Roman Catholic Church as an identifiable institution on the human horizon, and it includes prelates, priests, parishes, dioceses, religious orders and congregations and groups, and a intricate network of schools, academies, universities, monasteries, convents, museums, libraries, etc.
Briefly, therefore, we must distinguish (but not separate) that mystical body of Christ on the one hand, and this institutional organization, on the other hand. We know from our faith that today this institutional organization houses the one sure teaching authority on this earth, namely the Roman Magisterium of this Roman Papacy. Nowhere else can man know accurately and infallibly about God's revelation in Christ Jesus except from that papal teaching authority. One man and one man only can guarantee us that accurate and infallible authority: the lawful successor of Peter the Apostle. At present, he is Pope John Paul II.
In fact, it is a matter of faith that Peter's lawful successor will always be the bishop of Rome; and it is equally of faith that Rome is the permanent seat of that lawful successor of Peter. A general consequence of all this is that only through the Roman Catholic Church's institutional organization can anyone receive supernatural grace enabling them to escape Hellfire and end up in God's Heaven. Outside the Roman Catholic Church there is no salvation.
The life-and-death struggle mentioned at the beginning of this writing concerns the Roman Catholic Mass. Under Pope Paul VI, there was a vast and concerted and, on the whole, a successful substitution of what that Pope called the Novus Ordo for the traditional Roman Mass variously called the Tridentine Mass, the Gregorian Mass, or simply, the traditional Mass. Pope Paul's explicit intention was to end the existence of that traditional Mass. And for a long time, the lie was repeated and repeated ad nouseom that Paul VI had abolished the traditional Mass.
We now know he did not abolish it, not because he didn't want to abolish it (he did), but because he could not abolish it. We have the authority of Pope John Paul II in telling us this. It is certain that, by far and away, the bulk of the late 20th century Roman Catholics frequent this Novus Ordo, just as the bulk of our functioning priests do not know and have never celebrated the Traditional Gregorian Mass. In fact, most of them have no knowledge of Latin, thus closing all access to this traditional Mass.
Yet, under the present Holy Father, the deterioration of the Novus Ordo ceremonies has gone hand-in-hand with the slow emergence of more and more groups insisting in the adamantine faces of most bishops on the traditional Mass as their central act of worship.
The struggle between the traditionalists and Novus Ordo group is now beginning to penetrate all the dioceses, much to the anger and chagrin of Modernists and Conciliarists. Feelings are running highly and deeply on both sides of the divide. But very few even of the professionals on both sides of this ever-bitter divide realize that their dispute involves much more than the liturgical action of Novus Ordo and traditional Mass.
Involved here is the whole gamut of the Seven Sacraments the valid ordinations of priests, the valid consecration of bishops, the valid conferring of all the Sacraments. Post-Vatican II innovations in Roman Catholic Sacramentology require a painstaking reexamination by competent Roman Catholic authorities. None of the tinkering proposed so far betters the situation. I am thinking, about éclat. It never gets us beyond the tinkering stage. And, besides, we have not got all the time in the world. Christ is leveling and flattening our Roman Catholic institutional organization at an ever-increasing speed. Soon there may not be much left to tinker with.
As long as this reexamination and revision is not undertaken, the struggle among Roman Catholics about their central act of worship the Mass will wage on, with much damage to souls. For between the contestants, there is a notable absence of love. Love is the first casualty in war.
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