Addressing a group of liturgical experts on August 24, 2017, Pope Francis said that after the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and a long path of experience, “We can affirm with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.” The declaration came in a speech to Italy’s “Centre of Liturgical Action,” which sponsors an annual National Liturgical Week.
By “liturgical reform,” Pope Francis meant the changes in Catholic rituals and modes of worship which followed from Vatican II, the most immediately visible elements of which included Mass facing the congregation, the use of vernacular languages, and a stronger emphasis on the “full, conscious and active” participation of the people.
Although Pope Francis is often seen as having less interest in liturgical questions than some of his predecessors, this was a lengthy and carefully footnoted reflection, roughly 2,500 words in all. He began by highlighting some of the cornerstones of the liturgical movement of the 20th century, a reminder that the ongoing reform is rooted in tradition, and was actually kick-started by two Popes often seen as ”conservative”: Pius X, who created a commission for renewal in 1913, and Pius XII, with his encyclical Mediator Dei and changes to the liturgy of Holy Week.
According to Francis, these changes came to fruition with 1963’sSacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, the application of which is still ongoing, including overcoming “unfounded and superficial interpretations, partial revelations and practices that disfigure” [the liturgy].
Quoting Pope Paul VI, the Argentine pontiff added that this process is still ongoing in part because reforming the liturgical books is not enough to “renew the mentality.”
Also using the words of his predecessor, Francis called Catholics – priests and laity alike – to leave behind “disruptive ferments, which are equally pernicious in one sense and the other,” and to “apply integrally” the reform approved by the bishops who took part in the Council.
Battles over liturgical practice have been a chronic feature of Catholic life since Vatican II. A desire to maintain the older Latin Mass, for instance, was a primary force prompting French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to lead a group of traditionalist Catholics into a break with Rome. During the 1990s, the church in the United States engaged in a decade-long debate over how to translate liturgical texts into English and other matters dubbed the “liturgy wars.”
