The first article in this series raised the question whether the liturgical reform initiated by the Second Vatican Council could be likened to the liturgical reform that followed the Council of Trent. In the previous five entries, I have presented the historical events that led to Trent, the deliberations on liturgical and sacramental matters at the council itself, and the reform of the Roman Rite that was implemented by subsequent popes. We are now in a better position to compare the impact these two important ecclesial assemblies had on the liturgical life of the Catholic Church.

Historical Contexts

The Council of Trent was the papacy’s response to the acute crisis that had been prompted by the Protestant Reformation. The later Middle Ages were not a period of decay and decline in every sense, as many historians used to argue. However, the upheavals of the 15th century left the Western Church in a fragile state, and pressure for reform had been building up, to which the Renaissance papacy did not respond adequately. Martin Luther’s protest of 1517 unleashed a dynamic that challenged the very foundations of Catholic thought and practice, including the understanding of the Mass and the celebration of the liturgy. In the face of this revolt, the Council of Trent reaffirmed and clarified Catholic teaching, not least on the seven sacraments. On the council floor, voices from various parts of the Church were heard calling for a standardization of liturgical books and for closer episcopal oversight in correcting abuses and in promoting sound practice.

While there was no comparable sense of crisis in the mid-20th century, the universal Church presented a mixed picture. On the one hand, many people found in the Catholic faith an anchor of spiritual and moral stability after the devastations of the Second World War. The Church appeared to be vital and growing in many parts of the world, including North America. On the other hand, social changes, technological advancement and intellectual radicalism increased the tensions between the Church and modernity, which affected the roots of Catholic faith and practice. In a provocative essay of 1958, Joseph Ratzinger diagnosed in Europe a weakening of Christian convictions and the birth “of a new paganism which is growing steadily in the heart of the Church, and threatens to undermine her from within.”¹ Against this backdrop, the aims of the Second Vatican Council were succinctly expressed in the opening paragraph of its first document, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: “This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church.”²

Of particular relevance for our topic is the Liturgical Movement, which had its beginnings in the mid-19th century and drew inspiration from the spirited appeal of Abbot Prosper Guéranger: “Open your hearts, children of the Catholic Church, and come and pray the prayer of your Mother.”³ The Liturgical Movement wanted to bring the ordinary faithful to a greater understanding and love of the Church’s divine worship. As has been discussed in the previous entry, the question of the people’s participation in the sacred rites had been building up since the Tridentine reform. By the mid-20th century, emphasis had shifted from the aspiration for a better understanding towards a reform of the liturgy itself. Pope Pius XII endorsed the principal aims of the Liturgical Movement in his encyclical on the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei (1947), but also warned of excesses and insisted on respect for liturgical tradition. At the same time, the pope initiated a process of reform with the intention of making the Church’s liturgy more accessible, for instance, by introducing evening Masses and simplifying the Paschal Triduum.

Scope and Aims of the Reforms

The Tridentine reform was aiming at a standardization of the Roman Rite as it had evolved by the 16th century. Existing liturgical books were pruned and reorganized, and new editions were promulgated with papal authority. No strict uniformity was intended, and local uses with certain historical roots could be retained, but the dynamic of the Counter-Reformation led to an adoption of the Roman liturgical books even where this was not required. The character of the Tridentine reform was traditional, and no significant concessions were made to the demands of the Protestant Reformers, such as the use of the vernacular or communion under both kinds.

While the Council of Trent focused on clarification of Catholic doctrine and on practical reforms, Vatican II intended a renewal of the Church in every aspect of its life. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, lays out a comprehensive vision, offering both theological foundations and principles of reform. It should be noted that the liturgy appeared to be the least controversial subject to be discussed at the council, and hence Sacrosanctum Concilium was promulgated first and nearly unanimously. Even while the council was still in session, Pope Paul VI initiated what his successor Benedict XVI called “the most extensive renewal of the Roman Rite ever known.”⁴ Gradually, all the liturgical books of the Roman Rite were thoroughly reworked, with the overarching aim to promote the full, active, and conscious participation of the faithful in the Church’s divine worship. For this purpose, the vernacular was widely introduced, the existing rites were simplified, and local adaptations were permitted.

Reception of the Reforms

The standardized editions of liturgical books after the Council of Trent were widely accepted as part of the renewal of the Catholic Church after the shock of the Protestant Reformation. France is often cited as an exception, but it would be misleading to call the liturgical books that continued to be produced in French dioceses “Neo-Gallican,” because they were local variations within the Roman ritual family. The recovered spiritual leadership of the papacy and the medium of print facilitated a period of unprecedented liturgical stability that would last for nearly four centuries. At the same time, social and cultural transformations left their mark on the Church’s worship. For instance, the ideal of the unified space that developed in Renaissance and Baroque architecture led to the removal of rood screens from many medieval cathedrals and churches. While religious practice remained strong in the post-Tridentine Church, early modern Europe was also marked by processes of secularization in public and in private life, and the sacred liturgy was increasingly experienced as distant from people’s experience.

The reception of the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform has been far more complex. The reform succeeded in promoting greater participation by the lay faithful and in allowing the sacred rites to be adapted to their cultural contexts. It could be argued that the reform had the most positive effects in local churches of more recent evangelization, especially in Africa and Asia. The rapid and often abrupt introduction of the new liturgical books was the work of the Consilium for the implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which acted with papal authority, and the legacy of ultramontanism ensured that only a few critical voices were heard. However, the more the actual reform went beyond the indications of Sacrosanctum Concilium and opened the door for a “hermeneutic of rupture” (Benedict XVI) in interpreting the council as a whole, the more uneasiness could be felt among both clergy and laity. The social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s strongly affected the shape of the liturgy, and the cause for the preservation of the Latin Mass gained traction in Europe and North America.

Conclusion

The comparison I have sketched in this short article clearly shows the differences between the liturgical reforms of Trent and of Vatican II with regard to historical context, scope and aims, and reception. However, any such comparison must remain preliminary, because the liturgical reform initiated by Vatican II is still ongoing and far from being settled. Recent popes have given diverse indications for the path of liturgical renewal. In the meantime, younger Catholics increasingly find a spiritual home in traditional forms of worship and the full fruits of this movement will only be seen in future. As the Danish Lutheran thinker Søren Kierkegaard observed in his journals: “Life must be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Only in retrospect can the history of the Vatican II reforms be fully written—as it has been for the Council of Trent.

Click here to read previous entries in this series.

_{^{Image Source: AB/Bibliothèque nationale de France (gallica.bnf.fr/)}}

1. Joseph Ratzinger, “The New Pagans and the Church,” in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, January 30, 2017, at https://www.hprweb.com/2017/01/the-new-pagans-and-the-church/ (first published in 1958).
2. Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (December 4, 1963), no. 1.
3. Prosper Guéranger, L’Année Liturgique, vol. I (1845), as cited in Cuthbert Johnson, Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875): A Liturgical Theologian (Rome: Studia Anselmiana, 1984), 350.
4. Benedict XVI, Video Message for the Closing of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin (June 17, 2012).