GATEWAY
LITURGICAL CONFERENCE
ADDRESS OF HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL
FRANCIS ARINZE
St Louis, Missouri (U.S.A.)
Saturday, 11 November 2006
"Good Music Helps to Promote Prayer"
4.
Gregorian Chant
"Liturgical action is given a
more noble form when sacred rites
are solemnized in song" (SC,
n. 113). There is an ancient saying:
bis orat qui bene cantat, that
is, "the person who sings well prays
twice". This is so because the
intensity that prayer acquires from
being sung, increases its ardour and
multiplies its efficacy (cf. Paul
VI:
Address to Italian Schola Cantorum,
25 September 1977, in
Notitiae 136, November 1977, p.
475).
Good music helps to promote
prayer, to raise the minds of people
to God and to give people a taste of
the goodness of God.
In the Latin Rite what has
come to be known as the Gregorian
Chant has been traditional. A
distinctive liturgical chant existed
indeed in Rome before St Gregory the
Great (+604). But it was this great
Pontiff who gave it the greatest
prominence.
After St Gregory this
tradition of chant continued to
develop and be enriched until the
upheavals that brought an end to the
Middle Ages. The monasteries,
especially those of the Benedictine
Order, have done much to preserve
this heritage.
Gregorian Chant is marked by a
moving meditative cadence. It
touches the depths of the soul. It
shows joy, sorrow, repentance,
petition, hope, praise or
thanksgiving, as the particular
feast, part of the Mass or other
prayer may indicate. It makes the
Psalms come alive. It has a
universal appeal which makes it
suitable for all cultures and
peoples. It is appreciated in Rome,
Solesmes, Lagos, Toronto and
Caracas. Cathedrals, monasteries,
seminaries, sanctuaries, pilgrimage
centres and traditional parishes
resound with it.
St Pope Pius X extolled the
Gregorian Chant in 1904 (cf.
Tra le Sollecitudini, n. 3). The
Second Vatican Council praised it in
1963: "The Church acknowledges
Gregorian Chant as proper to the
Roman liturgy: therefore, other
things being equal, it should be
given pride of place in liturgical
services" (SC,
n. 116).
The Servant of God, Pope John
Paul II, repeated this praise in
2003 (cf.
Chirograph for the Centenary of Tra
Le Sollecitudini, nn. 4-7;
in Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Discipline of the
Sacraments:
Spiritus et Sponsa, 2003, p.
130).
Pope Benedict XVI encouraged
the International Association of
Pueri Cantores when they met in
Rome at the end of 2005. They give a
privileged place to the Gregorian
Chant. In Rome and throughout the
world the Church is blessed with
many fine choirs, both professional
and amateur, that render the chant
beautifully, and communicate their
enthusiasm for it.
It is not true that the lay
faithful do not want to sing the
Gregorian Chant. What they are
asking for are priests and monks and
nuns who will share this treasure
with them.
The CDs produced by the
Benedictine monks of Silos, their
motherhouse at Solesmes, and
numerous other communities sell
among young people. Monasteries are
visited by people who want to sing
Lauds and especially Vespers.
In an ordination ceremony of
11 priests which I celebrated in
Nigeria last July, about 150 priests
sang the First Eucharistic Prayer in
Latin. It was beautiful. The people,
although no Latin scholars, loved
it. It should be just normal that
parish churches where there are four
or five Masses on Sunday should have
one of these Masses sung in Latin.
5.
Did Vatican II discourage Latin?
Some people think, or have the
perception, that the Second Vatican
Council discouraged the use of Latin
in the liturgy. This is not the
case.
Just before he opened the
Council, Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962
issued an Apostolic Constitution to
insist on the use of Latin in the
Church. The Second Vatican Council,
although it admitted some
introduction of the vernacular,
insisted on the place of Latin:
"Particular law remaining in force,
the use of the Latin language is to
be preserved in the Latin rites" (SC,
n. 36).
The Council also required that
seminarians "should acquire a
command of Latin which will enable
them to understand and use the
source material of so many sciences
and the documents of the Church as
well" (Optatam
Totius, n. 13). The Code of
Canon Law published in 1983 enacts
that "the Eucharistic celebration is
to be carried out either in the
Latin language or in another
language, provided the liturgical
texts have been lawfully approved"
(can. 928).
Those, therefore, who want to
give the impression that the Church
has put Latin away from her liturgy
are mistaken. A manifestation of
people's acceptance of Latin liturgy
well celebrated was had at the world
level in April 2005, when millions
followed the burial rites of Pope
John Paul II and then, two weeks
later, the inauguration Mass of Pope
Benedict XVI over the television.
It is remarkable that young
people welcome the Mass celebrated
sometimes in Latin. Problems are not
lacking. So, too, there are
misunderstandings and wrong
approaches on the part of some
priests on the use of Latin. But to
get the matter in better focus, it
is necessary first to examine the
use of the vernacular in the liturgy
of the Roman Rite today.
6.
The Vernacular: Introduction,
Extension, Conditions
The introduction of local
languages into the sacred liturgy of
the Latin Rite is a development that
did not occur all of a sudden. After
the partial experience gained over
the preceding years in certain
countries, already on 5 and 6
December 1962, after long and
sometimes impassioned debates, the
Second Vatican Fathers adopted the
principle that the use of the mother
tongue, whether in the Mass or other
parts of the liturgy, frequently may
be of advantage to the people. In
the following year the Council voted
to apply this principle to the Mass,
the ritual and the Liturgy of the
Hours (cf.
SC, nn. 36, 54, 63a, 76, 78,
101).
Extensions of the use of the
vernacular followed. But, as if the
Council Fathers foresaw the
likelihood that Latin might lose
more and more ground, they insisted
again and again that Latin be
maintained.
As already quoted, article 36
of the Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy began by enacting that
"particular law remaining in force,
the use of the Latin language is to
be preserved in the Latin rite".
Article 54 required that steps be
taken, "enabling the faithful to say
or sing together in Latin those
parts of the Ordinary of the Mass
belonging to them". In the
celebration of the Liturgy of the
Hours, "in accordance with the
centuries-old tradition of the Latin
rite, clerics are to retain the
Latin language" (SC,
n. 101).
But even while establishing
limits, the Council Fathers
anticipated the possibility of a
wider use of the vernacular. Article
54 indeed adds: "Wherever a more
extended use of the mother tongue
within the Mass appears desirable,
the regulation laid down in Article
40 of this Constitution is to be
observed". Article 40 goes into
directives on the role of Bishops'
Conferences and of the Apostolic See
in such a delicate matter.
The vernacular had been
introduced. The rest is history. The
developments were so fast that many
clerics, Religious and lay faithful
today are not aware that the Second
Vatican Council did not simply
introduce the vernacular for all
parts of the liturgy.
Requests and widenings of the
use of the vernacular were not long
in coming. At the urgent request of
some Bishops' Conferences, Pope Paul
VI first allowed the Preface of the
Mass to be said in the vernacular
(cf. Letter of the Cardinal
Secretary of State, 27 April 1965),
then the entire Canon and the
prayers of ordination in 1967.
Finally, on 14 June 1971, the
Congregation for Divine Worship sent
notice that Episcopal Conferences
could allow the use of the
vernacular in all the texts of the
Mass, and each Ordinary could give
the same permission for the choral
or private celebration of the
Liturgy of the Hours (on the whole
development, see A.G. Martimort:
The Dialogue between God and his
People, in A.G. Martimort:
The Church at Prayer, I, p.
166).
The reasons for the
introduction of the mother tongue
are not far to seek. It promotes
better understanding of what the
Church is praying, since "Mother
Church earnestly desires that all
the faithful be led to that full,
conscious and active participation
in liturgical celebrations which is
demanded by the very nature of the
liturgy... (and which) is their
right by reason of their Baptism" (SC,
n. 14).
At the same time, it is not
difficult to envisage how demanding
and delicate the work of translation
must be. Even more difficult is the
question of adaptation and
inculturation especially when we
think of the sacredness of the
sacramental rites, the centuries-old
tradition of the Latin Rite, and the
close link between faith and worship
encapsuled in the old formula:
lex orandi, lex credendi.
We turn now to the thorny
question of translations into the
vernacular in the liturgy
