Fr. Hunwicke skrev for en ukes tid siden flere artikler om liturgisk utvikling, og tar bl.a. opp hva pave Pius V gjorde etter konsilet i Trent, da han standardiserte den katolske messen. Siden vi i dag minnes denne hellige paven, kan det passe å se på hva han virkelig gjorde med messen etter konsilet i Trent. Kort sagt: Han førte videre 98% av det som hadde blitt brukt i messen tidligere, han godtok alle riter som var mer enn 200 år gamle (og der han var sikker på deres katolisitet, de områder som han nylagede messer (og det hadde vært en del liturgisk esperimentering også på den tid) skulle gå over til å bruke den romerske ritus – for å sikre at alt var fullt ut katolsk.
Fr. Hunwickes artikkelserie kan leses her: del 1 – del 2 – del 3 – del 4– del 5. Og om Pius Vs forandringer i messen (som jeg personlig aldri kaller tridentisk, men heller tradisjonell) skriver Fr. Hunwicke
«Pius V … decided to introduce the Missale Romanum, the Mass book of the Church of the City of Rome, as indubitably Catholic, in all places where it could not be demonstrated that the liturgy was of at least 200 years’a antiquity. In other cases the liturgy in use could be retained, since its Catholic character could be considered certain. There was therefore no question of forbidding the use of a traditional Missal which had been juridically valid until that time … »
…. Sometimes a parallel is suggested between S Pius V, revising the Roman Rite after and by mandate of the Council of Trent, and Paul VI, revising it after and by mandate of Vatican II. This is, I believe, a gross misunderstanding (i) of what S Pius was about, as he describes his own actions in Quo primum; and (ii) of the considerable differences between those two events.
…. In the later sixteenth century, there was a fair amount of liturgical experimentation – and S Pius intends to suppress such innovations in the Eucharist (just as he suppressed Quignonez’ ‘novum Breviarium’). He does not intend to suppress established rites with a couple of centuries’ history. … What we have here is not a policy of universal standardisation by an autocrat, but the mandated preservation of the old and sanctified dialects of the Roman Rite combined with a firm suppression of recent faddery.
…. Nobody denies that the ‘Tridentine’ Missal differs very little from earlier editions. Nobody claims that alterations were made in the Canon which had no basis in its textual history; that a dozen or so alternative ‘Eucharistic Prayers’ were added; or that the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels of every single Sunday were changed. Nobody can deny that all this is true of the Pauline Missal*. One pope publishes a very light standardisation with a 98% unchanged text; another pope publishes a vastly different rite. …
… I do not like some propaganda of the SSPX which appears to suggest that Quo primum made the Pian edition immutable. Certainly no future Pontiff deemed it immutable; they presided over its organic evolution. …
… I offer these thoughts as my meditation upon the words I quoted in my last post from Cardinal Ratzinger: that it is contrary to the Spirit of the Church to abolish the rites which have served the piety and lives of generations of Christians.