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Misa dialogada - CLXIV

Propósito Revolucionario de
el Eslogan del ‘Cuerpo Místico de Cristo’

Dra. Carol Byrne, Gran Bretaña
En 1938, uno de los principales exponentes del Movimiento Litúrgico, el P. Josef Jungmann, SJ, comentó que “el Corpus Christi Mysticum [el Cuerpo Místico de Cristo] se ha convertido en la doctrina preferida de toda una generación. Hoy entendemos lo que realmente significa la expresión ‘la Santa Iglesia’.”1

Jungmann enfrentó a los laicos contra el Clero, culpando al monopolio de este último sobre la santidad

Para comprender el significado encriptado en este pasaje –que, sin embargo, era claro para los reformadores progresistas de la época– se necesita alguna explicación. Era un tópico progresista común afirmar que, durante siglos hasta entonces, los católicos laicos en su conjunto ignoraban que podían alcanzar la santidad de vida, y que, por lo tanto, se necesitaba todo un cambio de paradigma en la teología para inculcarles la posibilidad de alcanzar la santidad.

Esto no era más que un mito inventado por los reformadores, un ejemplo de “noticias falsas” que alegaba que el Clero se había apropiado del protagonismo de la santidad para sí mismo y se negaba a reconocer la santidad en los laicos. Pero esa pieza de propaganda difícilmente convencería a ningún fiel familiarizado con la Fe; cualquier católico anterior al Vaticano II que mereciera ese nombre sabía que uno de los propósitos de la Misa era precisamente la santificación de los fieles.

Otro cuento exagerado presentado por Jungmann para justificar la reforma radical en la Iglesia fue la acusación de que se pensaba que la Iglesia consistía únicamente en el Clero, y que los laicos habían sido arrojados a las tinieblas exteriores. En su opinión, la teología del Cuerpo Místico de Cristo era necesaria para enfatizar que los laicos también formaban parte de la Iglesia:

“Ya no se ve a la Iglesia como una asociación jerárquica que, como tal, se mantiene distante de cada cristiano individual, sino que se ha tomado conciencia de que la Iglesia es, por encima de todo, la comunidad de los fieles, un entorno vivo, compacto y dinámico, que envuelve a todos y cada uno.” 2

P. Aidan Kavanagh: A la Iglesia le faltaba un lugar para el misterio y la belleza...

Mirando en retrospectiva, podemos ver que esto fue un ataque sutil a la Constitución de dos niveles de la Iglesia, querida por Dios, explicada tan recientemente como a comienzos del siglo XX por San Pío X. Jungmann escribía desde la perspectiva modernista endémica del Movimiento Litúrgico, que buscaba “cerrar la brecha” entre el Clero y los laicos, y sustituir la distinción esencial entre ellos por la idea de una “comunidad” de todos los bautizados, todos disfrutando de iguales derechos a la participación activa en la liturgia, el gobierno y la administración de la Iglesia.

Sería difícil encontrar un líder litúrgico que no adoptara una visión atribuible a la política marxista basada en clases al instar a la necesidad de una revolución litúrgica. Citaremos, como ejemplo primordial de esta mentalidad enferma, la opinión del P. Aidan Kavanagh, OSB:

“Una laicado pasivo en la Misa reflejaba una visión de la Iglesia como un estado temporal compuesto de “aristocracias” activas sobre clases bajas pasivas, incluso privadas de derechos, todo ello gobernado por leyes interpretadas por juristas. Había poco lugar para el misterio, y la belleza era ignorada. El Clero poseía la liturgia oficial aprobada por la autoridad legítima; los laicos asistían sin apenas, si acaso, participación, ocupándose en rezar el Rosario u otras devociones que los juristas dejaban claro que no eran liturgia porque no estaban contenidas en los libros oficialmente aprobados publicados por Roma con el asentimiento papal.” 3

El Card. Avery Dulles se oponía a la estructura monárquica de la Iglesia Católica

Otro destacado partidario del Establishment Litúrgico, el Card. Avery Dulles, SJ, explicó que, en la mente de los reformadores, este paradigma era revolucionario porque pretendía reemplazar el llamado modelo jurídico de una sociedad monárquica basada en una Constitución sujeta a reglas y un cuerpo de gobierno, que había caracterizado a la Iglesia durante siglos. 4 Su sesgo antijerárquico puede verse en la evaluación positiva que hizo de la naturaleza “democrática” de Lumen gentium, que veía la misión de la Iglesia en el mundo como una de “servicio más que dominación”, es decir, de gobierno. 5

Pero, por el contrario, no hubo nada democrático en la implementación tanto del Movimiento Litúrgico como del Vaticano II. Ambos fueron producto de una élite de reformadores, en su mayoría académicos, que impusieron una revolución de arriba hacia abajo sobre una población católica desprevenida, para cambiar no solo el contenido de la Fe, sino la manera en que se había practicado durante siglos.

Su pretexto fue defender los llamados “derechos” de los laicos a asumir y ejercer funciones que hasta entonces habían sido privilegio exclusivo del Clero. El fin que se tenía en mente era el Ecumenismo, la Colegialidad y la Libertad Religiosa, que serían formalmente aprobados en el Vaticano II.

El compromiso político subvirtió el sacerdocio ministerial

Antes de proceder con un análisis más detallado de la situación, sería útil ofrecer una breve exposición del contexto en que la Iglesia consideraba la actividad política clerical. El Derecho Canónico prohibía explícitamente a los sacerdotes ocupar cargos públicos o participar en actividades políticas impropias de su estado clerical, enfatizando sus deberes espirituales por encima del compromiso político. El Papa Pío X señaló los peligros a los que se exponen tales miembros del clero:

Si los sacerdotes entran en política olvidan sus deberes espirituales hacia las almas

“Pueden llegar a atribuir tal importancia a los intereses materiales del pueblo que olviden esos deberes más importantes del sagrado ministerio.” (Il Fermo Proposito, 1905, § 24)

Fundamentalmente, esto se debe a que conduce a los sacerdotes a una situación anómala: el servicio a dos amos. Para los sacerdotes involucrados políticamente, la tentación abrumadora es dejar que los asuntos seculares prevalezcan sobre las consideraciones espirituales, en gran parte porque la presión de las circunstancias concretas los lleva a exaltar las virtudes naturales y activas por encima de las sobrenaturales y contemplativas. Cómo impactó este escenario en el Movimiento Litúrgico es evidente para todos. Se esperaba que todo aquel que participara activamente en la liturgia fuera igualmente activo en la vida social para el logro de la “Justicia Social” entendida en términos de política de izquierda.

Lo que realmente preocupa no es que los reformadores tuvieran opiniones privadas sobre cuestiones sociales y económicas, sino que todos actuaran en nombre de la Iglesia Católica para difundir sus ideas por medio de la liturgia y crear un consenso entre la población católica.

En particular, lanzaron una condena generalizada de los principios de libre mercado del Capitalismo como el mayor mal del mundo. Pero los principios capitalistas, siempre que mantuvieran sus vínculos con la rectitud moral y la caridad, no eran considerados por la Iglesia como perjudiciales para el bien común.

A menudo se pasa por alto que la Iglesia no tiene mandato para predicar un modelo económico específico (por ejemplo, el Distributismo o las cooperativas) como parte integral de su auténtico papel de enseñanza y exigir el asentimiento de los fieles. Sin embargo, eso es exactamente lo que ciertos sacerdotes de Acción Católica involucrados en el Movimiento Litúrgico defendían junto con miembros afines de grupos activistas laicos.

Además, si la Iglesia se identificara con un partido político o una ideología particular, perdería su credibilidad como voz de la autoridad moral. Aún más grave, la unidad de la Iglesia se ve necesariamente socavada cuando los sacerdotes se involucran en política partidista y los fieles se dividen entre sí en nombre de la Religión Católica.

Actualmente vivimos el legado del caos espiritual creado por décadas de reformas litúrgicas y promovido por el Vaticano II. Es innegable que la liturgia reformada ha sido capturada por cuestiones políticas y sociales ajenas al catolicismo, que, como consecuencia, han creado facciones y divisiones dentro de la población católica. Podemos identificar las principales áreas de polarización causadas por la afluencia de ideas seculares en la liturgia –sagrado y profano; activo y contemplativo; clerical y laico; tradicional y progresista; masculino y femenino; rico y pobre.

Continuará

  1. Josef Jungmann, ‘L’Église dans la vie religieuse d’aujourd’hui’ (La Iglesia en la Vida Religiosa de Hoy), Nouvelle Revue Théologique, vol. 65, 1938, p. 1035.
  2. Ibid., p. 1036.
  3. Aidan Kavanagh, Introducción a Odo Casel, The Mystery of Christian Worship and other writings, Nueva York: Herder and Herder, Crossroads Publishing Company, 1999, pp. vii-viii.
  4. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church, Nueva York: Doubleday, Random House Books, 2002, p. 34.
  5. A. Dulles, ‘Introducción a Lumen Gentium’, Walter M. Abbott y Joseph Gallagher, The Documents of Vatican II, Chicago: Association Press, 1966, p.12.

Publicado el 11 de agosto de 2026

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Pre & Post Liturgical Movement Attitudes to Minor Orders - Dialogue Mass 109 by Dr. Carol Byrne
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Dialogue Mass - CX

Pre & Post Liturgical Movement Attitudes to Minor Orders

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain
When we compare the traditional view of Minor Orders with the treatment they received at the hands of liturgical reformers in the 20th century, it becomes evident that the two positions stand in dire contrast to each other. To illustrate this point in greater depth, let us turn again to the exposition of Minor Orders made by Fr. Louis Bacuez who modestly introduced his magnum opus as follows:

minor orders

Starting the whittling away of respect
for the Minor Orders...

“This little book is a sequel to one we have published on Tonsure. God grant that those who make use of it may conceive a great respect for Minor Orders and prepare for them as they should! The dispositions with which they approach ordination will be the measure of the graces they receive, and on this measure depends, in a great part, the fruit that their ministry will produce. To have a rich harvest the first thing necessary is to sow well: Qui parce seminat parce et metet; et qui seminat in benedictionibus de benedictionibus et metet. (2 Cor. 9:6)” (1)

Little did he realize that when he wrote these words every vestige of respect for the Minor Orders would be whittled away by the concerted efforts of progressivists with a negative and dismissive attitude towards them; and that the Liturgical Movement, which had just begun when he published his book, would be dominated by influential liturgists discussing how to overturn them.

Long before the term “Cancel Culture” was invented, they presented the Minor Orders as a form of class-based oppression perpetrated by a clerical “caste” and as a form of spiritually empty legalism, and they went to great lengths to make them look ridiculous.

Far from showing due respect, this involves quite a considerable degree of contempt, not only for the generations of seminarians who were formed within this tradition, but also for the integrity of the great institution of Minor Orders that had served the Church since Apostolic times. In fact, so great was their animosity towards the Minor Orders that they could hardly wait to strip them of their essential nature as functions of the Hierarchy and turn them into lay ministries.

A tree is known by its fruits

These, then, were the hate-filled dispositions that inspired the progressivist reform, and would determine the graces received and the fruit to be produced by those who exercise the new lay “ministries” as opposed to, and in place of, the traditional Minor Orders.

Fr. Bacuez, who wrote his book in the pontificate of Pius X, could never, of course, have envisaged the demise of the Minor Orders, least of all at the hands of a future Pope. He was concerned lest even the smallest amount of grace be lost in the souls of those preparing for the priesthood:

blighted fruit

Blighted fruits from a sick tree

“We shall see, on the Last Day, what injury an ordinand does to himself and what detriment he causes to souls by losing, through his own fault, a part of the graces destined to sanctify his priesthood and render fruitful the fields of the Heavenly Father: Modica seminis detractio non est modicum messis detrimentum. (St. Bernard)” (2)

We do not, however, need to wait till the Last Day to see the effects of a reform that deliberately prevents, as by an act of spiritual contraception, the supernatural graces of the Minor Orders from attaining their God-given end: “to sanctify the priesthood and render fruitful the fields of the Heavenly Father.” For the evidence is all around us that the tree of this reform produced blighted fruits.

First, we note a weakening of the hierarchical structure of the Church and a blurring of the distinction between clergy and laity; second, a “contraceptive” sterility resulting in vocations withering on the vine and below replacement level, seminaries and churches closing down, parishes dying, and the decline in the life of the traditional Catholic Faith as seen in every measurable statistic. The conclusion is inescapable: those who planted this tree and those who now participate in the reform are accomplices in a destructive work.

Advantages of the Minor Orders

A substantial part of Fr. Bacuez’ exposition of the Minor Orders is devoted to the inestimable benefits they bring to the Church. These he divided into the following three categories:
  • The honor of the priesthood;

  • The dignity of worship;

  • The perfection of the clergy.
It is immediately apparent that the Minor Orders were oriented towards the liturgy as performed by the priest and his ministers. In other words, they existed for entirely supernatural ends invested in the priesthood.

A significant and entirely appropriate omission was any mention of active involvement of the laity in the liturgy. Fr. Bacuez’ silence on this issue is an eloquent statement of the mind of the Church that the liturgy is the preserve of the clergy.

We will now take each of his points in turn.

1. The honor of the priesthood

“A statue, however perfect, would never be appreciated by most people, unless it were placed on a suitable pedestal. Likewise the pontificate, which is the perfection of the priesthood, would not inspire the faithful with all the esteem it merits, if it had not beneath it, to give it due prominence, these different classes of subordinate ministers, classes inferior one to another, but the least of which is superior to the entire order of laymen.” (3)

toppling statues

Toppling statues has become popular today:
above,
Fr. Serra in central Los Angeles, California

It is an example of dramatic irony that Fr. Bacuez unwittingly chose the theme of a statue supported by a pedestal to illustrate his point. He was not to know that statues of historical figures would become a major source of controversy in the culture wars and identity politics of our age.

Nor could he have foreseen that toppling monuments – both metaphorical and concrete – was to become a favorite sport of the 20th-century liturgical reformers, their aim being to exalt the status of the laity by “active participation” in clerical roles. And never in his wildest imagination would he have suspected that a future Pope would join in the iconoclastic spree to demolish the Minor Orders about which he wrote with evident pride and conviction.

'Don’t put the priest on a pedestal'

However, the revolutionaries considered that esteem for the Hierarchy and recognition of its superiority over the lay members of the Church was too objectionable to be allowed to survive in modern society. The consensus of opinion among them was that clergy and laity were equals because of their shared Baptism, and placing the priest on a pedestal was not only unnecessary, but detrimental to the interests of the laity.

“Don’t put the priest on a pedestal” was their battle cry. It is the constant refrain that is still doing the rounds among progressivists who refuse to give due honor to the priesthood and insist on accusing the Church of systemic “clericalism.”

But the fundamental point of the Minor Orders – and the Sub-Diaconate – was precisely to be the pedestal on which the priesthood is supported and raised to a position of honor in the Church. When Paul VI’s Ministeria quaedam dismantled the institutional underpinnings of the Hierarchy, the imposing pedestal and columns that were the Minor Orders and Sub-Diaconate were no longer allowed to uphold and elevate the priesthood.

The biblical underpinnings of the Minor Orders

Fr. Bacuez made use of the following passage from the Book of Proverbs:

“Wisdom hath built herself a house; she hath hewn out seven pillars. She hath slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table.” (9: 1-2)

exorcism

An ordination to the minor order of exorcist, one of the seven columns

He drew an analogy between “the seven columns of the living temple, which the Incarnate Wisdom has raised up to the Divine Majesty” and all the clerical Orders (four Minor and three Major) that exist for the right worship of God. In this, he was entirely justified. For, in their interpretation of this passage, the Church Fathers concur that it is a foreshadowing of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass performed, as St. Augustine said, by “the Mediator of the New Testament Himself, the Priest after the order of Melchisedek.” (4)

In the 1972 reform, no less than five (5) of the seven columns were brought crashing down from their niches in the Hierarchy to cries of “institutionalized clericalism,” “delusions of grandeur” and “unconscious bias” against the laity.

To further elucidate the affinity of the Minor Orders to the priesthood, Fr. Bacuez gave a brief overview of the cursus honorum that comprised the Orders of Porter, Lector, Exorcist, Acolyte, Sub-Deacon, Deacon and Priest before going on to explain their interrelatedness:

“These seven powers successively conferred, beginning with the last, are superimposed one upon the other without ever disappearing or coming in conflict, so that in the priesthood, the highest of them all, they are all found. The priest unites them all in his person, and has to exercise them all his life in the various offices of his ministry.” (6)

After Ministeria quaedam, however, these rights and powers are no longer regarded as the unique, personal possession of the ordained, but have been officially redistributed among the baptized. It was not simply a question of changing the title from Orders to “ministries”: the real locus of the revolution was in taking the privileges of the “ruling classes” (the representatives of Christ the King) and giving them to their subjects (the laity) as of “right.”

The neo-Marxist message was, and still is, that this was an act of “restorative justice” for the laity who had been “historically wronged.” For the liturgical progressivists, 1972 was, apparently, the year of “compensation.”

Continued

  1. Louis Bacuez SS, Minor Orders, St Louis MO: B. Herder, 1912, p. x. “He who soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who soweth in blessings shall also reap blessings.”
  2. Ibid., St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Lenten Sermon on the Psalm ‘Qui habitat,’ Sermones de Tempore, In Quadragesima, Preface, § 1: “If, at the time of sowing, a moderate amount of seed has been lost, the harm done to the harvest will not be inconsiderable.”
  3. Ibid., p. 6.
  4. St. Augustine, The City of God, book XVII, chap. 20: "Of David’s Reign and Merit; and of his son Solomon, and of that prophecy relating to Christ, which is found either in those books that are joined to those written by him, or in those that are indubitably his."
  5. These were the four Minor Orders and the Major Order of the Sub-Diaconate.
  6. L. Bacuez, op. cit., p. 5.

Posted December 10, 2021

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Volume I
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Volume II
Animus Injuriandi II

Volume III


Volume IV
A_Offend1.gif - 23346 Bytes

Volume V
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Volume VI
destructio dei

Volume VII
fumus satanae

Volume VIII
creatio

Volume IX
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Volume X
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Volume XI
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Special Edition