The Sunday Afternoon of Three Archbishops

I WRITE today of three Archbishops. Two of them Irish. One of them French. And I write in particular of one Sunday afternoon.

Sunday, September 29, 1985 was a significant, in the precise meaning of that word, day in Dublin. That day witnessed the deepening confluence of streams. That calm confluence was not at all disturbed by the possibility of a gathering storm.

On that particular afternoon these three Archbishops occupied themselves in varying ways in two particular churches. Even the very churches add resonance to the historic happenings.

One was Christ Church Cathedral in the very heart of Dublin. That was, at one long-ago time, the site of the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the adoration of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. But due to events which had little to do with the heart and mind of the people the Mass was silenced in Christ Church and the adoration of the Sacrament stopped.

In that Cathedral on Sunday, September 29 last the Most Reverend Donald Caird was enthroned as Archbishop of Dublin. The ceremony was attended by, as they say, dignitaries of Church and State. Among the dignitaries was Dr. Kevin McNamara who, along with the Most Reverend Donald Caird, lays claim to the title Archbishop of Dublin.

Dr. McNamara was present as a sign of ecclesiastical courtesy. And ecclesiastical courtesy is a public expression of the love of Christ. Viewed in this manner Dr. Caird, in inviting the presence of Dr. McNamara to the ceremony, and Dr. McNamara in accepting the invitation, were each reflecting their common love of Christ which is the mutual dynamic of their lives.

Spiritual Integrity

By his presence in Christ Church Cathedral Dr. McNamara is also, without prejudice to his own faith, acknowledging a particular spiritual integrity in those who worship God in the Protestant faith. It is no more than that. But it is that.

In other words, if attendance at a particular Church ceremony seemed inconsistent with his Catholic faith Dr. McNamara would certainly not go. If a ritual seemed openly offensive to the tradition of the Catholic Faith in Ireland he would not honor it with his presence.

Ecclesiastical courtesies, just like personal courtesies, need not, and should not, demand a blind eye to truth. Nor a blind eye to error. Courtesy achieved at the expense of a recognition of truth and of error would no longer be courtesy. Neither Dr. Caird nor Dr. McNamara would surrender their religious integrity for a mere show of diplomacy.

In other words, in spite of their presence together at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, September 29, they each retained, unclouded and unprejudiced, their vision of truth and their vision of error.

Dr. Caird's vision of truth is not Dr. McNamara's vision of truth. And Dr. McNamara will see profound error where Dr. Caird sees none.

Dr. McNamara believes that at the Sacrifice of the Mass Christ becomes present on the altar, really, truly, substantially. He believes that at the consecration of the species the bread is no longer, in any sense, bread; and the wine is no longer, in any sense, wine.

He believes that what were bread and wine are changed into the Body and the Sacred Blood of Jesus Christ. He believes the change is absolute, objective and non-contingent. He believes that the Mass is a re-presentation of Christ's Sacrifice on Calvary.

Episcopal Faith

I am open to correction but Dr. Caird, I am persuaded, not only disbelieves these aspirations of the Mass but as an episcopal successor of the Reformed faith would feel it incumbent on himself to reject them actively as un-Scriptural, erroneous and doctrinally false. Dr. Caird believes that the intention of Christ at the Last Supper is fulfilled in the Protestant memorial service.

It seems to me, as it has seemed to four and a half centuries of Christendom, that the differences of aspirations between the Sacrifice of the Mass and the memorial service of the Reformed churches are nothing subtle. They are titanic. And they are so manifest that words literally fail to serve the purpose of description.

When the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ceased to be offered in Christ Church Cathedral and when, four centuries ago, the Protestant memorial service was put in its place, the Reformers were aware that they were dismissing the notion of sacrifice and of the infinite priestly power attaching to it.

Until recently the difference between Catholic orthodoxy in its central act of worship and the newer Reformed orthodoxy was always clear. It was not possible to confuse the Mass with a Protestant memorial service.

But that was before the liturgy of the Mass was defaced, diminished, and its sombre beauty dismantled. Luther wanted the use of Latin to be abandoned in divine worship. We have taken his advice. The solemn prayers and phrases, passed reverently on from century to century, have been abandoned or vandalized. The patina of centuries has been scrubbed clean, sanded over with liturgical Black and Deckers, and painted with high-gloss paint that hides the loving hand-prints of the dead souls.

I think it is true to say that if a man or woman had been cut off from civilized life thirty years ago and were to return some Sunday morning to Dublin city and visit the pro-Cathedral he or she would scarcely recognize the Mass.

If you tune into the religious service on RTE any Sunday morning and if you take care to avoid the first introductory remarks you may well find it very difficult to know whether you are listening to the Sacrifice of the Mass or to a Reformed memorial service. Has that happened by accident? Or by determined design?

If one liturgical service is made to look like another one, and is made to sound like another one, it is manifestly easy for people to believe that the difference between them is slight, subtle, pedantic or even, for practical purposes, nonexistent.

From that position it is easy, and perhaps inevitable, that those who still insist that the difference is not subtle but titanic are regarded as extreme, unreasonable, obscurantist and intellectually tasteless.

Historic Occasion

I have spoken of three Archbishops and I have mentioned two of them. I have spoken of two churches and I have mentioned one of them.

On that same Sunday afternoon, September 29, 1985, when Dr. Caird was enthroned as Archbishop of Dublin Christ Church Cathedral, another Archbishop—Marcel Lefebvre—was celebrating Solemn High Mass in Latin after the centuries-old rite in a one-time Church of Ireland Church—St. John's, Mount-town Road, Dun Laoghaire.

It was an historic occasion. But if there were any dignitaries of Church and State present they were not immediately obvious. People were there not out of civic duty but out of love for the immemorial Mass.

One thing is certain. Nobody could, for even a moment, doubt the solemnity, the beauty, the Catholicity of the occasion. That celebration could never accommodate a final priestly injunction to "have a nice week-end." The new vandalized Rite of Mass sustains such breezy injunctions without the blink of a liturgical eye.

The tragic pity is that the Mass was celebrated outside the ordinances of the Diocese. Questions need to be asked. Even if answers are unlikely.

What kind of chaos has overtaken the Catholic Church when a rite of Mass was so inextricably, as it seemed, part of Catholic life in Ireland for centuries is now regarded with such heavy suspicion that its celebration, if it is celebrated with the permission of the Ordinary, is contingent on a declared and signed statement of orthodoxy by those who attend?

It is ironic and amusing that only those who most steadfastly stand by old Catholic traditional worship have to give written guarantees of their orthodoxy before attending a celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Why should regular daily attendance at the old Mass carry with it the resonance of old recusancy?

And if it is fitting that the Catholic community of Dublin city be represented at the enthronement ceremony of a Church of Ireland Bishop, what dark considerations, in God's name, prevents the open honoring of a Solemn High Mass celebrated by a venerable and Catholic Archbishop? Is it so devoid of spiritual integrity?

Is it not extraordinary that at a time when so many embarrassing liberties are being taken with the ritual of the Mass throughout the world, the one rubric that really attracts the withering glance and the steely eye is the old, loved, persecuted and surviving Tridentine Mass?

But the poet was right. Though the prospect is dark, morning at the brown brink eastward springs. And one thing is sure. Or as sure as sure can be. When the Sacrifice of the Mass ended in St. John's Church, when the air was still fragrant with ascending incense, when the choir and standing congregation sang the Salve Regina, not one person there would have wished on that sunny September afternoon to change his place for even the most honored seat in Christ Church Cathedral, bereft as it is for four rolling centuries of our sweet reprieve and ransom.