Church, Faith and liturgy in ‘serious crisis’, says top cardinal

Modern Masses have caused disaster, devastation and schism in the Church, the head of the Vatican’s liturgy department has said.

In an address sent to a conference in Germany, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, said the Church is currently undergoing a “serious crisis” underestimated by many Church leaders.

The conference at Herzogenrath, near Aachen, entitled ‘The Source of the Future’, was organised to mark 10 years since the publication of Pope Benedict XVI’s letter Summorum Pontificum which loosened restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, now known as the Extraordinary Form.

Disintegration

Citing the Pope Emeritus, the Guinean cardinal said the Church has been in crisis for 50 years, this crisis being linked to “the disintegration of the liturgy”.

He recognised that the Second Vatican Council aimed to promote greater active participation in the Mass, and praised how “some fine initiatives” had been taken to achieve this.

“However,” he said, “we cannot close our eyes to the disaster, the devastation and the schism that the modern promoters of a living liturgy caused by remodelling the Church’s liturgy according to their ideas.” Challenging how some innovations have glossed over how the Mass is a mystery even more than it is a prayer, he said that active participation is not a matter of external activities and roles, but is rather about “an intensely active receptivity” to Christ.

The cardinal said a “serious crisis of faith” was afflicting both laity and clergy, with part of this confusion leading to the Mass being treated as “a simple convivial meal, the celebration of a profane feast, the community’s celebration of itself, or even worse, a terrible diversion from the anguish of a life that no longer has meaning”.

In contrast, however, he praised the “the tremendous, marvellous work” of the English-, Spanish- and Korean-language bishops conferences in translating the Mass texts in recent years along the principles laid out by the Vatican in 2001’s Liturgiam Authenticam.

The cardinal’s praise comes despite reports that Pope Francis wishes to review the translation guidelines.