✥ For reasons mysterious even to me, recently I read an article by Fr. Thomas Reese entitled “Why I Hate the Old Latin Mass: A Confession.” The author seems to have been aiming at satire, but I for one cannot see how it is funny unless your idea of humor is watching an old man embarrass himself. I mention it here only because at one point Fr. Reese writes:
I had read Joseph Jungman’s “Mass of the Roman Rite,” which is a comprehensive history of the Mass, and it makes clear that the Mass was constantly changing through history. . . . This book should be mandatory reading in the Catholic seminaries.
Oh dear. Jungmann’s book is indeed a monumental work, though “tomblike” might have been the mot juste. For all of its undeniable erudition, its dizzying command of primary sources, its extraordinary scope, Jungmann’s is not a book about which one can afford to be uncritical. It is the life’s work of a great scholar, but it is also highly tendentious, and in many places simply a work of fantasy. Some of the problems are interpretive. Others are errors of fact. One amusing example is Jungmann’s touching belief that a universal and characteristic feature of the Mass in the fourth century was a kind of general offertory procession by the laity. This myth lives on in the tedious tradition of “bringing up the gifts” invented for the New Mass.
One is reminded here the belief fondly promoted by the late Roger Norrington that violinists did not make intentional use of vibrato until the 1940s. This is, of course, absurd. We know that it is absurd because of the countless favorable historical references to vibrato—not only in formal musicological treatises going all the way back to the Baroque era but in such non-rarefied contexts as letters and diary entries. Moreover, we have recordings made by countless musicians—themselves formed in unbroken performance traditions that stretch all the way back to the invention of the modern symphony orchestra—which feature beautiful use of vibrato. Who are you going to believe, one Englishman or your lying ears?
Norrington’s ultra-fast vibrato-free recordings no doubt have their fans. They are, of course, entitled to such preferences. But what they cannot argue is that Norrington’s views about good orchestral sound were grounded in anything except his own aesthetic tastes.
Simili modo, Fr. Reese and his friends can say that they “hate” various aspects of the old Mass, and, conversely, that they “love” elements of the new one. But what they cannot argue is that these fixations represent an authentic historically informed “renewal” of the liturgy or the recovery of anything except the well-known predilections of those responsible for concocting them during the last century.
Back to Jungmann. Had I more time I would relish the chance to write a longer essay about him. The Mass of the Roman Rite is a sublime work, redolent of other heroic Teutonic narratives of decline and renewal. But saying that it should be “mandatory reading” for seminarians is laughable. The book is, frankly speaking, a period piece. This is not to suggest that there is no value in reading older scholarship. History is not a science but a branch of literature. The histories of Gibbon and Macaulay, whatever their defects, will be read as long as the English language continues to be understood.
It is less clear what useful purpose Jungmann now serves except as a repository of information, a vast heap of miscellaneous learning to be combed over carefully. If this were the sense in which Fr. Reese intended his comments, I would perhaps be inclined to agree. But of course this is not what he meant. For Fr. Reese and goodness knows how many other priests of his generation, Jungmann is a kind of talisman or fetish-object before which the self-satisfied liberal Catholic can abase himself. He offers them a chance to continue begging a whole host of questions which later generations of historians (including some who are otherwise sympathetic to Jungmann) have actually taken the pains to ask.
I am not asking that Fr. Reese change his mind about anything. Might I suggest something else? He should do some further reading. He might begin with a very fine essay by Eamon Duffy, simply and fittingly entitled “Worship.” If he is feeling more ambitious, I suggest that he also have a look at Uwe Michael Lang’s Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform. The former is a wonderfully lucid analysis of Jungmann which helpfully situates him in his proper historical context and suggests leaving him there where he belongs. The latter is an example of serious, up-to-date liturgical scholarship by someone who actually knows what he is talking about. It is a book I have read several times with profit and delight; indeed, one might go so far as to say that it should be “mandatoryreading” for all seminarians.
—Matthew Walther
✥ For reasons mysterious even to me, recently I read an article by Fr. Thomas Reese entitled “Why I Hate the Old Latin Mass: A Confession.” The author seems to have been aiming at satire, but I for one cannot see how it is funny unless your idea of humor is watching an old man embarrass himself. I mention it here only because at one point Fr. Reese writes:
I had read Joseph Jungman’s “Mass of the Roman Rite,” which is a comprehensive history of the Mass, and it makes clear that the Mass was constantly changing through history. . . . This book should be mandatory reading in the Catholic seminaries.
Oh dear. Jungmann’s book is indeed a monumental work, though “tomblike” might have been the mot juste. For all of its undeniable erudition, its dizzying command of primary sources, its extraordinary scope, Jungmann’s is not a book about which one can afford to be uncritical. It is the life’s work of a great scholar, but it is also highly tendentious, and in many places simply a work of fantasy. Some of the problems are interpretive. Others are errors of fact. One amusing example is Jungmann’s touching belief that a universal and characteristic feature of the Mass in the fourth century was a kind of general offertory procession by the laity. This myth lives on in the tedious tradition of “bringing up the gifts” invented for the New Mass.
One is reminded here the belief fondly promoted by the late Roger Norrington that violinists did not make intentional use of vibrato until the 1940s. This is, of course, absurd. We know that it is absurd because of the countless favorable historical references to vibrato—not only in formal musicological treatises going all the way back to the Baroque era but in such non-rarefied contexts as letters and diary entries. Moreover, we have recordings made by countless musicians—themselves formed in unbroken performance traditions that stretch all the way back to the invention of the modern symphony orchestra—which feature beautiful use of vibrato. Who are you going to believe, one Englishman or your lying ears?
Norrington’s ultra-fast vibrato-free recordings no doubt have their fans. They are, of course, entitled to such preferences. But what they cannot argue is that Norrington’s views about good orchestral sound were grounded in anything except his own aesthetic tastes.
Simili modo, Fr. Reese and his friends can say that they “hate” various aspects of the old Mass, and, conversely, that they “love” elements of the new one. But what they cannot argue is that these fixations represent an authentic historically informed “renewal” of the liturgy or the recovery of anything except the well-known predilections of those responsible for concocting them during the last century.
Back to Jungmann. Had I more time I would relish the chance to write a longer essay about him. The Mass of the Roman Rite is a sublime work, redolent of other heroic Teutonic narratives of decline and renewal. But saying that it should be “mandatory reading” for seminarians is laughable. The book is, frankly speaking, a period piece. This is not to suggest that there is no value in reading older scholarship. History is not a science but a branch of literature. The histories of Gibbon and Macaulay, whatever their defects, will be read as long as the English language continues to be understood.
It is less clear what useful purpose Jungmann now serves except as a repository of information, a vast heap of miscellaneous learning to be combed over carefully. If this were the sense in which Fr. Reese intended his comments, I would perhaps be inclined to agree. But of course this is not what he meant. For Fr. Reese and goodness knows how many other priests of his generation, Jungmann is a kind of talisman or fetish-object before which the self-satisfied liberal Catholic can abase himself. He offers them a chance to continue begging a whole host of questions which later generations of historians (including some who are otherwise sympathetic to Jungmann) have actually taken the pains to ask.
I am not asking that Fr. Reese change his mind about anything. Might I suggest something else? He should do some further reading. He might begin with a very fine essay by Eamon Duffy, simply and fittingly entitled “Worship.” If he is feeling more ambitious, I suggest that he also have a look at Uwe Michael Lang’s Roman Mass: From Early Christian Origins to Tridentine Reform. The former is a wonderfully lucid analysis of Jungmann which helpfully situates him in his proper historical context and suggests leaving him there where he belongs. The latter is an example of serious, up-to-date liturgical scholarship by someone who actually knows what he is talking about. It is a book I have read several times with profit and delight; indeed, one might go so far as to say that it should be “mandatoryreading” for all seminarians.
—Matthew Walther
