The Genius of the Roman Rite: Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives on Catholic Liturgy ed. by Uwe Michael Lang (review)

641 BOOK REVIEWS The Genius of the Roman Rite: Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives on Catholic Liturgy. Edited by UWE MICHAEL LANG. Chicago and Mundelein, Ill.: Hillenbrand Books, 2010. Pp. xii + 255. $24.00 (paper). ISBN 978-1-59525-031-5. This book is a collection of essays culled from the proceedings of the eleventh International Colloquium of the Centre International d’Études Liturgiques, held in Merton College, Oxford from 13 September to 16 September 2006. The stated goal of the Centre is to promote the study and appreciation of traditional liturgies of the Catholic Church, especially the Roman Rite. As this was the first conference sponsored by CIEL UK, the title for the colloquium was taken from the well-known essay of Edmund Bishop (1846-1917), the English scholar of liturgy who presides over this collection like a genie sprung from a thurible. Accordingly, Uwe Michael Lang, the editor of this collection, begins the collection with a quotation from Bishop: Some one a very long time ago described Genius as ‘Son of the Gods and the Father of Men.’ It is thus that we speak of the Genius of a people—the French or the English, the German or the Italian; a something intangible and indefinable, it is true, but a permanent reality that we quite well apprehend; a characteristic and distinguishing spirit that manifests itself in all that a people says and does, in its history and its literature; determining the character of both, and affecting the general character, even of its thought. An enquiry into the genius of the Roman rite is therefore an endeavour to get at, and to recognize, the particular, the native spirit animating and penetrating that rite, which differentiates it from others, Gallican or Gothic, Greek or Oriental. (vi) Several scholars attempt to “get at” this native spirit—this genius—in the course of this book, not least among them Eamon Duffy, Gabriel Díaz, László Dobszay, Nicola Bux, CristinaDondi, Lauren Pristas, Claude Barthe, Alcuin Reid, Sheridan Gilley, and Laurence PaulHemming. Whetherone judges their projects successful probably depends upon whether one shares their larger views of the Church and modern society. That said, some of the essays fairly sparkle, but as a collection, The Genius of the Roman Rite is uneven, and fails to establish the “authority and importance” that it promises. Perhaps this is due to the fact that its authority is largely borrowed. The Genius of the Roman Rite tries to make a bit too much of BOOK REVIEWS 642 Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (7 July 2007) and indeed a bit too much of the pope’s own personal tastes—a matter that I will get at shortly—even as it ultimately displays a deeply ambivalent attitude about Church authority. I suppose I am the intended audience for this book. While I am not sure if I agree that “the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy” (7), I do experience a genuine, if mild, revulsion when Americans clap in church. I am a great admirer of, and regular participant in, the Latin liturgical tradition. For the last eight years, I have been blessed with the opportunity to celebrate the mysteries of Christ with a full Tridentine liturgical calendar, including daily Masses and an accomplished Gregorian schola, at St. Alphonsus Church in Baltimore, Maryland. I am wary of much of the rhetoric of The Genius of the Roman Rite, not because I am against traditional forms of the liturgy, but because I think that its rhetoric fails to advance the renewal of the liturgy for which the authors themselves hope. That said, the historical essays in this collection are quite wonderful. Lang provides an insightful essay on the origins of Latin as a liturgical and hieratic language, Patri gives us a wonderful reflection on the introduction of poetry in the Latin liturgy, Dobszay thoroughly outlines the special features of the chants that make the Proprium Missae, Dondi enlightens us about the peculiar liturgies of the medieval military orders, Pristas treats us once again with an erudite consideration of the introduction of Corpus Christi...