Benedict XVI’s Reform: The Liturgy between Innovation and Tradition by Nicola Bux (review)

232 Antiphon 16.3 (2012) Nicola Bux Benedict XVI’s Reform: The Liturgy between Innovation and Tradition. Translated by Joseph Trabbic San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012 165 pp. Paperback $14.95. Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum has often been interpreted as part of a larger project of “dialing back” the renewal of the Church that was enacted at the Second Vatican Council. Fr. Nicola Bux’s Benedict XVI’s Reform advocates for another reading of this motu proprio, one consonant with Benedict XVI’s liturgical theology, both in his writings as Cardinal Ratzinger and as pontiff. The argument of Benedict XVI’s Reform is fairly straightforward. Leading up to the Council, liturgical scholars sought to understand the theological nature of liturgical prayer. The result of this liturgical turn in theology flowered in Pius XII’s Mediator Dei and the reforms promulgated in light of this document. Sacrosanctum Concilium, proceeding from Mediator Dei, sought fundamentally to reaffirm the liturgical doctrine of Mediator Dei. In the postconciliar period, in light of the advocacy of the Consilium, liturgical reforms were carried out not according to the “spirit of the liturgy” or the desires of the people of God but “the critical and intolerant spirit toward the Holy See, [and] the rationalism in the liturgy without any concern for true piety” (64). The result of this approach to liturgical reform, according to Bux, led to the deformation of the liturgy into “a community affair, an affair of the ideas and personal experiences of its members, in which, through its creativity, the community represents itself to itself and the purpose of divine worship—the encounter with the Lord in the Church—disappears ” (74). Those attracted to the divine worship according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 have been further relegated in the Church, dismissed as mere traditionalists by bishops and priests alike. Indeed, there are critiques to be made regarding this narrative (cf. J. Baldovin, Reforming the Liturgy, 2008, 45-51), but such critiques are not damning of the rest of the argument. Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum is a response to liturgical disunity and the elimination of transcendence in liturgical prayer. According to Bux, the wider use of the 1962 Missal of John XXIII allowed for in Benedict’s motu proprio: sets the old rite alongside the new. It does not replace it; it is optional, not obligatory. It does not take away but adds. Thus it expresses unity in variety. It is an enrichment that must heal the wounds caused by the fracture in that communion and lead to reconciliation within the 233 Book Reviews Church, overcoming the interpretations of the Council that favored liturgical deformations. Finally, the osmosis between the old and the new rite will avoid individualism with respect to the former and communitarianism with respect to the latter if in each person it incites the memory of Christ from whom the communion of all flows (85). Fundamentally, then, Bux explains, there are four reasons for fostering wider celebration of the 1962 Missal. First, the 1962 Missal still expresses the faith of the Church, and those that desire to celebrate the liturgy according to this form have a right to do so. Second, the mutual influence of the old and new rite would result in an organic development over time of both rites, especially relative to the direction of liturgical prayer, music, and architecture. Third, such mutual influence would foster the liturgical dispositions necessary to participate in the sacrifice of divine worship. Fourth, the use of the 1962 Missal corresponds more closely to Eastern liturgical practice, thus fostering unity with Orthodox Christians. The contribution Fr. Bux makes in this book-length essay is to situate Summorum Pontificum in the broader liturgical, ecclesiological, and pastoral concerns of Benedict XVI. Liturgical prayer is fundamentally a transformative encounter with the Triune God, who manifests himself in the liturgical signs of the Church. Pope Benedict seeks the renewal of the liturgy not because of ideology, but in order that our encounter with the Triune God in worship might transfigure all creation in love. Though Fr. Bux could not address Anglicanorum Coetibus in the original Italian book in 2008, a close reading of the...