The Culture and Heritage of the Classical Roman Rite

The Culture and Heritage of the Classical Roman Rite Abbot Michael Zielinski, OSB Oliv. Introduction As Vice President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, I am sometimes regarded as something of an ecclesiastical “fine-art consultant” who might otherwise work for a company such as Sotheby’s or Christies. Whilst it is true that our Dicastery must and indeed rightly does concern itself with the fine arts that Catholic tradition has bequeathed to the Church throughout the world, and whilst it is certainly true that we are concerned to promote wise stewardship of this heritage throughout the universal Church, our work is not that of supervising or training museum curators . For we are profoundly concerned about the cultural heritage of the Church. The question of culture, specifically Christian culture, is at the heart of our activity. Premises What is culture? We are, perhaps, given to placing our concept of “culture” within the context of multiculturalism – itself a significant feature of modern Western society – and to thinking that culture is simply a matter of the beliefs, customs, practices, and social behaviour of a particular nation or people, something which affords diversity and enrichment in modern societies. With such a concept, Christian culture can frequently be relegated to the relativistic position of one peculiar set of practices amongst others. Any claim of a specific, let alone of a unique, content can be lost. But we need to elevate our concept of “culture.” Whilst in English the word “cult” has taken on a predominantly pejorative meaning, we must remember that “culture” finds its source in the Latin cultus, that is, in the life of cult, of worship. Culture and cultus are inseparable. It is above all in the worship of a people that their culture can be found. Contemporary society knows this fact only too well. In the cult of the film star, of the politician, and most clearly in that of the sports team (with its attendant chant, vesture and ritual acts), we see the sometimes questionable values and beliefs of secular society Antiphon 14.1 (2010): 5-16  Abbot Michael Zielinski, OSB Oliv . clearly enunciated, if not indeed worshipped. Secular culture relies on these acts of worship. Similarly, though in a distinct manner, as Catholics, we too rely on our cultus, our worship. Our dependence upon it is not only to enunciate our belief in an educative or formative sense, but it is in fact essential to our Christian life in order to join us sacramentally with him whom we worship and to nourish the life of grace in the soul. The life of the Christian is marked by worship, it is immersed in the divine cultus. This is precisely the point made by Pope St Pius X in his seminal Motu Proprio Tra le sollecitudini of 22 November 1903 when he spoke of the “active participation in the holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church” being the “indispensable fount” of “the true Christian spirit.” Thus, in Christian cult we encounter Christ himself. In Christian culture – in all its historical and geographical diversity – we savour the privileged fruits of this encounter with Christ. Christian culture is the tangible witness to the work of God the Holy Spirit in the lives of countless men and women who have known the truth, goodness and beauty of the incarnate One, and who have placed their love, their skill, their all, at the foot of his altar. The life of the Christian cannot be lived without such cultus. And it cannot therefore be a-cultural any more than it can be un-incarnational , for our Blessed Lord, himself standing in the magnificent tradition of Jewish cult, established the Church with ritual acts which he underlined with that divine command of which St Paul speaks: “hoc facite in meam commemorationem” (cf. 1 Cor 11:24). The doing of Chrisitan cult, the following of this command of the Lord himself, throughout the centuries, is what we call the liturgical tradition of the Church. That tradition of the Church’s public worship (guiding and informing private prayer) – which is living and therefore cannot be frozen at any one...