Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)

Ius canonicum

130

ALBERTO SORIA JIMENEZ, OSB

or the faithful, who do not actually prostrate themselves before God, but rather satisfy themselves. This is why “the greatest impediment for the peaceful acceptance of the renewed liturgical structure lies in the impression people have that the liturgy has been abandoned to the inventiveness of each and every individual”.21 And therefore, totally aware of the problem which that peculiar liturgical positivism is, Benedict XVI has tried to avoid the well-known aphorism of the German lawyer von Kirchmann - “Three revisions by the legislator and whole libraries became wastepaper” - being applied to the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

This being so, St. Paul VI never abrogated the 1962 typical edition of the Roman Missal with his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of 1969. The cc. 20-21 CIC are not applied to the relationship between the two missals, because their promulgation is neither comparable to a new edition of a train timetable, which of necessity cannot remain current once the new one is published, nor are they successive legal codes on the same matter, which would not make their simultaneous existence viable. All this is clear to a serene mind.

However, those who with reason affirm that the 1962 Roman Missal “has never been abrogated” (SP art. 1 §2), have sometimes also refused to give in on the liturgical positivism which they have attributed to the staunch defenders of its abrogation, at least in their argumentations. It is an anachronism to endeavour to base non-abrogation on the mere fact that the issue was not dealt with in Sacrosanctum Concilium. And analogously, the canonical formula of perpetuity, set out by Pope St. Pius V in the Apostolic Constitution Quo primum, dated 14th July 1570, does not determine per se an impossibility of reform either, as it simply means “in so far as the contrary is not decreed.”

In SP, Benedict XVI avoids all those types of disquisitions on the preceding documents, avoiding the vicious circle of liturgical positivism created by all and sundry, the immediate result of which is to turn these issues into formal or technical matters. The Roman Pontiff did not intend to rewrite the history of the Roman Rite with this either; he only wished to base his decision on a much wider canonical and intra-ecclesial perspective, than that of coarse positivist authoritarian approvals or disapprovals, which in actual fact was where the matter had got stuck in Quattuor abhinc annos dated 1984, as also in Ecclesia Dei and Quia peculiare munus, both from 1988.

By means of the canonical decision given motu proprio, Benedict XVI solves a serious pastoral and ecclesiological problem, in addition to responding to a theological question. He does not intend to discredit his predecessors or to correct irregular situations, nor does he even wish to change the law.

21 Cf. Ratzinger, J., La fiesta de la fe. Ensayo de teológia litúrgica, Bilbao 1999.2 114. It is the translation from the original German text: Das Fest des Glaubens. Versuche zur Theologie des Gottesdienstes, Einsiedeln 1981.