Making a meal of it

A number of translations of the current version of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani – but not the Latin text – is available on the Vatican website. (I have no idea why they give the ungrammatical title "Institutio Generalis Missale Romanum" which means "general instruction the Roman Missal" perhaps somebody was spooked by the fact that the genitive of Missale – Missalis – has an identical ending to the nominative Generalis). This is known in English speaking circles by the acronym GIRM for General Instruction of the Roman Missal The almost twenty year old website Christus Rex provides the predecessor of the current GIRM, promulgated in 1975. Helpful, for reasons hinted in the title to this post.

A cornucopia for copy and paste

My current project requires the transcription of large slabs of text, specifically Magisterial documents of the Catholic Church. I recently discovered a French website, catho.org which has the 1917 Code of Canon Law in Latin and French as well as the 1996 edition of Denzinger's Dogma. So I was able to save myself typing out DS 1247-1279 (the questions to be posed to those accused of the Hussite or Wycliffite heresies, decreed by the Council Of Constance 22nd February 1418). Also Catho.org gives the older paragraph numbers of Denzinger right next to the current number. This is useful for using pre-1963 works of theology. From the home page you navigate to the French versions but there is a little button ("Latin" hand written with a mouse it looks like) to switch to the original. It does not provide the Greek texts of the early councils. Also it only provides French texts of the Fathers. Clicking on the pair of blue semi-circular arrows (looks like a refresh button) within a given text takes you to citations of the passage which you are reading. As they say on the home page:

Un système UNIQUE AU MONDE, issu de la technologie exclusive du logiciel Ictus, permet de savoir immédiatement où un document est cité. Ainsi, vous découvrirez comment les Pères de l'Église commentent un passage des Saintes Écritures, ou bien comment un texte du Magistère (concile, encyclique) est utilisé par un autre document. … Grâce à Internet et aux techniques les plus modernes appliquées à ce trésor de textes, ayez l'érudition d'un vrai moine!

Quite so.

Meanwhile I am agog at developments on Newman Reader. Although they have adopted a rather odd looking font (looks like Papyrus) for the front page we can forgive all that because they have put PDF scans of all 32 volumes of Newman's Letters and Diaries (it would cost thousands to assemble a collection of printed copies) as well as of modern collections of Newman's miscellaneous papers. They seem to have done an OCR job on it so the text is searchable, at any rate it is as searchable as something on Google books (presumably Google did the work, since "snippet view" and "preview" versions of L&D are available on Google books). I cannot find Newman's preface to Hutton's Anglican Ministry, but I just gave you that. Nor is there the full version of his ejaculation in favour of the Papacy beginning "Deeply do I feel…"

Last, but not least, (via Chant Café) the complete four volume Missale Romanum cum lectionibus is now online.  Each volume is split into four files. They take an age to download. They have been gone through a first run with optical character recognition so you can copy and paste up to a point. It is not very accurate however. But it is better than nothing. Much better.

After the Missal, what next?

So a decent translation of the Roman Missal is finally in use. What else? 

Liturgiam Authenticam directed that “integral translations” of all of the liturgical books were to be prepared “in a timely manner” (§77). The Roman Missal was first, of course. The following documents are now in fairly advanced stages of revision: The Order of Confirmation; The Order of Celebrating Marriage; The Order of Dedication of a Church and an Altar; Exorcisms and Certain Supplications; Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours". The first two are the most advanced; they are called “Gray Books”, meaning that they have already been reviewed once by the bishops of English-speaking dioceses. The latter two are “Green Books”, because this is the first year in which the bishops have been given an opportunity to review them. “The mills of God grind slowly”, wrote Longfellow, “yet they grind exceeding small.” The revision process is slow as well. The “Gray book” documents will not be ready for public use until, at minimum, late in 2014; the “green book” documents perhaps a year later. This assumes that everything goes to plan; if not, the schedule could slip.

Can you BitTorrent the Missal?

I mentioned the Catastrophe of Catholic Copyrights before. One of those energetic Americans (sigh, Americans, don't they realise you can't get anything done?) has set up a petition for the Holy See to lift copyright restrictions (not completely, under all circumstance, read the post) on many of the documents it owns.

I sometimes wonder if copyright is the reason for the constant fiddling. Is the 1962 Missal sufficiently innovatory to mean it is protected by copyright in the way that the 1570 Missal is not? Does that undercut any claim that it is traditional in the theological sense? Does anyone else care? (don't know; don't know, probably not).  

The Pride of Place

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,  General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003).

41. All other things being equal, Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy. Other types of sacred music, in particular polyphony, are in no way excluded, provided that they correspond to the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful.*
Since faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is fitting that they know how to sing together at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, set to the simpler melodies.**
* Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 116; cf. also Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram, On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 30.
** Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium,  no. 54; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Inter Oecumenici, On the orderly carrying out of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 26 September 1964, no. 59: AAS 56 (1964), p. 891; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction Musicam sacram,  On music in the Liturgy, 5 March 1967, no. 47: AAS 59 (1967), p. 314.

Remember Anamnesis


Behold the homepage of Anamnesis, the bulletin of the liturgical commission of the Polish Bishops' conference. ("Anamnsis" at the top of the page is simply a typo, it is of course simply the Greek word for the memorial sacrifice of Num 10:10, alluded to in Lk 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:25).

In 2004 I discovered that the editio typica tertia of Missale Romanum included some new saints in the calendar. This is the Universal Calendar, also called the General Calendar. Local churches at the diocesan or national level are expected to modify the calendar usually by adding local saints or sometimes by increasing the importance of the celebration.

This being the Missal – to be used at Mass – it does not have texts for the Liturgy of the Hours (the "Divine Office", often simply just the "Office"). Using as a search text the collect (which is the same as the concluding prayer in the Office) of one of the additions to the calendar, I discovered that the Polish Bishops had put the Latin texts of additions to the Divine Office online. Additions to the liturgical books are published in the journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae which was not, and is not, published online. However all the decrees from the Congregation pertaining to the Universal Church, including such additions to the calendar are, as a matter of course, published in Latin in Anamnesis.


Go to Komisja Kultu Bożego i Dyscypliny Sakramentów Episkopatu Polski (that takes you to the Anamnesis page).  Look at the column on the left hand side of the screen. Indeksy numerów 1-26 takes you to indexes for the first 26 issues. These are not very helpful as they are not hyperlinked. Issues 1-7 are not online. Click on Numer 8 to find out why. "Od Redakcij" means "From the Editor", this issue was published on 1st November 1996. When I refer to the "Editorial" of a given issue of Anamnesis in what follows, I mean whatever you read by clicking on "Od Redakcij".

Also in issue 8, "Przygotowanie do wprowadzania katecumenatu w diecezjach - materiały z Sympozjum Katechumenalnego Sandomierz - 16 i 17 września 1996" is the proceedings (I guess) of a conference held on and 17th September on the history of the rites of initiation. "Informacje" means "Information". "Spis treści means "table of contents". Click on that and you will get links to two pdfs, one of which is in dear old English, and we read:
After publication of seven issues of Anamnesis (1994-1996) – Bulletin of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments which was designed for the Polish Bishops – a new edition of Anamnesis is being started which is addressed to people responsible for liturgy and liturgical pastoral care in the Church in Poland, anxious for more intense renewal of the Church by more conscious, active and deepened participation of all the Christians in the Liturgy. The editorial design is to create a meeting forum for the two directions of the liturgical renewal: the one “from above” (institutional) and one “from below”.
The editorials are often undated so it is hard to determine the frequency. The editorial for issue 20 is dated 28th November 1999.

The important thing for our purposes (well, OK, my purposes) is what is usually the first section of an issue of Anamnesis: Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej - Documents of the Apostolic See. These are typically decress from the Congregation DWDS. Number 22 contains the authorisation for the Polish texts for the office of Blessed Pius of Pietrelcina (as he then was, i.e. Padre Pio). The decree from the Vatican is dated 26th November 1999, but the editorial is dated 1st June 2000. The series is clearly not regular since issue 26 has an editorial dated 2nd June 2001 and there is clearly a lag between the promulgation of the decree and its publication in Anamnesis. Issue 31 has an editorial dated 18th May 2002 but its URL suggests that it has been linked to by mistake because the filename for the PDF is "Anamnesis30-0aRed" which is also what you get when you click through from "Od Redakcij" for issue 30. Issue 32 has an editorial dated November 16th 2002.

I labour over Anamnesis 31 because the second pdf among the Dokumenty Stolicy Apostolskiej in that issue is Dodatki do Liturgii Godzin - Additiones ad Liturgiam Horarum. This is the text in Latin of the additions to the Liturgy of the Hours made with the 3rd edition of Missale Romanum by a decree of the Congregation dated 18th December 2001. The next issue (32) contains the texts for the Mass and Office of Padre Pio decreed by the Congregation on 26th June 2002. Finally on 12th February 2004 the Congregation published texts for the Liturgies of St Juan Diego Cuauhtlotoatzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So far as I can tell there have been no additions to the Universal Calendar since 2004. Granted you have to wrestle with Polish but Anamnesis is a useful resource.

Mgr Richard Schuler: A chronicle of the reform

I had never heard of him but Mgr Richard Schuler is a big wheel among proponents of a traditional liturgy in the United States. Alexander Sample, the new Archbishop of Portland, specifically mentions him in an interview with the Catholic World Report.

In 1988 he published a long article on the history of the reform of sacred music, especially in the United States. It was reprinted as an appendix to a festschrift published in his honour in 1990: Cum Angelis Canere: Essays on Sacred Music and Pastoral Liturgy in Honour of Richard J. Schuler Robert A. Skeris, ed. A Chronicle of the Reform [pdf] can be found at the website of St Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Alabama.

It does not have the satirical verve of Klaus Gamber or László Dobszay (scroll down), but it is a good read.
Page 2: An agreement with the Holy See granting Pustet exclusive rights for the sale of the chant books of the Church delayed the publication of the Solesmes editions which finally were adopted as the official texts and printed as the Vatican Edition in the first decade of the twentieth century.
A similar deal I believe is the reason we were stuck with out of date editions of the Roman Missal in English before the new translation. For all I know yet another stupid deal has been struck regarding the current translation
Page 3: With the introduction of these materials it was hoped that the secular, cheap and sentimental music that was so prevalent in American churches would be eliminated.
"It was hoped" … in 1906. Still waiting!

He discusses the 1958 instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites De musica sacra et sacra liturgia, which of course cannot be found on the Vatican website (probably because the SCR no longer exists, its functions being taken up by CDWDS – not that that is a good excuse) but can be found at Adoremus.
Page 10: Use of instruments, questions of radio and television broadcasts [nn.74-79], remuneration of professional musicians [n.102], establishment of schools of music and diocesan commissions are explained.
The foolish refusal to compensate expensively trained musicians properly (in the way that electricians, plumbers, builders ect all get paid) is in fact against Church law.
Page 16 n.4: A meeting was sponsored in Kansas City, Missouri, November 29 to December, 1966, by the American Liturgical Conference. Opposition to the sixth chapter of the constitution on the sacred liturgy was voiced by Archabbot Weakland who said that “false liturgical orientation gave birth to what we call the treasury of sacred music, and false judgments perpetuated it.” Those “false judgments” seem to have been made by the fathers of the council who ordered that the treasury of sacred music be preserved and fostered. At the same meeting, Theodore Marier, president of the Church Music Association of America, was unable to get an indication from the assembled liturgists that they accepted the constitution, including the sixth chapter.
(My emphasis). Chapter VI of Sacrosanctum Concilium (nn.112-121) covers sacred music.

He is not a fan of the Graduale Simplex:
Page 27: An effort to introduce a simpler chant for the Mass produced a Graduale simplex, which was a failure from the beginning. It neither pleased the progressive liturgists who wanted only the vernacular, nor the musicians who pointed out that it was a mutilation of Gregorian chant as well as a misunderstanding of the relationship between text and musical setting with reference to form. They objected to the use of antiphon melodies from the office as settings for texts of the Mass. An effort at an English vernacular version proved to be even a greater disaster.

The non-existent taboo against composing new Gregorian chants

It is obvious to anyone who attends a Catholic liturgy that despite repeated attempts by those in authority Gregorian chant is far from being "given pride of place in liturgical services". One problem is that it is not a form of music that can be easily and readily played by ordinary musicians. It requires specialist training. Another problem is that the chants themselves are complicated. Many of them can really only be sung by a choir. One way to overcome this was the Graduale simplex in usum minorum ecclesiarum. As its full title indicates, it was meant for the use of Churches too small to sustain a full Gregorian choir. Judging by the present situation that would be pretty much all Churches, including most Cathedrals.

According to Archbishop Bugnini, when the Graduale simplex was first presented, there were loud objections. In his memoir of the reforms he quotes an objection and answer document published by the Consilium.

II. "New forms would be introduced that are not adapted to the faithful and not in conformity with the art of the Church and with the liturgical renewal."
Answer: Not in the least! the melodies of the Graduale simplex are all in the present chant books. None of them is new. The manner of singing, in which one or more cantors alternate with the congregation, which sings a refrain verse, is the oldest and most traditional in the Church. Its use has shown how easy and possible this kind of singing is; the truth of this claim was seen at the fourth session of the ecumenical Council and can be seen every time the congregation responds to the chant with an easy verse, as often happens even in televised Masses. This manner of singing is completely in conformity with the Church's art, as is shown by the venerable tradition dating from the time of such Fathers as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine [presumably referring to Augustine, Confessions ix.7]. It is also consistent with the liturgical renewal, since one of the reform's basic principles is the active participation of the faithful in both the actions and the singing of the sacred rites. (Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, chapter 58, p.894).
(Jeffrey Tucker discusses the Graduale simplex at the Chant Café).

This suggested to me that there is some kind of taboo against composing new plainchant melodies. I have seen it held against the Graduale simplex that it uses melodies from the Divine Office, so a fortiori one would expect there to be some rule against composing entirely new ones. It should be noted that Urban VIII's revisions of the Breviary hymns (mentioned the other day) to make them more Classical and in accordance with Classical metres, are criticised by the Catholic Encyclopedia (§VI) partly because in fact more recent scholarship has shown their Classicism to be defective. Perhaps the fear is that in composing new melodies unknown rules of composition would be broken.

On the other hand the Pope's Mass for the opening of the Year of Faith "used new compositions in the Gregorian tradition for the introit and communion".

Where got'st thou that Geese Book?

Via the Chant Café, behold the Geese Book, a Gradual from 1510, prepared for a parish in Nuremberg and now in New York.
A multisensory work of the past is explored through multimedia technologies of the present. A team of experts headed by Volker Schier and Corine Schleif opens the Geese Book to scholars and provides a window for broader audiences. Completed in 1510 for the parish of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg, this large-format gradual preserves the mass liturgy that was sung by choir boys until the Reformation was introduced in 1525. Provocative and satirical illuminations include the one from which the book takes its name. Many medieval manuscripts are too valuable and vulnerable to be handled. Digitally, however, these 2 volumes can now be touched by everyone.
This is an example of the sort of thing I meant when I said that once upon a time parishes would spend their income on a proper celebration of the liturgy, not on grandiose side projects.

Proper Treatment of a Blessed Pope and a Blessed Cardinal

A few weeks ago I mentioned the Breviary Propers for the Diocese of Cologne. Blessed John Paul II has, with the consent of the Holy See, been inserted into the Liturgical Calendar of the United States as an optional memoria. That page has links to the Mass Propers in Latin and English (and Spanish) and to the Breviary Propers ditto, all from the Vatican website. These are all within the pages of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Nevertheless there is no mention of these Propers on the English page. I mention that because in all the other languages of the Vatican site there is a link to all the material pertaining to John Paul II's beatification and liturgical cult: Italian, German, Spanish, French, and Portugese. Even the Latin page has a link to the decree of 2nd April 2011 De cultu liturgico in honorem Beati Ioannis Pauli ii, papae, tribuendo.

Anamnesis, the bulletin of the Liturgical Commission of the Polish Bishops has a pdf of the decree and another one of the Mass and Office Propers combined into a single document. ("Dekret o kulcie bł. Jana Pawła II, papieża" for the decree, "Teksty liturgiczne o bł. Janie Pawle II, papieżu" for the propers).

The Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales has inserted the optional memoria of Blessed John Henry Newman for October 9th. This is seen in the Recent Additions page last updated (it says here) on 24th September 2010. Newman does not appear in the National Calendar for England. The Recent Additions page links to a pdf, without preamble or explanation, of the liturgical texts in Latin and then in English of the Propers for Mass and the Divine office of Blessed John Henry Newman (pdf).

Recent Additions also has links to an index page for downloadable resources for Gregorian chant in the form of extracts from Jubilate Deo. Something seems to have happened in the Liturgy Office. It was thanks to a scathing review on its site that I discovered Laszlo Dobszay's The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform (2003). From the reviewer's contempt it sounded like the sort of thing that would be just my cup of tea – and it was. From there it was a short step to Dobszay's recordings with the Schola Hungarica.

But if it is now publishing propers in Latin, as well as materials for Gregorian chant, there must have been some kind of change of attitude.

Propers done properly

In the Hall of Merton College hangs a portrait of a clean shaven man staring intently at a book on a stand to his right. It is the Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus, reputed to have been a Fellow – or at any rate a member – of the college in the thirteenth century. I remember Jasper Griffin remarking during a seminar at Merton, as the sounds of first year lawyers celebrating the end of examinations wafted up into the room, that such things had been happening "since the days of Duns Scotus". Not that he intended any approbation  of the practice of "trashing". Being a Balliol man I think he was amused by Merton's claims to seniority and was using Scotus' name as a facetious authority to a widespread but officially disapproved practice.

On (presumably) 8th November 1997 I was walking with a friend to college for breakfast when we fell into step with the Chaplain. He remarked that it was the Feast of Blessed John Duns Scotus (hence my guess of the date). The Chaplain was CofE of course, and both of us were Catholics, but we had to confess we knew nothing about him. "Well he did believe in the Immaculate Conception," said the Chaplain. "So on the side of the angels?" I ventured. "Yes, but not on the side of God," was the testy reply.

Scotus died in Cologne in 1308. On 20th March 1993 Pope John Paul II confirmed that he was beatified. Strictly speaking, since this was based on a cultus immemorabilis, he was not in fact beatified on that date. The cult is limited to the Diocese of Cologne and the Franciscan order. The city of Oxford is at the southern end of the Diocese of Birmingham which has Blessed Agnello of Pisa, an early Franciscan who worked there, in its calendar. Presumably it is thought two early Franciscans would be a bit much.

You can see a screen grab from the virtual tour of Merton College on the left. A clearer black and white image is on the right.

You can see a screen grab from the virtual tour of Merton College on the left. A clearer black and white image is on the right.

A few years ago I went looking for propers for Scotus' feast day. I found my way to the website of the Diocese of Cologne, to this page. Once upon a time all dioceses did something similar. I have a Breviary printed at Tours in 1954 with the "Officia propria Archidiœcesis Birminghamiensis", all in Latin, bound in as a supplement at the back. This is not some shonky "tipping in". The whole thing is a robust construction which I foresee will survive for many years. I also have a Supplementum ad Breviarium et Missale Romanum Adjectis Officiis Sanctorum Angliae. This was printed by Messrs Keating & Brown, printers to the Vicar Apostolic, in 1823 – six years before the Catholic Relief Act.

Nowadays when official repression is nothing like that in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and when what repression which exists is often gleefully cheered on – if not initiated – by well placed gangs of soi-disant Catholics, nothing like the same effort is put into preparing native liturgical books. You are expected to cull the the propers from the Common of Saints. Birmingham produces a staple bound A4 book with propers for Mass – in English mind – but that is about it.

So this production by the Diocese of Cologne is remarkable. It is in Latin. It is laid out for printing. Look rubrics! In red! The volumes correspond to the four volumes of Liturgia horarum not to the three volume Divine Office used in most English speaking Commonwealth countries. The latter is not without fault, mostly that you spend more than half the year with the (brown) volume iii in your hands which therefore deteriorates much more quickly. With Liturgia horarum after Epiphany and the end of volume i, you usually have a few weeks using volume iii before moving back to volume ii for Lent and Easter. Only after Pentecost is it a straight run through volumes iii and iv.

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Advent and Christmas [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Lent and Easter [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Weeks 1-17 [pdf]

Cologne Supplement to the Office for Weeks 18-34 [pdf]

The office for Blessed John Duns Scotus is in volume iv pages 53-55 of the pdf.

This is probably something all dioceses should be doing but so far as I know Cologne is the only one.

 

Solesmes and an English Benedictine

I have mentioned the Graduale Triplex before. It is one of many books of chant produced by the community at Solesmes. Charles Cole posts photographs of the place where these books were produced, and presumably still are: Atelier de Paléographie Musicale.

Judith Champ in William Bernard Ullathorne : A different Kind of Monk (Gracewing 2006) – about the monk of Downside who was an early missionary in Australia and later the first Archbishop of Birmingham – writes about Ullathorne's visit to Rome after leaving Australia to give an account of the Church there. Downside (like Ampleforth) is part of the English Benedictine Congregation or EBC which traces its origins back to English monasticism before the Reformation. The English monasteries on the continent were founded by refugees from English monasteries closed down by the reformers. When they were closed in their turn during the French Revolution ("closed" does not do justice to the violence involved in both cases) the monks came back to England bearing a tradition not unlike liturgical tradition itself.

On the way to Rome Ullathorne met Prosper Guéranger – the founder of Solesmes.
Dom Guéranger went to Rome, in 1837, to ask the Vatican for official recognition of Solesmes as a benedictine community. Rome not only granted Dom Guéranger's request, but on its own initiative raised Solesmes from the status of priory to that of an abbey making it the head of a new Benedictine Congregation de France, successor to the Congregations of St. Maurus and St. Vanne as well as the more venerable and ancient family of monasteries belonging to Cluny. On July 26, Dom Guéranger made his solemn profession in the presence of the abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
"Dom Guéranger's Restoration" 
Champ remarks that Ullathorne still remembered the meeting with affection and pride, many years later, in a letter to the Abbess of Stanbrook.
I was the first professed monk, he told me, he had ever seen. I therefore claim some interest in the monks and nuns of Solesmes, who are his children, and I shall be obliged if you will tell the abbess and community that I claim an interest in them and their prayers, as I also claim some right to thank them for their tender and sisterly care of the Abbess of Stanbrook.
Quoted in Judith Champ, William Bernard Ullathorne : A different Kind of Monk (Gracewing 2006), chapter 2, p. 63. 
The first professed monk the founder of Solesmes had ever seen. Remember that next time you hear some trad make a crack about "Every Bodily Comfort" or a sniffy remark about the vernacular in English monasteries.

Ss Thomas Plus et Ioannes Piscator

The Familia Sancti Hieronymi or Family of St Jerome is an organisation from Clearwater in Florida on the western side of the Florida peninsula. It is
…a canonical association dedicated to the advancement of the Latin heritage of the Catholic Church, as it is reflected in the Church’s liturgy, in its sacred music, in its devotional life, in its official documents, and in its propagation of the Faith.
To that end they have produced various resources for learning Latin, not just to read and understand but to think in and speak it.  Browsing over their site I came across the Latin text of the Apostolic Letter of John Paul II which made St Thomas More the patron of politicians.
quibus Sanctus Thomas Morus gubernatorum, politicorum virorum ac mulierum proclamatur patronus
I was surprised since it is not conventional to Latinise surnames. In the Graduale Romanum and Antiphonale Monasticum – as well as in the supplement for the Archdiocese of Birmingham printed at the back of my 1954 Breviary – it is the feast "S. Thomae More", "of St Thomas More". He is also "Thomas More" in the latest edition of the Roman Martyrology.

I did wonder if this might be excess enthusiasm on the part of the FSH but the copy of the decree on the Vatican website has the same text. At the bottom is a reference to the Acts of the Apostolic See, where such decrees are formally published. There on page 76 of AAS 93 [2001] [pdf] we find
quibus sanctus Thomas Moras Guberaatorum, politicorum Virorum ac Mulierum proclamatur Patronus
I assume the typos (Moras for Morus etc.) are due to errors in the optical character recognition and not to errors in the original.

Thomas More was beatified with John Fisher and several others by Pope Leo XIII on 29th December 1886.  The decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites was published in Acta Sanctae Sedis (the predecessor of AAS), the Acts of the Holy See, ASS 19 [1886-87] [pdf] on page 347.
DECRETUM Westmonasterien. confirmationis cultus beatorum martyrum Ioannis Cardinalis Fisher, Thomae More et Sociorum in odium fidei ab anno 1535 ad 1583 in Anglia interemptorum.
I cannot construe the opening but the sense is "in confirmation of a decree made at Westminster of the cult of the blessed martyrs John Fisher, Thomas More and Companions slain from hatred of the faith between the years 1535 and 1583 in England". The point is that throughout the decree Thomas More's surname is not Latinised.

More and Fisher were canonised by Pope Pius XI on 9th May 1935. The entry for "More (B.) Thomas" in the index to AAS 27 [1935] [pdf] on page 551 is as follows:
de martyrio et causa martyrii, 86; consistorium secretum, 129; causae relatio, 133; consistorium publicum et causae peroratio, 141 ; decretum de tuto, 159; consistorium semipublicum, 201; in solemni canonizatione, 202; homilia B. P. de eodem, 204.
The first document is a decree by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. He is "Thomas More" throughout with his Christian name in the appropriate Latin declension. The next is a minute of a private consistory  of the College of Cardinals of 1st April 1935 including an allocution by the Pope. On page 30 he says
…rogemus de beatis martyribus Ioanne S. R. E. Card. Fishero Episcopo Boffensi, ac Thoma Moro Magno Angliae Cancellario sanctitudinis palma decorandis.
…we ask whether the blessed martyrs John Cardinal Fisher Bishop of Rochester, and Thomas More Lord Chancellor of England may be endowed with the palm of sanctity.
Note that the surnames of both men are declined as second declension Latin nouns. There follows, on page 141, the minute of a public consistory held on April 4th. In the Latin explanatory note they are "Fisher" and "More" but in the text of the speech by Monsignor Bacci, Secretary of Briefs to Princes (one of the Pope's Latinists), they are "Fisherus" and "Morus".

The decretum de tuto on page 159 is the equivalent for a canonisation of the decree on beatification from 1886 quoted above. In the title and in the text they are "Fisher" and "More".

The semipublic consistory of 9th May 1935 is the actual canonisation. Again, in the explanatory note at the top, they are "Fisher" and "More" and, again, in the Pope's speech of introduction, they are "Fisherus" and "Morus" declined appropriately.

The pattern so far is clear. In the more bureaucratic texts the surnames are kept in their English forms but in the more solemn papal pronouncements (Bacci is said to be speaking in the name of the Pope) they are Latinised. However the formula of canonisation is as follows.
Ad honorem Sanctae et individuae Trinitatis, ad exaltationem fidei catholicae et christianae Religionis augmentum, auctoritate Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, Beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac Nostra; matura deliberatione praehabita et divina ope saepius implorata, ac de Venerabilium Fratrum Nostrorum S. R. E. Cardinalium, Patriarcharum, Archiepiscoporum et Episcoporum in Urbe existentium consilio, Beatum IOANNEM FISHER, S. R. Ecclesiae Cardinalem et Beatum THOMAM MORE, laicum, Sanctos esse decernimus et definimus, ac Sanctorum catalogo adscribimus; statuentes ab Ecclesia universali illorum memoriam quolibet anno, die eorum natali, nempe IOANNIS die vigesima secunda Iunii et THOMAE die sexta Iulii inter Sanctos Martyres pia devotione recoli debere. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
To the honour of the Holy and indivisible Trinity, for the exaltation of the catholic faith and the growth of the christian Religion, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and of Ourselves; after mature deliberation and often imploring divine assistance, and by the advice of Our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops present in Rome, we determine and define that Blessed JOHN FISHER, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Blessed THOMAS MORE, layman, are Saints and we insert them in the catalogue of the Saints; decreeing that their feast on their day of death every year – namely for JOHN on June 22nd and for THOMAS on July 6th – is to be celebrated with loving devotion by the universal Church. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
So in the most solemn of the documents their surnames are not Latinised but in the homily immediately following they are. (N.B. "dies natalis" in the Latin literally means "birthday" but it refers to the day of a saint's death). In the gardens of Allen Hall Seminary in Chelsea is a mulberry tree planted by a previous owner of the land. Thomas More did own the land on which the seminary now stands and the mulberry was supposedly planted by him because he was attracted by the Latin word for it, "morus". I guess Fisherus was used for consistency.

Created, Gathered, Pleasing – The Collect for the 18th Sunday

A few years ago I came across a useful document on the website of the Committee on Divine Worship of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. At the time they were concentrating on the third typical edition of Missale Romanum (for what we now call the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite) - i.e. the Latin original. Now their focus seems to be entirely on the newly issued English translation and I have been unable to find this document on the website at present. It consisted of extracts from the March-April 2002 newsletter of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy (as it was then called) which included the noteworthy changes to Missale Romanum made in the editio typica tertia. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, the document is still available.

Included was the remark that "some prayers, such as the collect for the 18th Sunday of the year, have been corrected." At the time I was gathering texts for the Divine Office for the celebrations inserted into the calendar in 2000. The collects at Mass are by design the same as the concluding prayers in the Liturgy of the Hours on the same day. A change to the Missal in this respect means a change to the Breviary. Naturally I looked up this corrected prayer.

It was a matter of one word.

The text of this collect (called "Opening Prayer" in the translation of the Missal which has just gone into disuse) in the first two editions of the editio typica is as follows:
Adesto, Dómine, fámulis tuis, et perpétuam benignitátem largíre poscéntibus, ut {his}, qui {te} {auctorem} et {gubernatórem} gloriántur habére, et {grata} restáures, et restauráta consérves.
Be present to your servants, Lord, and grant perpetual kindness to those who seek it, that you may make {things to be pleasing} again {to these} who glory to have {you} as {creator} and {guide} and you may preserve what has been restored.
(Curly brackets {} indicate which words are to be taken together, the translations do not necessarily follow the word order of the originals.)

The translation in the English edition, in use until the other day:
Father of everlasting goodness, our {origin} and {guide}, be close to us and hear the prayers of all who praise you. Forgive our sins and restore us to life.
Note that grata disappears.

The old website of the Birmingham Oratory has a Mass Sheet from (presumably, going by the file name) 2002 with the following translation. Although the Latin text is from the third edition, the translation [pdf] is of the text from the first and second editions.
Be present, O Lord, to Thy servants, and grant {to those} who glory to own {Thee} as their {author} and {ruler} the everlasting kindness of restoring what is {pleasing} to Thee, and preserving what Thou hast restored.
The translation is defective since it misses the final clause (ut…restaures, et…conserves) but this is an attempt to make sense of the strange idea – which the grammar of the prayer in this form seems to be expressing – that it is God's task to make life pleasing for his people rather than to make his people pleasing to himself. As we shall see, although this is a very old prayer, grata was only introduced in 1970.

The text in the third edition of the editio typica corrected grata to creata:
Adesto, Dómine, fámulis tuis, et perpétuam benignitátem largíre poscéntibus, ut {his}, qui {te} {auctorem} et {gubernatórem} gloriántur habére, et {creata} restáures, et restauráta consérves.
Be present to your servants, Lord, and grant perpetual kindness to those who seek it, that you may restore {created things} {for these} who glory to have {you} as {creator} and {guide} and you may preserve what has been restored.
In the new translation, now in use, the prayer runs:
Draw near to your servants, O Lord, and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness, that, {for those} who glory {in you} as their {Creator} and {guide}, you may restore what you have {created} and keep safe what you have restored.

In the 1962 Missal (and its predecessors) this collect is given as a prayer "super populum" at the end of Mass for Thursday after the second Sunday of Lent (a.k.a third Thursday in Lent, the station being Santa Maria in Trastevere).

Habere with the accusative is absent and instead tu, auctor and gubernator are in the ablative. The indirect object in the purpose clause beginning ut is is ea id  – the distal demonstrative pronoun that – rather than hic haec hoc – the proximal demonstrative pronoun this. Finally, where grata – and later creata – would be found in the Missals of Paul VI and John Paul II, the Missal of John XXIII has congregata.
Adésto, Dómine, fámulis tuis, et perpétuam benignitátem largíre poscéntibus, ut {iis} qui {te} {auctóre} et {gubernatóre} gloriántur, et {congregráta} restáures et restauráta consérves.
Be present to your servants, Lord, and grant perpetual kindness {to those} who seek it, that you may make {things to be gathered up} again {for those} who glory {in you} as {creator} and {guide} and you may preserve what has been restored.
The Latin-English Missal published for the use of the congregation by Burns, Oates and Washbourne in 1962* has the prayers translated by the Reverend J. O'Connell MA and Dr H. P. R. Finberg.
Come, Lord, to the help of thy servants, and grant them the unceasing loving-kindness they implore. Mend {whatever is shattered} in the lives of {those} whose glory is to have {thee} for their {creator} and {guide}; and preserve what thou hast mended.
In 2004 Baronius Press published a new edition of the 1962 Missal for a congregation. There is no indication of the translator. The copyright notice indicates that it is based on the 16th edition of the Daily Missal and Liturgy Manual published by Laverty & Son in Leeds in 1960.
To Thy servants who call upon Thee hearken with unfailing kindness, O Lord, and while they glory {in Thee}, their {Maker} and {Ruler}, do Thou collect and restore {all that was lost}, and once restored preserve it.
Note that both translations appear to mistranslate completely congregata restaures – "{in order that} you may restore the gathered things". Congregata (and grata) must be read as a kind of prolepsis, where the object of restaurare is a word which would only be appropriate if the restoration has already happened. This is why the English translators use "whatever is shattered" and "all that was lost" when the Latin word means precisely the opposite.

There is a marvellous book called Enchiridion Euchologicum Fontium Liturgicorum – The Euchological [of, or pertaining to, the study of prayers] Handbook of Liturgical Sources. It contains the text of numerous historical prayers. It begins with Ethnica – i.e. prayers from pagan sources (including extracts from Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Bacchae and Aristophanes' Frogs) – and then moves onto Hebraica and then Iudaeo-Christiana and so on into the realms of the sacramentaries (books containing all the prayers to be said by the priest in the Liturgy). Unfortunately it does not have a full index of words used (only an index of Latin formularies) as I would like to look up the use of congrego and restauro in prayers.

In Enchiridion Euchologicum n.1484 Adesto domine is attributed to (the reign of) Gregory II (715-731) as a prayer "super populum" for Thursdays in Lent. Otherwise no indication of the liturgical context is given. It is found in the Sacramentarium Hadrianum Gregorianum.
Adesto domine famulis tuis, et perpetua largire poscentibus, ut {his} qui {te} {auctore} et {gubernatore} gloriantur, et {congregrata} restaures et restaurata conserves.
This is almost precisely the prayer found in what we now call the Extraordinary Form except this source uses his instead of iis. (In the context, there really is very little difference in meaning.)

It was there, in August 2006, that I left the matter. Last Sunday (17th per annum) I remembered this information and dug up a text file with my notes. When I had first looked at it I think I searched the internet for information but drew a blank. At that point Fr Zuhlsdorf had not covered the 18th Sunday in What Does The Prayer Really Say. I see that last year he finally reached it, in a post that discusses translation and inculturation. Also The Tablet, on 4th August 2007 [pdf] published an article by Dom Daniel McCarthy OSB (I assume those are the same person, Ampleforth Abbey, for example, these days prevents monks from having the same name, although in my time there were still a few duplicates).

Fr Daniel informs us that this prayer can be traced back to
…the Verona collection of Mass booklets compiled between 561 and 574, where it appears as a prayer over the people for the fast of…September…according to the old Roman calendar. During the redaction of the Gelasian Sacramentary between 628 and 715…the prayer was transferred to Wednesday of the second week of Lent and the word creata was changed to grata…Sometime shortly before the pontificate of Pope Gregory II (715-731), prayers were composed for the Thursdays of Lent. Accordingly, this prayer was transferred to the Thursday of the second week of Lent, and grata was changed to congregata…In 1970 this prayer over the people…became an opening prayer and was tranferred to this Sunday. In 1970 congregata was restored to grata of the Gelasian, and in 2002 to creata of the Verona.**
I had assumed that grata in 1970 was simply a misprint, or perhaps a misreading of a manuscript note in the minutes of the Consilium. Fr Daniel's article is a close reading of the grammar of the prayer.

*(Not strictly a "1962 Missal" since St Joseph does not appear in the Canon, something that only happened by a decree in November of that year, see Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy, St Michael's Abbey Press, 2004, chapter 3, fn 582, p. 276)

**(The ellipses around "September" hide a confusion over the Roman calendar whose names had been out of line with their numerical meaning since at least 153 BC and possibly since the reign of King Numa Pompilius, supposedly Romulus' successor. I doubt that the Christians would have bothered to resurrect the Romulan calendar.)

Corvopolis is where?

The Roman Martyrology today – to pick a day at random – has the following at number 14:
Eboraci in Anglia, beati martyris Thomas Welbourne, qui…
 At 15:
In urbe Nam Định in Tunquino, Sanctorum Dominici Nguyễn Văn Hạnh (Diêu)…
Where on earth are these places?

Someone with a classical education – even one who is not familiar with the names of the counties or TV stations can presumably be expected to know that Anglia is England, but will he know that Eboracum is York, even if, under that name, it was the scene of the proclamation of Constantine as Emperor? Italics in Ecclesiastical texts indicate the vernacular form of a word so Nam Định is clearly the form of the name in the railway timetables. One might guess that Tunquinum is Vietnam. In fact it is the northernmost part of that country, Tonkin. This was (…Wikipedia…) one of the historical divisions of Vietnam borrowed by the French for administrative purposes and used by the Church. Hence Annamia, Cocinchina and Tunquinum should all be translated as Vietnam.

At 4:
Gerundæ in Hispania Tarraconensi, sancti Felicis…
This is nothing to do with the fabled part of speech familiar to students of Latin. It is the city of Girona in eastern Catalonia. Hispania Tarraconensi was the northernmost province of Spain covering the territory of Catalonia, Aragon and Navarre (more or less). Saints of the modern era are said to die in Hispania, not in the historical Roman province. So Blessed Enric Canadell martyred outside Girona on 17th August 1936 is listed at 11 for that date:
Apud oppido Castellfullit de la Roca prope Gerundam in Hispania, beati Henrici Canadell…
I have not found a single source to translate Latin names into their conventional English forms. The Lexicon Nominum Locorum by Carlo Egger translates from the Vernacular into Latin. It seems to be restricted to Dioceses. Faced with a puzzling Latin name, one can always search Catholic-Hierarchy.org. Unless you are familiar with the meaning of Wagga Wagga you are unlikely to guess that some inspired Latinist gave it the name Corvopolis, City of Crows.

Otherwise the only two resources known to me are the  RMBS/BSC Latin Place Names File and the Cathedral Libraries Catalogue : Names of printing towns. These are restricted to places where books were printed.

When the Triplex isn't enough

A few weeks ago I had occasion to mention the Roman Gradual. The Monks of Solesmes are responsible for the modern edition. For various technical reasons [insert flannel] to do with new discoveries in the correct interpretation of the notation of plainchant, they also produce the same book with the neumes (the signs) from the earliest manuscripts added. This is called the Graduale Triplex – because it records the notation of the manuscripts of Laon, St Gall and Einsiedeln. The introit for the Mass of Christmas during the Day looks like this:

(Credit to: Karen Thöle of Mittelalter-Recherche).

But, you know, sometimes I find the Graduale Triplex just doesn't tell me enough. 

On those days I swiftly repair to Charles Cole's post of a list of Semiological Sources. There are links to online facsimiles of all the major chant manuscripts. God bless the internet, and all who sail in her.

Plainchant joke

On 22nd November 1903, St Pius X issued Tra le Sollecitudini, an instruction on sacred music.
The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone.
Today, 9th July 2012, I reckon it is a safe bet that in most parishes you will never hear Gregorian Chant. And this is not because they are getting by on a diet of Palestrina and Mozart. (Nor because it isn't Sunday). Tra le Sollecitudini seems to be wasted ink. The Vatican website does not even have an English version.

For those unfamiliar with the terminology of Catholic liturgical books, the parts of the Mass to be sung by the people (or by the choir on behalf of the people) are printed in a book called the Roman Gradual.

Q: Why is it called the Roman Gradual?
A: Because it is being implemented slowly.

(A post on The Chant Café warned me I might have to assert copyright to this joke, which I have been making for a few years now).