Adrian Fortescue - The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described

Adrian Fortescue

THE Catholic Church has surrounded all the acts of Divine Worship with a definite ceremonial to ensure on the one hand their due accomplishment, and on the other to safeguard the external reverence that should accompany them. She never employs ceremonial for the sake of the ceremony itself. Each separate rite has grown out of the twofold object that we have enunciated, even though in the process of time the origin, and the history of the development, of such rite may long have been forgotten.

The Church is the guardian of all these sacred rites. To her it belongs to sanction a further development of them, to curtail such as may have become purposeless, or to impose new conditions heretofore uncalled for. Thus there has grown up a great body of legislation, controlled and regulated by two of the Roman Congregations, those of the Rites and of Ceremonial. Numberless commentators have written on the history of the ceremonies, while many others have treated them from the purely practical point of view.

A Ceremonial in the latter sense calls for frequent revision if it is to be thoroughly in accord with the most recent legislation of the Holy See. Thus even the pages of the present work, as they issue from the press, call for modification in accordance with the new Codex Iuris Canonici.

For a long time past the Clergy in England have been without a Manual of Ceremonies, in their own tongue, possessing any claim to accuracy or completeness. They have been obliged to fall back upon excellent Latin or French treatises which often do not take account of local circumstances, and are in many cases almost useless to the devoted laymen upon whose zealous help the proper carrying out of our liturgical functions so greatly depends.

This pressing want has now been fully supplied by the learned compiler of this manual of The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite, and by the publishers who present his work in such satisfactory form. We are assured by those who have carefully read this Ceremonial that it has been very accurately compiled, and that it will most efficiently fulfil its purpose. With great confidence, therefore, we commend it to the study and use of all, both Clergy and Laity, who need such a guide in our English speech.

FRANCIS CARDINAL BOURNE

Archbishop of Westminster

Feast of Our Blessed Lady de Mercede

September 24th, 1917.

THE origin of this book was an attempt to prepare a new edition of Dales well-known translation of Baldeschi. The publishers having suggested that an edition of that book, revised and brought up to date, be desirable, I began the work. When I had already done a considerable part of it, I realized that there was so much to change in it that, on the whole, it would be simpler to write an entirely new book. Unwillingly one speaks ill of a work which has for so many years been the chief guide to Catholic ceremonies in England. The old Dale-Baldeschi has certainly filled a very large part, and not altogether a bad part, in the education of our clergy. Yet, when it is examined in the light of what are now the standard authors, it is seen to contain so many faults that one is surprised that it so long held its place. To justify the abandonment of all connection with Dale, which became my final determination, I must mention the chief of these faults.

In the first place, the original Italian Baldeschi is by no means the ideal book for us in England. The edition translated by Dale was published in 1839. In spite of some not very thorough attempts to bring it up to date, the book still bears the stamp of that time. Now a great deal of water has flowed under the bridge of Sant Angelo, and there have been many decisions of the Congregation of Rites, since 1839. Moreover Baldeschi, then Master of ceremonies of St. Peters, considers nothing but the needs of his own city. His book is redolent, not only of Rome, but of Rome in the palmy days of the Papal State. For instance, he never supposes that the bishop at a pontifical function is the Ordinary. His bishop is always one having no jurisdiction, celebrating at a faldstoolnaturally; at Rome there are many bishops, pontifical functions are common; but the only Ordinary is the Pope, nor does anyone else use a throne, except Cardinals in their titular churches. But in England, in the vast majority of cases, the bishop who celebrates or assists at a function will be the Ordinary. Again, Baldeschi considers all the local Roman customs always. His High Mass begins normally without the Asperges ceremony, which he puts apart at the end of his book as a special rite. The Asperges modifies the manner of entering the sanctuary at the beginning of High Mass. In an English church, not a cathedral, it will very rarely happen that High Mass begins without the Asperges. His rite of Benediction is the local Roman one, different in several points from ours. This too he puts at the end, as a function for special occasions. In England it is the invariable evening service, after Mass the best known of all to our people. Baldeschi describes only the Roman way of celebrating a sung Mass without deacon and subdeacon, a bare little service which rarely occurs there. In Rome the deacon and subdeacon, procured with no trouble at all, are the first requisite for any solemn office. In the great majority of English churches these ministers can hardly ever be procured, even in a large church with a competent choir and many servers. So the form of Missa Cantata, rare in Rome, is the usual one here for Sunday Mass. Naturally, Baldeschi knows nothing of our special English rites and customs, of the rules of our English Ritual, of the Ritus Servandus for Benediction and so on, which in this country have the force of law. For our circumstances especially the order of his book is most inconvenient.

All these defects remain, and there are further ones, in Dales translation. For one thing, Dale has not translated the whole book. The original Baldeschi consists of three parts. The first of these, the basis of the whole, is about Low Mass. Dale has left all that out, and has translated only the second and third parts. Yet no ceremonies are of such importance to a priest as those for saying Low Mass. A book of ceremonies ought certainly to begin with an accurate description of these. There are definite errors in Baldeschi, which Dale has left. For instance,for some reason he makes the assistant priest hold the little hand-candle (scotula) all through pontifical High Mass at the faldstool. This is a mistake. No other author, no liturgical authority says this; nor is it done at Rome or anywhere. To these Dale has added errors of his own. On page of the last edition Dale makes the sub-deacon at the Palm Sunday procession strike the door of the church with his foot. I wondered where he got this extraordinary idea, till I looked at Baldeschi. There the text is: col suo piede, meaning, of course, with the foot of the cross. I wonder how many English subdeacons have kicked the door of the church on Palm Sunday because of this blunder. During eleven editions of the book no one has corrected it. Another argument against Dales translation is the amazing language he uses. It is said that the test of a good translation is that it should read like an original work. According to this ideal Dale comes off very badly indeed. He has such a mania for using Italian words and Italian forms that a great part of his book is not really English at all, can hardly be understood till one has translated it back into Italian. Not only does he use an Italian name on every possible occasion; when the words are English he translates with ruthless exactness all the gorgeous phrases of Italian grand style.