“The Liturgy Has Been Dismantled”: Portland Archbishop Robert Dwyer’s Assessment in 1971

Robert Joseph Dwyer (1908-76)

Those who read the works of Michael Davies will come across quotations from a wide variety of sources, and will sometimes wonder just who these people are, and what their full views might be (since Davies, like any author, seldom quotes more than a few sentences). One such figure is the American Robert Joseph Dwyer (1908-76), who was the second bishop of Reno, Nevada from 1952-66 (and in this capacity participated in all four sessions of the Council), and the fifth Archbishop of Portland, Oregon from 1966 to 1974.

Dwyer was a prolific writer, as the fine collection recently published by Arouca Press, Ecclesiastes: The Book of Archbishop Robert Dwyer—A Selection of His Writings, edited by Albert J. Steiss, makes plain: we find articles on European history and American history, lives of major Catholic figures, a fairly detailed account of his time at the Council (deserving to be mined: see pages 131–206), apologetics on behalf of the Faith, critiques of liturgical reform, reflections on the fine arts, pastoral letters, and bagatelles. In fact, he’s like a quieter version of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

Where he differs decisively from Sheen is in his increasingly outspoken critiques of the liturgical reform. The famous quotes are those shared by Michael Davies:

The great mistake of the Council Fathers was to allow the implementation of the Constitution to fall into the hands of men who were either unscrupulous or incompetent. This is the so-called Liturgical Establishment, a Sacred Cow which acts more like a white elephant as it tramples the shards of a shattered liturgy with ponderous abandon.

And:

Who dreamed on that day that within a few years, far less than a decade, the Latin past of the Church would be all but expunged, that it would be reduced to a memory fading into the middle distance? The thought of it would have horrified us, but it seemed so far beyond the realm of the possible as to be ridiculous. So we laughed it off.

Could a bishop really have written such things? Or might this be a case of mistaken attribution or misquotation?

For the first quotation, Davies cites The Tidings of July 9, 1971 (see Pope Paul’s New Mass [Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2009], 651). For the second, he cites the Twin Circle, October 26, 1973 (see Liturgical Timebombs in Vatican II [Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003], 65). In order to hunt the original articles down, I did what any sensible person would do: I hired Sharon Kabel as my research assistant!

Sure enough, she located both articles, and since our searching online indicates that these have never been transcribed and made available, I took the time to type them out, while attaching the originals below. If only we had a few more bold bishops like this today! (And can you imagine the newspaper of the archdiocese of Los Angeles—or any Catholic diocesan newspaper—publishing something like this today?) A piece like this, from 1971, counts as good evidence that at least some public figures were willing to state the obvious: the Catholic liturgy had, in fact, been dismantled past recognition, and this was an evil deed. Moreover, this bishop’s presence at all four sessions of the Council makes his claims about what the Council Fathers intended—at least to the extent that any on-the-ground participant could know the mens patrum from conversations, meetings, and documents—credible.

In any case, enjoy the crisp and piquant style of the good archbishop.
 

(Click to enlarge)

The Liturgy Has Been Dismantled
Archbishop Robert Dwyer
The Tidings (Catholic Newspaper of Los Angeles)
July 9, 1971

In the remote caverns of memory the image flickers in the candlelight: Marius on the Ruins of Carthage. What somber text of Ancient History this was designed to illustrate we have long forgotten, but the figure of the Roman general, triumphant at last over the Punic power, contemplating the wreckage of war, meditating upon the Dead Sea fruits of victory, has never quite faded.

The other day the image was refreshed by a re-telling of the familiar jest at the expense of a gun-and-camera tourist: “Mrs. C. Humphrey Jones on the Ruins of Carthage (the ruins are to the left).”

But another image, alas, overlays that of the baffled conqueror in our contemporary illustration. It is that of Mother Church seated amid the ruins of the liturgy. No less disconsolate is she, no less sorrowfully pensive.

Some six years ago she had reached that point in her Renewal where it seemed beyond question or cavil that she could summon to her aid, in her monumental task of re-interpreting the Christian message to the modern world, all the services of liturgical art and drama, all the treasures of biblical science and patristic lore, all the riches of music and sacred literature, to enhance the supreme act of divine worship, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Surely that was the confident expectation of the Council Fathers when they hailed with overwhelming affirmation the Constitution on the Liturgy.

In the euphoria of that moment cankerous doubt and cantankerous misgivings were cavalierly set aside. All would be well, we assured ourselves, and all things would be well, as Blessed Juliana of Norwich had so calmly predicted. All that was needed was a touch of genius to muster all the arts of expression and exposition to achieve the perfect rendering of the liturgy in every language under the sun, and for every living culture known to man. We all devoutly made our act of faith in the immediate availability of that touch of genius.

Documents Insipid

Wherein, under the blessing of hindsight undoubtedly we made our first mistake. For there are times and seasons in man’s history, the history of his culture, when genius touches the liturgy, and times, alack, when it simply does not. It is as though the lines of communication, faithfully relaying its messages, were abruptly to be cut off.

It is not necessary, in our reading of the liturgical texts which have been foisted upon us, to suspect the poisoned pen of the heretic or the velvet glove covering the mailed fist of the Communist conspiracy working through the channels of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship. It is enough to note that the touch of genius has so far absented itself from these documents which reach us with such monotonous regularity and insipidity, as to suggest a total substitution of dross for gold.

It was not so in ages past when Basil and John Chrysostom and Gregory formulated the texts and set the patterns for the prayer of the Church, East and West. It was not so when those unknown masters of rhythmic melody devised and developed the liturgical chant, the noblest music man has ever sung, nor was it so when the flowering of polyphony enriched the musical treasury of the liturgy with works of classic dignity and grace.

The Renaissance and Trent hardened the liturgy into molds perhaps too rigid and ungiving, but the authentic note of dignity and greatness was by no means wanting. With the Baroque the liturgy left the austere confines of the sanctuary to mingle with the multitudes crowding the nave and aisles, to undergo, at least in some aspects, a process of vulgarization, but however much the liturgy stood in need of refurbishing and reform as our day approached, it was still recognizable as an original work of religious genius. It was by no means a shambles.

The malady must be reported of the rendering of the liturgy into the vernacular. To focus exclusively here upon our English experience, it is commonly recognized that only once or twice in a millennium have we any right to expect a translator of such power as Thomas Cranmer. Whatever his other merits or demerits, he possessed the gift of noble expression and haunting phrase, so as to mold the language our forebears have spoken these 400 years and more. And while he had no Catholic rivals to contest his mastery, he set a standard to which they must needs approximate or publicly confess their inadequacy.

Liturgists Incompetent

And for the most part, those commissioned or inspired to render the liturgy into the vernacular for the English-speaking Catholic world had done a commendable if not a brilliant job. [1] Why their work, present and available, was ignored and set aside, and even spoken of with contumely by the current generation of Martin Mar-Texts [2] is a mystery beyond our ken.

The liturgy needed reform by 1965; there was no call for dismantling it. It was intended that the vernacular would enhance the Latin, not supplant it. It was not, emphatically, the mind of the Council Fathers to jettison Gregorian Chant, or to encourage the banal secularization of Church music, so as now to surpass in crudity the worst aberrations of the Howling Pentecostals.

It was anticipated that the liturgical texts, along with the Biblical readings for the Mass and the Divine Office, would be so translated as to reflect the beauty and suppleness of our tongue in the praise and worship of God. If any Council Father—for this we can vouch—leaving the aula of St. Peter’s on that day when the Constitution on the Liturgy was proclaimed, had seen in vision the liturgical calamities which have befallen us in this short span of time, it is conceivable that he would have had a heart attack, then and there.

The first mistake, then, was dependence upon the Dabitur Vobis [3], a brash confidence that the touch of genius would not be lacking. The second, in uncomfortably close alliance, was to allow the interpretation and implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy to fall into the hands of men who were either unscrupulous or incompetent. This is the so-called “Liturgical Establishment,” a Sacred Cow which acts more like a White Elephant as it tramples the shards of a shattered liturgy with ponderous abandon. [4]

The third mistake, fully as destructive as either of the foregoing, was the genial supposition that widespread “experimentation” could be sanctioned, with any hope of holding the line thereafter. This is not to condemn experimentation; it is useful and necessary from time to time, under certain controlled circumstances.

But the broad permissiveness granted or even encouraged by the Sacred Congregation and by various Episcopal Conference committees, has led to what must be described, without exaggeration, as a state of chaos. Everyman is now his own liturgist, just as he is his own pope; the Parish Liturgical Commission, made up, for the most part, of good and well-meaning folk whose liturgical competence is on the kindergarten level, legislates for all the world as though it were the Sacred Congregation itself. Or perhaps, what is by no means unthinkable, with far greater assurance and authority.

How long, do you suppose, will it take for another Hercules to clean up these Augean Stables?

Next week, we will publish the transcription of His Exellency’s 1973 article. 

NOTES

[1] Dwyer is referring here to the first translations from the 1960s, which were all replaced by the tawdry claptrap of ICEL when the Novus Ordo was rolled out. He may also be referring to the many translations that existed in hand missals for many decades prior to the Council.

[2] This seems to be a reference to “Martin Mar-prelate,” “the name used by the anonymous author or authors of the seven Marprelate tracts that circulated illegally in England in the years 1588 and 1589. Their principal focus was an attack on the episcopacy of the Anglican Church” (source).

[3] See Luke 11, 9: “Petite, et dabitur vobis” (Ask, and it shall be given).

[4] This is the paragraph quoted by Davies, with some minor differences that do not alter the meaning.

A young Dwyer holding a model of a church (backstory unknown)

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