ROMAN REPORT
Uprooted Vatican expert Aurelio Porfiri believes the church has lost its way. Alberto Carosa talked to him published some 40 books and a thousand articles. His musical works, published in France, Italy, Germany, the United States and China, were also used for the liturgies in the annual Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome. Maestro Porfiri was kind enough to grant an interview to Mass of Ages. Q. Why did you write your book? A. Aldo Maria Valli and I do not feel comfortable as Catholics in the present situation of the Church and we feel as if we are being removed from our roots. The current disdain for the Church’s tradition and heritage is inexplicable. Q. What are the main topics you deal with in the book? A. Everything, from the crisis of the priesthood to the problem with homosexuality in the clergy, from misinterpretation of Vatican II to liturgical crisis.
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urelio Porfiri and Aldo Maria Valli are two leading Catholic figures who decided to join forces and publicly voice their uneasiness with the present state of affairs in the Catholic Church. “Uprooted: Dialogues on the Liquid Church” (Chorabooks, Hong Kong 2019) was the result of their effort. It is a passionate book written in the form of a series of dialogues between them on the most pressing and burning issues facing the Church today. Aldo Maria Valli is a veteran “Vaticanista” (a journalist expert on Vatican affairs) and the first journalist to whom the former Vatican Nuncio in the US, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, gave a copy of his memorial on the scandal of homosexuality within the clergy. Aurelio Porfiri is a composer, choirmaster, writer and teacher living between Rome and Hong Kong. He has
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Q. Due to our special interest in the liturgy, could you elaborate on this? A. We feel very uncomfortable with the present state of liturgical life in the Church, a liturgy where all sense of sacredness and adoration has been removed. I believe there is now an almost unanimous chorus saying that liturgical reform has not brought us a more beautiful and dignified liturgy but rather a formless thing which can be modified at will in every sacristy. Music and liturgy go hand in hand and as a musician of the Church, I believe current sacred music is an abomination; it is the recycling of commercial music or effeminate and sentimental outbursts. One of the strongest indicators of the crisis in the Church is the colossal descent of the dignity of the liturgical celebration. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium of Vatican II, which everyone invokes, was in favour of Latin, Gregorian chant, organ, polyphony. There are liturgists, priests, and laypeople who have honestly tried to apply the
directives of the Council but they find themselves marginalized, isolated, derided. Now, if things don’t go well for those who try to do what the Council asks, how can it go well for anyone else? Q. Do you think these problems have surfaced only in the past few years? A. Of course not! This goes back a long way, but it has taken on an increasing momentum. As a cradle Catholic, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I never realized that the church was passing through a truly difficult period, which has actually never ended. The silly songs I sang at Mass, seemed to be a normal thing to me, because nobody told me the music which should be sung in church was something different. I discovered this on my own, and after this I became discouraged by priests who were opposed to the fact that I had rediscovered my liturgical and musical roots. Q. And then you started to be labeled as a “traditionalist”. A. Exactly! There are always those who use that word as if it was the gravest insult. At worst we are called ultra-traditionalists! Now, being a traditionalist is not a crime, but above all I don’t think of myself as being a traditionalist. I share most of the same convictions with those held by traditionalist groups, but in reality, they too ought to simply call themselves Catholics. The progressivist simply is not Catholic, because he has embraced the principles of modernism which are contrary to those of the Church. True, the Tradition of the Church can deepen, but not by losing its very identity. Q. Do you have any possible solutions in mind? A. I am not sure what is the solution. You need to remove so many problems. But I know I am just a human person and with a limited view. I can only hope in God and in his supernatural intervention to restore sanity to our Church.
AUTUMN 2019
