In Defence of the Roman Mass Paul Beardsmore looks at a newly translated book by the late Fr Raymond Dulac

In Defence of the Roman Mass

Paul Beardsmore looks at a newly translated book by the late Fr Raymond Dulac

Fr Raymond Dulac was an ecclesiastical lawyer with the Paris Diocesan Tribunal from 1945 to 1966, when he retired and was able to devote more of his time to a lifelong interest - journalism. In 1967 he began writing for the Courrier de Rome, and over the next few years wrote for this journal, and for others, a number of articles relating to the emerging Novus Ordo, a liturgical development which he considered calamitous.

Several of these, mostly from the Courrier, but with a few from the periodical Itinéraires, were collected and published two years ago in the original French, and they have now been helpfully translated into very readable English by Peadar Walsh. The book comes with a lengthy prefatory overview written by Fr Grégoire Celier.

As might be expected, Fr Dulac writes convincingly about the importance of tradition, which he saw being trampled on in the name of an ephemeral aggiornamento. He quotes St Augustine: "The very changing of a custom, even when it serves by its usefulness, disrupts by its novelty." He argues strongly that the Mass is being protestantised, citing the comments of various non-Catholic observers who were noting the proposed changes with approval, and he sees in many of those changes an attack on the very nature of the Catholic priesthood.

Fr Dulac deplores the revisions to the offertory prayers. There can, he says, be no genuine Catholic Mass without a prior offering of the bread and wine, and he does not see the "Preparation of the Gifts" as a satisfactory alternative. This change, coupled with the introduction of alternative versions of the Canon of the Mass, will lead to the suppression of its sacrificial character. He cautions against the ambiguities being introduced into the text in an attempt to create a "versatile" Mass that will suit all comers; ambiguities that are often worsened when the new Latin text is translated into dozens of different vernacular languages. And, prophetically, he warns against false ecumenism which, rather than bringing others to the one true fold, will lead to the abandonment of souls who are already in it. "A Catholic" he says "must be intransigent out of charity."

As it becomes clearer that this disastrous new liturgy is not going to be stopped, Fr Dulac turns his attention to the way in which priests and people can respond to its imposition. The final article printed in this collection discusses St Pius V's bull Quo Primum, which promulgated the "Tridentine" missal, and compares the way in which this was crafted and published with the approach taken by Pope Paul VI when issuing his new missal. The conclusions he draws, and his arguments as to whether or not celebration of this new rite was obligatory, will, I suspect, convince some and not others, but either way they make interesting reading. Similarly, he writes at some length about legitimate resistance as opposed to disobedience. Fr Dulac is an entertaining writer - by turns amusing, anguished, angry, despairing, incisive, damning and witty. Acerbic even, as when, in response to what he sees as a foolish document from the "Council for the Revision of Liturgical Rites" he quotes Dante: "Such stupidity should be answered with a knife, rather than with reasons." Inevitably, because these articles were written over a number of years, there is some repetition of the material for the benefit, no doubt, of the original readership who would be picking up the threads of his arguments in a bi-monthly periodical. Some of the comments and criticisms made by Fr Dulac will already be familiar to English readers from other sources - the works of Michael Davies, for example. Nonetheless, this French perspective on the events of fifty years ago is not just a piece of history, nor simply a fascinating sidelight; Fr Dulac's comments and arguments remain extremely relevant today.

Fr Dulac died in 1987, long before Summorum Pontificum gave a papal seal of approval to at least some of his arguments. He would, I am sure, have been pleased by this development, but I doubt he would yet be satisfied.

Available from the LMS online shop