Cardinal Raymond Burke (Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura) gave a video interview to Gloria.tv which they published on January 4, 2011. During the interview, he responded to questions on the topics of abortion, the traditional Roman Mass, the Novus Ordo's liturgical texts and Communion in the hand.
We offer here a commentary and a 16:04 excerpt of the liturgical topics addressed (courtesy of Gloria.tv).
A SSPX Commentary on the video extract
It is certainly a Benedict-like sign of the time that Rome is occupied with heavy weights of the same mind, like Piacenza, Canizares, Ouellet, Rode, Amato, De Paolis. There is more homogeneity of mind than in the Curia of John Paul II during the 90’s.
Not least of these is the American, Raymond Burke recently elevated to the red had. His "experience" of the Old Mass was quite positive as he encouraged it wherever possible among his priests and inviting the Institute of Christ the King to run parishes, in La Crosse and St. Louis.
Here are some excerpts from this enlightening interview:
We grew up with that Mass—of St. Pius V—we loved it, we loved to serve the Mass, it inspired very much our vocations, why now should we not continue to appreciate deeply and love that rite…
What Pope Benedict XVI has said repeatedly is so true: that the beauty, the goodness of the rite, has to be as appreciated by us today as it has been in the past, right going back practically to the time of Pope Gregory the Great. And in that way, it will enrich the worship, perfect the worship of the whole Church…
I suppose that the principle of the result of the abuse was a too anthropocentric idea of the sacred liturgy, as if it were something that we had invented and therefore with which we could experiment instead of being a gift given by Our Lord to the Church which we must prized and treasure and safeguard.
We need to recover that sense that this is the action of Christ; that it’s Christ Who is the protagonist for instance in the celebration of Holy Mass, not me as a person, but the priest in his personality, but Christ Himself.
It is my great hope that the… [reform of the Mass] will underline the transcendent nature of the sacred liturgy as Pope Benedict often says: 'the meeting of Heaven and Earth'."
There is little doubt as to the religious faith and sincerity of his discourse as Cardinal Burke is perhaps more able to speak his mind, far away from the peer pressure of American lobbies. He shows himself the servant of the pope, but this is not to say that he is a servile Roman subject as he already initiated the “traditionalization” of his diocese in the 1990’s. It is wonderful to see the confession of the humanistic bent inherent to the new rite.
This being said, a few items are worth our observation here. His diplomatic answers about the use of “for many” as the still official text, and of the discontinuing of “Communion in the hand” in Rome, suggest that the new liturgical movement of Benedict XVI is determined to act more by suggestion than by governmental legislation. [See the right-hand sidebar for more on this abuse]
What is still for us difficult to understand, and remains unsolved by the cardinal, is his wish to reconcile the two rituals of the Mass. For this, he is advocating for the papal “Reform of the Reform”, and for the rejection of the “hermeneutic of [ritual] discontinuity” between the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine Mass.
How interesting it is to see that a man who understands the “anthropocentric” core of the new liturgy, in flagrant opposition to the awe inspiring old rite, still believes in the peaceful the cohabitation of such incompatible partners?
