– Aurelio Porfiri
The name of Father Enrico Finotti may ring familiar for the readers of this magazine (at least those of the English edition). For some months, we have been offering the translation of one of his books about the liturgy in Q&A format: Il mio e il vostro sacrificio. Father Finotti is now also working on a monumental book (around 1400 pages!) on the Roman Canon.
Can you tell us something about yourself?
I am a priest of the diocese of Trento (Italy), born in Rovereto on 5 October 1953 and ordained a priest in Trent on 26 June 1978. Pastoral commitments and study of the liturgy were intertwined in the forty years of my priesthood. This interweaving gave me a precious opportunity for pastoral verification of the theses treated in academic courses and in personal meditation. The publication of some books and the research in progress allow me to exercise a specific form of pastoral care that Blessed Antonio Rosmini calls “intellectual charity.”
When did you sense the vocation to the priesthood?
Like that of my other confreres, the vocation has been precocious, since childhood. It is a gift of God who in his goodness and mercy guides the lives of each of us, his children. This allowed a complete preparation, from the minor to the major seminary, with serious spiritual and cultural formation in very difficult years.
How did you approach the study of the liturgy?
My interest in the liturgy was congenital with the vocation to the priesthood. I took care of the celebrations during the years of the theological seminar and later my Archbishops have repeatedly directed me to the specific study of the subject. Attending the three academic Institutes: of Santa Giustina in Padua, of St Anselm and of the Holy Cross in Rome, I was able to consider the liturgy under important aspects: pastoral, historical, theological. In fact, the systematic study of the liturgy implies a really wide range of skills, which in different ways interact in the rites: dogma, law, spirituality, history, art, music, etc. They are elements that enter into the composition of the great liturgical mosaic. Of this opportunity I can only thank the Lord and his Church.
Why is the liturgy in crisis today?
There are many causes. In particular I would like to highlight two: anthropocentrism and subjectivism. Anthropocentrism, that is the absolute centrality of man, of his history and of what is earthly, totally or partially obscuring God, his transcendence, the immortality of the soul and eternal life, has reduced the liturgy into the horizons of the visible experience, depriving it of every supernatural breath and bending it to a merely humanitarian, cultural and sociological service. It is the crisis of the ‘sacred,’ which dulls every perception of the divine and prevents the sense of transcendence and adoration, of praise and contemplation.
Subjectivism also credits only the immediate perception of transient and ephemeral ‘values,’ mostly on a sentimental or ideological basis, without any objective and permanent reference. The liturgy in this context becomes the free and changeable expression of a vague religious feeling, shared by a group for sensitivity and purpose. It is evident that, from this perspective, the objective norm, which regulates the rites established by the Church in relation to the lex fidei, becomes an undue link, which prevents – it is said – the ‘freedom of the spirit.’ It is the crisis of ‘liturgical law’ which nullifies every tradition and the very meaning of the liturgical book, which contains its objective references.
Don’t you think that the Council was used by those who wanted to be served by the liturgy, rather than serve it?
The Second Vatican Council protects the liturgy in an absolute way when it affirms: “Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority” (SC 22§3). And Pope Paul VI, in promulgating the liturgical constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, declares: “Nobody has to threaten the rule of the official prayer of the Church with private reforms or singular rites […] nobody try to upset her, no offending her” [our translation]. Unfortunately, ideology, using incompetence and disobedience, has cracked the balance and strength of the Church’s liturgy, which should have corresponded to the wish of Paul VI: “Nobility of ecclesiastical prayer is its choral harmony in the world.”
Do not you think that this also derives from a deep crisis in the clergy?
“I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be dispersed” (Mt 26.31). The mysterium iniquitatis, always present in the world, undermines the Church, affecting above all the Pastors and thus confusing the faith, worship and moral discipline of the people of God. This is why the Second Vatican Council wants to promote an adequate liturgical formation of the clergy, when it affirms: “Yet it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing this unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it. A prime need, therefore, is that attention be directed, first of all, to the liturgical instruction of the clergy” (SC 14). The problem is imposed when assessing the validity and quality of trainers, contents, methods and sources. Here the possible conflict between faith and ideology, orthodoxy and heresy occurs. Hence loyalty or disorientation.
Among your fellow priests have you met more allies or opponents?
I would not use these terms, but rather others, such as: interest, love for truth, theological preparation, liturgical formation and spiritual life. Priests animated by a right conscience and pastoral solicitude for the salvation of souls find a way to confront themselves with other priests, motivated by the same zeal for the ‘sanctuary’ and for the cause of the Kingdom of God, according to the prophetic expression: “Zeal for your house will consume me” (Jn 2:17). Of course there are such priests, even if the times are not easy and the balance and preparation cost an uncommon effort and vigilance. The authentic and perennial Magisterium of the Church is the light that illuminates and the gluten that unites.
Why were Latin and Gregorian chant eliminated?
For a wrong concept of progress without roots in tradition, as if the new and the authentic can arise from an ephemeral perception of the present and the immediate. The liturgy, in its substance, is part of the Depositum fidei, transmitted from generation to generation since the Apostles, and cannot be a completely new creation according to current sensibilities. Even language and sacred music are not foreign to this Depositum, but the organic and coherent development of the rite must be continually nourished by the lifeblood that reaches us, through the original languages and melodies of the ancient sacred song, preserved and practiced in the life of the Church. It is moreover clear that the abandonment of Latin and Gregorian chant constitutes a direct violation against the explicit provisions of the Second Vatican Council (cf. SC 36§1, 116).
In your struggle for the decorum of the liturgy, who has inspired you?
The Church herself. That is, to the competent and obedient implementation of the rites, according to the liturgical books approved by the Church and to the ever deeper understanding of the liturgical Magisterium, which the Church has always offered in its authentic documents, in fidelity to the tradition of the centuries. The insufficient knowledge of these sources leads to a ‘do-it-yourself liturgy,’ which is not able to give God a cult in conformity with what He has commanded, or to transmit fully to the faithful that specific grace, which is connected to the rites and precepts established by the Church.
To restore the dignity of the liturgy, where do we start?
With the recovery of the ‘sacred’ and of the ‘liturgical law.’ With the ‘sacred’ the liturgy opens itself to God and to his mystery, with the ‘law’ the liturgy guarantees its conformation with the action proper to Christ and the Church, primary subjects of the liturgy itself. When we hope for the return to the ‘sacred’ we should not understand that vague sense of sacredness, inherent in human religiosity, universally perceived by natural inclination, and, as we know, affected by original sin, but the supernatural encounter with the mystery of the only true God existing, who revealed himself in Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, liturgical law indicates all the elements that constitute a rite: words and gestures, prayers and rubrics, delivered by the perennial tradition and acknowledged by the authority of the Church. This necessary determination of the ‘sacred’ is made in the liturgy by ‘liturgical law,’ which configures the ‘sacred’ in the horizon of the dogma of faith: it is from the dogma that the ‘sacred’ receives its form and its content. There is therefore an intrinsic and indissoluble relationship, within the liturgy, between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘liturgical law,’ so that the divine mystery, made present in the ritual celebration, receives its physiognomy and identity from the revealed dogma. And this is how we understand the connection between lex credendi and lex orandi.
Follow
