Liam suggested in a comment last week that a look at “(t)he century of reform might also take into account the sacramental revolution of Pius X,” namely two documents. First, Pius X’s 1905 Sacra Tridentina: On Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion and the curial decree Quam Singulari, issued five years later.
If Vatican II is fading into a historical memory to be advanced or retreated on political spin or even whim, then Pius X’s efforts at urging the laity to receive the Eucharist regularly and from an early age must surely be dissolving in the mists of time.
Each of these is a brief document, and so shouldn’t take up much time or e-space on this blog. My hesitation on tackling these pieces is that the commentary on them is a very well-worn path, and largely lies within the domain of scholars these days. But the same could be said of Vatican II, and certainly the new Roman Missal. I also wonder if looking at these documents might not suggest an analysis of Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei. Frankly, that doesn’t hold much interest for me at the moment.
Blogging will be light the next few days as I attend to family and financial matters. I’d like to ponder how to set up this discussion. I’m leaning to these two shorter, earlier documents. Then perhaps it will be time to look at the dedication rites and Built of Living Stones. I also confess my energy is lagging for the push to complete the GDC. But we’ll keep that going, too, given that we’re only one-fourth of the way from the end.
9 April 2012 at 12:35 pm
I should explain why I believe this revolution is consequential: because, as a Catholic, I believe active/active participation in the sacraments, while not magical in and of itself, has re-made the Church in a fundamental way, and that I believe it is Providential that this revolution happened just before the sheer awfulness of the short Twentieth Century (1914-1989), and that what happened at Vatican II in many ways flowed from this revolution and that the consequences of this revolution continue to unfold – for example, I believe it will eventually affect governance, and invite the Church to more closely align its governance structures with those that were in place in the first Millennium when sacramental participation was more widespread than in most of the second (a revolution, the old-fashioned sense of that word, that does not first require any dogmatic development) – perhaps prodded on the secular side by the fact that authority and accountability are closely aligned for purposes of liability….