I found a small selection from this book here:
http://www.westernorthodox.com/novusordoThe Causes of the Debacle in the Modern Roman Catholic Liturgy
An excerpt from The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, by Monsignor Klaus Gamber
These excerpts were originally reprinted in The Augustinian (Jan�Feb 1994 & Mar�Apr 1994), the parish newsletter of St. Augustine�s Orthodox Church, Denver, Colorado.
Editorial note: The late Mgr. Gamber was a Roman Catholic cleric and respected liturgical historian, whose book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy actually changed Cardinal Ratzinger�s mind about the ad orientalem position of the priest at Mass. Ratzinger, in the preface to the English translation, calls Gamber a model liturgist. His observations below about Vatican II having the effect of aligning Rome with Protestantism instead of bringing it closer to the Orthodox East are especially interesting.
We are now witnessing a dismantling of the traditional values and piety on which our [Roman Catholic] faith rests. Added to this state of affairs is the shocking assimilation of Protestant ideas brought into the Church under the guise of the misunderstood term ecumenism with a resulting growing estrangement from the ancient [Orthodox] Churches of the East; that is, a turning away from the common tradition that had been shared by the East and the West.
The question we need to ask is: what are the root causes of this liturgical debacle? Any reasonable person understands that these causes cannot be traced to the Second Vatican Council alone.
In contrast to the liturgies of the Eastern [Orthodox] Church, which continued their development well into the Middle Ages, but remained fixed thereafter, the Roman liturgy, with its simple even plain forms, which originated in early Christianity, had remained almost unchanged for centuries. There is no question that the Roman liturgy is the oldest Christian rite. Over time, a number of popes have undertaken revisions. In an early period, Pope Damasus I (366�384) did so; and later, so did Pope St. Gregory the Great (590�604), among others.
In his time, St. Gregory, making use of older liturgical texts, created a new Sacramentary for the Liturgical Year. He also regulated the sacred chant used by the Church, an accomplishment that later caused it to be called Gregorian Chant.
The Damasian-Gregorian liturgy remained in use throughout the Roman Catholic Church until the liturgical reform in our time. Thus, it is inaccurate to claim that it was the Missal of Pope Pius V [in the 16th century] that has been discontinued. Unlike the appalling changes we are currently witnessing, the changes made in the Roman Missal over a period of almost 1,400 years did not involve the rite itself. Rather, they were changes concerned only with addition and enrichment, &c.
Because of political developments in the eighth century, the liturgy of St. Gregory, which had been designed specifically for use in the city of Rome, became the standard of liturgical worship in many other parts of the Western World. The Gallican rite, then in common use, was suppressed. Only in Spain, where the Moors still held power, and in some areas of Northern Italy, did autonomous rites continue in use for some time. In fact, the Milanese [Ambrosian] rite is in use in Milan today.
The adoption by the Franks of the liturgy designed for use in Rome was the source of steadily recurring problems: the foreign rite was grafted onto existing local liturgical traditions of many cities and villages. The process was never entirely successful�and therein lies a great tragedy. It is also one of the root causes of the debacle of today�s liturgy.
A second, important root cause is to be found in the alienation between the Roman Church in the West and the Eastern Churches, an alienation that began in the eighth and ninth centuries and led ultimately to the formal break between Rome and Byzantium in 1054. This break led to the gradual disintegration of a very important element of worship in [the Western] Church�that of the early Christian concept of liturgical cultus.
According to this concept [which once existed in the pre-Schism West], the liturgy is primarily a sacred act before God, which means, in the words of St. Gregory, that at the hour of Sacrifice, in response to the priest�s acclamation, the heavens open up; the choirs of angels am witnessing this Mystery; what is above and what is below unite; heaven and earth are united, matters visible and invisible become united.
The concept of this cosmic liturgy, which continues to exist in the Eastern Church, is founded on a precisely ordered, solemn conduct of liturgical worship. The concept ruled out any of the forms of minimalism, which, beginning in the Middle Ages, evolved in the West forms of worship designed to celebrate the Holy Mysteries only to the degree absolutely necessary for validity. Thus, in the Western Church, the rites were no more than carried out, rarely celebrated.
In the Eastern Church, however, the liturgy has always remained a dramatic mystery. In this context, for a [Roman] Catholic, Holy Mass is the event that simply occupies him and holds him prisoner. With the break between the Eastern and Western Churches, this important component of liturgical worship has been largely lost. The cold breath of realism now pervades our worship.
As [another] root cause for the debacle, we must look at the phenomenon of individual piety, which originated in the Gothic period, [when] the people�s participation in liturgical worship�when heaven and earth united and divine grace flowed into us-ceased to he the central theme; instead, it was the personal the individual relationship to God and developed in private prayer, that predominated. The faithful were present and remained silent observers. Special, nonliturgical devotional services were introduced to the faithful. The consequence of this development was that the gap between liturgy and popular piety grew ever wider.
Here was a clear indication of what one might call a first liturgical movement�occurring during the Middle Ages! The movement appears to have started at the onset of the Age of Humanism, and was founded on the novel concept of Man�s individual nature. [There then followed the development of vernacular hymns and canticles that] could be sung during the intervals of the Latin chants of the Mass. It was Luther who recognized and understood the significance of these liturgical developments; he adopted them and then built on them.
The reform introduced by [Pope] Pius V [in the 16th century] did not create anything new. It was simply a comprehensive review of the Missal, editing out some additions and changes that, over time, had found their way into the text. As necessary as the reform may have been at the time, in a larger sense it also meant that liturgical forms, as they had developed to that point, had now been made permanent, making further, organic development impossible. Thus, sooner or later, the stage was set for radical change. Before it came to that, however, the Church entered into the Baroque period.
[Many today feel some antipathy toward the highly] ceremonial liturgy of the Baroque period. Then, the churches were profusely decorated, and the altars were embellished with superstructures extending straight to the to the ceiling. Today, in contrast, austerity and realism are held to be the standard for the design of churches and altars; and even to display a cross has now become barely acceptable! If, in times past, Masses were celebrated accompanied by orchestral music, in the glow of countless candles and wafting incense, today, following the dictum, Get rid of all signs of triumphalism! the celebrant stands before a bare altar, saying his prayers and addressing the faithful through a microphone. [We have now] simply eliminated an essential part of the liturgy: that of worshipping God. To worship is an obligation of man than can never change.
Onto the flowering that [liturgical] life in the Church enjoyed during the Baroque period fell the frost of the eighteenth century and the Age of Enlightenment. People were dissatisfied with the traditional liturgical forms because of a commonly held view that they did not adequately address the real problems of the day! In many places, many traditional forms of worship were abolished. The purpose of worship was seen primarily as that of instilling moral behavior in the people.
There was no lack of liturgical experimentation then. Yet, these reforms did not survive very long. They are, however, disturbingly similar to today�s experiments, and they, too, were very much concerned with man and his social problems. Thus, one of [these] reformers demanded that all prayers be removed which place man�s hope in God and thus do not sufficiently encourage man�s self-reliance! Many of the ideas of that period did not come to maturity until today.
It is no surprise that today�s [Roman Catholic] pastors, and among them particularly the young priests who have had no training in the strict norms of liturgy, developed what in their view were fresh ideas about a contemporary form of worship�ideas which often do not conform to traditional teaching [and which crush] all traditional forms of liturgical worship.
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Deep in the heart of every person there is the longing for home, and we can only experience the real meaning of home when we are away from it.
The word Heimat (home or fatherland) is a uniquely German concept. Exactly what meaning does it convey? Heimat is the environment known to us since childhood, the house in which we grew up, the natural surroundings with their people and their habits and customs. To us, the Heimat is always beautiful, even if others don�t share our feelings for it.
Man�s longing for home is his longing for what is familiar and known. It also is a longing for security based on the familiarity of a person�s surroundings. Finally, it is the sense of security that the small child feels when he is with his mother and that he misses as an adult when faced with the uncertainties of life.
The religious person seeks security in the Church as his Mother. In her he hopes to find shelter and help for his troubled soul, answers to the probing questions posed by his intellect, but above all, he wants certainty about the Last Things. What he seeks is an oasis of tranquillity and peace, peace such as the world cannot give (John 14:27).
Last, but certainly not least, the religious person seeks home and shelter in the celebration of liturgical worship. These observations apply equally to non-Christian religions. Missionaries come across these concepts all the time. When they bring individual members of a tribe to accept Christianity, they also tear them out of the social structure of their tribes, with all their rituals, customs and traditions. It usually takes some time until the newly converted adapt to their new home, [Christianity]: the old rituals of their tribe continue to pull them back with the force of a strong magnet.
A people that decides to relinquish its traditional rites is in acute danger of relinquishing its own existence as a people.
A [Roman] Catholic who ceased to be an active member of the Church for the past generation and who, having decided to return to the Church, wants to become religiously active again, probably would not recognize today�s [Roman Catholic] Church as the one he had left. Simply by entering a Catholic church, particularly if it happens to be one of ultra-modem design, he will feel as if he had entered a strange, foreign place. He will think that he must have come to the wrong address and that he has accidentally ended up in some other Christian religious community.
The accustomed [sacred art] in the church has disappeared. Instead of a cross hanging over the altar there now is some often indefinable work of art; the altar itself being a bare slab of rock, akin to a barrow. In vain will he look for the tabernacle on the altar; nor will he find the communion rail. He will miss the smell of incense that he remembers to have always lingered after Mass.
The [Roman Catholic] reformers of our liturgy have failed to consider adequately and address the issue of how the traditional forms of liturgical worship inspired among the faithful a sense of belonging, of feeling at home. They also failed to consider and deal with the Issue of the extent to which simply abolishing these forms of liturgy would also result in a loss of faith among the people.
The Solemn Requiem Mass according to the traditional form, which appealed directly to the heart, has almost completely disappeared. Yet here especially, great care should have been taken in introducing changes, because the customs associated with burial rites are the ones to which people in any cultural setting are most strongly attached. It will be some time until we will be in a position to measure fully the pastoral damage caused to the faithful by the reforms. We must expect that sooner or later we will be facing almost empty pews in our churches, as [some modernist Protestants] have been experiencing for decades now; while, we may point out, that has not been the case in the Lutheran Church which has maintained many of its traditional forms of liturgy. In the end, we will have to recognize that the new liturgical forms did not provide the people with bread, but with stones.
Particularly pernicious is the incessant nature of the changes to which we [in the Roman Catholic Church] are subjected. This is diametrically opposed to the concept of liturgy as our home. To abolish almost completely time-honored customs and traditions is synonymous with robbing a person of his religious home and thus shaking the foundations of his faith. Even a person who has but a superficial knowledge of how the psychology of a people works is bound to agree with these observations.
