Rugwig: September 2020

[234] To Dom Ignace Gillet

September 11, 1964

[236] Much is said here about Latin and Gregorian chant: things to be "suppressed" because we do not "understand" them. Well, this is a very serious point. I believe that, as you say, many young people more easily admit that they are dissatisfied with the Gregorian chant and the Latin, because they are made to believe this. I know very well that in our monasteries in America there is a real movement, an agitation, for this and for still other things. People are pushed into thinking that they are dissatisfied with the Latin, the Gregorian chant, the status of laybrother, the liturgy as we have it, when in reality that is not the case at all. For a long time it was said here that "the brothers" in general wanted to change habit, come to choir, change their status, etc. But it was only a few brothers who, moreover, were not always the best ones but who got more agitated and had more to say, and who tried to persuade the others to go with them, etc. You know these stories quite well by now.

But this is what I think about the Latin and the chant: They are masterpieces, which offer us an irreplaceable monastic and Christian experience. They have a force, an energy, a depth without equal. All the proposed English offices are very much impoverished in comparison—besides, it is not at all impossible to make such things understood and appreciated. Generally I succeeded quite well in this, in the novitiate, with some exceptions, naturally, who did not understand well. But I must add something more serious. As you know, I have many friends in the world who are artists, poets, authors, editors, etc. Now they are well able to appreciate our chant and even our Latin. But they are all, without exception, scandalized and grieved when I tell them that probably this Office, this Mass will no longer be here in ten years. And that is the worst. The monks cannot understand this treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art.

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Source: Thomas Merton, The School of Charity: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Renewal and Spiritual Direction, ed. Patrick Hart (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990), 234, 236.

I want to thank this anonymous comment left on "Repost: Modesty in Dress (June 1958)" which provides a thorough history of the documentation surrounding the Vatican Standard of Modesty and also definitively locates its original Italian publication in the Bollettino del Clero Romano 8 no. 10 (Oct. 1928), 134. This is a major step forward in clarifying the confusing history of this publication. For example, it corrects Fr. Kunkel's original, but mistaken, statement that he found the standard in L'Osservatore Romano, when in fact it was published in the above-mentioned Bollettino.

As I noted in my reply to the comment, "Even if Pius XI may not have seen and/or explicitly promoted these particular directives, nevertheless clearly bishops and theologians took the directives as expressing the authentic mind of the Holy See, despite all the subsequent and inexplicable confusions surrounding its origins and related documentation from the various Curial offices." This is verified for example in this quotation from the Homiletic and Pastoral Review:

"The words of the Sacred Congregation of Religious quoted by our correspondent are very helpful to the priests and Catholic educators inasmuch as they express the mind of the Holy See on the subject of immodesty in women's dress" (emphasis mine).

I've reposted this comment below (with accompanying footnotes) unedited for everyone's edification:

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Hello,

In case you are still interested in establishing the authenticity of the Vatican Standards, here is some new information.

These standards were issued by Cardinal-Vicar Basilio Pompili [2]. They were then translated into French [3], and this translation was successively quoted by Bishop Rouleau [6 p. 20], Bishop Decelles [7 p. 538] and Bishop Douville [8 p. 359].

Unfortunately, the translation [3] has a number of flaws:

(1) "che non scenda un poco più giù del ginocchio" (which does not fall a bit below the knee) has been translated into "qui descend à peine au-dessous des genoux". This sounds to me like the knees have to be covered by a large margin, which is an overstatement of what the original standard asks for. Note that this problem is also present in the English translation.
(2) "quante frequentano l'Istituto da Lei diretto" (all those who attend the institution over which you preside) has been translated into "toutes les personnes qui dirigent votre institution" (all those who preside over your institution).
(3) The words "che pur professano di appartenere al gregge di Gesù Cristo e alla sua Chiesa", the whole paragraph "Sarà Nostra cura [...] i deplorati abusi" and the words "della S. C. dei Religiosi" have been omitted without notice.
(4) The words "auxquelles nous vous prions de vous conformer dans la direction de votre établissement" are not present in the original text.

The two last omissions are particularly unfortunate, because they can mislead one into thinking that the guidelines were included in the directions issued by the Congregation of Religious [1] and later referred to by the Congregation of the Council [5], which are quoted just before. This kind of confusion has indeed been observed repeatedly; for an extreme instance, see [11-12], whose account is completely at variance with the historical facts.

I have no similar explanation, however, as to why such confusion is widespread in the English speaking world as well (and it has been since an early date, as your post [4] shows).

By the way, while it seems plausible that Pope Pius XI at least read and approved Cardinal Pompili's standards, as far as I know even that is not yet conclusively established. Therefore, it is probably best to refrain from claiming that these standards were written by order of the Pope, as some people do [10 p. 13].

References:

[1] Commentarium pro Religiosis 9 (1928), 414-415. Quoted in [2]. An English translation is given in [9].

[2] Cardinal B. Pompili, "Circolare alle Superiore degli Istituti religiosi femminili", Bollettino del Clero Romano 8 no. 10 (Oct. 1928), 134.

https://archive.org/details/circolare-alle-superiore-degli-istituti-religiosi-femminili

[3] "Les modes inconvenantes", La Documentation Catholique no. 491 (Oct. 1929), 655-656.

https://archive.org/details/les-modes-inconvenantes

[4] Immodest Women's Dress, The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 30 no. 1-6 (Oct. 1929 to March 1930), 171-173.

https://rugwig.blogspot.com/2018/07/repost-immodest-womens-dress.html

[5] Sacra Congregatio Concilii, "Instructio ad ordinarios diœcesanos: De inhonesto feminarum vestiendi more", Acta Apostolicæ Sedis 22 (1930), 26-28.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-22-1930-ocr.pdf

[6] Bishop R.-M. Rouleau, "Circulaire au clergé", 6 April 1930, part I, in Mandements, lettres pastorales et circulaires des Évêques de Québec 13, suppl. 33, 15-20.

https://archive.org/details/mandementslettre13glis/page/n638

[7] Bishop F.-Z. Decelles, "Circulaire au clergé", 15 Sept. 1933, part III, in Mandements des Évêques de Saint-Hyacinthe 18, 537-540.

https://archive.org/details/circulaire-au-clerge/page/n5

[8] Bishop A. Douville, "Lettre pastorale et mandement", 22 July 1944, in Mandements des Évêques de Saint-Hyacinthe 21, 353-361.

https://archive.org/details/lettre-pastorale-et-mandement

[9] "Rome’s Decrees on Modesty in Dress", Marylike Crusader, Nov.-Dec. 1963.

https://ladyofperpetualhelp.weebly.com/

https://www.national-coalition.org/modesty/moddecre.html

[10] R. T. Hart, Those Who Serve God Should Not Follow the Fashions, 6th edition, 2017 (1st edition 2003).

http://sicutincaelo.org/downloads/TWSG_Read.pdf

[11] "Règles de l'Église sur la modestie", Vers Demain, Aug.-Sept. 2007, 15.

https://docplayer.fr/85502325-En-preparation-du-congres-eucharistique-2008-a-quebec-ravivons-notre-devotion-a-la-messe-du-dimanche-et-a-la-sainte-eucharistie.html