THE 1971 PETITION BY DISTINGUISHED WRITERS, SCHOLARS, ARTISTS, AND HISTORIANS LIVING IN ENGLAND TO SPARE THE TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site E-mail: traditio@traditio.com, Web: www.traditio.com Copyright 1994-2004 CSM. Reproduction prohibited without authorization. Last Revised: 09/16/04 If some senseless decree were to order the total or partial destruction of basilicas or cathedrals, then obviously it would be the educated -- whatever their personal beliefs -- who would rise up in horror to oppose such a possibility. Now the fact is that basilicas and cathedrals were built so as to celebrate a rite which, until a few months ago, constituted a living tradition. We are referring to the Roman Catholic Mass. Yet, according to the latest information in Rome, there is a plan to obliterate that Mass by the end of the current year. One of the axioms of contemporary publicity, religious as well as secular, is that modern man in general, and intellectuals in particular, have become intolerant of all forms of tradition and are anxious to suppress them and put something else in their place. But, like many other affirmations of our publicity machines, this axiom is false. Today, as in times gone by, educated people are in the vanguard where recognition of the value of tradition is concerned, and are the first to raise the alarm when it is threatened. We are not at this moment considering the religious or spiritual experience of millions of individuals. The rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has also inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts -- not only mystical works, but works by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians. In the materialistic and technocratic civilisation that is increasingly threatening the life of mind and spirit in its original creative expression -- the word -- it seems particularly inhuman to deprive man of word-forms in one of their most grandiose manifestations. The signatories of this appeal, which is entirely ecumenical and nonpolitical, have been drawn from every branch of modern culture in Europe and elsewhere. They wish to call to the attention of the Holy See, the appalling responsibility it would incur in the history of the human spirit were it to refuse to allow the Traditional Mass to survive, even though this survival took place side by side with other liturgical forms. Signed, Harold Acton Vladimir Ashkenazy John Bayler Lennox Berkeley Maurice Bowra Agatha Christie Kenneth Clark Nevill Coghill Cyril Connolly Colin Davis Hugh Delargy Robert Exeter Miles Fitzalen-Howard Constantine Fitzgibbon William Glock Magdalen Gofflin Robert Graves Graham Greene Ian Greenless Joseph Grimond Harman Grisewood Colin Hardie Rupert Hart-Davis Barbara Hepworth Auberon Herbert John Jolliffe David Jones Osbert Lancaster F.R. Leavis Cecil Day Lewis Compton Mackenzie George Malcolm Max Mallowan Alfred Marnau Yehudi Menuhin Nancy Mitford Raymond Mortimer Malcolm Muggeridge Iris Murdoch John Murray Sean O'Faolain E.J. Oliver Oxford and Asquith William Plomer Kathleen Raine William Rees-Mogg Ralph Richardson John Ripon Charles Russell Rivers Scott Joan Sutherland Philip Toynbee Martin Turnell Bernard Wall Patrick Wall E.I. Watkin R.C. Zaehner THE "HEENAN" OR "AGATHA CHRISTIE" INDULT [cardinal Heenan, having received an indult in 1967 for parts of England and Wales to use the pre-1967 edition of the Roman Missal (before the changes in the Canon) on an occasional basis, received in 1971 the so-called Agatha Christie indult to permit the Traditional Latin Mass (1962 Missal) to be celebrated in England. [This indult was extended in 1984 to the whole world in the Letter Quattuor Abhinc Annos. In 1988 appeared John Paul II's Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei. In 1991 the humiliating and punitive restrictions, originally attached to the Agatha Christie indult, were finally removed. Bishops who obstinately continue to apply them are therefore acting ultra vires. [Of course, traditional Catholics generally see no need for any such "indult," as the Traditional Latin Mass has been canonized for virtually twenty centuries by Sacred Tradition and specifically by the solemn Papal Bull "Quo Primum" (1570) of Pope St. Pius V, carrying out the canons of the dogmatic Council of Trent, requiring the use of the Traditional Latin Mass "in perpetuity."] SACRA CONGREGATIO PRO CULTU DIVINO E Civitate Vaticana, die 5 November 1971 Prot. N. 1897/71 Your Eminence, His Holiness Pope Paul VI, by letter of 30 October 1971, has given special faculties to the undersigned Secretary of this Sacred Congregation to convey to Your Eminence, as Chairman of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, the following points regarding the Order of the Mass: 1. Considering the pastoral needs referred to by Your Eminence, it is permitted to the local Ordinaries of England and Wales to grant that certain groups of the faithful may on special occasions be allowed to participate in the Mass celebrated according to the Rites and texts of the former Roman Missal. The edition of the Missal to be used on these occasions should be that published again by the Decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (27 January 1965), and with the modifications indicated in the Instructio altera (4 May 1967). This faculty may be granted provided that groups make the request for reasons of genuine devotion, and provided that the permission does not disturb or damage the general communion of the faithful. For this reason the permission is limited to certain groups on special occasions; at all regular parish and other community Masses, the Order of the Mass given in the new Roman Missal should be used. Since the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity, it is necessary that the use of the Order of Mass given in the former Missal should not become a sign or cause of disunity in the Catholic community. For this reason agreement among the Bishops of the Episcopal Conference as to how this faculty is to be exercised will be a further guarantee of unity of praxis in this area. 2. Priests who on occasion wish to celebrate Mass according to the above- mentioned edition of the Roman Missal may do so by consent of their Ordinary and in accordance with the norms given by the same. When these priests celebrate Mass with the people and wish to use the rites and texts of the former Missal, the conditions and limits mentioned above for celebration by certain groups on special occasions are to be applied. With my highest respects, I am Yours sincerely in Christ, (Signed:) A. Bugnini Secretary Sacra Congregatio pro Cultu Divino