Liturgie et société. Gouverner et réformer l'Église XIX.e.–XX.e. Siècle by Bruno Dumons

Abstract

Reviewed by: Liturgie et société. Gouverner et réformer l'Église XIX.e.–XX.e. Siècle by Bruno Dumons Katharine Ellis Liturgie et société. Gouverner et réformer l'Église XIX.e.–XX.e. siècle. Edited by Bruno Dumons, Vincent Petit, and Christian Sorrel. [Collection: Histoire.] (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 2016. Pp. 236. Euro 21,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-7535-4915-9.) Study of the relationships between liturgy and society within francophone Catholicism is given new impetus in this interdisciplinary collection of thirteen essays by authors writing from perspectives in political science, history, sociology, musicology, art history, and theology. The editors alight on two historical 'slices' to focus discussion of what Bruno Dumons calls the 'historical anthropology' of liturgical [End Page 564] reform: the Romanization of the liturgy across France between 1839 and 1875; and the lead-up to Vatican II, and its aftermath. Though the nineteeth century is less well represented than the twentieth, this attempt at a dialogue between the two periods works promisingly well. 'Does liturgy make society? Does society make liturgy?' With these bold questions about a liturgy that Vincent Petit describes, in an opening contextual chapter, as permanently under construction, the editors push the boundaries of historical enquiry beyond the examination of Vatican and diocesan legislation or the waxing and waning of popular religious observance, and move towards the detailed coalface study of liturgical reform and its implementation within francophone dioceses and other Catholic communities ranging from France to Switzerland to Canada. The book's authors address three main subjects: the activity of central and maverick reformist agents across the two centuries (Xavier Bisaro, Augustin Laffray, Daniel Moulinet, Benoit-Marie Solaberrieta, Paul Airiau); instances of liturgical resistance, provocation, and experiment (Francis Python, Yvon Tranvouez, Isabelle Saint-Martin); and shifting relationships between church governance and liturgical reform (Séverine Blenner-Michel, Sarah Scholl, Gilles Routhier, Florian Michel). Alongside colourful individuals such as the would-be plainchant scholar Bottée de Toulmon, the Oratorian (and former Anglo-Catholic) Louis Bouyer, and the renegade abbot Bernard Besret, the book's authors tackle the distinctly less glamorous subject of committees and councils as sites of negotiation and influence. Bisaro is persuasive on why members of the Comité des Arts et des Monuments tried and failed to institutionalize plainchant as national heritage in the 1840s; likewise Blenner-Michel on why, conversely, the provincial liturgical councils of the Second Empire helped create the momentum that brought about Romanization, and how and why seemingly intractable dioceses such as Paris, Lyon, Rouen, Tours, and Besançon were brought into line. For the twentieth century, Python and Routhier respectively explain the background to resistance to reform in French Switzerland (where lay converts from Protestantism had no wish to return to practices they had rejected) and acceptance in Québec (where pre-council activity involved the youth groups and the press alongside the episcopal committee on liturgy, meaning that Vatican II reformers eventually pushed at an open door). The move to vernacular worship—bringing with it both sudden revelations of meaning and 'euphemistic' or theologically inappropriate translations—emerges as a lightning rod for debate and experimentation across all constituencies in France (Airiau on Boyer; Michel on the increasing sophistication with which French systems of church governance were adapted in the 1960s and '70s to respond to conflicts over francophone liturgical texts; Tranvouez on the 'transgressive' [sauvage] French liturgies of the same period). These responses to a need for congregational involvement—already present in 1840s arguments about how plainchant might supplant more complex music—return in Saint-Martin's study of 1960s immersive and non-hierarchical church architecture, and the return of the church artisan (as opposed to the artist). [End Page 565] Together these essays on art and architecture, music, liturgical texts, and church organization, effectively challenge the traditional view of a 'clerical' and rather closed nineteenth century followed by a twentieth century more attuned to the needs of the faithful and to congregational participation. More importantly they illustrate the value of taking a holistic and emphatically lateral view of church reform—one that recognizes the interrelated contributions of lay individuals (antiquarians, journalists, artists) and communities, the monastic orders...