6. Preaching After the Third Plenary Council (1884-1905)

 

Not that the Third Council ignored what the Second Council had said. The new rules on homiletics (Chapter I, Dc Praedicationis Munere of Titulus VII, Dc Doctrina Christiana) cited as a source not only the Council of Trent but Plenary II itself. They also re-stated much of what had been set forth in the earlier Council. Sermons should be easy and brief. They should be prepared studiously and prayerfully. They should not deal with profane novelties or rash and irrelevant matters, especially the political. The speaker should not indulge in personal denunciations and personal vendettas, nor harangue his listeners saepe saepius on church finances. The Third Council also retained the admonition against dealing with religiously controversial subjects in a manner offensive to non-Catholics, and against using as illustrations "old wives’ tales" that might cause Protestants to laugh and Catholics to squirm. Repeated, as well, was the exhortation to maintain a middle course between rigorism and laxism in moral doctrine.

The Third Plenary Council went beyond its predecessor especially in three particulars. First, it reminded its readers of what Trent had meant by "assiduous" preaching: pastors should not only preach on every Sunday and holyday; they should announce the Sacred Scriptures and the divine law every day in Advent and Lent, or at least three times weekly, according to the judgment of the bishop. Second, they should be sure to communicate pure and correct doctrine as taught by the infallible magisterium of the Church (this is an allusion to the definition of papal infallibility set forth by the First Vatican Council in1870).

Newer still was the provision of No. 216, which canonized, on a plenary level, the trend that had been growing since 1866 to require "brief instructions" at all Sunday Masses other than the high or parochial Mass.

Rumor has it, the Fathers say (vaguely and charitably), that some congregations "almost never hear the word of God." Those who attend the low Masses on Sunday and holydays, whether out of choice or necessity, are often deprived of preaching throughout the year for want of sermons at those Masses. This is a sad situation. No wonder "truths are decayed from among the children of men" (Ps. 11, 1).

To apply a remedy, the bishops order:

that on Sundays and solemn feast days, even in summer, all who have the care of souls shall read the day’s Gospel distinctly in the vernacular, and if time permits, instruct the people in the law of God for five minutes, notwithstanding any custom or pretext to the contrary. They are to do this at all Masses at which the faithful are present, whether sung Masses or low Masses or very early Masses. They will discharge this duty themselves, or if they are legitimately impeded, through other appropriate persons.

This ruling is not intended to set aside the Sunday concio. "The sermon proper," says the decree, is to be presented at the last Mass, "which is considered among us to be the community or parochial Mass."

So that these "conciunculae" may be effective, the homilist is not only urged to incorporate in them salutary warnings drawn from the Gospel, but to teach Christian doctrine, "even according to the order of the Catechism of the Council of Trent for Pastors, or the diocesan catechism, or one by some other approved author." Preachers will thus have adequate material always at hand, "and be less likely to accustom the people to certain popular styles of instruction which pass over in silence some of the chief duties of the followers of Christ and some of the principal mysteries of the Faith."

This is an interesting development, prompted by a genuine pastoral solicitude. The Fathers of III Plenary Baltimore, in allowing only five minutes for these Mass-time instructions, were more benign than many bishops thought proper, as we shall see later on in the local legislation. But we have here a further step in the evolution of catechetically-oriented sermons. Yet the Fathers were evidently not confusing catechetical Mass-instructions with mere catechesis. Their use of the term "conciunculae" (here employed for the first time in a major American council) invites comparison with the term "condo," applied to the major sermon of the parochial Mass. They seem to imply that whatever the concio or major sermon is, the conciuncula is, too, though in a diminished degree. The conciuncula was evidently intended to catechise, but also to inspire and move to action.³⁴

Although the Third Council spoke well of following the order of the Roman Catechism in these Mass-time instructions, it allowed preachers to take their pattern from other catechisms if they chose those designated by a bishop for his own diocese, or any other that had official approbation. Perhaps the Fathers extended the choice of catechetical sources in view of the anticipated publication of the Baltimore Catechism which they had commissioned in Decree No. 219. Simple question-and-answer catechisms could indeed furnish familiar definitions and a handy pattern for a series of doctrinal instructions. Furthermore, they were in the vernacular, as the more voluminous copies of the Roman Catechism usually were not. (It is revealing no secret to state that long before Vatican II largely displaced Latin with the vernacular, American Catholic priests, given a choice between a source-book in Latin and one in English, tended to opt for the latter.) One may wonder, though, whether it was wise for the Third Plenary Council to give the appearance of de-emphasizing the Trent Catechism. The Roman handbook was a far richer document than any penny catechism could be.

The Titulus Ultimus of the Third Council declared that it was not going to require, as the Second Council had, that the American metropolitans convoke councils and the American bishops assemble synods, to promulgate at a lower level the plenary decrees. It was not necessary, for the decrees of Plenary III became national Church law as soon as the presiding apostolic delegate confirmed them. However, the Baltimore Fathers did recommend this course to the archbishops and bishops as an option, not only to underscore the solemn importance of the plenary legislation, but to insure its better communication to the Catholic faithful.

Actually, the day of provincial councils was almost done. The Third Plenary Council offered a body of laws detailed enough to take care the principal legal needs of the whole American Catholic Church Councils were held, nevertheless, in three ecclesiastical provinces: Milwaukee I (1886), Cincinnati V (1889) and Oregon City III (1891). Milwaukee I re-stated the preaching decrees of the Third Plenary Council; Cincinnati V and Oregon III contented themselves with rubber stamping the totality of the plenary legislation.³⁵

If there were only three provincial councils convoked directly after III Baltimore, there was an abundance of subsequent diocesan synods. We have examined the relevant decrees of forty-six synods held between 1884 and the issuance, in 1905, of Pope St. Pius X’s encyclical on catechetics, Acerbo Nimis. These diocesan councils represent every Church province in the United States but that of San Francisco.³⁶

He who reads a wide selection of the synods of this period immediately discerns the powerful unifying impact that the Third Council of Baltimore exercised on the American Catholic Church. In the matter of homiletic regulations, the dioceses evidence a general consensus on the need of strong and cyclic pulpit catechesis, and of regular preaching at all Sunday-holy day Masses, not just the official parochial Mass.

The legislating bishops find some difficulty with homiletic terminology. The main Sunday sermon is a concio, but what name is used of those talks delivered at the low masses? Baltimore IX, Providence III, and New Orleans V get around the issue by using a verb rather than a noun: priests are directed to "teach" ("erudire") the faithful at these Masses. Leavenworth II and Arizona I adopt the Plenary Council’s distinction between concio and conciuncula. New York suffragans tend to follow the wording of the Fourth Provincial Council of New York (1883): "brief homiletic or catechetical instructions" (so Trenton I). St. Louis III, which says preachers should so love to be catechetical that they follow the catechetical model even in the Sunday concio, applies to the low Mass instructions the significant name "homiliae brevissimae." These variations in terminology may reflect the on-going debate over the distinction between a homily, a sermon, a homiletic instruction, etc. Perhaps they also reflect a growing awareness of the anomaly of having a set "sermon" at one Mass and something shorter but not all that different at the other Masses. Had not III Albany (held just before the Plenary Council of 1884) said of these briefer sermons that they should "educate the minds of the listeners and soften their hearts?" Semantic difficulties do not hamper the bishops’ main thrust, however. They are clearly determined to promote the preaching of Christian doctrine in season and out of season.

Another evidence of this firm intention is the increasing concern the bishops show about the span of time allotted to the low Mass "instructions." Of course, many of the prelates accept verbatim the Plenary Council’s assignment of "the twelfth part of an hour." (So, for instance, Harrisburg III, La Crosse I, Leavenworth II, and New Orleans V.) Others, respectful but perhaps also artful, simply speak of "brief’ instructions. (So, for instance, Albany V, Hartford III, Davenport II.) On the other hand New York IX (1898) allows preachers of "instructions" from five to fifteen minutes. Cincinnati 11(1886) says the talks should take at least ten minutes; and Santa Fe 1(1888) grants no more than fifteen minutes. This trend was clearly based on practical experience.

And what do the synods say of series-preaching and of the Roman Catechism?

Ten of them refer to the Tridentine Catechism explicitly as a chief resource in covering Christian doctrines and duties from the pulpit. Another synod, Nesqually IV (1898), keeps closer to the wording of the Plenary Council, recommending the Roman Catechism and "other approved authors." Trenton II does not name the Roman Catechism, but derives from that work its outline of doctrinal subject matter.

There is no consensus among the bishops as to when, precisely, the main credenda and facienda are to be treated from the Sunday morning pulpit. Syracuse I (1887) says the Roman Catechism is to be followed in the concio of the official parish Mass. St. Louis III (1896), as we have already noted, urges that the catechetical approach be used in the concio and in the "instructions" alike. If the other synods are less precise, their imprecision is perhaps intentional.

There is also no firm agreement among the bishops on the length of time for completing the doctrinal cycle. Wilmington III (1898) speaks of one year for treating the principal dogmas. Trenton II (1896) speaks of two years. These reflect the norm set down by the Plenary Council of 1866. On the other hand, Bishop Sebastian Messmer, in the Third Synod of Green Bay (1898), says that a doctrinal series should take from two to three years, and not more than five. In allowing a longer period, Messmer was anticipating the standard that St. Pius X would set in 1905.

In their synodal legislation the bishops still exercised their own prerogatives to amplify homiletic regulations and multiply homiletic cautions. What is most significant, however, was the thorough support they gave to Plenary Council’s campaign for more extensive Sunday preaching, and preaching with a stronger catechetical emphasis.

The next Church legislation on preaching to appear after that the Third Plenary Council came not from the American hierarchy but from Rome. Whether as a rural pastor or as head of the Church, Pope St. Pius X was always a dedicated catechist.³⁷ The most important catechetical document he issued while pope was his encyclical letter April 15, 1905, Acerbo Nimis, "On the Teaching of Christian Doctrine."³⁸ The encyclical concluded with a set of directives binding the Church throughout the world.

Acerbo Nimis did not break with the instruction norms of the Council of Trent. In fact, its purpose was to renew those norms in a contemporary context and see to it that they were implemented everywhere.

Most of the encyclical deals with the doctrinal instruction of young people. But St. Pius fully realized that children are not the only persons ignorant of the ABC’s of the Faith. "In matters of religion," he observes, "the majority of men in our times must be considered uninstructed." Therefore he devotes the last of his six directives to adult catechesis.

VI. Since it is a fact that in these days adults need instruction no less than the young, all pastors and those having the care of souls shall explain the Catechism to the people in a plain and simple style adapted to the intelligence of their hearers. This shall be carried out on all holydays of obligation, at such a time as is most convenient to the people, but not during the same hour when the children are instructed, and this instruction must be in addition to the usual homily on the Gospel which is delivered at the parochial Mass on Sundays and holydays. The catechetical instruction shall be based on the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and the matter is to be divided in such a way that in the space of four or five years, treatment will be given to the Apostles’ Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Precepts of the Church.

In the body of the letter, the Pope had already explained this difference between the catechetical instruction and the "sermo de sacro Evangelio" of the type given at the main Sunday Mass. A catechetical instruction, he said, is addressed to those who do not know the Faith. A sermo is addressed to those who do know the Faith and are prepared to hear it more deeply analyzed. (Notice that St. Pius stresses the Gospel text as the main source for the Sunday concio. As we have seen, American bishops, while never excluding a scriptural approach in the high Mass homily, were inclined to favor a catechetical accent even in this formal sermon.) However, pulpit rhetoric, says the Holy Father, sometimes misses the mark. A grandiloquent preacher may utterly fail to touch the hearts of his listeners. (One writer has declared, in view of Pope Pius’ reproof of homiletic bombast, "This document destroyed at one stroke the tottering reign of the ‘pulpit orator’ and inaugurated a return to apostolic simplicity in preaching."³⁹) On the other hand, St. Pius points out, a catechesis really moves the congregation.

If the catechesis of which he speaks has an emotional impact on the people, it must be more than a mere intellectual presentation. Yes, the Pope says, a catechesis explains a truth of Christian belief or moral doctrine; it contrasts God’s expectation of us in this regard with our shortcoming; it cites Scripture, Church history and the lives of the saints as supporting witness; and it ends by exhorting all to flee vice and cultivate virtue. "Catechesis," as understood by Pope Pius is therefore pretty much the same as conciuncula, as understood by the American bishops since 1884. Does not a catechesis, as defined by St. Pius, contain all the rhetorical elements of a true sermon: to instruct, to inspire, and to move to action? If so, wherein does it differ from the type of sermo delivered at the Sunday "parochial Mass?" In taking its departure from the Catechism rather than from the Scripture readings? In its length? In its presumption that the congregation needs more milk than meat?

The Pope says specifically that this adult catechesis should not replace the formal parochial concio. He also says it should not be given at the same time the children were being given catechetcial training. (This must mean simply that it is not feasible to try to teach Christian doctrine to adults and children in common, since each group requires a very different approach.) When, therefore, should adult catechesis be scheduled? Pius says, give it at an hour on Sunday and holydays that is "most convenient to the people." He seems to assume that priests will find late afternoon or early evening the best time to reassemble the faithful for this special course of instructions. That seems to have been the case in Europe. In the United States, too, especially before World War I, when Sunday was still a sabbath of prolonged worship and strict leisure, Catholic churches usually had postmeridian Sunday services. But even in the period 1905-1920, it was becoming increasingly difficult to gather American Catholics together twice a Sunday, at least in any numbers.

In the Third Synod of Rochester (1914), Bishop Thomas F. Hickey simply summarized earlier legislation on preaching, quoted Acerbo Nimis on adult catechesis, and made no effort to say whether the prescribed low Mass sermonettes would satisfy the adult catechetical obligation.⁴³

For reasons known best to themselves, the episcopal legislators of seven other synods made no allusion to the papal encyclical. These were: Syracuse VII (October, 1905), Chicago III (December, 1905), Sioux City 11(1909). Little Rock I (1909), Belleville III (1909), Kansas City, Kansas, 11(1912), and Oklahoma City I (1913). However, all of these except Syracuse VII and Belleville III mentioned the Roman Catechism.⁴⁴

Two bishops (at least) responded more boldly: Charles McDonnell of Brooklyn and John W. Shanahan of Harrisburg.

A few months after the appearance of the papal encyclical, apparently in Advent 1906, Bishop McDonnell instructed his priests to dispense with sermons (?) at all but the last Mass on Sundays, and to replace them with instructions based on "the catechism of the Church," arranged sequentially to cover the Sacraments, the Commandments, the Creed, the Hail Mary, the Our Father, and the acts of faith, hope, charity and contrition. This was a plan followed in Ireland, the Bishop said; he had made a special study of it. Along with the mandate, Bishop McDonnell sent his priests a book containing a summary of the program. The book provided for a leisurely and thorough progression. Catechesis on the Apostles’ Creed alone was to occupy a whole year of Sundays; and "by the time the last leaf of the book of instructions has been turned," a decade would have passed. McDonnell’s venture, said the newspaper that announced it, was the first of its type in the United States. Perhaps the Brooklyn book of instructions was also the first American diocesan preaching syllabus. One wonders whether the Bishop considered the low Mass catechical "instructions" to be "non-sermons" because they were not based on the Sunday readings, or because they were preponderantly doctrinal.⁴⁵

There is a long tradition of preaching syllabi in the diocese of Harrisburg. It may date from 1911, when Bishop Shanahan announced the adoption of a preaching policy similar to that of Brooklyn. He told his priests to observe the mandates of Acerbo Nimis in general, and to give catechetical instructions at all Masses but the high Mass, following the data and pattern of the Roman Catechism.⁴⁶

It would be interesting to know how many people turned out for the evening catechesis prescribed by the diocese of Erie, or, even more, by the diocese of Fall River. On the other hand, the bishops of Brooklyn and Harrisburg, who cut the Gordian knot by assigning the required adult catechesis to the Sunday low Masses, acted out of true pastoral realism. Most American bishops were increasingly ready to believe that the "brief instructions" ordered by the Third Plenary Council were practically indistinguishable from "catechesis" as interpreted by St. Pius X. Furthermore, both Plenary II and III had agreed with the Pope that Roman Catechism was the outstanding source of material for doctrinal preaching.

Acerbo Nimis was, therefore, not without its obscurities. But it did give a timely and effective emphasis to the need of repeating again and again the Catholic teachings of faith and morals. Valuable, too, was its definite assignment of a four-year period for covering this doctrinal cycle. And if the Third Plenary Council, by allowing an option of catechisms as preachers’ handbooks, had to any extent lowered the American priest’s estimate of the Roman Catechism, here was the "Catechist Pope" himself hoisting it again to its former pedestal.

Of course, the main drawback of the American trend to assign the mandated catechesis to the low Mass sermon-time, was that it reinforced the tendency to divorce the conciunculae from the scriptural and liturgical context of the Mass, even though the concio was still, according to Acerbo Nimis, to be a scriptural homily. Systematic catechetical instructions at Mass doubtless did produce, as the historian of the Brooklyn Diocese testifies, a "better instructed laity." But Christian doctrine is surely not the only font available to the preacher of salvation history.

The legislation on preaching next after Acerbo Nimis also came from Rome. It was the homiletic and catechetical provisions of the Code of Canon Law of 1918. Whatever the post-Vatican II Church may do to revise this corpus of Latin Rite Church law, the 1918 Code will remain a monumental synthesis. Here we shall examine its relevant canons, and then see how they were reflected in local American Church law up to 1935. We choose 1935 because in that year the Holy See issued the instruction Pro vido Sane Consilio on catechetical instruction. While Provido was not in itself of major importance, it was issued at a time when American folkways had pretty finally restricted Catholic churchgoing to Sunday mornings.

Preaching as such is discussed in the Code’s Third Book, in Title XX, "De divini verbi praedicatione." In Canon 1344, the old requirement of the concio is retained. The pastor is to deliver the "customary homily" each Sunday and holyday, especially at the best-attended Mass. He must not delegate this task perpetually to others. For just cause, however, the Ordinary may permit the concio to be omitted on some Sundays and major feast days.

Of the subject matter of sermons, Canon 1347 says it is to be primarily "those things that it is a matter of salvation to believe and perform." Preachers are to avoid subjects that are non-religious or beyond the grasp of the average person; and they must not take off on flights of eloquence in which they preach themselves rather than Christ crucified. Should they teach scandalous, erroneous or heretical doctrines from the pulpit, they will, of course, be dealt with according to the appropriate Church laws.

All this re-echoes the Council of Trent. More original and contemporary is Canon 1345:

Before turning to the American councils and synods to see what impact the legislation of the Code had on their preaching and catechetical decrees, it is important for us to note that during the decade following the promulgation of the Code, two books appeared in the United States that made a unique contribution to American Catholic homiletics and catechetjcs. Authors of both works were the noted team of Dominican scholars, Fathers Charles J. Callan and John A. McHugh. Their first book, designed as a scholarly aid to preachers in the preparation of catechetical conciunculae, was the four-volume A Parochial Course of Doctrinal Instructions (New York, 1920-1921). This work observed the order of the Roman Catechism, using as its text a revised form of the 1829 translation of the Catechism by Jeremy Donovan. Two years later, in 1923, the same authors published a new translation of the Catechism, made by themselves: Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests Issued by Order of Pius V. The Parochial Course, despite its size, was apparently popular; furthermore it seems to have encouraged other theologians and homilists to publish similar, if not always so voluminous, sermon series of their own. To have the Roman Catechism in a new translation was a great boon. It was easier to read than the Latin version. It was more exact than the older English translations. And the demand for it was extensive: between 1923 and 1956 the publisher ran off fourteen printings.⁴⁸

What, now, of the provincial councils and synods held between 1918 and 1935?

Canon 283 of the Code directed that metropolitans convoke provincial councils at least every two decades. Actually, only two provincial councils have taken place in this country since 1918. These were held in 1932 and 1957 by that American province which had always been a bit of a canonical maverick: Oregon City or, rather, the Province of Portland, as it had been renamed in 1928. The decrees on preaching of the Fourth Provincial Council of Portland, 1932, were essentially a blending of the do’s and don’ts of the Third Plenary Council with the specifics of the new Code. They required that in all public Sunday Masses, and holyday Masses, too, as time permits, the Gospel be read and an explanation then be given of it or of some part of Christian doctrine. The Ordinaries of the province are urged to send out a "schema" of "conciones and catechetical instructions" for the benefit of preachers. Sermons should not exceed twenty minutes in length.⁴⁹ It will be noted that, apart from the use of the word concio (which may have been employed here in a non-technical sense) there is no allusion to the old distinction maintained even by the Code between the "instructions" and the formal concio at the principal Mass. The assignment of twenty minutes to all Mass-sermons suggests that the Province of Portland had already abandoned the outdated "parish Mass" distinction as no longer corresponding to reality, and was now, by way of equalization, extending the sermon-time at all Masses. While the Roman Catechism is not mentioned, the preaching syllabi suggested by IV Provincial Portland imply the Catechism’s influence.

As we have already intimated, after the Code appeared, the bishops fell back into the old quandary about the proper time-slot for the adult catechesis. Might this catechesis be communicated in the form of a catechetical sermon at the Sunday low Masses or might it not? The prelates had no difficulty in agreeing on the need of a multi-year cycle of catechetical instructions to adults, based principally on the Roman Catechism. (Syracuse XI, in 1921, even recommended the new CallanMcHugh Parochial Course of Doctrinal Sermons as an aid to this end.) But several of the synods maintained what seems to have been an embarrassed silence on the time for delivering the required instructions. One alone, St. Louis VII (1929), assigned them to Sunday afternoon, suggesting that the popular "Question Box" formula be used. Rochester V, more skeptical, advised in 1935, "If the catechetical instruction for adults, referred to in Canon 1332, cannot conveniently be given after noon, it is to be given within the Mass." Although II Des Moines (1923) and XVII Charleston (1925) attempted to solve the dilemma by relegating the series to Advent, Lent, and other times, the bishops were now moving a little faster towards the Mass-time solution that IV Provincial of Portland seems to have settled on in 1932. The First Synod of Altoona (1922), said the catechesis should be given to adults often, even within the Mass; or that sermons should at least be cast in a catechetical mold. The Eighth Synod of Harrisburg directed that a catechetical instruction be given at one of the Sunday Masses in all parishes; and it based the ruling on Canon 1332!