In 1995, Adoremus Bulletin was founded by three people — two priests and a laywoman. There was also a fourth figure who was instrumental in launching Adoremus — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, whose profound understanding of and writings on the liturgy had served as a main inspiration for the venture being undertaken by a trio of ecclesial entrepreneurs: Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, who founded Ignatius Press in 1976; Father Jerry Pokorsky, co-founder of Credo, a society of priests committed to promoting a faithful translation of the liturgy; and writer, editor, and passionate Catholic activist, Helen Hull Hitchcock, founder of Women of Faith and Family.
But the late pontiff also took a personal interest in the budding publication while serving as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, encouraging the founders to reach beyond the in-house jargon and “committee-speak” of the liturgical world so prevalent at the time to inspire Catholics — bishops, priests, and laity alike—to deepen their love for and understanding of the sacred liturgy of the Church by showing that the riches of this storehouse of beauty, truth, and goodness was indeed accessible to all Catholics.
With Pope Benedict XVI’s passing into eternal life on the last day of 2022, his role in helping to establish Adoremus, now almost 30 years old, is presented as a matter of record to our readers.
The history of Adoremus Bulletin begins not with its first issue in November 1995, however—but in June 1995, and Cardinal Ratzinger was an instrumental voice in this historical moment. At that time, Fathers Fessio and Pokorsky and Mrs. Hitchcock (as she preferred to be known) founded the Adoremus Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy which, as the masthead of the Bulletin states, “was established…to promote authentic reform of the Liturgy of the Roman Rite in accordance with the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.”
To help execute this mission, Adoremus Bulletin has served as the public face of the Society and, in the inaugural 1995 issue, Ratzinger’s writings were intentionally featured to spell out the founders’ vision. This first issue included a Q&A on the Society’s (and the Bulletin’s) purpose and goals, which quoted Ratzinger from his 1981 book Feast of Faith to explain its goals:
“Christian liturgy is cosmic liturgy, as Saint Paul tells us in the Letter to the Philippians,” Ratzinger writes. “It must never renounce this dignity, however attractive it may seem to work with small groups and construct homemade liturgies. What is exciting about Christian liturgy is that it lifts us up out of our narrow sphere and lets us share in the truth. The aim of all liturgical renewal must be to bring to light this liberating greatness.”
It wasn’t only Cardinal Ratzinger’s words that the founders of Adoremus used to help the faithful to better understand and love the liturgy of the Church. As a pope who made a renewal of the liturgy a showcase feature of his pontificate, Pope Benedict’s ideas and practices also became a virtual paradigm for how Adoremus saw the liturgy should be celebrated.
Spirit and a Letter
According to Father Fessio, the idea for Adoremus took shape after a conversation he had with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whom the Jesuit would visit once a year in Rome.
“It really crystalized for me during the time that Cardinal Ratzinger was writing his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, from 1990 to 1999,” he said. During one of his visits with the cardinal, Father Fessio said, “I asked him what he was doing and he mentioned this book. Of course, it piqued my interest in what he was going to say in the book because he was a prelate with such a strong interest in the liturgy.”
After returning home, Father Fessio wrote a letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, dated April 19, 1995 (a copy of which Father Fessio provided to Adoremus), “to ask your counsel on something which has been developing in my own mind for the past two or three years. Generally, it has to do with the reform of the Roman Liturgy, and more precisely with a ‘reform of the reform.’”
The Jesuit related to the cardinal how he had received “letters and phone calls from people who are distraught with the liturgies they are subjected to in their parishes,” but he adds, they “are not just complaining about the state of the liturgy, but are asking what, if anything can be done for the sake of future generations in the Church.”
In the same letter, he sketched out an idea for a liturgical journal or sorts which eventually emerged as Adoremus.
“One thought that occurred to me,” Father Fessio writes, “was that Ignatius Press might begin publishing a journal of liturgical renewal — not directed specifically at experts, but for all interested Catholics, without excluding specialists.”
More generally, Father Fessio sought Cardinal Ratzinger’s advice in his letter on whether it was appropriate to begin “a new liturgical movement,” but he was particularly interested in the cardinal’s opinion about a new publication dedicated to liturgical renewal. He was encouraged by its prospects, in part, because John Paul II had recently promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in 1992.
“Now that the Catechism is here, and with that as a base, I wonder if I should make a commitment of my own time and energy…towards promoting genuine liturgical renewal,” Father Fessio writes in his letter to the cardinal….
Full story in the current issue of the Adoremus Bulletin.
Helen Hull Hitchcock was wonderful! A great loss when she passed away, in 2014! Helen was married to Dr. James Hitchcock, an outstanding and award-winning historian, lecturer, author, and professor emeritus at St. Louis University. He wrote extensively regarding the Catholic Church, and its modern issues. His books are published by Ignatius Press. Excellent! He has the same views as our best prelates who are faithful to Catholic teaching (Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Muller, Cardinal Burke, etc.– and of course, the late, great Pope Benedict).
You can get excellent books regarding issues related to our Church, by Dr. James Hitchcock, husband of the late Helen Hull Hitchcock, on Amazon. Some of his books are published by Ignatius Press, others are published by different book publishers.
The TLM shouldn’t be an option. Reverent Novus Ordo should be the only option.
Leading prelates and Church experts all agree, that all Catholics have the right to both forms of their Mass. You need to accept that, and be more tolerant.
Give a source for your claim that the Church says that Catholics have a right to both forms of the Mass, please.
I am looking for it and can not find it.
i remember it differently but have not found that either.
I think if you read Summorum Pontificum it says that the bishop should try to accommodate those who want the TLM, not that they have a right to it.
I cannot accept leading prelates and Church experts because they do not speak for the Church.
If what you say is true, there will be a document that says that.
In all the things I have read after TC, nobody (but you) have claimed that.
“The TLM shouldn’t be an option.” And what if the next pope, or one down the line, reverses T.C., and returns to the hermeneutic of continuity of Benedict, as an aspect of “radical inclusion?” Just wondering ….
Dan, the hermeneutic of continuity or reform has nothing to do with the Latin Mass. It means there is no difference between the Church before and after Vatican II. It is opposed to the hermeneutic of discontinuity or rupture which says that Vatican Ii is the beginning of the different Church which will still need more change.
Pope Francis is a believer in the hermeneutic of continuity.
Sadly and tragically the beloved SSPX believes that even a “reverent Novus Ordo,” that’s the Missal of Pope Paul VI offered in the most devout, reverent, and respectful way, is a “danger” to the souls of Catholics. Straight from the beloved SSPX website folks: “The doctrinal deficiencies of the New Mass has rendered it a danger to the faith of Catholics—as witnessed by such negative effects as a widespread diminishment of belief in the Blessed Sacrament.” To the beloved SSPX even if the priest offers the Mass of Pope Paul VI ad orientem, piously, in Latin, and with Gregorian chants, it’s still a “danger to the faith of Catholics.” Also, notice the invalid correlation there between the “diminishment of belief in the Blessed Sacrament” and the “New Mass.” Lastly, what is even more tragic is that there are Catholics who are believing this trash. The beloved FSSP and the Institute have willingly infected themselves with this dissentious virus; their priests look up to the beloved SSPX, plus their priests absolutely would have nothing to do with the Mass of Pope Paul VI. And they are spreading this dissentful attitude to Catholics who go to their parishes, apostolates, and chapels.
They are not a part of the Catholic Church. Their priests are all suspended.-Pope Benedict XVI said so.
Tather than saying that “they are not part of the Church and that their priests are suspended,” it is better to quote precisely what the late Pope Benedict wrote about the beloved SSPX’s status in the Church. He wrote: “The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church.”
Therefore based on the late Pontiff’s words, it is more precise to say that the beloved SSPX has no canonical status in the Church, and that their “ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries” apart from those which the present Pope, Francis, has graciously and mercifully allowed: namely the sacrament of Reconciliation during the Year of Mercy and the year after (I am open to correction on this); as well as the nuptial Masses they offer on weddings at which the exchange of vows was witnessed by a priest who was appointed by the local bishop and in communion with him.
Yes, you are right. It would have been better to use the quote.
Though I do not know that the commenters here would know what canonical status means.
1) Why do you refer to something as “beloved” and also “dissentful” and “infected” March 21, 2023 at 10:34 pm?
2) How is that something “dissentful” and “infected” is “graciously and mercifully allowed….the Sacrament of Reconciliation….as well as …Nuptial masses? March 22, 2023 at 6:46 pm
There is no such thing as a “reverent” Novus Ordo. The Novus Ordo is a Protestantized Mass designed by Bugnini with the input of several Protestant ministers to make the Roman Mass more appealing to Protestants.
Why are not all NOs reverent ? that they have to be labeled as reverent or must be sought out shows the problem , forcing the NO shows its weakness and poor origins that after 60 years it is still being rejected .
Who says they are not?
The assumption that the Ordinary Form of the Mass is “bad liturgy” is simply…an assumption. An assumption based on opinion and not logic or fact.
Based on bad liturgical formation.
Nice try, “Benedict”, but when a priest blesses the congregation with an upside-down guitar, or allows secular types of seductive dancing at an altar — guised as liturgical dancing — or does some other stupid silly thing at a Mass as some priests or down-right dissidents have done, it does not serve well the newer mass. I would not want to attend such masses either. If a priest cannot be serious about what is going on at a mass, who can trust if he is serious about the consecration. I have been to reverent new masses, but others have horrified me.
Ain’t going to even go there. Keep to the rubrics!
You can always have confidence in the consecration.