The Catholic Church was recently shaken by media debates about the rehabilitation of the Lefebvre-bishop Williamson, the failed reconciliation with the ultraconservative priestly fraternity he was a member of and earlier about the question whether a reform of the liturgical reform of Vatican II was necessary or rather a conservative backlash to please a growing number of catholic hardliners. As much turmoil their might have been in the media, the subject seems of no political importance. But the liturgical debate Pope Benedict has started with his liberalization of pre-Vatican II liturgy has provoked fierce reactions from various sides: liberal catholic reformers clash with cautious conservative re-interpreters of the last Council, liberal intellectuals with hardline traditionalists, and even the Eastern Orthodoxy sided with the new liturgical and dogmatic line of the present Pope which is astounding given the distance between the two confessions. Liturgy is the public presentation of a religious community’s beliefs. As the attempt of modernizing this liturgy in order to adapt to a changing society is relativized and challenged in order to emphasize traditional beliefs modern European society must and actually does feel challenged. Whether the reform of the reform is actually a paradigmatic change and how this is affecting modern European society i.e. how it reacts to it will be reflected and analyzed in my paper.
