The Seven Sacraments, Past and Present

It might be said that the tree of the Mass has often obscured the forest of the sacraments. For decades, debates about the liturgical reform that began while Vatican II was still under way have coalesced around the new missal that emerged in 1969. However, this reform of the Mass was accompanied by a profound overhaul of the rites of the six other sacraments: baptism, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, penance, and extreme unction (the last two renamed reconciliation and the anointing of the sick).

Traditionally, the liturgy is the theological locus par excellence for the preservation and transmission of the faith. If the new rite of the Mass deserves criticism for its diminished signification of that faith, the same holds for the new rituals of the sacraments, which Fr. Barthe compares with their traditional counterparts, looking to the matter and the form (the elements used, the words spoken) as well as the ceremonies surrounding them. The multiplicity of available formulas and their tendency toward vagueness have undoubtedly played a role in weakening the doctrinal message. Has the reformatory urge to "adapt the rites for modern man" not failed in the missionary purpose it claimed as justification?

A well-documented, measured work, Fr. Barthe helps readers to see why a coherent defense and practice of tradition must reach beyond the Mass to embrace all of the Church's rites-at a time when the very possibility of using those rites is being widely called into question.