Una Voce – Leading the Way

Leo Darroch gives a brief history and update on the work of Una Voce – now rapidly growing in size, influence and activity.

Even before the Second Vatican Council had ended, changes were being made to the liturgy and so, in 1964, Dr Borghild Krane, an eminent psychologist in Norway, sent out an appeal to concerned Catholics to group together in defence of the Church’s liturgical heritage. As a result, a number of national associations came into being in 1964/5 – the Latin Mass Society being one of them. Delegates from six European associations met in Rome early in 1965 and agreed to create an appropriate supra-national structure. This was the beginning of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce. It was formally erected in Zurich on 8 January 1967, when delegates from twenty associations approved the draft statutes and elected the first Council. Doctor Eric de Saventhem was elected President and remained in post until 1995. Michael Davies succeeded him until he resigned for health reasons in 2003 and Ralf Siebenbürger took over.

The International Una Voce Federation currently has thirty affiliated national associations worldwide. It is a lay movement, and its principal aims are to ensure that the Missale Romanum of Pope John XXIII (1962 edition) is maintained in the Church as one of the forms of liturgical celebration, and to safeguard and promote the use of Latin, Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony. A General Assembly is convened every two years in Rome and elections are held for the Council and Presidency. Una Voce is recognised by the Holy See, its views are received with courtesy and respect by the relevant Roman Congregations, and its representatives are received by them in the same manner. Over the years it has made successful interventions with Rome on numerous occasions to safeguard the traditional Mass and ancient liturgical practice. Doctor de Saventhem was instrumental in persuading Pope John Paul II in 1986 to convoke a special Commission of Cardinals to investigate the situation concerning the celebration of the traditional Mass.

On 25 July 1996 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, commended Una Voce for playing an important role in supporting the use of the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal in obedience to the directives of the Holy See. Cardinal Medina Estévez, until recently the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, feels that use of the 1962 Missal should be granted to all who request it and has confirmed that on the basis of his personal research it cannot be stated that the rite of St Pius V (of which the 1962 Missal is the latest edition) has been abrogated.

On 4 September 2000, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos told Una Voce representatives that he considered the Missal of St Pius V to be a great treasure of the Church, and that he could see no reason why we should not be granted the use of all the liturgical books in use in 1962. It was his opinion that the motu proprio, ‘Ecclesia Dei’ put a serious responsibility upon bishops to implement it, and that only when there are serious reasons to the contrary should requests for its use be denied.

Una Voce is not an organisation run from above by a central committee. Each national association is an autonomous body that is encouraged to do all that it can to achieve the objectives of Una Voce at the local level, but the international Federation is better placed to represent the common concerns of traditional Catholics worldwide at the highest level of Church government. Negotiations with Rome tend to be carried out behind the scenes and are not normally made public. Some in the Ecclesia Dei Commission in Rome wished us to modify the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal by adopting the 1965 revisions, by using the 1970 calendar and adopting such practices as Communion in the hand. In a lengthy correspondence with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, it was made clear that the Federation would not even contemplate accepting such innovations. Because of the intervention of Una Voce these proposals were completely abandoned.

In the year 2004 the International Federation made remarkable progress. Applications for information about Una Voce and requests for assistance came from Bogota in Columbia, Katmandu in Nepal, Madras in southern India, Belarus, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary and Mexico. And now we have a group of young people in Russia (covering Moscow, St Petersburg and other cities) who have begun to organise themselves and have asked for assistance. This is a truly exciting development. It is vital that the international movement supports these fledgling societies both in terms of advice and material such as missals, but also in financial matters. The Latin Mass Society could not exist and do its work without a solid financial foundation and this applies even more to Una Voce International. For many years it has subsidised delegates from poor associations and countries in order that they can travel to Rome for the General Assembly to meet their counterparts from around the world. Member associations pay annual subscriptions, but, like the LMS, Una Voce looks to donations and bequests in order to undertake its work efficiently. It does not have a head office as such, or any paid employees, and is run from the homes of the President (Austria), Secretary (Ireland) and Treasurer (USA), but it does incur costs like any other organisation (e.g., travel, stationery, international communications costs). The resurgence of Catholic Tradition in the former Iron Curtain countries and elsewhere must be encouraged and helped in every way possible. Mass of Ages is read in many countries and in recent years the generosity of its readers has been remarkable, but should anyone wish to make a financial contribution towards helping these fledgling Una Voce groups become members of the International Federation and support their efforts to restore Tradition to their own countries please send a cheque (made payable to the Latin Mass Society) to the LMS office marked ‘For Una Voce’.

[Taken from the Latin Mass Society's May 2005 Newsletter.]