At Their Own Pace
Apr 15, 2005
After emerging from oppression under a Communist regime, Latvian Catholics have been circumspect in their approach to Vatican II reforms, avoiding some of the problems that have plagued the West.
(cwnews.com, Dec. 27, 2002) Archbishop Janis Pujats was raised in Latvia during a time when the country was under the dominance of the Soviet empire. He was born in 1930, and ordained to the priesthood in 1951. During the 1970s he helped to bring the liturgical reforms of Vatican II to Latvia: a task that was complicated by the severe restrictions imposed upon the Church by the Communist government. In 1991--just as Latvia was winning her independence--he was named as Archbishop of Riga, the country's largest archdiocese. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in February 2001.
-Q:Could you tell me something about your background?
Cardinal Janis Pujats: I am a peasant, the son of a peasant.
My education was Soviet-time education. After secondary school I went to the seminary. At that time it was not possible to go abroad and study, and to study here was difficult, because during the 1950s the seminary residence was closed, so that it was necessary to go through the seminary as a commuter: an external student. I have a character such that I wanted to do a lot of things by myself, especially in academics, so I studied five languages, and now I can speak them all, except English.
After graduating I worked in many parishes, as a parish priest, and also as a dean, responsible for supervising other priests, and then for thirty years I worked and served in the Archdiocese of Riga. I taught Liturgy in the seminary and was responsible for establishing here the Vatican II reforms of the liturgy under the leadership of my predecessor as archbishop. We published the new Catholic liturgical texts in Latvian. For five years before I became a bishop I was vicar general under the cardinal (Cardinal Julijans Vaivods). At that time our seminary was the only one in the Soviet Union, except for in Lithuania, and we educated priests for the whole Soviet Union.
-Q:Since you were involved in the liturgical renewal, let me ask a very specific question. Years ago I read in an American Catholic newspaper about how dreadfully backward, how terribly "behind the times," the Catholics were in Eastern Europe. The writer complained that they did not study the works of our "best" theologians, Hans Küng and Eduard Schillebeeckx. And he added that when he was in Latvia--this was in 1993--in every Catholic church where he went to Mass, the priest still turned his back to the people.
Now over the last 10 or 15 years Cardinal Ratzinger has been saying, more and more plainly, that he thinks there were some mistakes made in changing the liturgy--for instance, turning the altars to face the people. This was not required by the Second Vatican Council, he pointed out. And in 1989 he wrote that, in those parts of the Catholic world where it had not yet been possible to implement liturgical reform, he hoped that the Church would use more discretion, not rushing into things.
With those thoughts as background, could I ask you to speak about the implementation of liturgical reform in Latvia, and the situation here now?
CARDINAL PUJATS: Let me tell you all about that. By 1972 we had the new Missal in Latvia, but it was not yet translated. We celebrated the Novus Ordo in Latin, so the people did not notice much change.
So we were already celebrating the liturgy according to the Roman Missal, in Latin. We read the Gospel in Latvian. If the entire Mass had been in Latvian, then maybe we would have faced toward the people. But we used Latin, and we couldn't "talk to them" in Latin, so there was no particular point in turning toward the people.
Consequently we did things in a step-by-step fashion. First we did the Mass in Latin. Then we started to translate the Lectionary. Finally we translated the whole Missal. When we were done with this, we turned toward the people for the Liturgy of the Word.
In the Liturgy of the Word, we are talking to the people, and they are listening to the Word of God. So at that point we should face them. But even today, after we are finished "talking to the people," we turn to the altar to prepare the elements and so forth.
We are not hurrying to turn around the altars. When we build smaller churches, even today, I do not have the altar detached from the wall. This is not a particularly significant matter. The Pope himself turns his back to the people in his own chapel.
The Second Vatican Council does not require facing the people, and I was fully aware of this. According to Vatican II, if it is better to face the people, then the priest should do it; if not, one can celebrate Mass in the old manner.
I think that the criticism you mentioned is unjustified. These critics see only the outward appearance; they see that the altar has not been turned around. They ignore all the rest for the liturgical reform to focus on this one thing. But liturgical reform touches all of the Mass. There is a very significant difference between the texts of the Tridentine Missal and the texts that were given to us now.
I do not look upon it as an offense to anyone that the priest stands facing the altar to celebrate Mass, even in the Novus Ordo. The Pope knows that we are not in any particular rush to change this. When you make such a change, some people like it and some people don't, so you stir up controversy.
Our liturgical reforms, on the other hand, have been going on for 20 years, and the people do not feel any negative effects from the changes, because of the way they have been introduced and administered. The people are at peace.
-Q:There is a widespread belief that Vatican II was a "new Pentecost," in which everything old went out the window and everything new came in. What happened here (in Latvia) sounds very different.
CARDINAL PUJATS: What happened outside Latvia happened rather quickly. The Council was not to blame, but the liturgical translators were at fault. The Council was not radical, but when the liturgists began formulating changes, all sorts of extremes emerged. They confused people's minds by what they did. And we can even boast that our slow liturgical reform preserved old traditions that have been lost elsewhere. I am thinking in particular of the tabernacle in the center of the altar, with the Eucharist as the center of the church rather than somewhere off to the side, and the confessionals.
I myself have seen (I will not say in what country) the tabernacle on the floor--in a corner on the floor. That is no way to honor Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I have seen an altar that has been erected from left-over logs: big split logs, placed cross-wise; and across these planks they put a tablecloth to cover it. And this was not in a mission territory, but in a traditionally Catholic country! So the fact that the Eucharist is still in the center place is the primary thing which we have preserved.
The other important thing that we preserved is the confessionals. We haven not taken them out of the churches, and therefore we have not shortened the lines of penitents. The confessionals are a sort of visible advertisement. The people are already in lines, and so someone who is fearful of going to confession will look at the lines and see that they are very long, and that makes it easier for him to get in line. No one whose faith is shaky will go by himself, and ask individually to see a priest for confession; instead, he will not go to confession at all. Of course then there is another big problem: that in many countries people have the idea that confession is no longer necessary. The result is that today, in many places, few people go to confess their sins, but they all go to Communion. I look on this as the biggest mistake that "reformers" have made. When they lifted the people onto their feet it was apparent to me that it would take two generations to get them back on their knees. And to get them to go to confess their sins, to make their individual confessions, after they have tossed that practice aside--I doubt that it can be done.
But with us, individual confession has remained the norm. we have never given general absolution--that is to say, absolution for the whole congregation. That practice is for extreme circumstances, and with the obligation for individual confession later. It is better to go straight to the individual confession. If the people are already accustomed to that practice, then it is better to keep it. We look upon that as a matter in which Westerners can learn something from us.
And there is another consideration: If somebody says that it is necessary only to confess mortal sins, and not venial sins or everyday ordinary sins, then he by tomorrow he will regard even grave sins as "ordinary," and in the end he will give up going to confession. But those who have a sensitive conscience will go more often. If one is active in getting to confession, then he will become more sensitive in conscience, and his spiritual life will start to grow.
In contrast, those who stop going to confession become less sensitive, and lose all sense of sinfulness. And then, thinking that they are blameless, they all go to Holy Communion. That puts a horrible responsibility on confessors.
-Q:Let me ask a few more questions about the situation in Latvia. How have popular attitudes toward Christianity changed, particularly regarding the Catholic Church, since independence?
CARDINAL PUJATS: At the beginning of our national awakening, which our independence in 1991, there was a kind of euphoria. However, for us as Catholics there was not too much of a change. During the Soviet era we were very stable, in terms of our numbers; we baptized about 6,000 children every year. When freedom came we did not experience any particular surge. Those who were in the Church remained in the Church, and some more came in.
For the Lutherans it was different. There were unbaptized masses of people, and when the national awakening came, they remembered that they were Lutherans and went to church to be baptized; it was a fashionable thing to do. Later, their practice declined again.
Statistically speaking, we feel that our (Catholic) numbers are going up. There are young people who convert and there are adults--some of whom are preparing for marriage.
It is not as though we baptize children here, and then they go away somewhere when they grow up. Most of them stay with us.
-Q:What percentage of the population in Latvia is Catholic? How does the Church compare, in size, with other denominations?
CARDINAL PUJATS: We have, currently, according to various available sources, approximately one-half million baptized Catholics. This would roughly 20 percent of the country's whole population.
It is hard to say how many people are Lutherans. They count in different ways; sometimes they count those who are active and sometimes those who contribute or who are baptized. In terms of regular church attendance we are stronger; that much is clear. But in terms of those who are baptized, it appears to me that the Lutherans have more--approximately 30 percent of the population.
The Orthodox population is very small, officially, but in reality there are many people from an Orthodox background. Many of them are unbaptized, and so they are not included in the official figures.
-Q:In terms of efforts to evangelize the people who are not Christians--or not active Christians--have there been notable differences between the different Christian groups? Have some been more successful than others?
CARDINAL PUJATS: The Baptists, while they are few in number (about 6,500), remain very strong. They can account for each member of their congregations. We do not have that advantage. For us it is difficult to say who is holding fast to the faith. Some people go to church regularly but there are also quite a few who are baptized who turn up (in church) just once a year.
But we hold out more hope for the schools, if religious instruction is restored to the public schools. Then a certain foundation is set in place. Today Latvian young people are ruined not by atheism but by immorality. On television all sorts of objectionable programs are shown. And it's not just on TV!
-Q:Is there any significant trend in Latvia, in terms of Christians moving from one denomination to another? Has there been any notable movement of people from other Christian groups into the Catholic Church, or Catholics into other groups, or to and from the Orthodox Church?
CARDINAL PUJATS: From our perspective we have noticed a tendency that some Lutherans, as they begin to think more deeply on religious questions, become Catholics. The numbers are not large, but the tendency has been noted. And the converts have become truly good Catholics.
-Q:Is there any state support for the Catholic Church in Latvia? Or is there state support for other faiths?
CARDINAL PUJATS: The only one of our (Catholic) churches that has received financial support (from the government) is the basilica in Algona. The other churches have received nothing. And the support for the basilica in Aglona was given in connection with the Pope's visit here in 1993.
The Lutherans received $2.2 million in compensation for their cathedral in Riga. [The medieval cathedral in Riga, which was officially owned by the state and operated as a museum during the Soviet era, is now the Lutheran cathedral It is also designated as a state-subsidized historical monument.] We didn't get half that amount for Aglona, and we had to fight until we were blue in the face to get what we did. Yet they simply got a check; there was no public outcry.
Do the Lutherans restore their crumbled churched by themselves? No; they all get money (from the government) to do it. Another consideration here is that our people, during the Soviet era, preserved our churches as best they could, by helping with the repairs themselves, while one-third of the Lutheran churches were falling into ruins. Our parish churches were living churches; our people should have been given some reward for what they were able to preserve. Instead, the priority has always been quietly to give aid to the Lutherans, not to the Catholics. We have never scorned the Lutherans, or protested publicly when they were given something. But at least we should be given respect when we are given something.
As to Aglona, the basilica had to be repaired before the Pope's visit. The Communist regime had put alcoholics there, to live in the monastery, and we had to deal with the damage there. We also had to repair the sanctuary. The Pope's visit was not only a spiritual visit for Catholics, but a visit of political importance for Latvia so we asked for government support for the restoration.
-Q:In Lithuania, as in Poland or in Ireland, the culture is a Catholic culture, since Lithuania is predominantly a Catholic country. In Estonia, on the other hand, since there is only a tiny Catholic population, Catholicism is seen as something foreign. How is the Catholic Church regarded in Latvia?
CARDINAL PUJATS: Catholicism cannot be regarded as something foreign here. There are about 60,000 Polish-speaking Catholics in Latvia, and also a Lithuanian-speaking population; there are even some Belarusians, who have services in their own language. But most of the clergy and most of the lay people are Latvians. We have shared fully in the oppression of the Latvian people, so Catholicism cannot be regarded as a foreign religion.
There are the "paganists," who speak about the Catholic Church coming to Latvia "with fire and the sword." [The Dievturi, a nationalist group that is numerically small but strong in terms of cultural influence, has attempted to revive the worship of the gods and goddesses of the Latvian pagan pantheon. They regard all forms of Christianity as foreign, and regard the conquest of Latvia by the Teutonic Knights in the 1200s as an unwelcome Crusade.] But they are the only ones who take that view.
-Q:Is the Orthodox Church regarded as foreign? I know that most of the Orthodox faithful in Latvia speak Russian rather than Latvian.
CARDINAL PUJATS: No, they have deep roots here. In Czarist times there were many churches built for them, and even today they have more churches in Riga than we Catholics do.
The Czars ruled over Latvia for 200 years, and many of the Orthodox came then; they didn't all come in Soviet times. And in the 19th century a number of Latvians converted to Orthodoxy. And there are the Old Believers. [The Old Believers descend from Russian Orthodox who resisted the "correction" of liturgical books in the 1650s. They were excommunicated and persecuted, and often fled to settle in remote corners of the Russian empire.] We should not count them as foreigners. In the end they are closer to us than the Protestants are, religiously speaking.
-Q:How would you assess ecumenical relations in Latvia today?
CARDINAL PUJATS: Our relations with the native Lutherans and the Orthodox and the Old Believers are good; we do not have polemical exchanges with them. But there are some Lutherans from abroad who publish a newspaper here and are very polemical in their attacks against Catholics. With the Orthodox it is the same. We get on well with the Orthodox here, but some people bring in newspapers and literature from Moscow, where they attack the Vatican and the papacy; these newspapers are distributed in Orthodox churches.
So the problem is not with the Lutherans or Orthodox here; it comes from abroad. One might say that the repression of religion in Soviet times benefited all of the different religious confessions. It brought us together in a certain solidarity and Christian fellowship.
-Q:Beyond these friendly relations, is there an active theological dialogue?
CARDINAL PUJATS: I don't see that there is much point in theological dialogue. If we talk, what are we going to resolve here? The Catholic Church in Latvia cannot resolve our theological disagreements (with other Christian bodies); they have to be resolved in Rome. We want to have a friendly relationship here, but if we attempt to sort out all the theological differences, the only conclusion would be to agree that we disagree. Our friendly relations do not rest on theological agreement, but rather on the level of brotherly love.
Here in Latvia I do not think that theological discussions are necessary. We Catholics have our religious teachings, our dogmas, which we cannot change. As a local Church we do not have the authority to reach theological agreements. If we did make such agreements, we would be setting ourselves up as a sect, against the universal Church. Here in Latvia we focus on mutual love and support, while theological dialogue is organized by the Vatican on a worldwide level. This is how these differences must be resolved. Our friendship and support at a local level will help so that any such agreements become fruitful.
(AUTHOR ID) William J. Tighe is a history professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, and a regular contributor to Touchstone and New Oxford Review.
At Their Own Pace