I visited the Portuguese city of Braga last week. I happened to have a few free days in Spain and a car at my disposal and so I set out to visit a place that had only been a name in the books of liturgical history. Like Lyon in France, Braga is one of the very few sees that retailed a local liturgical use in the West after the Council of Trent. Many of the references refer to this use as the Rite of Braga (or the rito bracarense in Portuguese), but I think that due to its very close relationship to the Roman Rite, that it is more correct to refer to it as a liturgical use and not a fully separate Western Rite like the Ambrosian or Mozarabic.
I had come across the name of Braga a few times in books on the liturgy, particularly Archdale King’s 1957 Liturgies of the Primatial Sees. A few years ago I had also stumbled upon a blog dedicated to this liturgical use. But I have never studied these in depth and still claim no expertise in this area.
But having some free time, I decided to go and see whether anything was still to be seen of this liturgy in Braga today. I did not contact the Archdiocese of Brage beforehand and it is more than likely that I am not doing justice to the current reality.
In Braga, there was no evidence of any liturgical peculiarities in the Cathedral and the docent on duty had no knowledge of Use of Braga. No notices in the Cathedral or any of the other churches I visited made mention of the Use.
I was fortunate to meet an older priest outside the Cathedral and struck up a conversation with him. He had been formed to celebrate in the Use of Braga in the local seminary of Braga prior to the Council. He shared the details of the use (the preparation of the chalice earlier in the Mass, a longer use of the pall over the chalice, a variation of the showing of the Host to the assembly and a use of the Hail Mary at the start of Mass). More interestingly he told me that the Use of Braga was not abolished after the Council and that priests of Braga were still allowed to celebrate in the Use. He also told me that there was a slight renewal of the Use of Braga after the Council, the addition of the Prayer of the Faithful, the adoption of the renewed Lectionary, a wider use of the vernacular and some other minor details. But he said that apart from some Canons in the Cathedral, none of the clergy were interested in celebrating this use. He said that the use in the Cathedral had gradually died out and that now nobody ever used it.
His explanation was that the Use of Braga had already almost died out before the twentieth century as the clergy found it easier to celebrate with the regular books of the Roman Rite. But in the early twentieth century, there was a local diocesan Synod that mandated that all priest of Braga should celebrate using the Use of Braga (this was accompanied by a new edition of a local edition of the Missal approved by the Pope). But the priests did not really like this and when, a generation later they had the option of celebrating with the Paul VI Missal, they abandoned the celebration of the Use of Braga and started to celebrate the Paul VI Missal en masse.
I also met with a younger priest who is involved with the diocesan liturgies. He confirmed that the use has practically died out and said that the only vestiges of the Use of Braga can be seen in the Holy Week liturgies as celebrated in the Cathedral of Braga (this is in keeping with Baumstark’s “law” that more solemn liturgical seasons tend to preserve older usages). He also was of the opinion that the Use of Braga had no connection with the ancient Mozaranic Rite or local liturgical practices before the Islamic conquest of Iberia and had more to do with the uses of Cluny, as some Cluniac monks had established a monastery there after the reconquest of Braga from Muslim occupation.
Reflecting on this, I thought how this history confirms the universal mode of the current Roman Missal as revised by Paul VI. Braga is an ancient diocese and has a particular liturgical patronage. Yet there is little interest in celebrating using this local use. Priests are allowed to celebrate using a particular local use, yet nobody is interested in doing so. The priests considered the renewed liturgy to be an “opus perfectum” and were not interested in a local use. (I take the term “opus perfectum” from the Braga liturgical blog).
This reminded me of a visit to Toledo a few years ago. There there exists a true liturgical rite, that is venerable and has a fully developed Missal renewed after the Council. Yet when I attended the Mozarabic Chapel in the Cathedral of Toledo, I was disappointed to see that apart from a few priests who served as the Cathedral Canons (whose job it is to attend and keep the rite “alive”), the handful of people attending the Mass celebrated in the Mozarabic Rite was made up exclusively of American liturgical tourists and that no local person was in attendance.
One part of me laments the lack of historical continuity and the loss of ancient liturgical uses and rites. Yet another rejoices in this validation of the universal Roman Rite. People have voted with their feet and have found the current Missal to be more life-giving than the various other possibilities. Could this be a manifestation of the sensus fidelium confirming what Pope Francis’ affirmation in Traditionis Custodes:
The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.