The 'reform of the reform' has already begun.

The Pope's first act was the inauguration Mass of his pontificate. Benedict XVI is a pope of the great tradition of the liturgy, with the Eucharist at the centre. It is a tradition of liturgical texts, rituals, and music--and symbolic places.

ROMA, April 28, 2005--On Sunday, April 24, Benedict XVI inaugurated his Petrine ministry as Bishop of Rome in the sunlight of a Saint Peter's Square overflowing with people.

But his original intention was different. He had wanted to celebrate his first solemn Mass as pope, not in the square, but inside the Basilica of Saint Peter. "Because there the architecture better directs the attention toward Christ, instead of the pope," he told the masters of ceremonies on Wednesday, April 20, his first full day as the elected pope. Only the immense number of faithful who were coming induced him to change his mind and celebrate the Mass outdoors.

That same day, speaking to the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, he made it clear that the first priority of his papacy, above anything else, would be the Eucharist. He defined this as "the permanent centre and source of the Petrine ministry that has been entrusted to me."

For Benedict, the form and the substance of liturgical celebrations are intimately connected. And their disarray is expressed in a passage of the startling meditations that he wrote, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, for the Stations of the Cross last Good Friday: "How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there!" Here "He" refers to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, the missing person of so many new liturgies which have become "meaningless dances around the golden calf that is ourselves."

For Benedict XVI, all through the sweep of Christian history the Mass, or Eucharist, is the sacrament that creates the Church. It is the model for the Church, and at the same time it presents the image of the Church to the world. He repeated this to the cardinals in the first speech outlining his agenda: the Eucharist is "the heart of Christian life, and the source of the Church's mission of evangelization."

For this reason, he devoted the closest attention to it for the celebration of the beginning of his pontificate, which was remarkable in the history of modern popes for its splendour and eloquence of symbols.

First of all, there was the location. This included the circus where the emperor Nero had the apostle Peter martyred. Gianlorenzo Bernini redesigned this during the 1600's in the form of an amphitheatre facing the new imperial dais, the raised pediment of the basilica, at the summit of which stands the risen Christ with the banner of his triumph, the cross which has been transformed into a trophy. And Benedict XVI, the latest successor of Peter, wanted to begin the celebration from this particular spot: the tomb of the apostle beneath the basilica's main altar. And it is there that he received his insignia: the patriarch's woollen pallium, and the ring of the "fisher of men."

Act Two: the procession. What the faithful gathered in the square could not see, they watched on the huge television screens, like the viewers in the most far-flung countries. The new pope, with the line of cardinals in front of him, processed from the centre of the basilica toward the square, behind the cross and the book of the Gospels. The baldacchino with its spiral columns, another of Bernini's brilliant inventions, framed him in perspective and seemed to move together with him. But what really set the visual atmosphere was the stained glass depiction of the Holy Spirit in the apse, set at the centre of rays of light, which touched the cathedra (seat) of the apostle Peter with flame, braided the columns of the baldacchino, and, outside, filled the colonnade in the square, making it the sacred stage of the Church on its journey between heaven and earth.

Accompanying the procession was the chant of the Laudes regiae, pure Gregorian chant from the time of Charlemagne. Benedict XVI is very demanding in this regard as well. The choir of the Sistine Chapel sang exclusively Gregorian chant and classic polyphony, all in Latin.

Even after the ceremony, while the pope was going around the square greeting the faithful from a roofless vehicle, the background music was carefully chosen: the Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ, by Johannes Sebastian Bach.

Of course, the heart of the entire liturgy was the Mass celebrated in the basilica's courtyard. The pope presided, but around him and at the altar was the circle of the more than one hundred concelebrating cardinals. And what especially caught one's attention, more so than ever, was the tapestry that had been hung over the central door of the basilica, showing the true protagonist of the sacrament: the risen Christ, who, on the shore of the lake, broke bread with the apostles and commanded Peter to nourish the Church, as found in the last chapter of the Gospel of John, which was sung in both Latin and Greek.

There was not a word in the homily about an agenda for this pontificate. But the facts themselves spoke out. The Mass itself was a realization of the first point of the agenda that had been announced four days earlier.

In the homily, Benedict XVI explained the symbols and readings of the ceremony. He spoke of the pallium as the yoke of Christ, as the lamb that had been lost and then saved from an outer and interior wilderness, as God who became a sacrificial lamb for a world "that has been saved by the Crucified One, and not by the crucifiers." He then spoke of the ring of the fisherman, the net of the Gospel that pulls men "out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God." Then there was the final "be not afraid," because "each of us is the result of a thought of God, each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary," not "some casual and meaningless product of evolution."

With his extraordinary passion for the liturgy, Benedict XVI is unquestionably a pope of the great tradition of liturgical texts, rituals, art, and music. Vatican Council II also began from this point: the most memorable mark it has left is that of liturgical reform.

But from the very beginning, Ratzinger saw and denounced the distortions of this reform. He went so far as to write: "They are the dead burying the dead, and they call it reform."

The last complete book that he wrote--not a collection of essays--was published in 2001 under the title An introduction to the spirit of the liturgy, and it outlines a "reform of the reform." Its criticisms also apply to many of the innovations of showmanship that were introduced into the Mass rituals dear to John Paul II.

Benedict XVI's first trip within Italy will be to the National Eucharistic Congress in Bari at the end of May. He has announced that he will give "particular prominence" to the feast of Corpus Christi on the last Sunday in May. At World Youth Day in August, he will put "the Eucharist at the centre." In October, he will preside over a Synod of Bishops completely dedicated to "The Eucharist, source and summit of the Church's life and mission." The first speaker at the synod will be Angelo Scola, Cardinal Archbishop of Venice, one of Benedict's disciples.

But more than anything else, the papal liturgies themselves will be for the whole world a prototype of the "reform of the reform." The inaugural Mass on Sunday, April 24, was an impressive first example of this.