The liturgical renovation of a Vatican II cathedral

August 23, 2022

by Father John Carville

The Diocese of Baton Rouge has a historical cathedral in St. Joseph Cathedral. Its construction dates to pre-Civil War years. Every Catholic cathedral is the bishop’s or archbishop’s church. The bishop or archbishop is its pastor, although he usually appoints one of his priests “rector” of the cathedral to do the usual work of a parish pastor while he administers the diocese.
Upon being appointed bishop of the newly created Diocese of Baton Rouge in 1961 Bishop Robert E. Tracy chose St. Joseph’s, the oldest parish church in Baton Rouge, to be his cathedral. He appointed Msgr. William Donald Borders its rector. The following is the story of how Bishop Tracy renovated the old St. Joseph Cathedral to serve the purposes of the Vatican II documents.

I returned from studies in Rome where I was ordained Dec. 18, 1963, shortly after the close of the second session of Vatican II. I was assigned to the cathedral as its second assistant pastor. Besides Msgr. Borders, the rector, there were then-Msgr. Stanley Ott in residence and the chancellor of the diocese, and Father Leo Guillot, first assistant pastor.
At that time, the offices of the diocese were located on an upper floor of the Old Fidelity Bank on Third Street at the corner of Third and Main in downtown Baton Rouge. His living quarters were in the old Our Lady of the Lake Hospital on Capitol Lake behind the State Capitol. Once a week, Bishop Tracy would have supper with us in the cathedral rectory. As a “newbie” I was all ears, as the bishop told us of what had happened at the recent session of the council.

Bishop Tracy loved his role as a member of Vatican II. In 1959, when Pope John XXIII announced that he was going to call an Ecumenical Council, Bishop Tracy was a newly ordained bishop, serving as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette and pastor of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Abbeville. There, he received a letter from Cardinal Domenico Tardini, chief conciliar executive for Pope John XXIII. In his book “American Bishop at the Vatican Council,” Bishop Tracy wrote, “(Cardinal) Tardini’s letter was the first official document I received about the council. And I was very happy to get it, for I was not sure then whether ‘mere auxiliaries’ would be invited. Here at last was a ticket to the ball game. I especially liked having Tardini refer to me as a ‘futurus Concilii Pater’ – a future father of the council. With that phrase auxiliary or not – I was ‘in.’ I could hardly wait for the council to open.”

He had to wait, of course, until the opening session of Vatican II, which began Oct. 11, 1962. However, he sent Msgr. Borders to Rome the previous spring to scout the area. And Bishop Tracy began reading histories of previous councils. When he arrived in Rome on Oct. 5, 1962, a week ahead of time, he had all his plans made. By then, he was no longer an auxiliary bishop of Lafayette but rather founding bishop of the new Diocese of Baton Rouge, established by Pope John XXIII on July 22, 1961.

After booking himself into the Hotel Michelangelo, a block from St. Peter’s Basilica, he wrote that he needed only three things: an electric typewriter, a portable altar for Mass and the proper attire for a Roman bishop. He managed the first two with the help of a Canadian bishop who was staying at the same hotel and had studied in Rome.

Then he phoned Clarence Waguespack and me, his new Baton Rouge students at the North American College on the hill above the Vatican. (We had both been sent to Rome to study for the Archdiocese of New Orleans before the Diocese of Baton Rouge was carved out of the archdiocese.) “Do you know a place called Gamarelli’s?” “Yes, bishop, it is a clothing store for bishops near the Pantheon.” “Can you take me there?” “Sure.” “I will pick you up this afternoon at 2 p.m. in a taxi.”

Two hours later, while Clarence and I were twiddlingour thumbs, Bishop Tracy appeared out of the fitting room of Gamarelli’s in a greca, a long overgarment that covers the bishop’s cassock from shoulders to patten leather shoes with silver buckles; and a wide-brimmed, round beaver-skin hat. In his book, Bishop Tracy wrote that he thought the greca and shoes were a bit much but he got a kick out of the hat.

I digress on this small incident for a purpose. The Holy Spirit works in surprising ways. At that time it was the custom in Rome that all clerics of whatever rank (or no rank at all in the case of seminarians) wore cassocks in the street. The greca was to keep the cassock clean. The sign that a cleric was a bishop was a silver or gold cross hanging on a chain around his neck. As ostentatious as they were, shoes with silver buckles could be worn by anyone. But remember the bishop’s cross. It will become important at the end of the first session of Vatican II.

The first document to be written by the council fathers was the document on the liturgy, in Latin titled “Sacrosanctum Concilium” (titles come from the first two or three words of the document, so the sacred council). Bishop Tracy gives four reasons why the liturgy was the first topic to be debated.

1. “Liturgy was chosen as the first topic for debate, I have thought, because this was one subject on which the experts of the world had reached something of a consensus.”
2. “The church could immediately touch the life of every Catholic, an area in which the individual member of the church would quickly sense the council reforms, as the familiar rite of this daily, or at least Sunday, life-time pattern of worship was renewed.”
3. “More thoughtful writers have also suggested deeper doctrinal reasons for advancing the liturgy to the head of the list, that the treatment of the liturgy in the Council Constitution takes dogmatic stances on a number of subjects, like the church, which would be fully developed only later on in other documents of the council. The liturgy document was perhaps used to pave the way for others!”
4. “Another advantage too was that liturgy is a subject concrete and familiar enough to be debated by the average administrative bishops. It was a good issue to begin with because most bishops would feel competent to speak freely.”
The bishops certainly “spoke freely” about the liturgy document. The constitution insists that “a more representative portion of the holy Scriptures will be read to the people over a set cycle of years” (section 51). Gregorian chant is still to be used but music expressive of “the native genius of a culture” should be adopted (36). And the constitution calls for a more generous use of the vernacular, “the mother tongue,” in the liturgy (36).
Territorial bodies of bishops, like the USCCB (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops), can make these decisions, but approval by Rome is required (22).
And “Hearty endorsement is given to that closer form of participation in the Mass whereby the faithful, after the priest’s Communion, receive the Lord’s body under elements consecrated at that very sacrifice.

Communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit. Also to the laity, in cases to be determined by the Apostolic See.” Pastors are instructed to teach the faithful to “take their part in the entire Mass.” (55-56). The laity should not attend Mass as “silent spectators. On the contrary, they should participate knowingly, devoutly and actively” (48).

Most important to Bishop Tracy was the following teaching on church buildings: “When churches are to be built, let great care be taken that they be suitable for the celebration of liturgical services and for the active participation of the faithful” (124). He and the other bishops who were ordinaries (head bishops of a diocese) would have to build or renovate churches with these requirements in mind.

From then on throughout the council, Bishop Tracy was planning how he would renovate St. Joseph Cathedral. Other bishops with whom he talked must have been doing the same. The constitution does not tell them how to do this but in the years following the council, many cathedrals were renovated and diocesan liturgical building committees created.

Bishop Tracy always liked to be the first to do anything. One bishop with whom he often talked was a bishop from Denver, Colorado. Together they decided their cathedrals should not have altar rails because the laity would now be allowed to be readers, song leaders, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist and adult altar servers, both men and women. Before Vatican II women were not allowed inside the altar rails, which were the boundaries of the sanctuary.

Communion could be given now under both species, bread and wine. It would be a good practice to have the laity come in procession to receive the hosts and then proceed to servers of the cup to drink. Processions have a long history in the liturgy of the church, and Jesus himself at the Last Supper instituted the Eucharist saying, “Take and eat ... and take and drink.”

Following the urging of the constitution to celebrate sacraments during Mass and find ways to make the sacraments more intelligible, Bishop Tracy created special “stations” or places within the cathedral for baptism, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage and ordination of priests and deacons. The altar faced the people because Mass in the vernacular was a dialogue of prayer between the priest and the people. The priest prayed with the people, not just for them.

Bishop Tracy wanted to be the first bishop in the United States to renovate a Vatican II cathedral. However, he was already in the process of building his own chancery building. The Catholic Life Center on Acadian Thruway was rising out of its foundations during the first two sessions of Vatican II. A successful building drive was just managing to keep ahead of the cost. At one point when he proposed a renovation of the cathedral, the response of his Vicar for Finance, Msgr. Paul Gauci, was, “Bishop, with the money we have left you couldn’t build a chicken coop.”

But divine providence, in the form of Gov. John McKeithen, came to the rescue.
During the third session of Vatican II, the governor made Bishop Tracy an offer sent by telegram to buy the old Catholic High property on North Street behind the cathedral, then being used by Cathedral Prep School for high school boys interested in the priesthood. The offer was enough to relocate the prep school behind the Catholic Life Center and renovate St. Joseph Cathedral. Bishop Tracy flew home, signed the contract for the sale and flew back to Rome the next day. He got his renovated cathedral, but Bishop Casey completed his renovation first. St. Joseph was the second cathedral to be renovated to meet the purposes of Vatican II.

As I wrote, the Holy Spirit works in surprising ways. Bishop Tracy was not the only well-dressed member of the hierarchy at Vatican II. In Rome, one does as the Romans do. In Italy, men are the peacocks. It was common to see businessmen in three-piece suits riding Vespa motor scooters to and from work.

But at the end of the first session of the council, a little bishop from Recife, Brazil, the poorest diocese in the world, took the floor of the council and offered all the bishops there a little wooden cross on a leather thong in place of their gold and silver ones. Bishop Helder Camara was a prophet. The council could not forget the poor. The bishops returned for the next session the following October in plain black suit and Roman collar. Some had wooden crosses.

Father Carville is a retired priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge and writes on current topics for The Catholic Commentator. He can be reached at johnnycarville@gmail.com.