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Or, A Whupping for the Whapping?
It is sometimes maintained, particularly by brash, if clever, youngsters, that somehow the Traditional Mass could sweep to popularity if only its advocates, attendees, and devotes would be a bit more flexible: “Couldn’t it be just a little more participatory?” they opine; “Or at least not be peopled with annoying Saint Pius X quoters — wouldn’t a little JP the Great, or at least Papa BXVI, go a long way to reaching out to Today’s Youth?” And while these aren’t silly questions, those who ask them have made a fundamental error in their approach to Tradition and modernity.
The snag, you see, is that a novice, an outsider, one trained in the modern ways, is liable to make all manner of errors in his selection of the vital from the peripheral when it comes to sifting the Traditions of the Faith from the traditions of men; and is also very likely to disregard the deep power held by the latter, even while he gives lip service to both. In the case of the young man whose musings have prompted this reply, a frequent suggestion is trotted out: why not go back to the Dialogue Mass? That’s pre-Vatican II, but anticipates the sort of “full, active, etc” business that’s been such a hit (?) with people since the Council. And while his suggestions have a sort of facile truth — who wouldn’t agree that a young energetic priest’s Mass is easier, humanly speaking, to attend to than that of a rickety old priest? — they are presumptuous to the extreme, in their implication that those who love and provide for the offering of the traditional Rite are somehow all fuddy-duddys who love nothing more than obscurantism and ossification, who would sooner drive off a curious young’un like him than give up their ca. 1920’s devotional structure.
Nothing could be further from the truth. For, even while it is true that a number of such grumpy trads are out there, it is not so easy a thing to keep a hold on a traditional devotional life and to traditional piety. Part of the reason for the disaster of the past four decades is the widespread adoption of this attitude: I don’t see the need for X; let’s drop it. Then why do we have Y? We’ll drop that too. And so on.
Instead of such an approach, what we who are young to Tradition must be, first of all, is patient learners and cautious changers. We must first know and love all that is already there, before we make bold to change aught. Until we are very, very familiar with the old way of doing things, we cannot be sure that our preference for the new way is not driven primarily by our pre-existing familiarity. It is a truism that we are most comfortable with that which we already know. This drives, it is true, some of the resistance to cosmetic and more substantive changes to the surrounding pieties of the old Mass; but it also is a significant part of the young and aspirational trad’s passion for aggiornamento.
We must never think of ourselves as a marketing team for TraditionTM, but as servants of God. And if we, as newcomers, should ever decide to promote even a small change in a particular community’s local liturgical traditions, we must expect, even encourage, skepticism and resistance. The question one must expect, and be able to answer, is “why should we change for you, when you tell us you aren’t interested unless we change? When does this end? If we change one thing, and you say that’s not enough, do we change three? Eighteen? Why should you, who by your very demands have shown yourself unwilling to submit to that which you have not yourself chosen, dictate to us what of our own preferences and traditions we must give away?”
To close, I will say — for completeness and to be fair — that there are those among the traditionalist movement who have a disordered attachment to various things that are outside the established Tradition. There are some that raise a stink if the gregorian chant chosen for the Mass is changed, crying “how dare you change from Credo III to Credo I!” (true story!). Many others, contrary to the constant teaching of the Popes, maintain that the low Mass is a “higher” form of the Mass than the High, or Solemn Mass. Other crusty old folks can be quite rude to novice trads who haven’t yet learned much, berating as-yet ignorant young women over their lack of veils or the like. In these cases, though, human frailty — not traditionalism as such — is the culprit, and though we must do what we can to gently correct those in error, we must simultaneously take, ever and always, as guarded and narrow of corrections as necessary, as charity and prudence demand.
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St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Andrew,
Ooops. Sorry about that!
JSP, you’re generalizing from a bad situation. You know, many people have good relationships with their parents-in-law. There are also many family-owned businesses that are passed on from father to son (or even mother to daughter). Likewise, just as it would be wrong to stay in a depressed area when one has better opportunities elsewhere, there is nothing wrong with loving one’s homeland. And to try to establish some sort of clear-cut line about who should be considered “family” and who “relatives” is bogus. For most people, the parents are not in their nuclear family — of course. But you seem to assume that the normal thing is for parents of adults to be obtrusive meddlers. Often the case, and often not. Tim seems to be in a bad situation, and you and your wife seem to have problems with your relatives. But many of us don’t, and it would be difficult to draw general guidelines from your own situations. Shall we drop the subject?
I shall follow up on some of Clara’s points. So long as you receive on the tongue, you’re not commiting a desecration. You’re not responsible for the pieces of the Eucharist becoming detached. As for the other people, I’d say that they probably are unaware of what’s going on, and in any case the culpability would lie with the bishops (and Pope), as Clara says.
Additionally, I’ll add some insights that Vin Lewis had about the claim that the Novus Ordo is a desecration. You are arguing that Catholics should not witness a desecration, even if they personally are there to adore Our Lord and are taking measures against further desecration themselves (i.e. by receiving on the tongue). Well, if this were an absolute rule, then Our Lady, the women disciples, and St. John could not have attended the Crucifixion. The Crucifixion was an intentional desecration of Our Lord’s Body — it was not from the ignorance and negligence of participants in the Novus Ordo. Furthermore, in the Crucifixion Christ actually suffered and died — the Eucharist, though it certainly can be dishonored, is the *Risen* Body of Our Lord, and hence is beyond pain and death. And Our Lord’s Precious Blood and pieces of His Flesh were scattered everywhere at Calvary. We’ve all seen the Passion, where in typical Jewish fashion Our Lady tried to sop up the Blood with a towel. But I rather think that on Mt. Calvary she had to *walk* on some spilled Blood just to get to the foot of the Cross. So sometimes, yes, in order to approach Our Lord it is forgivable to tread on Him. What matters is one’s intention. But aren’t we laymen responsible for the desecration? Well, Our Lord said that the Romans who actually spilled His Blood (and Flesh!) on the ground were not as responsible as those who handed Him over to the Romans in the first place. So if that holds true of a much more egregious desecration — the Crucifixion — I think that it holds true for a lesser one, if that is what we concede it to be. So the responsibility would lie more with the ruling prelates than with the average Novus Ordo parishioner.
But wouldn’t it be better to go only to the Tridentine Mass, where this whole issue is avoided. Yes, in general. But wouldn’t it be good for at least one person at each Novus Ordo to receive Our Lord on the tongue, too, and worship Him reverently? Remember — we fault those disciples who *did not* attend the worst desecration that ever occurred, those who refused to see Our Lord crucified. Would you say that Our Lord could be maltreated worse at the Novus Ordo than on the Cross?
Personally, I’d rather never attend another Novus Ordo. But I do attend that Mass often enough, and the “casual desecration” argument, though it has merit to it, simply is not an absolute argument for the sinfulness of the Novus Ordo.
Also, tradition has it that Judas Iscariot sacrilegiously received Holy Communion at the Last Supper. So the holiest Mass of all time, the first Mass, was celebrated despite the fact that Our Lord knew that He would be desecrated therein. Plus, I cannot think of any greater sinner than Judas, so his would be the worst sacrilege ever (I imagine). I say this not to diminish horror of desecration, but by way of consolation for the fact that we put up with this today.
I think the distinction between “family” and “relatives” is an important one.
The family is an important institution and it’s essential to define it exactly for what it is. It’s the building block of the Church and society. It’s recognized clearly by the Church and even somewhat (although not sufficiently) by the state as the most basic juridical social unit.
So Tobias Petrus, spare me your “It Takes a Village” liberalism.
By the way, I have no problem whatsoever with my in-laws. They are great, loving, traditional Catholics.
Clara wrote: In fact, I think there’s some worry that you would be guilty of presumption in insisting that the liturgical practices that have been approved by the American bishops are sacrilegious. They may be, but as a layman you’re not in a position to make that decision. This goes back to some of the things Raindear was saying about being properly subject to authority. The best you’re allowed to say is that communion in the hand is sub-optimal, but permissible.
This is false, or at least the principle of it is; and if only the principle of it is, I also happen to think that your judgment in this case is question begging or, should I say, unhelpful to the case at hand.
I take the principle to be: Bishop X or other relevant person in the hierarchy - by the way, bishops conferences have NO legitimate authority - has said that y is permitted; ergo, y is permitted.
There is NO reason to think that Christ’s promise of infallibility to the Church extends to disciplinary or procedural matters. There’s every to reason to think that even a very well intentioned prelate could screw up a decree or pronouncement on such a question, that even the Pope himself could screw up, if, for instance, his subordinates give him the wrong information, etc.
This doesn’t mean, however, that in all such cases we should, willy nilly, throw obedience to the wind. Indeed, obedience is probably most frequently exercised in matters of indifference, things which could go either way. We have to exercise some kind of prudence or wisdom in discerning which cases have crossed the line and which cases represent legitimate, though irksome, instances in which to exercise obedience.
I don’t disagree with Raindear: this is the tension of the Traditionalist position, and if they said this - I don’t read many blogs these days - the Holy Whapping people were right to identify the area of theology and not of the liturgy as the place where this tension is most keenly felt. In my commentary on Stephen Heiner’s interview with Bishop Williamson - God bless and protect him - I explained myself more fully on this point. It’s a tension we simply can’t ignore and one to which I see no easy resolution.
But it’s not an altogether new one, for there are always cases arising in which a vow of obedience is opposed to a particular command (or permission) which is actually sinful. And the authority in such cases is generally not going to help us out by saying, “Look, idiot, what I’m commanding you to do is obviously wrong on many levels, but please do it anyway because you’re vowed to obedience to me.”
Some cases are very easy, e.g. our superior commands us to sleep with him; others are harder: our superior enjoins us to teach doctrines which we have very good reasons to think contradict the perennial Magisterium of the Church. How far can we trust our private judgment?
The principle I laid out above - if Bishop X commands y, it is permissible to do y - is manifestly false. But Clara could just be saying that this is an indifference obedience case; and that bare assertion would just seem to me question begging or unhelpful.
We might think that in this case precisely what we’re trying to establish is how firmly one should put down one’s foot about the abuses of the Novus Ordo Missae, e.g. should one always avoid Novus Ordos in which Communion in the hand happens?
Since I’m assuming that, implicitly, Clara doesn’t agree with the ludicrous principle I’ve outlined, you seem to be saying, “Look, this is just one of the indifference cases; it could go either way.” Tim, as it seems to me, is worried that it’s not one of the indifference cases. So reiterating his in-laws (implicit) claim that it is one of the indifference cases isn’t going to help.
For the discussion to advance, I think we’d need to introduce some principle such as “Liturgical matters are always cases of indifference” or “Christ’s promise to the Church will preserve us in all cases from grave liturgical sacrilege” - both of which, of course, I think are false.
“So Tobias Petrus, spare me your “It Takes a Village” liberalism.”
Joe Six Pack, spare all of us your pomposity.
In case you got upset because I mentioned your family, I was thinking of previous posts in which Mrs. Six Pack wrote about certain backstabbing relatives of hers.
JSP,
As a friend of mine recently pointed out, it does take a village. Ms. Clinton’s mistake is to replace the family with the village. Forgotten though it may be, the Catholic tradition emphasizes the importance of community. The diminution of the nuclear family followed upon the Industrial Revolution which followed upon the Protestant Reformation. All this autonomy hogwash is the brain child of crummy modernist philosophers like John Stuart Mills. If you are curious, see what Mr. Stork has to say on the matter.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Society,
Thank you for bearing with me.
I believe my priest has set me straight on the matter. He has shown me that I am being too scrupulous, and that no desecration of the Sacred Host can occur without proper intention to do so. He reiterated a story of a priest that once dropped an entire ciborum of Hosts on the floor, and an altar boy unwittingly stepped on a Host. Of course, the altar boy was very distraught and was crying, but after Mass, the priest explained that it was not intentional, and a desecration did not occur. The priest obviously had a large act of reparation to make for his carelessness, but it did not constitute a desecration.
He also related a story of how a liberal priest (must have been during the 70’s) was substituting for a very holy priest at Father’s University. They went to daily Mass as usual, and the priest was reading a newspaper on the altar, clearly not a good sign. When it came time for Mass to begin, the priest folded up his newspaper and exclaimed “Time to make Jesus!” Father (a layperson at the time) and all of his friends, except for one, walked out of the church. He had just converted a few months earlier, and it seemed like the thing to do, after all that was what everyone else was doing. They waited outside of the church for their other friend, who was asked why he stayed for the rest of the Mass. He said something to the effect of “well, it only seemed right to stay with Our Lord as He was being crucified.” Quite right, and I’m ashamed for not having seen it.
I don’t like the Novus Ordo one bit, but as Father pointed out, it is exactly the same Sacrifice and the same flood of Grace is poured forth by God, but the accidentals are very different. Those accidentals also have great meaning, and that is exactly where the Novus Ordo goes very wrong, but since most here, if not all, understand this fact, we can comfort Our Lord and stay with Him during His sacrifice and crucifixion, even if others do not understand His affliction for their indifference or even downright abuse.
Thank you all for your comments, I am very grateful.
Pax,
Tim
Tim, I’m so glad that you’ve resolved the matter, if not exactly happily than at least to the point where you can rest easy about it. If you tell us when the wedding is, I’m sure the members of this Society will be glad to offer our prayers on that day, both for the happiness of your marriage and also that your Novus relatives may be brought to a better understanding of the joys of Tradition!
Iosephe, no, I don’t think my post was question-begging. Up to that point, Tim seemed to be concentrating on the question of whether sacrilege was being committed, without entering into questions of authority and moral responsibility, so I did think it a subject worth mentioning. But since the matter seems to have been resolved, we needn’t get into it further at this point.
Thank you Clara for your graciousness. Our wedding date is June 29, and your prayers are most welcome. If you don’t mind me asking, when is yours? We would be happy to pray for you, as well.
I’ll go back to what St.Thomas says, ‘friendship among blood relations is based upon their connection by natural origin.’ Your wife has a connection by natural origin with her family, as do you with your parents, siblings, etc. The idea that ‘family’ means only husband, wife, and children, is ridiculous, since the nuclear family is created by the bonds of natural origin just as the wider family is; this difference is that the nuclear family is the closest form of such bond. Saying ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh’ has no bearing on this; it points out that the relation between husband and wife is different from other family relations, which does not imply that these other relations do not exist.
‘Our society is replete with men and women who allow their mothers and fathers to dominate their lives not only into adulthood but into Holy Matrimony as well.’ They should grow up, but that has nothing to do with the point at issue.
‘As an adult, the Fourth Commandment requires me to no longer obey my parents but to provide for their basic welfare needs and to ensure they have access to a good priest if they are close to death.’ That is what is required(at the very least) to avoid eternal damnation; it is not sufficient for virtue.
‘Once we start to play the game of calling those other than the mother and father and children part of the family, the God given responsibility and authority due only to the Mother and Father is inevitably eroded.’ Acknowledging this authority does not require restricting your family to your nuclear family.
Thanks, Tim! At that time we should be in the Eternal City, and we’ll be sure to pray for you! If you and your fiancee would do the same for us we would be most grateful; our wedding is in the same month, but on the 9th. May God bless you as you prepare to begin your married life!
I agree with JSP that meddling in-laws should stop meddling, and that moving away from them may help prevent this. I agree that an adult married couple forms with its kids a new household and is not under the authority of the parents of the spouses. I just objected to the blanket recommendation to move as far away as possible from in-laws, even if the relationship with it seem good now. Stated as a general rule, that is nonsense. Next, I object to the limitation of “family” to nuclear family, simply because that is not how the word is used. My parents will always be “family,” my aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings and grown children and grandchildren will always be “family.” “Relatives” are precisely people who belong to the same family tree. To try to limit “family” to “household” and distinguish between one set of “family” and another of “relatives” is just to commit violence against the English language. You should apologize to me for calling me a liberal when I said nothing of that sort.
My apologies for inferring/implying that anything is wrong in your family, JSP. It just seemed odd to *desire* to be so far removed from them. There, I’ve said enough. Back to tradition vs./vis-a-vis traditionalism . . . (Sorry, Ambrosius!)
Thanks for the clarification, Tobias Petrus.
You are certainly not a liberal.
Sorry for my hasty judgment.
JSP,
“It’s a big disadvantage to not have access to extended family for help baby-sitting and such, but the peace and tranquility that comes from being thousands of miles from each other’s mothers and fathers-in-law is priceless.”
I think that when (if) you someday become a grandfather, you may eat those words, because the tables will be turned: you will be the one who wants/needs to be near the people who were once your family, but who, according to your definition, no longer are.
Then too, how does the younger generation learn to respect life at the elder end of it, if their parents show a desire to be separated from their own aging parents for their own convenience (priceless peace and tranquility)? Sounds very similar to the argument of a pro-abort, doesn’t it?
Are you so afraid of “interference” that you neglect to understand the value of the wisdom that often comes ONLY from age and experience of life that you lack? Humility would teach you that even being your own “pater familia,” you still have much to learn from the knowledge and life experience of your parents and parents-in-law.
And furthermore, according to you, apparently the tradeoff, babysitting vs. having to put up with their presence, is quite tempting, but not enough to want you to have nearby those who gave you and/or your spouse life? I’m sure you don’t know how selfish that sounds. What about the support those parents may come to need from you?
As one who has been separated, of necessity, by thousands of miles from my grandkids and who deeply feels the loss of their company, I can’t help feeling repugnance at your overgeneralization. I realize you have already apologized for hasty judgement, and perhaps I shouldn’t have reprised the subject, but I wanted to make sure you understood the anti-life quality of your comments, because I trust you would not intend to act in that way.
Iosephus,
There is NO reason to think that Christ’s promise of infallibility to the Church extends to disciplinary or procedural matters. There’s every to reason to think that even a very well intentioned prelate could screw up a decree or pronouncement on such a question, that even the Pope himself could screw up, if, for instance, his subordinates give him the wrong information, etc.
This doesn’t mean, however, that in all such cases we should, willy nilly, throw obedience to the wind. Indeed, obedience is probably most frequently exercised in matters of indifference, things which could go either way. We have to exercise some kind of prudence or wisdom in discerning which cases have crossed the line and which cases represent legitimate, though irksome, instances in which to exercise obedience.
I think your implications there are a little misleading. It sounds as though you are saying that obedience only binds us to follow infallible doctrinal teachings. That is certainly not true. Infallible teachings demand more, the assent of faith, but the Church can command with authority outside the sphere of infallible teachings. In fact, the Pope has supreme legislative authority over the Church. If the Catholic Encyclopedia is correct: “He has full authority to interpret, alter, and abrogate both his own laws and those established by his predecessors. He has the same plenitude of power as they enjoyed, and stands in the same relation to their laws as to those which he himself has decreed.” I would expect that the liturgy follows under both the legislative and doctrinal aspects of his authority.
Some cases are very easy, e.g. our superior commands us to sleep with him; others are harder: our superior enjoins us to teach doctrines which we have very good reasons to think contradict the perennial Magisterium of the Church. How far can we trust our private judgment?
I recently discussed this question with a doctor of Thomistic philosophy who has made law and political philosophy his special area of study. He claimed that, while all authority comes from God and thus is only truly exercised when exercised for the common good, those under authority can only make a judgment about whether it is exercised for the common good in very particular circumstances. He said we could only reject those dictates of authority which clearly contravened an explicit, divine mandate. It is difficult to argue that any such judgment is possible about the liturgical directives, since there are not a lot of explicit, divine mandates to work with there.
Sorry, “about liturgical directives” not “about the liturgical directives.”
My girlfriend’s sister is married to a Protestant “Christian” who moved them across the country once they got married. He uproots their family every other year, partly to isolate her from her family, friends, ANY support structure that might help her gain confidence or support outside of the home.
Whenever she has a different opinion of what her husband says, he shouts and tells her that she is a “bad Christian” because she isn’t being obedient.
He has not hit her (yet) — if you don’t count smashing a chair into the wall right next to her head. Repeatedly.
She ran back to her mother last year but after a few weeks (despite family protests) she decided that her marital problems were all her own fault for “not setting boundaries” and that she just had to stand up to her husband a little bit more (uh-oh). In the meantime, her husband was phoning her house with threats and once — I still remember this — shouted “She’s not YOUR daughter any more, she’s MY WIFE, and I’ll thank you to remember it!”
She is totally financially dependent on her husband, her self-esteem is shattered after years of marriage, and she will not separate because she is afraid of leaving her children alone with this man.
Perhaps this is the sort of family control of which Joe Six Pack approves, since in-laws who object to this sort of treatment of their daughters are no doubt nosy meddlers who should be ignored and moved away from.
I’d be very wary if my spouse wanted to separate me from my family of origin. It smacks of the spouse having insecurity/control issues.
-TM
Raindear wrote: I think your implications there are a little misleading. It sounds as though you are saying that obedience only binds us to follow infallible doctrinal teachings. That is certainly not true. Infallible teachings demand more, the assent of faith, but the Church can command with authority outside the sphere of infallible teachings. In fact, the Pope has supreme legislative authority over the Church.
You’re right, my comments could have been clearer in this respect. What I meant to focus on was the promise of infallibility. Disciplinary or legislative things (excepting pronouncements on moral questions), in which in the normal course of things we would need to follow our bishop and the Pope, don’t seem to be the kinds of things which can be infallible - at least not in the way God currently has His Church set up.
If these judgments, pronouncements, decrees aren’t infallible, I think that we have a duty to puzzle over them if something about them, as it were, trips our sensus catholicus.
I’m fine with the idea that we should only question those things which seem to contradict an explicit, divine mandate - but what does that mean? Isn’t there an explicit, divine mandate against contraception - but I sure don’t see one in the Bible. Isn’t there an explicit, divine mandate against desecrating the Blessed Sacrament - I don’t see one in the Bible, though. Aren’t there a million moral corolloraries out there, all of which are quite clear, but which aren’t set down in writing for us?
Raindear, I just don’t think that there are easy answers in this area. This is the great joy and grace of being a Catholic, as well as the difficulty, especially in these days of the modernist heresy: we have an authority to follow outside of ourselves.
If I understand part of the Modernist danger correctly, it is an heresy which can pervert all doctrine in subtle ways. It is not an heresy which wears its colors on its sleeve. If we are to avoid succumbing to the Modernist heresy, we will need to exercise some private judgment, especially in the absence of heroic bishops to lead the way.
It’s precisely because we can’t say how much ’some’ is, that we face problems. Some, I think, go to far by rejecting or condemning anything that their Ordinary or the Pope enjoins or commends. Others treat the piles of paper emerging from the Vatican City like the very tablets Moses brought down from the mountain.
I would expect that the liturgy follows under both the legislative and doctrinal aspects of his authority.
This is debated. Where is it, Iacobe? - I think in Msgr. Klaus Gamber’s book on the liturgy, we are told that it is an open question whether the Pope has the authority to throw out the liturgy and start from scratch. I don’t know on what principle we’d think that the Pope could do this, no more than we’d think that the Pope could throw out a book of the Bible. Some pope, back in the day, could have thrown out a book of the Bible, but Benedict XVI can’t. Doesn’t this seem right?
RP -
Frankly, raising a large Catholic family is a daunting task. When I’m finally finished raising and homeschooling our 12 children, probably by the age of 60 or so, I would like them all to go off and do great things for God and the Church and to have successful, happy lives. I would like to see them all periodically — i.e. several times per year. But I don’t want to be babysitting their children. I don’t want them living 2 blocks away from me. I want time for me and my wife without any kids.
I would like to spend my last few decades preparing my own soul for death, spending time at Mass in prayer rather than outside the Church disciplining a toddler, traveling around seeing sites and locations that my wife and I cannot see because, for instance, very young kids are not interested in taking a 5 hour tour of the ruins of Ephesus, and etc. etc. I don’t want to sit through someone else’s kid’s 7th grade band concerts or change someone else’s kid’s diapers. I did that.
This is my opinion and these are my personally views.
Frankly, I think the grandparents who are the most overly attached, similar to your type of attitude RP, are the ones who probably did not raise (never mind homeschool) large families of 10, 11, 12 or more. After raising 12 kids, I’m happy to let my kids go off into the world and raise their own kids without dropping by every other night to visit them.
How exactly is this anti-life?
If my mother or father were ill or destitute I would provide for them, even to the point of taking them into my own home. I’d expect my kids to do the same for me.
How exactly am I anti-life?
To Anon - I actually find your illusion to me as some sort of wife-beater humorous. It’s just so out of left field.
I don’t want to judge your private family life, but since you offered — why did you sister marry a protestant? why did you father allow this? what kind of formation in the faith did she receive as a child? I could go on and on..
If you marry a man from a good traditional Catholic family, and the father knows of and approves of the family, and he knows of and approves of the man, these problems tend to not occur.
What else can I say?
JSP,
I apologize if I offended you. You are obviously very pro-life in your actions, which as we all know, speak much louder than words. I am still struck, though, by how very similar the things you are saying as a parent of 12 children are to the things that many parents of 0 or 1 child say. The context of you having a full quiver does make all the difference, I admit. Except that your original advice was in regard to young marrieds taking themselves away from their parents; not in parents (like you and me) taking themselves away from their children and grandchildren because they’ve already done the parenting thing, right?
As you say, the opinion and views you hold about this are your own and differ from mine, probably just because of the very difference between our experience which you point out - because I have homeschooled only a very small family of three, and cannot completely relate to how parents of large families must feel. I HOPE that I am not overly attached, however - I too “would like them all to go off and do great things for God and the Church and to have successful, happy lives,” and I am ready to leave this world tomorrow if God calls, so, very little attachment really, but it sure is sweet being a grandma, if I do have to keep on living, and maybe I just didn’t get my fill of babies, or something. ;)
Apologies to Ambrosius if he considers this sidetrack as being unrelated to the discussion regarding maintenance of tradition, though I think it IS somewhat related.
I’ve been staying out of this, but just for the record, Joe Six Pack does not have 12 children, though he may perhaps aspire to having twelve. At present, if I am not much mistaken, RP and JSP have the same number of children, though naturally Joe Six Pack’s are considerably younger.
Just wanted to clear that up.
I have no children, and hence I have no firsthand experience whatsoever with parenthood, but I will say that most grandmothers I know enjoy seeing their grandchildren regularly even if they already raised a large family. And almost everyone, I suspect, will feel this way after a certain point. There is a period, maybe, when your children are grown and you are still active enough to do things on your own or with your spouse, and in that time it might be more burdensome than fun to be too weighted down with diapers and band concerts. But most people also go through a period very late in life where they’re not in good enough physical shape to do much in the way of traveling or taking up new hobbies. I think normally, in this period of life, people find it a great comfort to be surrounded by the young, and it’s much nicer if those young people are family who love you and not paid strangers.
I’m in sympathy with JSP at least to this extent — there’s such a thing as overdoing parental authority to the point where it inhibits the next generation’s ability to raise their own kids. Certainly, in Uzbek culture, where people are pretty much expected to defer to their parents’ wishes for life, this could be very burdensome for young parents (and, as I explained in that post, I don’t think it’s particularly healthy for the elderly, either, to be allowed to become domestic tyrants for the last years of their lives. Some handled this very well and honorably, and focused their attention entirely on the well-being of their children and grandchildren… but some became repulsive and selfish and expected everyone to run in circles satisfying their every whim. It was not a healthy situation.)
I think it’s necessary to distinguish, though, between authority and closeness. Generally speaking, I think authority should be attached to responsibility; it makes sense for the person responsible for making things happen to also be the one entrusted with making decisions. (This was the problem with the Uzbek system — a parent could say, “get a job closer to home,” or, “find a way to send Elmira to the engineering school” and the son would be left trying to figure out how to do it even if, say, Elmira didn’t have much aptitude for engineering or there weren’t any good jobs available close to home.) When you’re the one ultimately responsible for what happens, you can’t be too whimsical about the orders you give. So, although children of any age should listen respectfully to parental advice, adult children, once they are responsible for supporting themselves and their own families, need to be allowed space to make the relevant decisions.
Okay. But hopefully you don’t need to move across the country in order to establish authority over your own home. It should be possible to forge familial relationships that allow grandparents to be valued and close members of the family, even if a large measure of authority passes to their offspring.
Personalities differ, of course, so that some elderly parents may not accept a subsidiary role willingly. On top of that, the fluid nature of our society sometimes makes close relationships with extended family impossible. My grandparents lived at least a long day’s drive away from us for most of my childhood, and a long car trip with several squirmy little kids is an intimidating prospect. So I saw them once or twice a year, and in consequence, they frankly have never been a very important part of my life. I respect them, but the truth is that we barely know each other. I’d really like for my parents to play a larger role in my future children’s lives, but I realize that this may or may not turn out to be possible. My parents aren’t very rooted either (they’ve lived in seven different states over the course of my lifetime) and obviously they know that they can’t expect their adult children to follow them every time they decide to move. We’ll see what happens, but I’m under no illusions: even though the world is getting smaller, distance can make it impossible to maintain close family ties, and the necessities of employment don’t always leave us a lot of choices about where to live. We do what we have to, but something is definitely lost that way, even if some things have also been gained.
Thank Clara, yes - for clarification I’m projecting 10 to 12 children, inshallah as they say in Islam, only at this time we have three: 5, 3, and 1 yos.
JSP
What a spiffin’ new banner!
Iosephus,
You said: I’m fine with the idea that we should only question those things which seem to contradict an explicit, divine mandate - but what does that mean? Isn’t there an explicit, divine mandate against contraception - but I sure don’t see one in the Bible. Isn’t there an explicit, divine mandate against desecrating the Blessed Sacrament - I don’t see one in the Bible, though. Aren’t there a million moral corolloraries out there, all of which are quite clear, but which aren’t set down in writing for us?
In a certain sense, there is no explicit divine mandate against desecrating the Blessed Sacrament. However, the first commandment is an explicit divine mandate which the Church has interpreted for us.
“God’s first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony.” CC Part 3, Section 2, Chapter 1, Article I, 2118.
There is nothing comparable with regard to the liturgy, except the obligation to worship and to honor God fittingly. Still, perhaps I was over-simplifying a bit, but I still think that traditionalists have a tendency to judge the liturgy more freely than is entirely fitting. Lex orandi, lex credendi. Since the liturgy is one of the primary (if not the primary) means of educating the faithful, it must fall under the category of faith and morals to some extent. Or am I jumping to conclusions?
Anyways, I apologize if my comment seemed pedantic. It is obvious that you appreciate the importance of authority - otherwise you would not trouble so much regarding its tradition. I only meant to emphasize the importance of exercising caution when judging the Church.
By the way, I miss the PREVIEW function. Is there any place for it in the Novus Ordo of things? ( ;
With regard to the family discussion that’s been going on between JSP, RP and Clara:
When global capitalism replaced local/rural economy, it also effaced the rootedness of families. In a real sense, we no longer depend upon our neighbors and community for either livelihood or goods. The mobility enabled by our current system lends itself to selfishness and irresponsibility. Rather than persevering in a difficult relationship, we can just move away. In this manner, many folks bypass valuable opportunities for spiritual growth. The same attitude toward marriage which generates the atrocious current divorce rates, has infected our concept of familial and social relations in general.