Loading ...
Call me foolish if you will, but over the past few days I’ve been reading, with a somewhat bemused fascination, some of the pieces that have come out in the mainstream media regarding the old mass. Of course it’s to be expected that all kinds of foolish things have been said. The Holy Father’s action, so long-overdue in our eyes, can hardly help but be quite incomprehensible in the eyes of 99% of the western world; watching the American media try to tackle it is a bit like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek in which a primitive race tries to figure out what to make of the amazing starship Enterprise. Thinking about it that way, I find in spite of myself that many of the absurd attempts to make sense of what’s happened strike me as more cute than anything else.
Take, for example, this excerpt from a little op-ed piece found in a local Austin paper, The Daily Texan:
“The restrictions Benedict XVI reversed came about in 1965, when the Second Vatican Council, commonly known as Vatican II, updated the church for the first time in nearly 100 years.”
Wow, 100 years, eh? Those reforms really must have been overdue! He speculates that the pontiff is bringing back the “discriminatory attitudes” of an earlier era with the motu proprio. And why in the world would he want to do that? Clearly this poor, confused man has no idea… but what other possible motive could there be? Some of the people commenting on the article seemed incensed, but I can’t feel much animosity towards someone this befuddled.
Looking to the more mainstream media, we find the same general phenomenon (what in the world can he have been thinking?), but the suggested alternatives are slightly safer. Time, with its considerably larger and more diverse readership, presumably doesn’t want to come out swinging against the Catholic church. So in their piece (actually entitled Why the Pope is Boosting Latin Mass) they settle for the oft-repeated and comfortable suggestion: Pope Benedict is pacifying the geezers, those lovable but somewhat cranky die-hards who, half a century after Vatican II, are still complaining that movies used to be cheaper, meals better, music cleaner, and Mass in Latin.
“In practical terms, the vast majority of Catholics — even among the most traditionalist — are unlikely to relinquish the vernacular Mass. The number of priests who have the language skills or liturgical training for the old Latin Mass is small, and likely to get smaller. Undoubtedly reflecting his own personal experience, the 80-year-old Pope cites Catholics for whom the Tridentine rite “had been familiar to them from childhood.” As those generations pass there may be ever fewer faithful who are attached to the old Mass, and Benedict is simply providing a sort of bridge for the current over-50 crowd.”
Obviously the author of this piece has not supplemented his research by actually visiting some Latin Mass parishes, or he would know that, in many, the under-20 crowd is notably larger than the over-50. But to the American liberal, armchair research might seem quite sufficient to establish that one would have to be old, and very inflexible, to want something so archaic as the old mass! Perhaps Latin wasn’t a dead language yet when these folks were born?
Then there are the worriers, for whom it doesn’t seem to have hit home that, given the chance, traditional Catholics will contribute a lot more to the Church than they take away. Some articles buzz on about how great a burden it will be for the American priests (already stretched so thin!) to be asked to say Mass in yet another language. Well, first of all, you should tell that to the FSSP, which runs (I believe) the only seminary in America that regularly has to turn people away due to lack of space. (Somehow this never gets mentioned in any of the articles.) Traditional Catholics are not going to worsen the crisis in vocations, certainly not in the long term.
But the old mass could make matters easier for priests in other ways too. This piece by a Fr. Jordan in Manhattan is typical of the worriers; he bemoans the resources that may be lost in teaching priests Latin (of all languages!) when already it’s quite difficult to train priests in all the languages that might actually be spoken in each diocese. (He is particularly concerned about the shortage of Spanish-speaking priests in America, but he also mentions French, Portuguese, and Vietnamese as languages that are in demand.) Hmm, so, it’s difficult to find priests who can say Mass in all the vernacular languages of their would-be parishioners. Might I make a humble suggestion for another way to address this problem?
Somewhat less endearing are those writers who shamelessly misrepresent the state of the Church, blithely pretending that Vatican II has the effect that they would have liked for it to have. “Disingenuous” really seems too weak a word to describe any author who can write the following:
“Once Catholics entered into the mystery of the Mass as literate participants instead of as dumb spectators, an unprecedented renewal took hold. The vitality and warmth of today’s typical liturgy, involving intelligible encounters with sacred texts, has Catholic parishes surprisingly full, even in a time of widespread disillusionment with clerical leadership.
The structure of order that was embodied in the old tradition, and its language, turned out to be dead letters in comparison to the meaning and nourishment that now regularly draw Catholics to the Eucharistic meal. What Tyndale did for English, English has done for American Catholicism. And so with other vernaculars, elsewhere.”
His opinion (published here in the International Herald Tribune) is that the love of the Latin Mass is neither more nor less than an embracing of obscurantism; some words sound nicer when you don’t understand them, and using Latin makes people feel erudite and cool. Why else would they want to use a mysterious, dead language? He considers himself an authority on the subject in virtue of his having served as an altar boy in his (obviously misguided) youth. Ick. That story was not cute.
But the saddest was this piece from the opinion section of the LA Times. This author spends the first half of his piece nostalgically reflecting on the beauty of the older liturgy that he remembers from his Catholic childhood. He recounts his attempts to explain this to his nephew on Easter Sunday, and gently laments the complete lack of interest, so typical of the young, that his nephew displays. This is all familiar stuff, but he throws a curveball at the end, when he begins to have misgivings about the return of the old mass:
“Catholics my nephew’s age don’t remember when many non-Catholic Americans, even after the election of John F. Kennedy, regarded Catholicism as a mysterious cult partly because Catholic priests prayed in a ‘foreign language.’ Whatever its excesses, the English-language liturgy has contributed to interfaith amity. If the Latin Mass were still the norm, for example, would the Lutheran family of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist have felt comfortable with holding his funeral at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Washington, as they did in 2005? I wonder.”
Well, if it makes the Lutheran Rehnquists more comfortable, then by all means, stick with the Novus!
This writer speculates that Pope Benedict issued the motu proprio to appease his own sense of nostalgia for the old mass. But of course he doesn’t entirely approve, and his lukewarm compromise is somewhat disappointing: keep the new liturgy, but bring back the “smells and bells.” (His choice of phrase, not mine.) Most disappointing of all is his shining example of a successful best-of-both-worlds solution: a Sunday “Mass” he recently attended at… an Episcopal church! He notes that this is “ironic” and I quite agree. Ironic on many levels, but most of all because it gives the lie to the thesis of Time and others that the demand for the old mass is motivated primarily by nostalgia. This man is plenty nostalgic, and yet, as he rightly observes, smells and bells are available elsewhere if that’s all you seek. Why fight with obtuse Catholic bishops about it? You can simply troop over to the heretical church up the road, where incense and French vestments are readily available even if the Body of Christ is not.
Wading through so much silliness can be alternately amusing and tiring, but in the end, one cannot but feel a gentle compassion for so many people who really do not, and could not, understand what has happened to them, and what is happening now. Truly, the need for teachers is great! Our Holy Father is an eloquent spokesman, but he is only one man and the task at hand is a massive one. Friends, we have our work cut out for us.
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,
Clara,
As always an excellent post. Judging from the exploding heads of rage I’ve experienced lately when I even mention the MP, it is dead on. I spent a year on my parish’s liturgical committee with the grey haired ladies who run it (I was the only male, and only person under 50 there), and just the objections to actually following the rubrics, or using altar bells at the consecration resulted in heated arguments. Certainly, especially in our own diocese of Rochester, that there is an attitude of anything that even looks traditional is a step backwards, or, as what was I was told in my parish, “a step down the slippery slope away from Vatican II.” I kid you not.
Maybe the biggest problem in the Catholic Church in America is the knee jerk reaction to automatically dismiss and disobey anything that the Holy Father puts forward. This has been the script since Humanae Vitae in 1967 to the present day. In fact, a priest who I thought was orthodox and I’ve know since college (a bit longer ago than I’d like to admit to!) we had a blow out argument as he categorically dismissed the Pope’s MP as completely ridiculous. It was along the usual party lines. The good news is that there truly is a generational shift going on. We need to keep pushing.
One thing that would make it easier is if more traditionalists joined the parish and diocese liturgical committees instead of avoiding them. This is how the progressives took over, and frankly, it is difficult to turn the tide with out showing up on the battlefield. In my parish it was impossible to do it myself. If I could have gotten a half dozen traditionally minded folks to join, it would have made the battle possible. Strength in numbers is the object lesson.
Instead, I have been forced to retreat and approach things through the back door. The Deacon who runs the parish is actually interested in a more traditional NO and has asked for my help. He knows the liturgical committee isn’t going to do anything. I am hoping to eventually springboard that to a extraordinary form mass, but, I can’t even think about that now, because the liturgical committee would kill that idea at birth.
Bottom line, forget the mainstream, progressive controlled media. It’s time to steal a phrase from the progressives: “Think Globally but act locally” Traditionalists need to be there to accomplish anything. Take over the liturgical committees and the parish councils, volunteer for the CCD and RCIA instruction. Otherwise, we will be left bitching and moaning at the gates.
What exactly does a liturgy committee do?
CPT Tom, Isn’t there a Traditional Latin Mass in Rochester? Or maybe you don’t live there anymore. I like your militant spirit but at this point in time, I think finding a place where that Mass is said and trying to promote it outweighs infiltrating the parish councils, CCD programs etc. Many have been trying to do that for years and it’s always the same problems, which you described. Maybe we will have enough numbers to do that in a few years but right now it seems urgent to make hay while the sun is shining—while the Motu Proprio is still warm. There are some priests out there who are willing to stand up and they need some support and encouragement. There are others who have stood up and have taken the flack for years for offering the Latin Mass “without permission.”
I’ve never had any problems with going to certain independent priests who are “disobedient” just for offering the Traditional Mass. Now with the Motu Proprio and the Pope saying that the Mass was never abrogated—something we knew all along—those priests who resisted the Novus Ordo and continued to offer the Latin Mass have been vindicated along with all those who attended their “illicit” Masses. In looking for priests of good will on the local level and even bishops we have a chance to reinvigorate the whole Traditional Movement.
JSP:
The liturgical committee is the group in the parish that plans the weekly mass and music. They control everything having to do with the liturgy. In many parishes, especially in the Rochester Diocese, they usually have a good deal of power, and the priest usually stay out of their way. The key to dealing with the Rochester diocese seems to be to band the laity together to effect change in large numbers. The priest do not possess the
Discipulus:
I guess I am just too old for that kind of disobedience…and I’m sorry, I’m not going to drive 2 hours every Sunday just to go to an extraordinary mass. That’s how far I am away from all the This is not a good thing to do to one’s family, and i am not doing it to mine.
I’m sorry, I think you are missing the point of the MP. The Holy Father calls us to accept Vatican II, and the Novus Ordo. He is right, it was all badly implemented, and it was hijacked. But, it’s a legitimate rite of the Church, and it is the ordinary form for Billions of Catholics. What the Holy Father has really done is given the Traditional Movement a chance to effect real change from within the system. Take it, and be joyful. The only way to overcome is to take back the parishes. There is no way this will happen quickly considering the strength of the opposition.
TWO CORRECTIONS:
JSP:
The priests do not have the strength or ability to slow down a determined lay group.
Discipulus: (first paragraph should read)
I guess I am just too old for that kind of disobedience…and I’m sorry, I’m not going to drive 2 hours every Sunday just to go to an extraordinary mass. That’s how far I am away from any city (Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton) that has the TLM. This is not a good thing to do to one’s family, and i am not doing it to mine.
The pastor has the ability to dissolve the liturgy committee and there is nothing that the laity can do about it. The Catholic Church is an absolute monarchy, not a democracy. All of the silly Novus Ordinarians need to understand this. The Pastor is empowered by canon law to liquidate all these nonsense ministries and send the laity back to their pews and he can do this under penalty of mortal sin.
The laity only think they have real power. It’s a big lie. Let the liturgy committee give a unanimous decision in favor of the congregation receiving holy communion only on the tongue and see what happens to all your power.
“…I’m sorry, I’m not going to drive 2 hours every Sunday just to go to an extraordinary mass. That’s how far I am away from all the This is not a good thing to do to one’s family, and i am not doing it to mine.”
We’re talking about the salvation of the souls of your family. Teaching your children what is acceptable behavior and dress at Mass. Letting them make friends with good Catholic children. Letting them hear real no-nonsense Catholic sermons from real traditional Catholic priests.
Your traveling 2 hours to attend a TLM would send a much bigger message to the powers that be in Diocese of Rochester than your tinkering around with the ladies in the parish liturgy committee.
So what’s a 2 hour drive anyway?
When your kid complains tell him - “son, this is a small price and it’s worth paying for our Catholic faith.”
JSP:
While a pastor does have the power to abolish the liturgical committee, it is very unlikely he would do so today. Especially if he wanted to maintain harmony and control of his parish and especially in the Rochester diocese. You’ve obviously never been in a real live parish behind the scenes…especially a large one. It takes lay involvement to keep things running. The pastor cannot do it alone, and if he did just abolish the liturgical committee and told the laity to just go “back to their pews and he can do this under penalty of mortal sin.” It is unlikely that most of the laity would show up in the pews or for their duties. Sure, the mass would go on, but, the rest of the administration of the parish would come to a screeching halt.
There would be those who would support the pastor, but, they would be outnumbered by the ones writting the bishop or their contacts in the chancery. The parish would become an armed camp and The pastor would not be backed up by the chancery or the bishop, Likely they would be forced to compromise with the committee or face discipline and/or reassignment to the darkest place in the diocese.
Is this the way it should be? Of course, no. But, this is way it is many parishes or diocese. You sound like you’re not in a normal parish. Praise be, and good for you. If you actually want to affect change in the Church, you are going to have to come out of the “Traditionalist Movement” bunker you’re in and going to have to embrace your fellow NO Catholic and convert them. You aren’t going to be able to do that if you insult them or show complete disdain for them as “Novus Ordarians.” Most of those folks have known nothing else than the NO. I know, because I used to be one of them.
We’re talking mission work, just as sure as going to deepest Africa in the 18th century. It’s going to be a slow and difficult fight. It’s going to be a long slow fight, and guess what, it’s going to mean playing by the rules too. As a liturgical committee you aren’t going to outlaw anything that is valid. However, you can bend things toward the way you want things to go overtime. You have to do it by actually convincing and winning people over. If you want to encourage communion on the tongue, then you make sure there are patens are used by altar servers and that there are a reduced number of Extraordinary (what a joke) Ministers of the Eucharist. You don’t eliminate EMEs but you reduce them slowly.
Notice. Slow, gradual change. Should look familiar…it’s the way the progressives changed the culture in many parishes…particularly in historically conservative parishes. If you actually get a traditionally minded Pastor, you of course can move faster with larger changes. Radical change will only result in failure and destruction.
The bottom line, is either you look at this as missionary work and evangelization, or stay in your nice safe “Traditionalist movement” ghetto. Personally, I’d rather have a hand in bringing about the revolution, than wait for the ghetto to be liquidated. It’s go time…time to follow the Holy Father into the orchards to do good works.
Pax,
–CPT Tom
JSP:
Raising children is more than just the TLM. Teaching them about God goes beyond “solid sermons.” There is also compassion for fellow humans and giving of yourself to save them. My wife and I are the children’s principle teachers anyway not the priests or whoever. That is our cross to bear and to deal with
The Rochester Diocese (and most Dioceses for that matter) do not pay attention to anything that goes on with the indult mass. It is an annoyance to them, and they wish it would go away. No, they notice more what goes on with the laity as the bishop here has pinned his hopes on the laity.
Also, the Indult mass is a ghetto waiting to be wiped out. Which the bishop can do at the flick of a pen. If regular parishes start offering the TLM then he is more likely to pay attention.
Well, we’ve obviously have different strategic views of how to go about things. Godspeed in your endeavors, and the Lord’s peace be with you.
PAX
CPT Tom, I applaud your sincerity and your overall aims, but I think they are misguided.
My role as a husband and father is to sanctify myself and my family — saving the world, or “affect(ing) change in the Church,” as you say, is not even something I care to contemplate. My vocation calls me to sanctify the world first and foremost by my own sanctification and raising many saints within my home. Good solid priests are an essential part of this. I consider myself a well-informed Catholic, but I still learn more and more about the Faith from priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter. I learn more and more about myself in the confessional. These are things that most Novus priests simply are not capable of helping us with.
You are falling into the same trap as the Novus Ordo do-gooders and the Call to Action types — by thinking that you have some personaly ministry within the Church. Your “ministry” is within your home and workplace.
I’m not interested in fighting battles within the Novus Ordo parish. I’m not willing to be part of any compromise. You don’t compromise the sacred.
If the priests of Rochester are as much a bunch of women as you claim then there is no hope for them. Only real priests who are real men can turn the situation around. No amount of conservative or traditionalist participation within the local Befriender Ministry or Liturgy Committee is going to make Fr. Flapdoodle more of man and without that, he will never want any “confrontation” with the liberals, so what’s the use?
Save your soul. Save your family. Get out while you can.
Sure you are the primary educator of your children, but certainly the example set by their priests and their peers will have a great impact on them. What about the advice they get in the confessional form Fr. Flapdoodle?
“I’m sorry, I think you are missing the point of the MP. The Holy Father calls us to accept Vatican II, and the Novus Ordo.” CPT Tom, the whole point of the Motu Proprio was to restore the due honor to the Mass that was the one and only (not just the “ordinary”) form of offering for centuries. The Pope is saying let’s abolish the “ghetto mentality”—as you call it—imposed on loyal Catholics by bishops who have been DISOBEDIENT to the Motu Proprio, Ecclesia Dei. Talk about missing the point!
Umm, do we have two people posting under the name “Discipulus?” If so, could the more recent one choose a different name to use? Because the thing is, one of our regular commenters around here has been posting under “Discipulus” for quite awhile, and it’s rather confusing to have two people with the same tag. By all means, do continue to comment, just under a different name (Discipulus the Second?) if you don’t mind.
This whole discussion has turned a bit harsh…
The role of the laity is to animate the world (through family, work place, the political world, etc.) cf. Lumen gentium. The Priests and the Church nourish the laity for this task through the sacraments and teaching. If one wants to argue with that then argue with the Second Vatican Council.
Remember the embracing of Benecict’s Motu proprio must never be in the spirit of rebellion.
Okay, now that I’ve made that administrative comment…
I find this discussion quite interesting, and I think Joe Six Pack and Discipulus are surely both right in part. As I think has been established in the past, I don’t quite see eye to eye with JSP about the proper role of the laity in the Church. I mean, I certainly do agree that we need to submit to proper authorities and that the Church is not in any way a democracy. But he loses me when he insists that the layman should be exclusively devoted to taking care of himself and producing/caring for a family. These should, perhaps, be his highest priorities, but his duties can’t stop there; if they did it would be all but impossible to have functioning communities. The laity have always been vital to keeping the Church going, whether they’re building actual churches, singing in the choir, printing programs, running the St. Vincent de Paul Society, helping catechize children, or what have you. This is necessary for practical reasons, because we simply don’t have enough priests and religious to do all those things. (And we never have. The no-vocation problem is worse now than at some other times, but the laity have always been needed to help keep things running.) But in any case it’s better for the laity to be involved. When everyone pitches in somehow, the community is bound more closely together, and this is good for a thousand reasons. It makes it easier for people of all ages to find good Catholic friends (or, at the appropriate time, marriage partners), and it creates a support network that can help families in times of serious distress or hardship. So yes, in an ideal Catholic world, you would have responsibilities to your parish and your Catholic community.
That said, I can’t fully agree with Cpt Tom that we should all leave, as he puts it, the “Traditionalist Movement” bunker in order to infiltrate Novus parishes. I do think it’s important for us to seize the opportunity to build strong traditional communities, especially now when the pope is holding out a lifeline to help us do that. A strong traditional parish might succeed in attracting more serious Catholics, who will be drawn (as most of the members of this Society were) to the beauty and power of the traditional liturgy. That can’t happen if you shut down the traditional parish and farm the members out to the local Novus churches in order to advocate for more patens and less “Extraordinary” Ministers. Divided we fall.
Even among Novus parishes, it might sometimes be better strategy to reform good or not-too-bad Novus parishes rather than shouting into the wind in the really terrible ones. I mean, if you have a real gift for talking sense into liberals, then maybe… but I’m just somewhat dubious about the effectiveness of such an endeavor. With conservative Novus Catholics you might find some common ground, but it’s hard to find a foothold with the sort of Catholic that sighs that the Church is “not very modern” and thinks that’s a bad thing. Those kinds of parishes generally aren’t going to be fixed by gradual improvement from within. They’ll be fixed when their aging hippie priests die off and leave room for younger priests, a disproportionate number of which will come from conservative or traditional parishes. They’ll be fixed when those priests, over time, are elevated to bishops and cardinals and popes who understand where the Church’s strength lies. Then those Catholics who have been coasting along ignoring Church teaching about everything will be faced with a choice between returning to orthodoxy or becoming liberal Protestants.
Don’t get me wrong: in individual cases I’m all for doing your best to persuade, and to articulate the truth. But we won’t be able to help the desperate cases if we let the strongholds, as it were, fail. And children in particular should be immersed in healthy, orthodox Catholic communities if at all possible; that’s how they’ll learn what Catholic life should be like.
However, being myself a former resident of the Diocese of Rochester, I appreciate all too well the difficulty of Cpt Tom’s situation. Honestly, it’s tough to exaggerate the badness of that diocese. When I lived there, I normally would drive the two hours each Sunday and Holy Day for the Traditional Latin Mass (together with other members of this Society). We thought it was worth it, and we made the most of the driving time by praying the Rosary together or enjoying lively theological debates (out of which, incidentally, this blog arose). But most of our group were (at that time) healthy, single people in our twenties. With a family, there might be additional complications. What with the two hour drive each way, coming early for confession, and stopping for a meal on the way home, our Sunday excursions generally took somewhere between 6 and 8 hours. If you have a family member in poor health, if your automobile isn’t too reliable, if somebody has a job that requires them to be on call much of the time, etc etc… it might not always be possible.
As far as the parish community goes, I can only imagine that a family would suffer in many ways from being entrenched in a (probably heretical) liberal Catholic community. It isn’t the kind of formation you would want for your child. On the other hand, living 2 hours from your parish also has substantial drawbacks. Although I was baptized and confirmed at St. Michael’s in Scranton, and went to Mass there fairly regularly for three years, I never really felt like part of the parish. We knew a few people there, and occasionally stayed after Mass to hear a lecture or play in the parish softball game, but by and large we came to St. Michael’s for Mass and nothing else. We didn’t want it to be that way… but transportation was just such a problem. It was such a long trip, and for much of that time we had to rent a car every time we came. Coming down mid-week for a choir practice or a social hour was just impractical, and even staying late after Mass made a long day that much longer. But if you can only be in town from 9:45 until 11:15 every Sunday, your involvement with the parish will necessarily be very limited.
The bottom line: people living in a diocese like Rochester’s just have it rough. None of the options are particularly appealing. If you have no choice but to fill your Mass obligation in a really bad parish (like pretty much ALL the parishes in the Ithaca area), I salute you for trying to fight the good fight.
Clara, as always, you make sense. I was describing what I think is going to work here in the diocese and my parish. It really wasn’t my intent to be critical of folks who choose to travel far to a TLM. That’s great if folks can do that, but for me my family includes a 10 month old (my son), college aged teens (crypt dwellers) and an elderly father in law, so I’m going to have to put up with the cross of my local parish. Then, it is for me to look for the window where the Lord has closed a door. I also wanted to point out the realities that a normal parish have.
It will be 5 years before Bishop Clark retires. Until then I cannot just sit by and do nothing. The MP is another weapon in the arsenal to use to push back the darkness. The reality of the situation on the ground is that a dramatic change won’t happen, and the chances of getting a traditional mass locally won’t happen without laying groundwork. So, I choose to be the vine in the cracks of the stone, slowly working my way in to effect change. It beats just sitting there and taking it!
So anyway, I’ll put away my stump for right now. You all enjoy God’s graces where you find them, and pray for those who dwell in darkness. With his mercy we will see a great light!
PAX
I’m glad, Clara, that you have addressed the confusion regarding my identity. Rather than just let it go by the board for future historians to sort out, we should definitely find a solution now. Certainly I’m the real Discipulus. Therefore may I suggest that the newcomer henceforth be called “Pseudo Discipulus.”
(Actually, the newcomer made only two posts under, “On Nomenclature” and I think that was due to a glitch in your system, not being able to handle cookies correctly. I was caught off guard in that same thread and listed as Erasmus. No, Mater Marci, I don’t publish on ctn-jogues.)
Your sacrifices to attend St. Michael’s for three years are quite remarkable and some of the good fruits are clearly apparent. I’ve never had to make those types of sacrifice to attend a Traditional Mass but I know people who do and they too are happy to be able to do it. Some have quit their jobs, sold their homes, and moved to be close to a Latin Mass.
But now with the Motu Proprio, making such sacrifices won’t be necessary if we do just a little “missionary work”, knocking on parish doors, looking for a few good priests. No longer does anyone in Rochester have to wait for Bishop Clark to retire before more Latin Masses are conveniently located. For years the laity have been asking for bread and have been given scorpions by all too many bishops. The Pope has heard our requests and had decided to bypass the bishops. Of course many of them are already planning their rebellion but it’s up to the priests and the laity not to empower them. Every priest who wants to offer the Traditional Latin Mass has the Pope’s permission. He can offer it for as few or as many people who want to attend. A retired priest here, an order priest there, a young priest willing to abandon the chaos of the Novus Ordo: that’s all it takes. If the Bishops protest, that’s not our problem.
Cpt Tom, yours is an honorable mission, and I hope and pray that you will do some good in your parish. You never know, really, what might happen with any seeds you plant, even in ground that appears to be infertile. At the very least, you can help people to understand what it is that they’re rejecting when they eschew orthodoxy, which is good. There’s far too much confusion out there about what the Church really teaches, and why.
Discipulus is right, of course, that the MP opens possibilities for having the Traditional Latin Mass anywhere, even in places as bad as the Diocese of Rochester. It could happen, though, unfortunately, places like that don’t tend to have an abundance of orthodox priests. They’ve had almost no vocations for years (who’s surprised?), so even the young and enthusiastic JPII priests, who can often be brought to see the beauty of traditional liturgy, are seemingly absent. But as Discipulus says, it doesn’t take that much, once the MP comes into effect, to get something going. I’m sure all the members of this Society will join in praying for that to happen.
(true) Discipulus:
You are quite right. A mighty brick wall begins with just a single brick that in of itself is not very strong, but together with others it becomes a strong structure. It is my hope that the MP helps us to move the ball forward and back to sanity. I hope to see a traditional mass in my parish, but not yet. We’ll get there.
Clara:
Thank you for your prayers and kind regards. Well, I already failed once, getting shot down in a hail of Novus Ordo bullets going through the front door of the liturgical committee. Had to dust myself off and come back at it through the back door, and wait for opportunity. Been hosting our PA for coffee every so often and have built a bridge there where he and I actually now talk over the liturgy and tradition in the parish. He has stopped most of the worst abuses, and he has tasked me with the planning of the Saturday evening mass. So definitely forward motion. It’ll take time, work, and prayer.
Peace to you…
watching the American media try to tackle it is a bit like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek in which a primitive race tries to figure out what to make of the amazing starship Enterprise.
as much as i enjoy this blog, it’s this kind of arrogance that turns people away from the traditional movements. i grew up with the novus ordo mass, but during my teenage years, my parents discovered the tridentine movement. i’m very familiar with it and wish very much to be a part of it. but i find parish life extremely difficult because of the kind of people such an “off the beaten path” mass attracts. please know your movement could grow considerably if you wanted it to.
Anon, would you mind adopting a pseudonym of some sort so we don’t have to refer to you as “anon”? Thanks.
Secondly, folks frequently fault “this kind of arrogance” on our blog without ever specifying what in particular they found arrogant. Were you faulting Clara, or one of the posters? Except for Clara and myself, no one who posted on this thread is a member of our blog team — they all come and go as they please. If the arrogance lay with us, what was it? When people engage in fraternal correction, they have the duty to be precise in their criticism. Thanks for writing!
I think he means to say that I was the arrogant one, and the quote from my original post, comparing the liberal media to aliens on the Enterprise, was the example.
I’m sorry to have offended you, anon, but surely you realize that you raise a complex question. I don’t doubt that I am sometimes guilty of pride, but what is it in this post that makes you think so? Presumably the confidence with which I express myself, coupled with my patronizing and dismissive attitudes towards the authors of the various pieces I discuss. So let me discuss each of these in turn.
Regarding confidence in one’s views, it’s necessary to distinguish. You surely don’t think it arrogance to firmly and proudly proclaim the truth of our Catholic faith? To glory in ourselves is arrogance, but to glory in God and his truth is right and fitting for a Catholic. Of course there are other assumptions worked into this piece that some Catholics, including some faithful and orthodox Catholics, might dispute, mainly regarding the goodness of the Traditional Latin Mass. So it might be arrogant to proclaim them too confidently, if doing so was a way of browbeating or humiliating dissenters. And indeed, I would be more measured in my tone if my audience was primarily composed of, say, conservative Novus Catholics. But in this case I know that the bulk of our readers already love the old mass, so I don’t feel a need to tiptoe around these liturgical issues.
As for the tone: yes, it was dismissive and patronizing. I freely admit to having a low opinion of journalists generally, at least when it comes to their coverage of all things Catholic. (There are exceptions, but they would be the first to agree with me that they are, in fact, exceptions.) I further admit to holding the view that most people in most Western countries, and even most Catholics, fail to understand the beauty of the Traditional Latin Mass. Could any serious Catholic doubt it? There’s no point in beating around the bush about things like that.
But perhaps that isn’t quite to the point; even when one is in the position of being considerably more knowledgable than most about a particular subject, it isn’t always necessary to be snooty about it. Then again, sometimes maybe it is. Here we just have a difference in styles, and you have to make prudential decisions. Contemptuous, dismissive language can be alienating to some, but at times it can also be very effective rhetorically.
Consider the differences between CS Lewis and GK Chesterton. Lewis, at least in writing, very seldom sneers. Even with his “enemies” he is normally gentle and measured in tone. (The work “That Hideous Strength” is something of an exception, but perhaps he feels he has license there because it is his own profession that is being mocked.) Chesterton, on the other hand, most definitely does sneer, and his writings are so entertaining mainly because he ridicules opponents so effectively. It is true that he generally remains good-natured and cheerful throughout, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is very obviously enjoying a laugh at others’ expense. So here we have two different styles of writing. Which made the better apologist? I think you would have to say that both were enormously successful in what they did. Indeed, the later of these two writers (Lewis) was a great admirer of Chesterton’s writings. It’s never healthy to be hateful, but making fun of others in a cheerful spirit is not always unwise.
I won’t lie: I do sometimes find myself in a humor for writing a hit piece. I tend to think that this urge can safely be indulged so long as it isn’t overdone, and so long as the target is selected with care. I don’t normally sneer at people who ought to be “allies” (i.e. conservative Novus Catholics) but do you really think that the liberal media are likely candidates for conversion to traditional Catholicism? It’s doubtful. Of course, the sneering does sometimes irritate people like yourself, but in general I think most people like watching as common enemies are ridiculed. Just look at the enormous success of those many books on the left (”American Theocracy” or “The God Delusion”) ridiculing Christians in ludicrously exaggerated terms. The bestseller charts are filled with trash like that. Of course, I don’t want to go to those extremes, but it does seem to show that the mild-mannered approach isn’t always the most effective.