The Latin Mass (II)

Rod Dreher's thoughts are here. Among other things, he writes:

I don't understand how it is that the Latin mass can be something that nobody but the tiniest sliver of Catholics want, but it can also be a nuclear bomb that obliterates the Catholic Church. Benedict is making a slight accomodation to help a certain number of Catholics who have endured a lot of very, very difficult times, and who are in many cases making extraordinary sacrifices to keep the faith. I don't understand why making the Tridentine mass more widely available should be interpreted as a move designed to force non-traditionalists out of the Church. If the Pope were withdrawing the Paul VI mass and replacing it with the old mass, they'd have a point. But he's not; he's only offering more choices to the faithful, within the Church's continuing tradition. And that's wrong ... why?

Downes' point about the pope's latest move exacerbating the factionalizing of contemporary Catholicism is more on point, but it says more about Downes' lack of paying attention these past decades than it does about the pope. Many engaged Catholics of the left and the right already parish-shop. Everybody knows which parishes in a given diocese have the reputation for being orthodox, and which have the reputation for being progressive. It shouldn't be that way, I recognize, but that's how it's shaken out since the Council. The divisions Downes sees coming have been with us for some time now. True, most Catholics continue on at their parish, and probably don't get involved with the faith at the level of caring overmuch whether the pastor is orthodox or progressive. But is that a good thing? In most of the parishes I was involved in as a Catholic, peace was kept because the priests/deacons avoided talking about controversial aspects of Catholic teaching.

I agree with all of this, and - just to be clear - I don't think that the slight damage that may be done the tattered unity of American Catholicism outweighs the benefits of restoring a much-beloved liturgy that probably never should have been restricted in the first place, and that will enhance the religious devotion of many thousands of faithful Catholics, most of whom are not nutty Hutton Gibson types but sincere, ordinary believers who merely want to worship God in the most elevated manner they know. I just find myself very, very weary of the divisions in the American Catholic Church, of which the liturgical division is just one manifestation, and which make it so very hard to just be a ordinary Catholic, orthodox and American at the same time. (Not that Christianity is supposed to be easy, of course ...)

Jody Bottum wrote a long essay on Catholic culture in America last year, in which he suggested that "one can find at least hints that Catholicism has finally begun to leave the deadlocked past behind." I liked the essay and the sentiment, and I certainly hope that he's right, but I don't always see it. The post-Vatican II battle has cooled off, yes, but sometimes it feels like there's an awful lot of scorched earth left behind where nothing green is growing.

Comments

It won't happen, but a thorough catechesis for the general mass-going public on the extent and the meaning of the pope's motu proprio would do a lot, and could arguably get a ball rolling on all the things that you (and I) are worried about. By explaining how it is that two rites can be offered, what those rites have in common could be cast in high relief, thus explaining a lot about the nature of the liturgy that Catholics don’t seem to question. The importance of the Latin language as (in my understanding) a unitive property for a universal church could be underscored. And, perhaps, a more robust sense of continuity with the pre-Vatican II era could be fostered--creating a bridge not just to 1964, but to all of Catholic history. And once you're tapped into that, there's a chance for real ecclesiastical revitalization.

So, let's see... All we need is an episcopate that is willing to stick their necks out and teach, priests who are capable of passing along that teaching, and a congregation that's willing and able to listen and learn. Any time now...

Posted by Chris Floyd | July 30, 2007 10:42 PM

If you joined the priesthood because you think you have a priestly vocation, then the Tridentine Mass will give you the oppurtunity to express your heart doing holy priestly acts. You can outsource the rest of the parish works to us lay people. Your job is to remain in the spiritual realm and tell us about what's out there. No one is perfect so you will fall sometimes, but what we lay people are begging is your sincereity to get up and pursue holiness again so that we can follow you.

But you can't have it both ways. You can't just enjoy the monetary support we reserve for holy priesthood and then renounce holiness and reverence. You can't just collect material goods from us lower mortals and then declare that you oppose the Pope.

Posted by Morgan | July 30, 2007 11:47 PM

Re: True, most Catholics continue on at their parish, and probably don't get involved with the faith at the level of caring overmuch whether the pastor is orthodox or progressive. But is that a good thing?

Overall, I would say Yes. The Christian faith is surely about something more important than church politics. If getting involved in the controversy du jour leads to damage of one's faith then one is better off not getting involved.

Posted by JonF | July 31, 2007 6:25 AM

Ross -

You'll do your readers a favor if you vow never to link to Rod Dreher on the issue of Catholicism ever again. He's hysterical, and is incapable of anything other than overstatement. See, e.g., "We are in a time of radical chaos in the West, a time in which the notion of authority itself is deeply suspect."

Worse, he's internally contradictory, arguing at once that "everybody" knows which parishes are orthodox and which are not, but "most" Catholics ignore the issue.

The worst thing that has ever happened to my spiritual life was stumbling across the Rod Dreher/Chicken Little wing of the Catholic blogosphere. Please consider doing me and any other like-minded readers a favor, and passing him by next time.

Posted by Joe Magarac | July 31, 2007 7:09 AM

While we're at it, perhaps we could spread the blame more widely. The idea, in a time of an increasingly educated laity, that a top-down, no transition transformation of the liturgy was a good idea was simply DUMB on many levels. It was the sort of dumb idea that only liberals could imagine would not lead to disaffection and splintering--the same sort of liberals who thought that a judicial mandate on abortion was a good idea and wouldn't involve any significant push back.

Add to that the fact that the transformation took no serious account of historical research into the liturgy and you have a recipe for disaster. I was an altar boy under the "old" liturgy and I think I have a somewhat educated understanding of it, but it was a no brainer to me that abuses had crept in. Nevertheless, the cure was worse than the disease, given that it left the faithful in the pews at the mercy of taste (or lack thereof) of the worship-by-committee crew.

My pet peeve is that the Paul VI "reforms" took no account of something as basic as: church architecture and what that might tell use about how the liturgy should take place. For example, no one appears to take seriously the two major divisions of the Mass: the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist, nor do they relate that basic division of the liturgy to 1) the architectural division of sacred space (the space where the sacrifice is performed v. the space where the non-consecrated people gather and where the word is expounded), or, to give just one other example, 2) the use of a special, dedicated language during the sacrifice performed by special consecrated priests v. the use of the vernacular for communicating with the faithful.

Posted by anduril | July 31, 2007 9:35 AM

Ross,

As a convert of some 25-plus years, most of which have been marked, yea scarred, by the divisions you mention, I bring you good tidings of great cheer: it really is better now than it was twenty or thirty years ago. And I keep running into young Catholics who aspire as you do to be orthodox, but without a chip on the shoulder. I think your generation has a fair shot at healing much of the division. It's the nature of the Church as of the world in general to lurch from one problem to another, but this particular one is mending.

Posted by Maclin Horton | July 31, 2007 11:00 AM

Mending, but certainly not mended. Often there aren't even good choices, with respect to the liturgy -- where I live, there are two churches, moderately but not fiercely orthodox (some others of more "progressive" suasion I haven't investigated much) in doctrine. At one, the Mass tends toward the life-teen approach, with ads in the parish bulletin for a new drummer and lots of the plague of Marty Haugen.

The other is more stately and dignified (no Latin Mass), but there's a good chance any given mass will be Father X, a well meaning soul who, by moving VERY SLOWLY through each phrase and having highly idiosyncratic homilies and injections turns the Mass into "the Father X show" -- not meaning to, I repeat, but due to his total ineptitude at drama and his insistence on speaking so much _as himself_ as to make the liturgy a drama with him as lead actor -- he utterly distracts all present from the liturgy itself.

On the other hand, maybe all this was pretty bad in different ways before Vatican II -- if catechesis and liturgy had been as great as sometimes portrayed, it's hard to see how the mess would have come about in the first place.

Posted by the marquis of carabas | July 31, 2007 12:56 PM

The Catholic mass was being offered in the US in many languages other than English well before the US Church began offering the mass in English. (NOTE: I studied Latin for 4 years and could read and write it. I still remember most of the prayers of the mass and most of the hymns in Latin. However, I now refuse to sing the Latin hymns used during lent. I also refuse to sing the Spanish portions of the mixed language songs used at the mass today.)

If there are enough immigrants from Latin in parts of the US to justify offering the mass in their native language, go for it. Read the scripture in Latin, preach in Latin and make the announcements in Latin. Perhaps they will even fill the collection plates with the official currency of Latin. However, I will continue to attend the mass in English and make my contributions in US currency.

Posted by Ed Reid | August 1, 2007 8:25 AM

I recently watched Ingmar Bergman's "Winter Light" again; I first saw it in a theater twenty years earlier. I was an undergraduate then, and the experience overwhelmed me. It's still impressive technically (acting, cinematography, editing, etc.) but my opinion has definitely changed. The main character, Pastor Tomas Ericsson, is meant to be sympathetic, a man emotionally scarred by life. Now he's just a selfish jerk. And the symbols of the God he rejects (medieval crucifixes, the archaic language of prayer) are precisely what I find attractive. I assumed all the interiors of the churches were shot on location, which wasn't the case. What made the sets so convincing were the statues and other props, stuff that was given away or sold by real churches during the modernization of the 1960s.

Posted by Peter | August 1, 2007 11:23 AM

I just want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the new generation Catholics for giving the Tridentine Mass a chance. But I do not intend to alienate the New Mass. There is now enough room for everybody. I'm glad that we are now fighting how to worship and love God better, instead of whether to believe in His existence or not. You people have no idea how happy we are with the Pope's Motu Proprio. Spiritual joy is priceless.

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Posted by Leroy Blackburn | December 19, 2007 9:38 PM

THE DEMOGRAPHICS ARE OUT THERE IN THE CATHOLIC WORLD AND THEY DO NOT SUPPORT STATEMENTS LIKE, ONLY A SLIVER OF OR ONLY A FEW OLD TIMERS WANT THE 1700 YEAR OLD LITURGY CODIFIED AT THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. THE REAL FACTS CONTRADICT THE LEFTISTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, REVISIONIST 60'S TYPE CLERICS IN PARTICULAR THAT FEW WANT THE CLASSIC LATIN LITURGY. THE FACTS FOLKS, LITERALLY MILLIONS OF CATHOLICS WORLDWIDE HAVE REJECTED "TOTALLY" THE PAULINE/BUGNINI VENACULAR MASS.MASSES CELEBRATED IN LATIN IN THE CLASSIC/TRADITIONAL FORM "EXTRAORDINARY" ARE WITNESSES TO PACKED CHURCHES STANDING ROOM ONLY FOR THE ORTHODOX MASS AND THE VAST MAJORITY ARE CATHOLICS BETWEEN 15 & 50. THERE IS A VOCATION CRISIS AMOUNG TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS IN THAT THE TRADITIONAL SEMINARIES, MONASTERIES, ABBEYS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS TRADITIONAL ORDERS HAVE NOWHERE TO ACCOMADATE THE LARGE INFLUX OF YOUNG VOCATIONS, THEIR GROWTH IS PHENOMINAL AND WAS TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.AS FOR THE NOVUS ORDO (NEW ORDER IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ,FEW SEEK THE PRIESTHOOD OR RELIGIOUS LIFE AND THE POST VAT 2 CHURCH IS IN TROUBLE. IN CLOSING, FOR NON INFORMED CATHOLICS AND NON CATHOLICS WHO THINK THEY KNOW MORE THAN CATHOLICS ABOUT THE CATHOLIC RELIGION, IN THE CLASSIC TRIDENTINE MASS THE PRIEST "DOES NOT TURN HIS BACK ON THE PEOPLE BUT WITH THE PEOPLE CELEBRATED THE EUCHARIST FACING EAST TO JERUSALEM AND THE DIRECTION IN WHICH THE MESSIAH WILL RETURN. SO TO THE NON CATHOLIC GET IT RIGHT OR SHUT UP AND CATHOLIC START LEARNING YOUR FAITH----SHALOM

Posted by John | January 1, 2008 9:17 AM