Motuphobia Lives
Posted by: tony on 08/01/2007 08:22 PM
Updated by: tony on 08/01/2007 08:47 PM
Expires: 09/01/2007 12:00 AM
I've really missed Todd since he's been on vacation. Most blogs I visit "preach to the choir". Todd's doesn't. He dings my bell with a post entitled Motumania Lives.
What's this? There's a problem from the high ground of the culture of complaint? Some surprise that not every Catholic is singing Te Deum? We all still have the freedom to criticize, don't we? I don't necessarily equate that with "aggression." Just words on paper, right?
Nope, God gives us free will. We all have the freedom to criticize. As a matter of fact, a goodly portion of this blog has been dedicated to criticism of the many abuses of the Novus Ordo that I have encountered so far. To be fair, the problem isn't with the Novus Ordo, per-se. The problem is with the implementation of the reformed missal by priests and Bishops who coincidentally grew up in the anything-goes 60's.
But throughout that criticism, I have never said that the Novus Ordo was invalid (and I know, neither has Todd). I understand that if there's wheat bread, ordained hands, the intent, and the prayers of consecration, Jesus is still real and present even if the presider is in a clown suit, or dressed like Barney the Dinosaur™.
Well, a certain sector of Catholic opinion is getting more aggressive, it seems. Commonweal has published what is an open dispute with the Pope's decision to permit the free choice to offer the old form of the Roman Rite. They believe that this is a secret plot to dismantle and finally bury the new form and implicitly undermine the Council that preceded the new form's promulgation. The article takes issue with a number of aspects of the older use, and praises the new by comparison, which is certainly their right. Nothing about the Motu Proprio requires anyone to prefer old to new or new to old. It broadens choice.
It doesn't seem very genuine to frame this development in terms of a choice. If Catholics were given authentic choices, then we might, for example, have authentic Scripture translations with inclusive language. For the reform2 crew, the motu is about one choice: their own. Not anybody else's. I'm fairly safe in saying they don't give a darn about any celebrations but their own.
Well, now them's fighting words. I'm someone who believes that the ordinary experssion of the Latin rite is in desperate need of reform in some places. This is one of the big weakenesses in the ordinary expression. You can go from parish to parish and run the gamut from ad orientem with chant and Latin, the priest "reading the black and doing the red" to guitar strumming celebrations, prayers to God, our mother, and the piece de resistance, receiving Holy communion from someone dressed like the Devil.
Now with all those choices, we will have another choice. A choice which was never removed in any of the Vatican II documents or papal moto proprios. People will be able to choose the ordinary expression (which until it is reformed, could be anything) to the extraordinary expression which only comes in two flavors... low and high. And each of those flavors is consistent within itself.
The problematic paragraph for Tucker may have been this one:
Given the series of concessions that have already been made to Catholic traditionalists, and the radical views and program of those to whom this pope has given his approval and endorsement in the past, it is difficult to believe that with Summorum Pontificum a definitive compromise has been reached and the matter will end there. A more plausible understanding of the present moment is that it marks another step toward a goal that the vast majority of Catholics would not countenance if it were openly acknowledged-namely, the gradual dismantling of the liturgical reform in its entirety.
Is the dismantling of liturgical reform a real danger? Not without a mass defection of mainstream Catholics. Usually when True Believers want to make a stand, they don't attempt a makeover of the whole Church. The traditional route has been to make for the wilderness and set up spiritual shop far away from the corrupting influence of others.
It's possible that there will be mass defection (heh, "mass" defection, he made a pun!). I think what is attempting to be dismantled is not liturgical reform (at least as spelled out in the documents of the second Vatican Council, which Todd has read because he has done extensive commentary on them; see his blog for a lot of valuable information). What should be dismantled is the unbounded creative urges of liturgists.
I think we know from the text of the motu that Summorum Pontificum is a step. Things are wide open from here on out.
If Todd means "wide open to the voice of the Holy Spirit", I have to agree with him. But if he means "anything goes", the Holy Father has been very restrained, thoughtful and pastoral regarding the liberalization (heh :)) of the use of the extraordinary expression. It seems that rather than "rolling back" Vatican II, the Holy Father has simply explained what it says. As someone who was involved in the second Vatican Council, his words explanations should carry a lot of weight. This Pope is not reactionary.
I would say that there's something of a common ground Rita Ferrone is getting at here: a lack of trust in Catholic hierarchy. Some might call that tragic. Others dismiss it as a sign of the times. But when the Church bows to making policy based in part on a hermeneutic of obstruction, it probably shows a bit more of its weakness than it expresses the offering of true choice.
There are a number of aspects of this article that are striking. First, the liberal spirit of the Motu Proprio is nowhere noted. One could easily get the impression that the Pope has imposed something when in fact he has broadened the options and put to an end the coercion that enforced the monopoly of the new form.
Tucker badly overstates his case here. The Roman Missal, as he and his confreres at NLM never fail to point out, can be celebrated in Latin, by priests with their fiddlebacks to the people, with chant and polyphony, in traditionally architectured churches, and with as much incense as their sinuses can stand.
Why don't they?
Because the Roman Missal has little attraction for them. Most all of the clergy who could lead such services have little to no interest in liturgical reform. And for a good chunk of the laity it's all about politics, too. The old Missal was the rallying banner for schismatics, and the rubicon of their discontent.
Actually, that isn't true. The reason that it is not, is that the Vatican II generation of priests were led to believe that the vernacular was required and that Vatican II forbade Latin. Oh, we're starting to learn how false it is, and NLM has gone a long way toward educating us in that regard. But that education has come to us recently, due to faulty, inadequate and just plain wrong catechesis of the faithful when the missal of Paul VI was promulgated. (A poster child for this bad catechesis can be found at Fr. Z's most excellent weblog1.)
This Pope is remedying this. Summorum Pontificum is more a teaching tool than a mandate. Like Jeffrey stated, nothing was forbidden. Nobody has been mandated to attend an extraordinary expression Mass. Priests will be required to learn it to minister to those faithful who gain spiritual sustenance from that form of mass, but this is a good thing if nothing else, to teach some priests humility and obedience, and broaden their liturgical horizons.
So, if your liturgical tastes are more toward "the big top" form of the Mass, your priest can still dress up as a clown, and you can still have dancing girls in the sanctuary. But if you prefer the extrordinary expression, you know that you will not have those particular performances inflicted on you.
What Summorum Pontificum has done is legitimize the desires of those who prefer the extraordinary expression, and is encouraging those people to leave the "ghettos" they have found themselves in. Most importantly, leave the ghetto of the SSPX and return to the Catholic Church.
These faithful, though deemed radical by some, are salt which should flavor an entire parish community. When taken by themselves all in one place, they will definitely seem much too salty.
Second, the article nowhere grants the incredibly obvious fact that aspects of life under the new form, because of its imprudent leap into unchartered territory, has led to the alienation of many and artificially cut Catholics off from so much of our holy tradition.
Tucker overstates his case with this line of thought, too. At least in the States, Humanae Vitaewas the single most-quoted reason for people leaving behind the Catholic tradition. Are letters from the pope all about keeping the largest number of the faithful on board the Barque? Alienation is often a personal choice, and not infrequently it involves matters of personal stubbornness, if not sin. Anyway, that's what these conservatives tell us about contraceptors and other sexual sinners.
It's about keeping the largest number of the faithful on board the Barque, as long as that Barque remains Catholic. We moan and cry about our lack of priestly vocations. We make suggestions such as married priests, woman priests, lay parish administrators, allow Deacons whose wives have died to re-marry, etc.
God wants to give us as many holy and righteous priests as we need. We have to start by accepting them and not contracepting them into oblivion. I think a big part of solving the priest shortage is to throw out the rubbers and flush the pills. But that means putting our lives in God's hands. Are we ready for that? As independent, sexual revolution, me-centric Americans, are we really ready for that?
Maybe he was talking about a lack of tradition? Exit to Tridentine Low Mass, murmured by clergy, silent in the pews. You'll no doubt get a heaping helping of the Catholic tradition there.
Ahh... The active participation angle. In order to get something out of the Mass, we have to be doing something. We need to have a role, we need to sing every song, we need to be glad handing, hand holding and orans posturing.
Active participation means immersing ourselves in the paschal mystery. It means absorbing the smells, hearing the bells, receiving our Lord not on our feet and in our hands, but on our knees with the priest, in persona Christi, feeding us Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The rich symbolism of being fed God Himself by God Himself.
Third, the article adopts the paranoid style in imputing secret motives to the Pope, whereas the motivation of the Pope is clearly presented in a personal letter, and it has nothing whatever to do with dismantling a church council, for goodness sake.
Paranoia, even if it might be Ferrone's weak spot, is not a style, but an opinion. And dismantling a church council: that has been true from the very first one. Arians did it; why not the extremes of liturgical traditionalists? I don't know that the pope himself has "secret" motives. I tend to think he's given in to those who do.
Wow, comparing traditionalists to heretics, and the Holy Father as a pawn and a dupe of radical traditionalists. Some people rmember Cardinal Ratzinger as God's rottweiler, the Grand Inquisitor putting the smackdown on heretics.
He is now Pope, who is pastor of the world. He has become God's German shepherd, who is tasked to lead God's flock, the entire flock. Now he is righting some wrongs, not wrought by the second Vatican Council, but by fallible men's (and women's) interpretation of the second Vatican Council.
The Holy Father is telling us where we've gotten it wrong, and how he'd like it corrected.
How these people can be called liberals is beyond me. The old-style Catholic liberals of the 19th century believed in freedom, the right of conscience, and a papacy that led by example and persuasion rather than imposition and the sword. Benedict XVI stands with this older liberal tradition, and against those whose agenda is dependent on the use of ever more dictates and ever narrower liturgical options.
I wish these traditionalists could get their chameleon spots right and keep them that way. The motu isn't about freedom and conscience. It's about a church in which those who complain the loudest and the longest eventually getting their way. We've all seen this attempted in our parishes. Sometimes it works quite well for the complainers.
And if the complaints are valid, they should be addressed. This should happen on a parish level, but unfortunately it doesn't in most cases. If what you are doing is prohibited by the rubrics, you're not doing something that is mandated by the rubrics or if you are teaching in violation of Catholic doctrine, the faithful have the right to a Catholic Mass Done Right™.
And God likes complainers. Don't you remember the Gospel passage about the widow and the judge?
In the long run, it renders damage to unity. Some Catholics are above complaining to Father whenever a spiritual hangnail bothers our day. I'd tend to count myself in that group. At some point, an adult can opt to take personal responsibility for one's own dissatisfactions, distractions, and hurt feelings. I do it on this web page with "sneers," as John will tell you. Rita Ferrone writes a published criticism. It's all about freedom, right?
Of course it is. You have the right to your opinion, but others do too. Rita criticizes the Pope, Jeffrey criticizes Rita, Todd criticizes Jeffrey, I criticize Todd and people criticize me. Ultimately the buck stops with the Pope, so unless you're ready to say: "non serviam", you really have to follow what he says.
And I don't understand the damage to unity. We have no unity now from parish to parish, or diocese to diocese. All you have to do is compare Los Angeles to Lincoln Nebraska. It doesn't even look like the same religion.
Getting back to theology, I believe the "exceptional" form of Catholic worship remains a seriously flawed option. Without an intentional, and non-optional reform, the 1962 observance of the sacraments will be a self-satisfied spiritual backwater, especially the Low Masses and the celebrations of the other sacraments. In order for it to find any life, it will need to move beyond the period of rediscovery and infatuation it currently enjoys. At some point, the discoveries of the Liturgical Movement will, by necessity, need to permeate the rites, and organic growth, including the sensibility of participation, will need to take root.
That's "extraordinary", not "exceptional". Think of it like "extraordinary" ministers of Holy Communion.
And I disagree. The big difference is that Todd and the Holy Father have two different ideas about what "active participation" means. And I'll stick with the Pope's definition, thanks.
The second point is that the Pope Benedict has stated that the Mass of Bl. John XXIII is open to organic development. The keyword here is "organic". If something is going to be changed, it needs to be thought about carefully, prayed upon fervently and implemented charitably.
I submit that if the organic change model was applied to the missal of Paul VI, we wouldn't be having this discussion. There would have been no moto proprio because there would have been no need.
But that particular djin has been let out of the bottle. There's no stuffing it back. One can only hope that organic development also applies to the ordinary expression. If it does, I have a feeling, and this is only a feeling, mind you, that the two expressions will move closer and closer to one another until we have a single expression of the Latin rite.
And getting to the pastoral situation, I suspect that decades of sniping and complaint will render some traditionalist communities ill-prepared for the task of unity. They will get their Latin, fiddlebacks, and except for Low Masses, their musical heritage. I can't imagine it will be easy to refrain from sniping at one another as we've already seen among internet Catholics who deem others' orthodoxy not orthodox enough.
Then those of us who understand will have to continue to correct them like the brothers we love. And that means intolerant "liturgy Nazis" on both sides. I think I've been pretty fair and balanced in my criticisms of both sides. As a matter of fact, those fights were the impetus for my starting this blog. I just want to take the two camps and smack their heads together.
At any rate, I welcome the motu with a degree of caution. I think it has the potential to unmask the problems of Catholic liturgy and spirituality as being far deeper than red or black words on a printed page. I suspect something far more pathological is in play with our current liturgy wars. The motu is little better than deck chair redesign, but if that's what it takes to open a few eyes, maybe some good will come of it.
I think the "black and the red" is the place to start. Trying to make the Catholic Church "relevant" (those are "sneer quotes") by conforming it to the values of the world has almost destroyed her.
If there is something wrong with the black and the red, it needs to be changed by those ordained by God to change it. Then it needs to be handed to all the Catholic faithful so we can all benefit.
There needs to be an end to lone rangers, be they Bishops, priests or liturgists.
-- [1] I find myself at the end of prayer time adding a little extra: "...dear Lord, please keep my weblog posts out of Fr. Z's crosshairs. I ask this in Jesus' name who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen."
