Ecclesiastical bibs and bobs

• On the roots of the late-C20 Modernist takeover of RC worship. From Arturo. As Thomas Day explains (as he does perfectly the story of English-speaking RCs) the result wasn’t the fulfilment of the legitimate liturgical movement but a bare, dull service — ‘a stale religion for sterilized people’ — with even more unliturgical, and theologically dodgy, junk filling the void. I’ll take baroque over 1970s naffness.
• Fuzzy liturgy implies fuzzy theology and fuzzy theology damn sure incarnates fuzzy liturgy. Quoted by Derek.
• The other Bishop Robinson: The cynical side of me says that Kasper is basically a curial liberal who is only interested in talking to other liberals. More charitably, I think Kasper can only see the value in bringing in whole churches, not just the conservative wing of this or that. His mindset is really a throwback to the ecumenical optimism of the 1970s, and is sadly out of date now that Liberal Catholicism and Liberal Protestantism have effectively imploded. As for the future of the [Roman] Church after Benedict XVI... I don’t see a return to Paul VI-type liberalism, but by the same token I don’t see Benedict’s vision sticking either. I suspect that Rome will revert to type, reimpose the restrictions on the EF, but continue trying to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear of the post-Vatican II liturgical reform. The real hope of change would be if Benedict lives into his 90s, and is succeeded by another conservative intellectual.
• Hilary: Bring in the Trads. Bring the Anglos back. Force the poisonous snakes in your own curia to out themselves. Go Benny! Go Benny! Go Benny!
• The Anglican row again. Well, chaps, we had a good run; glad I got to see some of it. More.