Catholic integralism is the true seamless garment.
The sympathetic writer forgot the 1984 indult that began freeing the traditional Mass in the official church. (Also the indult from the beginning allowing older priests to keep the old Mass at least privately, and, if I recall rightly, the Agatha Christie indult in Britain: lovers of high culture tried to keep it going.)
I'm not one of those conservative Catholics falling over themselves to make excuses for Pope Francis, because I look to the church, not the Pope's person (the mistake Novus Ordo conservatives made after the council), so I don't have to, but I like to think he's about putting rules in perspective, as part of a bigger picture of God's love and mercy. Like the Lutherans at their best; the Missouri Synod, a rival true church, is still very close to us (but opposed to us of course).
It is telling how much hostility exists within the Church towards the traditional liturgy, oftentimes by those who were themselves formed by that liturgy.Well, those people were the ones taken in by the progressivism of the space age. (The innovative, un-nostalgic '50s style I find charming – so modern it's quaint – when the old values including the old religion are in force, as they were then, right before the council.) They thought streamlining the church was a neat idea and think it was an accomplishment. They told us it would convert the Protestants. (How's that working out for youse?) Sometimes they're heretical.
Right. They also fell into a kind of false historicism - the idea that if we could only go back to the way the Mass was celebrated in the days of the Apostles, or St. Justin Martyr, or the very early Church in Rome. But that failed to understand the notion of the development of the liturgy.By the way:
But they really didn't go back to the way it was in the early Church in Rome. Instead they ended up innovating and innovating and ... The return to the Early Days and to slough off the Medieval days is a very Protestant notion.
Some liturgical-movement priests did Mass facing the people, sometimes to be educational, to teach the laity about the Mass as is; maybe some others had the liberal agenda. Anyway, this reminds me historically of a better version of around 1968, how I experience Pope Benedict's Novus the few times a year I see it. Sound text, despite Bugnini's "ecumenical" omissions.
It's Not About Latin™: it's a beautiful language and has its place as both a template and an international second language for the church, but I'm all for the vernacular (the art of the Book of Common Prayer, not the content or the theology), just to shut up the liberals who make like we have a fetish for a dead language.
At the same time, there's a strange interest on the part of many trads to get back to 'right where we left off.' Most of the pictures I see usually highlight vestments, for example, that seem to belong in a reenactment. Sadly, the preferred historical moment for these snapshots really doesn't mark a high point in our history. I like solemnity, incense, and plainsong. I even like Latin. But I would be entirely happy to see lace, birettas, and those nearly square chasubles only worn by actors and in movies.
ReplyDeleteI've seen fiddlebacks that are too narrow so they look like brocade scapulars but other than that, I heartily disagree. Traditional Latin Catholicism is not monolithic, from Irish to Polish to Italian, etc., plus the different personalities of religious orders. I'm all for lace, birettas, wide fiddlebacks, and shovel-ended stoles and maniples (we use them at my parish), in a wedding-cake sanctuary just like in the movies (which we have), but also like Gothic vestments (we have those too) and plainchant bouncing off the walls of a stone Romanesque church, and space-age doo-wop/googie architecture ("The Jetsons") as long as it was built for the old religion, altar rail in use, etc.
DeleteI'm not personally a fan of lace or any of the precious little trinkets, to be honest. The Roman Rite should be celebrated with a noble simplicity. The problem with the Novus Ordo is not that it sought to reform the liturgy -- the liturgy had been reformed before and honestly there was a lot about the Tridentine liturgy that needed to be reformed, even Pius XII understood that, and started the deeper reform process by revising the Holy Week services during his pontificate. The problem is that too much of the reform was oriented not towards a deeper restoration of the traditional elements of the Roman rite but towards a re-imaging of the Roman rite. As a result, the old precious trinkets (lacy albs) got replaced not with noble simplicity but with a whole new set of precious trinkets (like eucharistic ministers). Yuck.
DeleteI disagree except the great Thomas Day has made a similar point about the "reform." You prefer Low Mass, as did many/most golden-era Catholics. The liturgical movement was trying to teach people about the High Mass as it's the theoretical norm for the rite. The effect of the council was a betrayal of that movement, getting rid of the High Mass. So you went from Low Mass junked up with unliturgical hymns to ... Low Mass junked up with unliturgical hymns, only the ceremonial was low-churched and the hymns now had guitars. I understand liturgical scholars don't like Bugnini's 1955 Holy Week services.
DeleteWhat's wrong with lace? But what I value more than lace is good music, which unfortunately is apparently not what was abundant in the American RCC in the 1950s.
DeleteOur music is a good mix, very Anglican and Anglo-Catholic. Organ preludes and postludes, Anglican processional and recessional hymns, and plainchant and polyphony for the Mass, with a classic Catholic hymn such as "O Sanctissima" at the Offertory. Thomas Day agrees that Catholic parish music in the '50s was subpar; to this day most congregations don't sing. We're not a re-enactment; we're high-church plus we have living links, people who were adults before the council, keeping it real, making sure we do the important stuff right.
DeleteLace is just too precious, it isn't simple, it isn't part of the tradition of noble simplicity in the Roman rite. John is right, low Mass is not the normative form of the Roman rite, but it was the normative practice of the Roman rite throughout the world, and for good reason. The problem with the reform after Vatican II is that it sought to transform the Roman rite, rather than reform it.
DeleteRe: It's not about Latin
ReplyDeleteI think the development of the Anglican Use into the Ordinariate mass is the best example of this. The culture of most of the Ordinariate groups in the U.S. is Tridentine, as opposed to Episcopalian or Novus Ordo. What you see there is the traditional mass, with some variations - some of which come from Cranmer, but many of them come from Sarum, either directly or via Cranmer. The reintroduction of the traditional offertory, the insistence on the Gregorian Canon, the adding of the prayers at the foot of the altar and the last gospel all move in the direction of the traditional mass. The main difference from the TLM is the use of Tudor English. A friend of mine sells the Ordinariate use as "the Latin mass for those who get tired of all the Latin".
True except I don't think much of it comes from Sarum. That's a myth about Anglican liturgy.
Delete