I have called Michael Matt, of The Remnant paper and Remnant TV, my favorite Catholic comedian, because he and his confrere Christopher Ferrara have in the past cracked me up. Even here, in his latest video, his use of the term ‘young bucks’ certainly raises eyebrows; the phrase, in its tone-deafness, reminds me of the time Mr Ferrara said in exasperation at the notion of women’s ordination “What next? Ordaining cats and dogs?” Because, you know, ordination is only for humans. No, I do not favor women’s ordination, but that is an offensive comment by any measure.
Watching this, though, just made me sad:
The man’s distress is palpable, and the ‘catacomb’ stage set, complete with the pile of bones and skulls, speaks worlds about how the Remnant and other ‘traditionalists’ view the world and their place in it. While I have criticized, and goofed on, the folks who call themselves traditionalists, I am not unsympathetic to them and their concerns. Not least, because I know from attending the Latin High Mass that much of their angst is rooted in the experience of the numinous that awed them during the Latin Mass. There is nothing quite like it: cerebral but transcendent, contemplative and serene. In contrast, the Byzantine Divine Liturgy is ecstatic and exuberant, transfigurational and euphoric. I experienced the Latin Mass as a child, in powerful ways, and then later as a returnee. While I have not assisted at a Tridentine liturgy in years, I am pretty sure that the Latin responses, in chant, would come quite naturally to me.
For people who have encountered God in the old rite, its loss was traumatic.
And not least I am sympathetic because I know that in just about every case their anger is rooted in heartbreak, in lives of loved ones lost in the post-conciliar confusion, in betrayal by clerics and trusted authorities, in aesthetic horror at what replaced the calming cadences of the Latin chant, so pure and ethereal. To self-styled traditionalists, the days before the Council were relatively calm and stable, at least in memory. To them, the coincidence of Vatican II and the crackup of the West is too compelling to deny causality.
For all that, any particular form of the Divine Liturgy is 90% human construct, at least. The Latin Mass and the Liturgies of St John Chrystostom and of St James may be particularly beautiful and moving constructions, and the pedestrian Sunday Novus Ordo Mass may be a particularly banal one, but neither are the Absolute. While a beautiful liturgy may participate in the heavenly liturgy it does not duplicate it.
And for all the criticism, it can be argued that the stripped-down conciliar liturgy offered a flexibility and adaptability to various cultures that contributed to the explosive growth of the Church in the developing world. It does not seem to occur to traditionalists that much of the banality of the ‘new’ liturgy is a reflection of the banality of western culture, that the Novus Ordo, when expressing a living culture, rich in folk idioms, can be a medium for wedding that culture with the Faith.
Belloc was simply wrong: Europe is not the Faith, and the Faith is not Europe.
Traditionalists, so called, rarely look at the growth of Catholicism in the missions, instead focusing on the palpable decline of faith in the West, which arguably has roots much further back than the Council. If things were so great how could everything collapse, as it did in many Catholic cultures, and collapse so quickly?
Apart from all that, I really don’t understand the big deal about the canonizations: no one is required to venerate a particular saint, and you are perfectly free to believe that said saint was wrong about just about everything. I belong to a church, named after an empire no less, that venerates the likes of Constantine the Great, Demetrios, and Vladimir. I just ignore them.
I must admit, though, that for all my appreciation of John Paul, and my belief in his personal holiness, I thought Mr Matt made some very good points concerning the speed of this canonization and the innovations surrounding it. The idea that this haste may come back to haunt us is not an irrational one.
But I am willing to take the chance that Francis knows what he is doing, given his record.
And yes, that last statement would make Mr Matt’s head explode.
“It does not seem to occur to traditionalists that much of the banality of the ‘new’ liturgy is a reflection of the banality of western culture, that the Novus Ordo, when expressing a living culture, rich in folk idioms, can be a medium for wedding that culture with the Faith.” I’ve never read a more succinct and accurate statement of the liturgical situation of contemporary Catholicism. Of course, when I was fist looking to the Tridentine liturgy with hope I was specifically looking to be delivered from contemporary Western banality which has invaded even Sunday mass in most churches. Like you I found deliverance from my own culture in the Byzantine Church. But yeah, I’m afraid the decline of western Christendom was written into the flaws of the medieval Church and European culture as a whole, so any hope of “return” is truly backward. I’m very interested the hopeful note in your comment too, that the Novus Ordo allows for authentic folk adaptation like that first done by Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs and, well, everywhere Christianity went outside of Jerusalem. Indeed that has been my experience the few times I’ve attended a N.O. liturgy outside America and Europe. The masses I went to in Mexico and Ecuador felt more like Trappist masses (the only N.O. masses I could ever connect with here) in fervor and awe even though kids and dogs were making a racket running in and out of the open building. Even the all black Catholic church I attended in Philly had that deep and fervent feeling, I think because they were drawing on traditional Southern Black gospel rather than the insipid inventions of professional hymn writers imitating Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. Lately I have been reading about the Kateri Tekakwetha circles of Native American Catholics who have prayed for the her canonization and who have melded Native spiritual practices with Catholic worship and theology. From what I have read, some Jesuit priests among the Indians have been especially helpful and accommodating in helping them translate and incorporate their traditions and their spiritual way of thinking into their Catholicism – Jesuits have a good history of deep ecumenism. Having participated in quite a few Native American ceremonies that were not particularly Christian I often thought the practices I saw could well be the basis for a new rite. There are a lot of parallels with Catholic practices and concepts. And it seems that may be happening in a way in the Kateri circles and the Jesuit missions. And none of that could go on, I must admit, in the Traditionalist or the Byzantine churches that I personally favor.
I considered the catechists of my own generation to be pretty poor; but the fact memorization of the Baltimore Catechism simply didn’t work. If it had actually been transmitting the faith, the liturgical abuses would never have been allowed to happen.
I still really wish Pope Francis or SOMEONE in the hierarchy would finally come down on Fr. Sirico I mean why can’t what is apparently happening to the Franciscans of the Immaculate and what happend to Fisher More College be brought to bear on someone like Sirico and the Actonites? Even if there is no “discipline” meted out per se, just a public statement saying that he doesn’t represent Catholic Social Teaching, I believe would really “shake things up” in the American Church in a very good way. I do not understand it.
“… much of the banality of the ‘new’ liturgy is a reflection of the banality of western culture, that the Novus Ordo, when expressing a living culture, rich in folk idioms, can be a medium for wedding that culture with the Faith.”
Striking evidence of this contrast happened to me in Nairobi, Kenya. You’ll be familiar with the cringe-making “hymn” Lord of the Dance and the wet-fish strumming guitars which usually accompany it and increase the bathos if possible yet further. I was there once when the choir of St Paul’s church in Nairobi gave it such an African rhythmical swing and panache that it was totally transformed into something stirring and joyful, and the urge to dance in church felt totally right and almost irresistible.
“It does not seem to occur to traditionalists that much of the banality of the ‘new’ liturgy is a reflection of the banality of western culture.”
This is the best reflection on the subject I have ever read. Kudos.
My more extensive thoughts about this are as follows:
I’m glad I read about your reflections about the Latin Mass, since it does help me understand the nostalgia for it. As someone who was raised Protestant, my grandmother and mother implied that the Catholic Church discouraged Catholics from forming a personal relationship with God. I attended the Latin Mass for the first time several years after converting. My first thought upon its completion was, “My mom and grandma had a point.”
(Of course, in large part, my main problem with the Latin Mass is that the laity are now expected to follow along in Missals. Traditionalists like to lament the translation of the Mass into the vernacular but I think the stupidest thing the Church ever did liturgically, by far, was to start publishing Missals translated in the vernacular and then imply that “all good Catholics” should follow along with the priest. If the pope ever restored the Latin Mass (which will never happen) I would write to him begging him to ban the use of Missals by the laity in Mass.)
For my money, the Church of the 19th and early 20th century was not really concerned with fostering faith as much as fostering piety and obedience. I understand their hesitation. Piety and obedience are safe, and faith is, by its very nature, dangerous.
Traditionalists will likely object to this statement, but as other posters have pointed out, if the faith in Europe and America was so robust, how did it collapse so quickly and under such little pressure? A faith that stands or falls on the presence of altar rails is not a substantial faith. A vocation that withers because the priest is facing the wrong way is not a substantial vocation.
I think they are also engaging in wishful thinking when they think that the Latin Mass would draw converts or the faithful to return to the Church. Even Traditional Catholics are beginning to question this logic. A Traditional Catholic recently asked in a blog post, “Traditionalist Catholics like to brag about full churches for Latin Masses. But are those Masses really filled of attendees from the local parish boundaries, or are they simply attracting like minded people from a wide area?”
Anyway, I do share Michael Matt’s reserve about canonizing Pope John Paul II. The sexual abuse scandal is just that, a scandal. True, no Catholic is obliged to venerate any particular saint. However, the outside world will view the canonization as an official stamp of approval for the actions of Pope John Paul II. It also seems as though the hierarchy is celebrating itself when the hierarchy are very much the problem, or at least, a huge part of the problem. Now the bishops are congratulating themselves by canonizing one of their own, and ignoring the horrific state of the hierarchy. We need to know the truth about JPII’s knowledge of the sexual abuse scandal because we need to fix these problems, not sweep them under the rug again.
The sexual abuse allegation is a very real problem, and at the same time, is also a symptom of something larger. I said at the beginning of my comment that the Church of the 19th and early 20th century was not interested in promoting faith, but piety and obedience. With so many bishops involved in sexual abuse cover ups, sacrificing children on the altar of the institutional Church’s prestige and reputation, I think that the Church of JPII was ultimately interested in promoting nothing more than piety and obedience as well.
But when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on earth?
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/227537151.html
Here’s another way to think about the canonizations. There are people like the woman in this article all over the world who are battling to clean up the sexual abuse crisis within the Church. When they die, how many of them will be canonized?
Emmasrandomthoughts:
Remember what I said earlier about personal sanctity and prudential conduct. The Friars Minor were in disarray when St. Francis died, largely because of the conduct of his hand-picked successor. We remember St. Celestine V because of what he was as Peter the Hermit – his papacy was a practical joke perpetrated by a frustrated conclave, and he stepped down after a short and disastrous reign. Sts. Jerome and Augustine had a running feud – could you imagine what that would be like in the Internet Age? And there are many other examples…
I hope you do not believe I was implying that JPII was not a holy man. His personal holiness is actually irrelevant to my concerns about the canonization.
Here’s another example that might explain my thinking more clearly. There is a movement to canonize Queen Isabel of Castille. She was, by all accounts, a very devout Catholic. However, when she and her husband reconquered Spain from the Moors in 1492, one of the first things they did was to expel all the Jews from Spain.
(For what it’s worth, while I abhor her actions, I know that she was simply one in a long line of Catholic monarchs to expel the Jews from Europe. I also can even understand, from a historical standpoint, why she and her husband made that choice.)
Now, I have no doubt that she was a very devout Catholic, and possibly very holy. So what? Her canonization would be seen as a huge step backward for Jewish-Catholic relations, and indeed, her canonization would glorify the Church’s shameful past, a past that paved the way for Auschwitz. It would also give comfort to anti-Semite Catholics, like the regular customer at my old bank. He told one of my co-workers how the Rothschilds controlled all of the world’s wealth and even had the technology to create droughts. He said this while wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The last thing I want is for that customer to have another patron saint. The last thing I want is for the Church to imply that my customer is right about the Jews.
JPII was undoubtedly very hold. Isabel of Castille may have been very holy. Who cares? There are far more important things at stake.
The line should read JPII was very holy.
At the same time, I also realize that a large portion of the laity, perhaps even the majority, do not care about these things.
In John Patrick Shanley’s masterful play (and movie) Doubt, a mother superior becomes certain that the parish priest is molesting a student. She tells the boy’s mother. The boy’s mother answers that, if the allegation is true, it would be best if they allowed the priest to continue to molest her son. “It’s just ’till June,” she offers.
When I first saw that scene, I was horrified. Now I think, “How very sad, and yet, how very, very Catholic of her.”
Oh, go see the movie Doubt. It truly a powerful experience.
I can’t stand The Remnant imo. They complain so much about everything instead of actually trying to fix it.