If You’re A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Trad…
As was well demonstrated in the comments on my previous post (and in the comments box at Inside Catholic, for that matter), Mark Shea’s article about traditionalism and the sin of anger was largely ad hominem and without very much merit or credibility as it was written. (Jonathan and Hilary made the case best, I think.)
But what Shea talks about is still a real phenomenon - those individuals some of us jokingly refer to as “tradholes”. The angry, bitter, conniving, judgmental people who give those of us who actually love the faith and want to share the beauties of tradition a bad name. We wind up painted with the broad brush of influential Catholics like Shea and have to spend time fighting misperceptions rather than working toward restoring those things we hold dear and encouraging others to respect and enjoy them.
So how do we counter this? How do we protect ourselves from radiating bellicosity rather than good example? I remember a friend I was encouraging to consider the TLM once telling me that if tradition is all that we say it is, we should see it in the joy of the people who are drawn to it.
Anger has its place, but demonstrating that the anger is righteous has always been hard to do. It often enough seems to require sounding like a conspiracy theorist. The minute you start talking about Bugnini’s questionable allegiance, the Protestant interlocutors at Vatican II, the comments made about Paul VI’s attempts to make the Mass more Calvinist, the plot to forge Cardinal Ottaviani’s signature on a retraction of the Intervention, and so on, it’s hard not to sound like a loon. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.
Rather than debate Mark Shea directly on this, which clearly isn’t likely to be a fruitful endeavor, I’d prefer to write a substantive piece from our perspective on anger, or lack thereof, in the traditional Catholic “movement”. I’ve pitched the idea to the Inside Catholic editors, and they’re interested. We deserve a fair shake, and I’d like your input on this topic. Feel free to email me if you don’t want to leave a comment in the box. My address is skojec at gmail dot com.
UPDATE: I realize I’m being really general here, but I want to leave the door wide-open for your thoughts. If you’re looking for more specific questions, here are several:
1.) Are you an angry trad? Why?
2.) Where do you draw the line between justifiable anger and the sinful sort?
3.) Do you believe that expressing anger over the abuses that have become commonplace in the liturgy enhances or detracts from the arguments made for the superiority of traditional forms of liturgy and sacraments?
4.) Do you believe that one rite is superior to the other? If so, what is the best way to make that case?
5.) Is the young generation of traditional Catholics different in any substantial way from those who had the Mass taken from them?
6.) Do you see a change in attitude among trads following the implementation of Summorum Pontificum?
Just to get you started.
Filed under: Catholicism, Tradition
Sounds only reasonable…
Histor
As a convert from Protestantism to the Eastern Catholic Church I am more and more attune to the details in the liturgy - you are correct, it does matter!
I have a group of you 20′ish friends who all want TLM but it is no where to be found. They are not raving mad or disrespectful to Novus Ordo, but are tired of having the crucifix hidden behind a bush by the altar (but they are able to crack a few jokes about it)!
One thing I would say about Mark’s stereotyping is that it is of the people who are willing to show their displeasure with the state of the liturgy (which can turn sour quickly granted) - but I know of MANY people who want TLM but simply don’t act as that stereotype Shea’s talking about, hence you never see them…in other words when pushed to the outside you have it sounds extreme when your voice is heard.
Steve,
One problem is the forum itself. To become more popular, blogs, like conservative talk radio, must find a controversy to fire up the troops. This brings attention, new readers, an increase in business. Better not to be cynically manipulated, if one can help it.
The comment box is a terrible place to express ideas, but a great place to deal angrily with faceless people, most of whom don’t have real names.
Traditonal Catholics, especially the younger ones, have the daunting problem of trying to learn intellectually a tradition which is more properly handed down culturally, in which reason has a smaller proper place.
Another thought, some traditional Catholics, in their desire to adhere to tradition, have an understandable but erroneous view of the Church and the Popes since Vatican II, which in some cases is a practical, but unprofessed sedevacantism, which makes for a hostile attitude towards anything the Church does which can be construed in the wrong way (the Pope’s recent remarks about not promoting schism among the Anglicans comes to mind). It is difficult to follow the measured and apt criticisms of someone like Romero Amerio, because there is no immediate cure beyond patient suffering, which goes along with the other long-term solutions you mentioned (I especially liked the garage-schola idea).
One blogger whose restrained and fair attitude I greatly admire is Dr. Brian Sudlow at the Sensible Bond. He’s a good example for traditional Catholics on-line.
1.) Are you an angry trad? Why?
I wouldn’t call myself “angry,” but I think some others might. I think that, as you point out, it is hard NOT to sound a bit kooky to people who don’t care, don’t see, or have trained themselves not to see things. Saying, for instance, that it is horrible for a pastor to allow liturgical abuse will often earn me the label of being “judgemental,” even from other orthodox Catholics. But, to answer your question, I am not what Mark Shea and others describe as an angry trad.
2.) Where do you draw the line between justifiable anger and the sinful sort?
Sinful anger, I think (and fully welcome correction if I am wrong) is when the anger becomes destructive. If one says (and this is a hypothetical, not true for me) ”every parish in my diocese has rampant liturgical abuse, this makes me angry, I am going to ask my pastor to start saying the TLM” or “I am going to become a priest and do the right thing” or “I am going to properly catechize my children so they know what’s right” then that kind of anger is not sinful. Neither, I think, is the anger that comes from seeing such abuses and other problems in the church, which I think is akin to the anger a boy might feel if someone insulted his mother. If a person’s anger led him to leave the church, or to degrade people who know less than he does, then that would be sinful anger, not to mention pride.
3.) Do you believe that expressing anger over the abuses that have become commonplace in the liturgy enhances or detracts from the arguments made for the superiority of traditional forms of liturgy and sacraments?
Honestly, I think it detracts. It leads to the answer “well, if the Novus Ordo were properly celebrated then you wouldn’t care about the TLM.” It is important not to make the argument go thus: there are abuses in the Novus Ordo, therefore I want the TLM. We should critcize and show constructive anger towards abuses in our own parishes, but we should not make it our reason for loving the TLM. The TLM has intrinsic value, and I would still prefer to attend it even if every Novus Ordo mass were celebrated well (of course, I don’t exclude going to the Novus Ordo either, and do so when I am not apply to get to the TLM).
4.) Do you believe that one rite is superior to the other? If so, what is the best way to make that case?
Legally, no. Morally, not really: people go to both masses and receive the Sacrament and other valuable things. People can learn and gain everything necessary from the Novus Ordo mass. Functionally, however, I would argue that the TLM is superior, in that I think it conveys more of the truths and more of the beauty of our faith. I think that that is the way to make the case: not to make comparisons showing the Novus Ordo as inferior, but rather to show why the intrinsic qualities of the TLM make it so perfect.
5.) Is the young generation of traditional Catholics different in any substantial way from those who had the Mass taken from them?
Probably. I am 23 and a convert, but from a historically Catholic family. Thus, when I thought of Catholicism I thought of everything lost and everything I wanted back. I think if I had had the TLM suddenly snatched away from me I would be probably be more bitter, and either a radical trad or a radical anti-trad. As it stands, I am glad that I was not of that generation and did not suffer thus.
6.) Do you see a change in attitude among trads following the implementation of Summorum Pontificum?
Yes. I think we see ourselves as more important now, which is both good and bad. Good that people talk about tradition and see how it matters to the Church, but bad because I fear some trads begin to think they are the Pope’s primary and most important concern, or at least that they should be. Of course I wish every Catholic loved the TLM, but until that is the case we must realize people who think and behave differently are still just as important and valuable to the Church.
Hopefully you like these answers, if you are interested in asking me about them or anythng I put my email address in the email field, so you can ask me thus or on this combox.
1.) Are you an angry trad? Why?
Occasionally. When I first came to tradition, I was a more than a bit angry over what the church denied me all these years. I get angry whenever I see liturgical abuse. But I also compliment priests at OF masses that do things very reverently (most recently, a priest who kept his fingers together after the consecration.)
2.) Where do you draw the line between justifiable anger and the sinful sort?
My anger, I believe, is mostly justifiable. I have my moments, though…
3.) Do you believe that expressing anger over the abuses that have become commonplace in the liturgy enhances or detracts from the arguments made for the superiority of traditional forms of liturgy and sacraments?
It depends on how it is expressed. I tend to lean towards silence if I think my complaints will fall on deaf ears.
4.) Do you believe that one rite is superior to the other? If so, what is the best way to make that case?
Without question, the EF is superior to the OF in every conceivable way, with the exception of Divine Mercy Sunday — the EF calander should be updated to include it.
5.) Is the young generation of traditional Catholics different in any substantial way from those who had the Mass taken from them?
Not in too many substantial ways. I’ve known old-timers who were nice, and newcomers who were tradholes. The one difference is that the younger ones, myself included, tend to be catechized better, because we’ve really had to seek it out to make sense of it, and have thus read a lot. Most of the older traditionalists just try to act as if nothing changed since 1950, and don’t seek to educate themselves.
6.) Do you see a change in attitude among trads following the implementation of Summorum Pontificum?
A little. Some are a bit triumphant, some are ungrateful, some are greatful, and some ignore it. At my parish, the only difference it made is we’ve had many more new folks come; the attitudes of everyone that has just been there for years is the same.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0705fea2.asp
I found this article to be really helpful. It’s not by a traditionalist, but then traditional Catholics do not have a corner on the Angry Catholic Market. It’s something that all Catholics, no matter their ecclesial leanings, have to guard against.
Anger can be very harmful. A most traditional way is to redirect anger towards one own’s sins and have a penitential attitude.
A sense of humor really helps, too!
I’m not an angry trad, but a traditional Catholic. I think a discussion about the philosophical and hermeneutical underpinnings of conservative Catholics (like Shea) and traditional Catholics (often mischaracterized as “traditionalists”) would be helpful. But it won’t occur on blogs.
I don’t know why Shea wrote his post at this particular time - there’s no special liturgical news out there. His characterization of “angry trads” is becoming a canard, with the de-restriction of the TLM and the way Benedict XVI has begun to reconstitute the NO. I wonder if Shea is responding to this with a hit piece on trads.
What I have noticed is that “conservative” Catholics aren’t all that anxious for a return to a Latin liturgy and they weren’t anxious for the Motu proprio. There’s a sentiment out there that regards the old Mass as “triumphalist” or too eurocentric. As Fr. Chad Ripperger pointed out (The Latin Mass), the ecclesiastical tradition is one thing that conservative Catholics thought they could dispense with, since it wasn’t dogma, properly speaking. But they forgot that cultural context is important and to dismiss the ecclesiastical tradition is rather discarnate.
.) Are you an angry trad? Why?
No, not a angry trad actualy quite happy however, when confronted with a blatent abuse of the sacred liturgy by some disedent cleric, then my dispositon becomes somewhat different . Whenever it becomes a question of abuse of priestly,religious duty, then yes undoubtably very very angry, to the point of having it out with a priest after ‘Mass’ in which he saw fit to allow the deacon to recite half of the Eucharistic Canon.( God forgive me) - the list goes on.
2.) Where do you draw the line between justifiable anger and the sinful sort?
Ahhh, the difference between a holy anger and a sinful anger! - when there is something to be learnt( ie;I am in the wrong), from the one correcting me or anyone else for that matter this is justifiable and tis can be a very drawn out answer. Unjustifiable anger, goes unchecked and willfully hurts and damages for alterior motives not intended to correct or bring justice to a situation ie a drunkard on a rampage after a drinking spree.
3.) Do you believe that expressing anger over the abuses that have become commonplace in the liturgy enhances or detracts from the arguments made for the superiority of traditional forms of liturgy and sacraments?
Obviously, Christ won over no-one by forcing them to do so- however the spiritual benefit of the TLM and sacraments has a natural attraction inherant within itself. I grew upwithout it, however, with the talks and stories told to me by my grandfather both he and I have since been reuinited with our spiritual heritage. My life as a Catholic now has meaning and a sold foundation.
To answer the qestion about raising concerns about ‘commonplace’ liturgical abuses; we woldnt be doing Christianity right by keeping quiet and complacent, thus if we are a thorn in the side we are fighting the right battle for no road to Christ is easily traveled!
4.) Do you believe that one rite is superior to the other? If so, what is the best way to make that case?
Certainly! without a doubt, yet not doubting their validity.
My argument as others have don would be based on a doctrinal and theological basis.
5.) Is the young generation of traditional Catholics different in any substantial way from those who had the Mass taken from them?
Yes , for those young catholics (I am 21) who like myself, have just recently found the beauty of the TLM and Sacaments, we are as converts from Paganism in the early days of the Church, unwavering and true to the faith of our fathers. if need be this can be futher expounded!
6.) Do you see a change in attitude among trads following the implementation of Summorum Pontificum?
Yes, a hope of change has entered the hearts of those who prior to this were disparing that Rome had entirely abandoned her heritage, more so her faith. For these same people, it is a hope of even greater reforms and developments , in the hope that the Bride of Christ might oneday be restored to her former Glory, trusing always in the eventual triumph of our Blessed Mothers Immaculate Heart.
Thank you for this opportunity!
1. Not angry.
2. The line between justifiable and sinful anger is in the reason for the anger and how it is expressed. If I am angry because of indifference shown to Our Lord, and express it by praying in reparation, that’s o.k. If I’m angry because I don’t like some particular music, call it sinful, glare at those who are singing, loudly sing my own lyrics, well, that’s not justifiable. It’s also a little loony.
3. Depends on how that anger is expressed. No one ever won an argument by jumping up and down and shrieking invective. (A music director did this to my mom one day when she asked if we could sing something in Latin.) However, it’s usually much better to be reasonable and charitable — even for the thousandth time.
4. I have come to believe that the older form of Mass is indeed superior. The best way to make the case is for people not just to experience it once or twice, but to immerse themselves in it, preferably with good catechsesis and guidance from someone who understands the history of both forms of the (Latin Church) Mass.
5. I think it’s easier for those who are younger to discover the rich tradition and history of their Church. Without preconceptions, it’s easier to learn and appreciate. Younger people aren’t trying to measure their current experience against a “gold standard” of the past; they haven’t been marginalized and ridiculed for decades; they haven’t gone through the extensive “reeducation” that left many bitter, and others with dislike and fear of the older Mass.
6. I would characterize the change in attitude among those I know as “cautious optimism” or “joyful hope.”
A little about me:
I’m a middle-aged mom of 7 boys; 5 of whom serve Mass at a nearby FSSP community. My husband and I began attending the then Indult Mass out of curiosity. We fell in love with the Extraordinary Form and it has enriched our lives so much!
What angers me is the way anti-Traditionalists are allowed to be critical, hyperbolic, holier than thou, mean spirited and just plain wrong and we Traditionalists must curl into the fetal position and beg for mercy or else we are the angry ones?
And we are admonished to “repent of the sin of our anger” as Mr. Shea put it so succinctly?.
Yeah, I’ll get on that right away, Mr. Shea, sir.
I don’t remember calling upon anyone to “repent of their sins” unless maybe I was talking about babykillers. (oops another thing I’m probably not supposed to be angry about).
My attention span is short so the only difference I observe about the younger traditionalists is that they are actually having families and not NFPing themselves down to half a family or less.
The question of why this column was written now is an interesting one and the only reason I can think is because a certain genre of Catholics are finding their sphere of influence diminishing.
Thank God.
What angers me is the way anti-Traditionalists are allowed to be critical, hyperbolic, holier than thou, mean spirited and just plain wrong and we Traditionalists must curl into the fetal position and beg for mercy or else we are the angry ones?
Absolutely not. We have to show our class by maintaining our composure and not rising to the bait. It IS possible. Mark just left a very respectful comment toward me near the bottom of the original discussion thread, because I’m engaging his argument on its merits (or lack thereof) and NOT on an ad hominem basis.
We must, must, must, must restore the credibility of Traditional Catholics by showing how reasonable we are. Whether we like it or not, there are a LOT of vindictive, angry, bitter, conspiratorial, illogical mud-slingers out there calling themselves trad, and the squeaky wheel, as they say, gets the grease. And by grease I mean all the attention in characterizing our side.
The only conceivable way I can see to defeat an attitude like Mark’s is to be as cold and as logical as a Vulcan in your approach to him. Don’t tell him he’s wrong, show him he is. Do the research and make the case.
Otherwise, the alternative is to ignore him, and that only means that the reasonable trads are the ones he never encounters while the ones foaming at the mouse are all he ever hears from. And the cycle continues.
I’ve been called a traditionalist in a negative tone, does that count? I wouldn’t say I’m angry about it, but I’m a real bear to argue with.
I’m going to break ranks here and say that I prefer the ordinary form over the extraordinary. My experience with the EF is fairly limited, however I have enough to speak confidently about it. The problem is most churches do not, in my opinion, properly celebrate the OF. There is a church I go to on occasion (I’d go more often but the drive is pretty hefty) where most Catholics wouldn’t recognize the OF. The songs are all Gregorian chant, the prayers are in Latin, incense fills the church, and between prayers, reverential silence fills the air. The faithful pray, in Latin, along with the priest as they would in the OF, the kiss of peace is (licitly) skipped over, and Communion is done by intinction at the 90 year old altar rail, and distributed only by clergy. If it weren’t for a mandate from a previous bishop that had them move the altar forward, the mass would be said ad orientum, but hopefully they will get around to fixing that.
The man that introduced me to this beautiful liturgy is a 73 year old, retired theology teacher. He is of the opinion that, when celebrated properly with a traditional continuity, the OF has more to offer than the EF. I will grant that I have a lot still to learn about the EF, and I still think its a beautiful thing, but from what I do know, I don’t see the advantage.
This goes along with Creative Minority Report’s Novus Ordo 2.0 ad. Where Pope Benedict XVI is leading by example on bringing back these beautiful aspects of the mass. The trick is to get parishes to employ them. I have faith that it will be brought to its proper glory by the workings of the Holy Spirit.
I’m a young guy (24), and most of what I’ve known is the mainstream of Catholicism. Freddy sums up my situation pretty well on number 5.
Steve wrote:
“We must, must, must, must restore the credibility of Traditional Catholics….”
I don’t concede that we have lost credibility. And by conceding that I think you play right into his hands and place yourself in the defensive position. I’m not accountable for any movement or any nut that Mr. Shea may have run across, just as I do not hold him accountable for every clown Mass and liturgical scandal.
I don’t recall the Holy Father calling anyone to account for, much less repent of their anger before he issued the Motu Proprio and before the Holy Father offered every encouragement to expand the Traditional Mass for all of us nuts, Holocaust-deniers but most especially sinners.
So we are being ordered to repent of our anger because Mark Shea has demanded it?
If Mark Shea wants to continue to use his platform in the Catholic community to beat up on people who are not engaged in promoting themselves and trying to make money then let him. But by all means don’t support him or encourage him or even engage him. Maybe if we ignore him he will move on to bully someone else.
I think he has already been given far more attention than he deserves and I wish I had concluded so sooner.
Mary,
“We” haven’t lost credibility, but we are part of a labeled group that has. For every angry, bitter, insult-slinging, judgemental trad out there, how many of us trying to be reasonable does it take to undo the damage.
If you read my most recent comments in the original thread, you know that I said essentially what you’re saying. I need to go to bed, so I will just cut and paste it here:
My complaint is that:
a) the anger, bitterness and vitriol, while it certainly exists, is not so widespread as this article makes it seem, at least among those traditional Catholics in good standing with the Church (of which there are many)
b) the anger that does exist is, in large measure, fairly easy to justify the existence of, even if said anger should not be encouraged to persist
c) regardless of whether “many” traditional Catholics are bitter, their intellectual and theological positions should be judged on their own merits, rather than the attitudes or actions of those holding them.
Ad Hominem doesn’t work, even when you’re trying to use it to wrangle up an argument about charity. There’s a reason why these people have lost their sense of charity, and if virtue demands a heroic attempt to overcome the injustice they’ve faced (which it probably does) I still think that one can hardly be faulted for sympathizing with them.
Essentially, something that was entirely beloved to them was kidnapped from them, forbidden, witheld, and they were mocked for mourning it and begging for it back. Then, when the Holy Father revealed that its suppression was illegal and that they had been right all along, they were expected to fall into line, shut up, and just be grateful.
It’s a lot easier for me to do that, because it wasn’t taken from me, so much as I woke up to discover a treasure I didn’t know I was entitled to had gone missing. But some of these people have been having to fight for so long to have access to something they have a God-given right to - and have been treated horribly not just by laypeople, but priests and Bishops too - it’s a wonder they stayed Catholic at all.
The anger needs to go. But until what caused the anger is adequately addressed, I doubt we’ll see it happen. Victims of abuse - and this WAS abuse of a profound spiritual nature - have a lot of grief to work through before they can forgive. We should be praying for them and trying to understand their plight. They’re much more willing to give you a chance if they’re not being beaten over the head for being ticked off about what happened.
The whole, “Charity, DAMN YOU! CHARITY!!!” thing doesn’t work.
Finally, Mary, I for one will continue to engage with Mark on this topic because I’m convinced he’s wrong and that he’s intelligent enough that he should be capable of seeing it at some point. Unfortunately, he gets a lot of crazies slinging anathemas around, and as Danby said, he gets geared up and can’t walk away from the fight.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I hope if he realizes I’m not attacking him, I can get him to see why a deeper understanding of liturgy is essential for a well-educated Catholic with the kind of influence he has, and that he can’t just keep the issue at arm’s length because he doesn’t like the people talking about it.
And if I AM crazy, well, I’ve never regretted trying.
I should note that some of the “you’s” in that last comment of mine were directed at Jason (et. al.) in the thread, who was taking Mark’s side while conceding that the trads have reason to be angry. Because I cut and paste, that may not be clear.
Steve,
You have all the good will in the world. Your response is articulate and well reasoned. If Mr Shea is a reasonable man of good will, he will be persuaded. If not then I guess he never was.
Mary
Dear Mr. Skojec,
I have been following the debate on InsideCatholic and I must say that you have acquitted yourself admirably. You clearly are familiar with the question at hand. Well done.
I only wish the people who are not so familiar with the issues, who are obviously new to the Church, would not be given a soapbox on such very complicated matters until they have read up on it a bit.
Having grown up in the charismatic movement, I think I can say that there are plenty of weirdos there, too. There are unkind people to be found in every movement, in every group, people who are using religion to work out their personal issues. I do not think that we will ever be able to escape such a reality in this world; it is part of fallen human nature. But to make sweeping generalizations about a movement in the Church, based on the bad behavior of a few oddballs, is highly imprudent.
I discovered the traditions of the Church and the liturgy as an adult. The truth and beauty of our faith is so overwhelming; anger has no place in it. There are times that I have been angry when certain abuses distorted the beauty of the Catholic faith, destroying the sense of the sacred. But no matter what our feelings might be, to express such anger to others is highly unproductive. This does not mean that we should not take a firm stand on matters of faith and conscience. But taking a stand can be done without rage.
Thank you again for debating so well on this topic. May Our Lady bless you and your family on this her feast.
Am I angry?
Yes
You would be too, watching liberal modernists trying to steal your children’s faith from them. Or being denounced, by name, from the pulpit, for opposing witchcraft being promoted by the women’s group in your parish. Or seeing your 7-year-old daughter humiliated by a deacon for wanting to receive Communion kneeling, as had already been arranged with the pastor. Or seeing the CCD program at your parish shut down because your wife was the only one that volunteered to run it, and your kids were 1/3 of the student body. Or having the election for Parish Council delayed by a month because you put your name forward, so they could recruit some more popular candidates. Or dozens of other personal insults and exclusions.
Do I express that anger?
Never. Not even within my own family.
I learned oh, so long ago in high school debate that anger never convinces. Calm, rational and courteous argument convinces. Anger can rile up a crowd that’s already angry. To everyone else it’s off-putting and fairly ridiculous.
YOU WILL NEVER WIN BY BEING ANGRY.
Anger invites the listener to form his own ad-hominem, without your opponent having to do so. If he’s smart, he will become even more calm, collected and gracious in response, to mark the difference.
This is a battle against anti-christ (not The Anti-Christ, but anti-Christ). We must win for the sake of our souls, our children, the Church and the world. Our demeanor is one of the most important weapons we use to fight, and we must keep it in good repair.
I’m a baffled one, not angry. I grew up in Latin America where the mass was said in Spanish, but was MUCH more reverent than here. I miss the reverence, especially for the eucharist. I don’t understand all those women helping out with the eucharist, even when there’s just a handful of us at daily mass.
the other day i was taking communion with my 14 year old. I indicated to him to take it in his mouth and not his hands. Our priest saw me do so and SCOLDED me after mass. In front of my son. Does that make any sense?
Things like this is why I’ve become a cooperator of Opus Dei, and have an Opus Dei confessor. It just makes more sense to me…
1.) Are you an angry trad? Why?
Yes, I am an angry Trad.
I’m a Trad who is nearly always angry about something.
Today I was especially angry about David Cameron telling a group of people in Barrow-in-Furness on Wednesday that because he has a disabled son, whom he loves very much, people should be allowed to abort disabled children up to the point of birth and he won’t change that law if he becomes Prime Minister.
I was also rather miffed today when I saw an otherwise perfectly intelligent blogger use the word “past” when he meant “passed”. That drives me nuts.
I may also be a rather sad Trad today because I watched a series of videos about the murder of the Romanovs. That made me really sad, and pretty mad too.
I am also rather sad, and quite Trad, because I went to visit Chester Cathedral yesterday and took the little audio tour that goes on and on about how it has been a place of continual Christian worship since the 7th century, and how there’s this cute little place near the baptistry in the back where some young monks, possibly 800 or 900 years ago, carved a Nine-Men’s-Morris board in one of the stones so they could play the game while the Mass was going on, and how after Henry VIII’s desecration and ABOMINABLE CRIME, the Abbot of St. Werbergh’s Monastery (as it was then called) saved his wretched pathetic skin by apostatising and agreeing to become the dean of the “New Chester Cathedral”, and now the place has a weird fun-house, Twilight Zoney kind of feel to it where people wander around and look at the Christian stuff while the Anglicans have their bizarrely familiar Novus Ordo Cult Practices and the womanpriestess (Canon Judy) dresses up in a Chasuble and tells the grey-head congregation that “there are no such things as infallible leaders” (ooo! ooo! I know one! pick me! pick me!). And then the poor little old ladies curtsey to the wooden table because they have some insanely unlikely vestigial Catholic notion of genuflection, but have no idea what it means. Chester Cathedral always makes me cry, but I can’t resist the urge to go in there and look at all the empty niches where the statues used to be.
Oh, and I’m also extremely annoyed that the aphids infested my beautiful nastirtiums and killed them and then, THEN, the damn caterpillars moved in and ate EVERY single one of my pansies and trailing lobelia. I feel as though I failed my beautiful flowers and didn’t protect them sufficiently and now they’re dead and it’s all my fault. And the bugs’ fault, let’s not forget.
In general, I’m both sad and mad, and pretty scared too, that people seem to be totally insane and think that there is nothing at all wrong with the world when all I can see around me is that men are going “wild inside” and getting ready to destroy everything good and true and beautiful in the old culture and the old Christian world.
Of course, the other reason could be that I am Irish and being mad, sad and jolly all at the same time is just a kind of genetic curse. Thanks God.
Oh, about Liturgy. Yes, I’m pretty mad it was all screwed up. I’m particularly mad at the way it was done. I used to have quite a few lovely, sweet, adorable little old ladies in my life. My grandma more or less walked on water. And those BASTARDS who tried to ruin the Church made the little old ladies cry. NO BODY makes a little old lady cry in MY town! And they’re still doing it.
It’s like what they did to the faithful nuns in their communities. I’ve read some completely heartwrenching stories from the little nuns who went into religious life as girls before the wars, and loved it. Loved everything about it. Were happy, and were doing what God wanted them to do. They were saints. And they paid, as saints do, when evil men, and in this case, evil and often very stupid women (about whom, we know, I have rather strong feelings of antipathy), did everything possible to make their lives hell. And what for? To prove how clever they were. I think there is only once justice in this (apart from that whole roasting in hell for all eternity for being mean to little old ladies). The revolutionaries failed. Their whole thing has been a complete flop, and they know it. One of these NO nuns was heard to say once, “I AM in schism! I know it. My whole order is in schism” and because she knew she had given herself, her life, her work, and her holy vocation, to this evil new thing, this ideology, she knew, at the age of 70 odd, that her entire life had been a waste and failure. She may be having a last twilighted bit of fun torturing a couple of old dames in wheelchairs in the nuns’ retirement home even now, but I bet the old ladies who never gave up their vocations in their hearts, who remained true, are happier about their lives now after 40 years of white martyrdom than the aging harridans who put them through it.
There’s one difference that I’ve noticed about NO Catholics (I’m just going to speak plainly here and not waste time with euphemisms or disclaimers. We all know the difference between a NO Catholic and a Trad), most of the NOs are oblivious. THey are among the happy cattle of the world who think that things are more or less just the same as always, or, who if they have figured out that something weird is going on, they don’t command the rational capacities to put two and two together and see what’s really going on, or the depth of the spiritual crisis of the world. They’re really part of the secular world in that they just happily go along with everything without giving it much thought.
It’s why most Trads are mad all the time and most NOs are happy to hug and shake hands at Mass. The former has figured out the scale of the crisis” the world is being swallowed by Stan. The latter have paid good money for what they have and just want to keep on enjoying it…don’t bother them with that other stuff.
And there is little in the world that will make me madder faster than obvliviousness.
It makes me want to smack em.
2.) Where do you draw the line between justifiable anger and the sinful sort?
I don’t usually. But I’ve got a spiritual director who tells me. Other than that, I just get used to being in trouble all the time.
3.) Do you believe that expressing anger over the abuses that have become commonplace in the liturgy enhances or detracts from the arguments made for the superiority of traditional forms of liturgy and sacraments?
It’s irrelevant. Feelings are meaningless when questions of fact are at hand. Whether mine or anyone else’s. This is something that bugs me about Mark. He’s always got his knickers in a twist. Well, that’s fine. Me too. What ticks me about him, and his kind, is the whineyness of it. He gets upset by something that some idiot says to him or his kid or something, and he immediately turns around and tells the whole world that we all have to behave because he was upset.
Suck it up boy. The world is upsetting. Stop being such a nancy.
The Old Mass is superior. There are a lot of sound reasons for believing it. I don’t really bother my wee head about the reasons any more. I once wrote something like, “I’m not going to bother with this any more. I know the new Mass is inferior in the same way I know Duran Duran is inferior to Bach, and if I am faced with someone who can’t see that Duran Duran is inferior to Bach, there isn’t much point in discussing the matter is there.” Something about “pearls before swine”?
The reasons are sound. They are well documented. They are well researched. They are legion.
I wish people would grow up and stop moaning about everyone’s “anger”. I’m angry. I don’t always enjoy it, but that’s my problem.
Crikey. The way the Shea’s of the world drool on about how offensive the Anger of the Trads is, one would think he was about to launch a whiney Human Rights Complaint about it.
There’s no law, not even divine law, that says I have to tip toe around the world in fear of offending the Shea’s in it.
Get some density to that skin, there boy.
4.) Do you believe that one rite is superior to the other? If so, what is the best way to make that case?
Are you kidding me?
You, Steve, already know more than you need to know to make the case. Facts, that is.
What we are facing here, however, is an entire disordering of a culture. The Old Mass is about the pre-destruction Christian culture. The culture of The Before. Some people are blind to The Before; they can’t see it if it is set in front of them and no amount of presenting with facts or arguments is going to do.
Most of the Trads I know were born Trads. They always knew, by instinct, that there was something deficient in NewChurch. There was some gap between what was being promised and what was actually on offer. They knew this long before they knew, in many cases, that there was such a thing as the Old Mass. They just knew they were still hungry every time they had just risen from a meal. These people were not swayed by an argument, or by the presentation of facts, they were merely informed about what they already knew.
As we have seen, the presentation of the case can rest in two things. It can rest in facts (Bugnini was a freemason bent on the destruction of the Church; the EXACT correlation of the collapse in Mass attendance and the introduction of the NO; the side-by-side comparison showing that there is simply less of it in the NO…etc. all the facts are on our side. Or it can rest in feelings. “I love it because of the reverence/incense/music/silence”
But neither of these things is going to sway anyone. By all means, present the facts. Or talk about your personal subjective experience. Both are good and useful, but neither is going to sway anyone.
Something I have learned in the pro-life movement: all the facts can be on your side and people will still tell you you’re nuts and making it up.
Here’s my little pro-life analogy:
I used to think that the problem was obvious. People just didn’t know what we knew (why I thought this is anyone’s guess) and all we needed to do was to tell them and they would see what we see and change their minds.
Then I began to see the connection between legal abortion, a thing that no one really liked to talk or think about, and sleeping around, which everyone liked to do, talk and think about all the time. Trouble is, you really can’t have a lot of the second thing, without an equal amount of the first thing. And I discovered that people REALLY want to hang on to the second thing. To the point where you could say, “Hey, didn’t you guys go to school? Don’t know know where babies come from?” and they would say, “yeah, we know, but we want this second thing anyway.” End of discussion.
People want sex more than they want goodness, truth, peace, happiness, justice, or anything else. And they have to pay two prices for it. The first is that they have to have legal abortion, which, make no mistake, everyone knows is wrong. Evil. Wicked. Probably going to destroy everything in the end. The second is that they have to live a lie, every day all day, all the time forever. They pay for what they want more than anything else in the world (sex), with their civilisation and their souls. They know this, which is why they get upset when you point it out to them.
From this I have learned that human beings are capable of almost anything, including very improbable levels of self-deception, sloth, and dishonesty, when there is something in the balance that they want badly enough.
I think the analogy is apt. I have seen that the level of hostility (the shrieking! the terrible terrible shrieking!) is disproportionate. It is also characterised, usually, by an insistence that the matter at hand, “doesn’t matter very much” or is a trivial matter, compared with the great unity we all enjoy as Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus. Press the point and the shrieking gets pretty loud, however. This tells me that we are not really talking honestly. When Shea says “liturgy doesn’t really matter to me, all I want is for people to play nicely together” the tone and the volume with which he shrieks this in our ears, accuses us of sin and heresy, to get his nice warm friendly I’m-just-engaging-in-fraternal-correction message across, forgive me, but I get a little skeptical.
What this has shown me is that we are not really talking about what we are talking about. Shea is not really talking about how upsetting all the Trad Anger is. He’s talking about people attacking something, threatening something, that he really really wants. He is reacting very much like the people I used to give talks to in schools, who saw that if they were to go the way I was pointing, something they wanted very very badly would no longer be available to them. I have seen many times that when a person is presented with a line of inescapable reasoning that will end by depriving them of something they like, and replacing it with something they either don’t know or don’t want, even if that thing is a lot better, they will become very angry and very very hostile.
The NO Mass, and the NO religion (remembering that we are not mincing words here) give people something they want. They want this badly enough that they are willing to not think about quite a few things.
I think your task is to figure out what they get out of the NO religion. Once you know that, you will at least know where you are.
But you will not be able to separate them from that thing. They have it, they want it, and they will not tolerate anyone threatening to take it away from them.
Beware.
You, Steve, already know more than you need to know to make the case. Facts, that is.
I do. But I often find that when I ask, I get some glimpse, some perspective, that I wasn’t thinking of. Some angle that I can hone into the tip of the spear. I like to hear what others think so that I can bounce it off of what I think.
Chalk it up to disorganized thoughts. Hearing others talk about this helps me to figure out, out of all the millions of things that could be said, which ones should be said this time, in this instance, in the small amount of space I have.
What this has shown me is that we are not really talking about what we are talking about. Shea is not really talking about how upsetting all the Trad Anger is. He’s talking about people attacking something, threatening something, that he really really wants.
I’m glad you said this, because I agree entirely. As the discussion has worn on, he’s not really arguing with me. In fact, he’s using me as an example of the conduct he wishes he saw more of from the Trad camp. The thing is, he is not even making an attempt to address the substance of what I’m saying. Instead, he’s focusing on my civil tone.
Now, it could be that he’s just tired of talking about it. Or it could be that being made to face the possibility that these two liturgies were really not created equally, and you can say that without declaring yourself pope in a cabin in Wyoming is troubling to the comfort level.
I think your task is to figure out what they get out of the NO religion. Once you know that, you will at least know where you are.
That is the one thing I can’t figure out. For me, discovering the TLM was like one of those magic eye pictures. You stare and squint and blur your eyes and move closer and further away and then, BAM! There’s an image in the static. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I can’t unsee why the TLM is better. Which makes it so hard to try to understand why others can’t see it, or won’t. It seems so patently obvious that I have to check to see if I’m wearing pants, or if I’m dreaming and I’m going to look down and find I’m in the supermarket in my underwear.
Understanding the why of it is the key to how I want to write this. I’m hoping God will supply that answer before my fast-approaching deadline.
I can’t unsee why the TLM is better. Which makes it so hard to try to understand why others can’t see it, or won’t.
Steve,
This is the exact sentiment I share… and its because of this that I try not to talk about liturgical stuff with my non-trad friends. I just… don’t get it.
But the thing is, I wasn’t always this way. I went from badly Catechized cradle-Catholic raised by hippies and taught the faith by my grandmother, to a virtual atheist in college, to super-charismatic conservative JPII-is-my-hero Catholic, to trad about 4 years ago. I can’t understand why I used to get something out of the Novus Ordo, or touchy-feely charismatic prayer groups, or whatever.
I think Hilary’s right about arguing with them. It’s not worth it. If they aren’t open to tradition, it’s because they’re holding on to something. Thank God that the conservative ones among them are nourished by the sacraments — particularly confession — and we thus don’t need to worry about their salvation like we do protestants and heathens. But the whole church needs our prayers, and WE need to become better Catholics.
“I think your task is to figure out what they get out of the NO religion. Once you know that, you will at least know where you are.”
For many conservative Catholics - especially converts, and possibly for Mark Shea - the defensiveness comes from a fear of what admitting the superiority of the TLM says about the Church. They have bought into an idealized Catholicism in which “the Church” cannot possibly promulgate an inferior mode of divine worship. They hold an exaggerated belief in indefectibility, which in all fairness seems to have been widely taught throughout the Church in The Before Time. To admit that the Novus Ordo is qualitatively and substantively inferior to what came before threatens their idealized Catholicism and possibly their faith as Catholics.
Note how Mark Shea studiously avoids getting into specifics. They just don’t want to go there. It’s fear.
Frankly, as a convert myself, I understand where they are coming from. I, too, want to believe in that kind of a Church. But reality is messier than that. I took my time in converting, after years of coming to terms with the warts, finally entering the Church through the suffering and sober Catholicism of the F.S.S.P. - so this fear doesn’t grip me. But I understand it, and I can’t be too hard on converts like Shea, who didn’t make this crisis, after all, and are coping with it in a way that the Church seems to encourage.
<i>super-charismatic conservative JPII-is-my-hero Catholic, to trad about 4 years ago. I can’t understand why I used to get something out of the Novus Ordo, or touchy-feely charismatic prayer groups, or whatever.</i>
One little clew might be that: what they get, and what they want, and what they fear to lose, is themselves. They get their feelings. Their insights. Their warm friendly emotions of togetherness. In the NO, whether this was “what the Council intended”, is about us. It’s about me. It’s about my active participation.
What, objectively, is the main difference between the NO and the Old? It can be seen in the direction the priest faces. The NO is all about me. It’s about what I get out of the Mass, what I feel, what I think. The priest faces me, and even when he doesn’t, he’s saying the whole thing loud enough for me to hear. It’s a show directed at me, it’s for me. Me me me… If we acknowledge the principle of Lex Orandi, the main characteristic of the NO religion, gleaned from its liturgical expression, is that it is the religion of me. Of my feelings, responses, my standings up and sittings down. My personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the puppet god who comes down from heaven at my personal beck and call and does my bidding. I went to some kind of NO touchiefeely personal enrichment prayer groupie thing once, widely touted as wonderful by the NO Conservatives I knew, and we were all led in a little get-in-touch-with-your-inner-adolescent prayer session in which we were encouraged to picture a trying time in our lives, perhaps even make one up, and then imagine you can see Jesus in the room. Now, make him do what you want him to do to make you feel better. This they called, “spiritual healing”. I just called it narcissism.
The NO Mass is oriented towards generating Holy Communion so I can receive it. It’s a God Cookie factory.
The Old Mass, like the old religion, is about God, and no one cares what the laity is doing. There are no rubrics for the congregation. You can sit, stand, (though we’d prefer you didn’t), kneel, or wander around in the back of the church murmuring to your own little schizophrenic heart’s content, because the Mass isn’t about you. It’s not for you. It’s not about your feelings. It is like the ocean, it is great and huge and powerful and doesn’t mind if you’re floating in it or not. You cannot contribute to it. You cannot change it. You are there for it, not it for you.
Don’t you remember the feeling of relief you got the first time you realised that at the Old Mass, you don’t have to perform, that it doesn’t matter a lick whether you are giving the responses or praying the Rosary or just sitting there letting it all happen while you meditate on the stained glass windows? Don’t you remember how nice it was to be allowed to just pray and let the priest do his job?
Well, I’m betting that a lot of people don’t get a sense of relief, but of abandonment. When the Mass isn’t about me, I feel left out. I feel like I’m at a party where everyone but me knows everyone else.
You can hear it from them pretty often if you take them to the Mass once and then to breakfast afterwards: “I felt like I didn’t matter.”
Because you’re not a narcissist, Steve, your response was probably something like, “Yeah, me too, wasn’t it great?” But our NO friends don’t quite see it that way.
There’s your answer Steve.
People like the NO religion because it makes them feel better about themselves. In our times of broken family relationships, a lot of NO spirituality is about how Jesus and the Father make us feel better about ourselves. Look at the hymns they sing. They are the divorced generation trying to make up for the emotional losses in their lives by having the priest, whom we get to call “father” don’t forget, look them in the eye and say, “Body of Christ, Jim” like he really cares. Like daddy was supposed to care before he took off and dumped me and mom.
The fact that our religion isn’t supposed to make us feel good about ourselves, but about God, is lost on them.
I’d say that’s motive enough to create a little high pitched shrieking, don’t you?
If I’d found something that made me feel so good about myself in a world of chaos, I might get a little shrieky too.
Something else to remember about dealing with Shea. He hasn’t got very good social skills. He’s a very big fish in a very small (ie; Neo-Catholic bloggers) pond. But it is clear from his interactions with people that he is one of those nerds who grew up reading a lot of books and acquired an extremely high level of verbal and written language skill. He’s quite intelligent and can put the dots together quickly enough to give him some verbal wit. Which is why is writing is so different from his personal interactions that we see in commboxes. When he is just writing, and writting calmly about something of which he knows a few facts, he’s really good. But it is clear that he has never been “out” as we say in England. He is not familiar with company who are equal to him in intelligence but higher in social skills. He has not learned how skillfully to handle disagreement or conflict. He has no idea how to defuse an argument. As you said Steve, he seems to show no interest in addressing the substance of an argument, and focuses instead on how he feels. He seems to show no interest in how anyone else might feel.
All signs of high verbal intelligence, low levels of emotional maturity.
He is, in short, a nerd who never learned any social skills.
Hillary,
I don’t agree with your premise that it’s a different religion, only that the OF, as its usually celebrated, presents a twisted caricature of the faith.
Don’t you remember the feeling of relief you got the first time you realised that at the Old Mass, you don’t have to perform, that it doesn’t matter a lick whether you are giving the responses or praying the Rosary or just sitting there letting it all happen while you meditate on the stained glass windows? Don’t you remember how nice it was to be allowed to just pray and let the priest do his job?
My goodness, yes! It was a relief, about 2 years in. I do not experience this freedom often, as I serve as crucifer or thurifer most Sundays and holy days.
When going to an OF mass while traveling, I often miss this, and particularly need a distraction from the abuses going on, so I sit in the back pull out my rosary, and try to keep it hidden while the only rubrics I perform is the sit/stand/kneel.
I haven’t really read Shea much in the past; he’s always bored me. But I assumed that the reason he hasn’t addressed Steve’s arguments is that he either cannot, or has no objection to them. That’s often the way I behave — I’m a nerdy book-worm who’s actually a very poor writer, so often I go straight to my actual objections, but only if no one else has done so.
Hilary the characterization of the mass as something that has nothing to us struck me as false. The mass is not something that exists for God, God doesn’t need it, we do. It is rather, God’s(Jesus/Son) offering up his sacrifice to God(Father), for the expiation of Man’s sins. Religion (Catholism) itself is the mode of worship, laws, sacrifices that are to bring us to share in the divine life. Why else would sinfull man participate unless offered something to us. I at least am sinfull and not close to perfection and I go to mass to find redemption, grace, and the chance to personally talk to God who I have just eaten (you can’t get more personal than that). So the Mass is about us, AND about God. It is a poignant perpetual act of redemtion. It is the summation of man and God’s relationship.
Matt,
The purpose of the Mass is to praise God. The notion that God “doesn’t need it” is true, but God wants it. Of course, we receive grace and blessings from the Mass. But the notion that the Mass is “about us” is untrue. It’s not about us. That’s the problem with the NO - it’s ALL about us, not about God.
Jeff,
I disagree with your premise that Shea is afraid of what the NO says about the Church. With apologies to you and any other convert for whom this is not true, I think Shea is simply more comfortable with the NO because it resembles, however slightly, worship styles with which he is familiar. The TLM is much more demanding, esoteric to the uninitiated, and perhaps threatening in its “medievalism.”
Lex Orandi,
I’d take it a step further - the purpose of Mass is to offer a sin oblation to God in the form of His son. It’s very old testament in that regard, and while the sacrifice is offered on our behalf, it is offered to God. The Mass is therefore entirely Father-centric, and our presence is contingent, not essential. It is efficacious whether or not we are at any particular liturgy, just as Calvary was efficacious despite our chronological distance from the actual event.
On your second comment, I think you’ve got a point, though I believe it’s not mutually exclusive of Jeff’s. I can’t help but imagine that the Novus Ordo is a more sensible form of worship to a Protestant convert than the TLM. In fact, I think my own grandmother, a Methodist convert to Catholicism, found this to be so. I think she struggled with the old Mass, especially the Latin, before the switch. This makes it harder for her to understand why I want to switch back.
I attended the Anglican “Common Worship” service at Chester Cathedral the other day. I was struck with how it was exactly, and I mean exactly, the same as the Novus Ordo. With the sole exception that the presider was a woman. But it was OK at first because there was no way at all to tell that she was a woman just by looking at her. It really (honest!) only became clear when she started the sermon. But the service was a precise match.
I note this in response to Lex’s comment that the NO is familiar to ex-prods.
Among protestants, I am given to understand, there is a great homogenisation going on since the middle of the last century so that by the time we get to our time, if one were beamed at random into a Lutheran, Anglican or Catholic service, there would be nothing to distinguish them. I cannot for a moment imagine that this was not done deliberately. But I understand that this rule of sameness was implemented only in those ‘ecclesial communities’ that retained some form of Catholic liturgy. It would not, therefore, hold for the Baptists and others who have come directly from Calvin, who completely rejected all traces of liturgy. Is Shea not a former Baptist?
Hilary,
A friend of mine once suffered a flat tire outside a Lutheran church here in Virginia. Not having a cell phone with him, he headed into the office of the church to see if he could use their phone. They were quite friendly, and of course gave him a program/bulletin for him to consider in the event he would want to come back for services.
He brought it to my house and showed me that the entire service was in the bulletin.
It was the Novus Ordo - Word. For. Word.
That was the first time I realized how bad it was. In my way of looking at things, Catholic liturgy should actually offend Protestants a little bit. Not so much that it isn’t intriguing, but probably enough that they wonder if we’re praying to saints or worshipping Mary or at least using the Devil’s own language (ie., Latin.)
What impetus is there to change if it’s all of a piece?
Years ago, before I was particularly Catholic, let alone a trad, I attended a Lutheran service with my then girlfriend (who was Lutheran) and I remember it was very similar to the Novus Ordo. Back then, the only thing I thought changed after Vatican II was the language, so I just figured the Lutherans were pretty close to Catholic because they shared a similar liturgy. I had assumed that the mass had been the same since time immemorial, and the Lutherans just didn’t change much when they broke off…
Having been raised Lutheran, I can tell you that a traditional Lutheran service resembles the TLM more than the NO.
Having been raised Lutheran, I can tell you that a traditional Lutheran service resembles the TLM more than the NO.
I wonder what variant I saw, then?
I don’t know anything about the Lutheran church (churches? are they fractured?), but what I attended was almost word for word identical to the NO, with the exception of the prayers before communion (although, at the time, I had only ever heard Eucharistic prayer #2… it’s possible they used a derivative of the Roman Canon.)
The last time I counted (about 15 years ago) there were 16 Lutheran “denominations” in the United States. The largest was the ELCA, which was also the most liberal. They have been using a modernized liturgy for many years. The LCMS and WELS are two of the most conservative groups - I was married in the former and spent some time with the latter - and many of these churches used the traditional Lutheran liturgy, the English translation dating to the 1940s I think. It’s quite beautiful. Frankly, if you’re going to have a vernacular Catholic liturgy, you could do a lot worse.
Indeed, Jeff. That is the flip side of my Anglican story. The service I attended in Chester was the so-called “Common Worship”, the new, improved and modernised service. Before this I had only seen their “Prayerbook” or Traditionalist service that, apart from the (excellent) translation into English, is also extremely close to the TLM. Obviously the Common Worship service is the Anglican Novus Ordo, as is the Lutheran service Steve’s friend discovered.
As I said, it is clear from all this that there has been a deliberate effort to make them all identical and erase the, shall we say, ‘cultural’ distinctiveness of each denomination’s worship habits.
Resistance is futile.
I was told by an Anglican friend that the changes were made to their liturgy in response to the Novus Ordo… they were evidently waiting to see what Rome did in the wake of the second Vatican council. The new translation, facing versus populum, etc. were all adopted because, well, if ROME was progressive enough to do so, they have to be as well.
I like my conspiracy theory better than yourn.
“I think your task is to figure out what they get out of the NO religion. Once you know that, you will at least know where you are.
That is the one thing I can’t figure out. For me, discovering the TLM was like one of those magic eye pictures. You stare and squint and blur your eyes and move closer and further away and then, BAM! There’s an image in the static. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I can’t unsee why the TLM is better. Which makes it so hard to try to understand why others can’t see it, or won’t. It seems so patently obvious that I have to check to see if I’m wearing pants, or if I’m dreaming and I’m going to look down and find I’m in the supermarket in my underwear.
Understanding the why of it is the key to how I want to write this. I’m hoping God will supply that answer before my fast-approaching deadline.”
I think you all are much too smart for your own good. You forget that you’re intellectuals and the majority of the Catholic population isn’t. In my opinion, theological and/or psychoanalytical reasons why most people are attached to the NOM is too abstract to reflect reality. In theory, looking at all the theological differences, etc, one could argue that people prefer the NOM because the new Mass is about them and not about God. But I just don’t think that in reality it’s true.
My suggestion, Steve, is to ask your family and friends who attend the NOM why they haven’t made the switch. I bet it’ll be much more enlightening than reading our conjectures – because you’ll get the real answer. And if you intimate that some Trads believe that it’s b/c the Mass is about them, that they attend not out of love for God but out of love for themselves b/c “theologically, it can be proven that the NOM is man-centered”, I am pretty certain those family members will be very insulted and very hurt.
Nearly all of my family and friends are practicing Catholics, and most of them attend the NOM and I honestly don’t believe that they go to Mass, teach at CCD, volunteer to serve coffee and donuts, start mother’s groups, homeschool their children or whatever else they do for the Church, do so just because their “NO religion” makes them feel good. They might feel good by doing what they’re doing, but that isn’t their sole or main motivation. Most practicing Catholics out there (whether they attend the NOM or the TLM) really love God – as much as any sinful man who isn’t a saint can love God these days – and are doing their best to raise their families well, provide for them financially, and ultimately make it to heaven. Perhaps they’re not as educated in all the theological, historical, and philosophical reasons why one liturgy is superior to the other, or why the veil ought to be worn, or why girls ought not serve at the altar. But the sincerity of their faith is true. It’s all the more reason why those who’ve been graced with such an education should engage them in conversation, should invite them to traditional baptisms and weddings, have blogs, etc.
Personally, I believe that of those Catholics who have any familiarity with the TLM (or even know that it exists - because most Catholics in the wacky parishes aren’t even aware of it) who still choose to attend the NOM, the reason behind their choice is very simple. People resist change.
Unless you are forced to, or have a very good reason to change, you will stay with what you know. (You might know that they have a serious reason to change, but they do not have the intellectual background that you have. Most Catholics live very simple, practical lives and have very little theological knowledge. They’re not stupid but they are very busy with their jobs and children and didn’t go to a university that offered anything like what you’ve learned over the years.) Familiarity is a strong force that keeps people in their jobs, in their geographical location, in their religion, even in a bad relationship. Those Catholics who are of a traditional and orthodox mindset who might even consider going to the TLM often find an orthodox parish with a reverent NO liturgy. So, they can worship God with peace of conscience without having to completely separate themselves from the only Catholicism they’ve ever known.
That’s just my theory. But I seriously think you should ask your loved ones – it’d really show your journalistic integrity.
Sarah,
I believe that you’re probably right about the sincerity of people’s motivations, even if they may not recognize that on some level, they want a Mass that draws them in rather than forces them to go out of themselves.
Why did I take so long to make the switch? I read about and discussed and debated it for two years before I did, and you know this because you were there while your husband pushed me to consider things I hadn’t been looking at.
Why did you take so long to be ready to do it? Why was my wife, the convert, drawn to the TLM immediately? (My guess is that in part, she didn’t have the baggage of growing up with a different Mass..proving your resistance to change theory.)
But moving beyond all of this, what I wrote is a response to someone who is a theologian and popular writer of Catholic books, as well as to the fairly-well informed readership of Inside Catholic. We’re not exactly talking about Joe Six Pack here, and what I want to know more than anything else is why in the world we can’t have a substantive debate with other educated Catholics about the theological differences in the liturgy without watching them stifle a yawn. Why don’t they care?
Some of the theories that have been put forth here have a lot to do with it. So does the overwhelming amount of negativity that comes out of the TLM camp. I chose to focus on the latter aspect, as it most specifically reflects the issue I had with the original Mark Shea column.
Once people see that I want to talk about the issues, not just engage in polemics, maybe we can dive into the deeper issues that will naturally follow as part of the discussion.
Steve, Sarah can’t respond as she’s on her way to Austin for our August vacation. But what I think she’s getting at (specifically in the context of the quotes she responds to in her comment) also applies to the Catholic intellectual as well, theologians and popular writers, who truly have to take into account the faithful Joe Six Pack.
To think of some who have incidentally entered into <i>substantive debate about the theological differences in the liturgy</i> (from various facets), I would point you to Fr. Thomas M. Kocik (The Reform of the Reform?), Dr. Scott Hahn (Letter and Spirit), Cipriano Vagaggini, Jean Cardinal Danielou, and a host of others. I just don’t think Mark Shea’s your man on this one; it’s not his forte.
Perhaps now that we’re in the “days of Summorum Pontificum”, I think there has been and will be more “substantive debate” in the near future as minds begin to comprehend and experience Pope Benedict’s papal program for liturgical restoration.
Hey, we just got the “Thus the covenant that God made with the Jewish people through Moses remains eternally valid for them.” – expunged from the US Adult Catechism. Things are changing and being restored. Albeit, the real <i>substantive</i> change must come first on our knees as we seek to be personally sanctified, bringing grace to the world.
Be blessed.
My suggestion, Steve, is to ask your family and friends who attend the NOM why they haven’t made the switch. I bet it’ll be much more enlightening than reading our conjectures – because you’ll get the real answer.
Actually, this is wrong. You won’t get the real answer. Why? Because they don’t know. The most important thing I’ve learned as an IT consultant is that people simply do not know what they want, and even less so why they want it.
When doing usability studies for a piece of software, or anything similar, giving the user the tool, telling them to use it, and then having them explain what they did and why they did it after the fact is 100% useless. People are good at remembering what, but they are poor at remembering why. Our brains just aren’t wired that way; they store visual and auditory data, but the thought process involving decision making is so subtle and complex, storing it would be nearly impossible, unless they are simply following step-by-step algorithms.
Asking someone like Steve or Hilary why they go to TLM, you will get a good answer. Why? They’re intellectuals that have analyzed this to death. I can make that answer too… but after my first TLM or three… not so much. I was captivated and enraptured, but why? I’m sure I would have come up with BS answers at the time… in fact I probably did when asked.
You’re correct that people don’t like change… not changing does not take rigrous thought.
Peter - I am going to kick you out if you keep using the phrase “Be Blessed”, especially because I know you’re doing it just to get on my nerves.
I don’t care that you’re Sophie’s godfather. A man can only take so much.