I received an email from the moderator of a ''.com'' blog last week or the week before, telling me that what I write might be of interest to a certain audience (I am not going to be candid about anyone), and asking me to contribute articles to their site. I politely refused, and explained that my own blog was a personal endeavour and that I had no wish to be seen as the voice of anything modern, or heretical/schismatic, so that readers might start attributing to me sentiments and beliefs which I repudiate (I already get comments enough on this blog of that nature). Instead I asked them to link to me. Oftentimes having gone back to their site I notice that they have decided not to include me in their blogroll. Why is this, I wonder?
It was often the case with other ''overmighty'' blogs who wouldn't link to me when I wrote Singulare Ingenium. Why do people not link to me? Do they consider what I write to be objectionable? Or perhaps I write things exactly as they are and people just don't want to read it? When I wrote Singulare Ingenium I refused to publish a comment from a reader who accused me of fanaticism, and who described me as a ''pre-'62 anorak.'' I am beginning to wonder whether this is the general perception of me. Am I really fanatical and an extremist for having clear-cut liturgical convictions? Well I'm sorry if I think that Liturgy is somehow important for the life of the Church and I refuse to ''go-with-the-crowd'' and keep cranking the ''Benedict XVI has liberated the Traditional Latin Mass'' ratchet. In reality he has done nothing of the sort; in fact I think he has made things worse in the long-run, and you certainly cannot look to Mother Rome when Mother Rome is full of idiots who know sod all about Liturgy. In a church which is full of legal positivists, was it really wise for Benedict XVI to specifically designate 1962 as the ''extraordinary form''? I look forward to the day when the next Pope issues another ''clarifying'' motu proprio stating specifically that any deviation from '62 is a damnable heresy, punishable by excommunication - or even makes Summorum Pontificum null and void - that is the day when Ultramontane Traditionalists will be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Will they carry on with Tradition or obey the Pope?
It just seems to me that Tradition in the Catholic Church sits uneasily upon a narrow ledge, and will stand or fall by its Popes...if the Pope is a modernist, and there have been such popes, then Tradition is thrown out the window; if the Pope is good, then it waits uneasily for the next Pope...
I can sympathise with that. Some people don't like thinking outside of their comfort zones. For the modern so-called conservative that comfort zone is ultramontanism. On a Catholic forum I regularly post I regularly receive inractions for just questioning the acts of certain popes.
ReplyDeleteI admit quite freely that I sometimes have great difficulty reconciling in my mind the current state of things with the one true Church.
Paul Knight, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteOf course none dare criticise Popes...that's impossible since Popes are infinitely above criticism.
What are the four marks of the Church? That the Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. The New Rite, and it's older cousin the '62 Rite, are none of these things...
I agree with Paul's comment above. If people are asked to think outside of their 'comfort zone' they will effectively shun you and not link.
ReplyDelete'Traditionalism' has, generally speaking' moved far more into that part of the spectrum that a decade ago would have been described as 'conservatism' or, disparagingly 'neo-Con'. Ultramontanism is the most prominent characteristic of this range of opinion.
The one thing which is guaranteed to induce a hue and cry in the contemporary Roman church is criticism of the pope. Likewise even trivial flattery of the pope is lapped up by an eager audience.
If you were to write a post with the title 'Pope blows nose on lace mappa belonging to Bl. Pio Nono and gives Latin blessing' then you would get your links.
Trying to raise the level of the debate about the Liturgy, and its primary importance, is an endeavour worth more than links I would suggest.
If you don't mind me saying, you blog can come across as having a lot of "hubris" and unwarranted attacks on people for no reason.
ReplyDeleteI think there are also more pressing problems in the church such the fight against abortion and homosexual legislation which destroys life to the core, the attacks on the Holy Father for an abuse crisis that he was never part of in the first place, etc. I think you may inadvertently fall into the caricature that people who are interested in liturgy, have nothing else to contribute to the discussion and perhaps use it as a crutch.
I am not saying that the above applies to you but how people may perceive you (which whether you like or not is fairly important if you want to get a message across).
Rubricarius, I agree - although it feels sometimes as though I am debating with a very few people in an obscure corner of the blogopshere. Also, I agree with you about the ''shift'' in emphasis in the Trad world from Tradition to ''neo-conservatism'' - now many Traditionalists quote the Vatican II documents to support their arguments and practices - something unthinkable to Lefebvre!
ReplyDeleteShawn, I don't mind your saying anything - that was the point of this post, to get peoples' honest opinions.
I (confessedly) have a tendency to be very direct with people. My ''attacks'' on people are rather deserved attacks on certain hermeneutics and dispositions which I think disparage and sideline the Sacred Liturgy. My main concern here is to raise awareness about the reality of '62, which many hold aloft as the Traditional Latin Mass - in reality, as you well know, it was just a convenient year to make typical changes made under Pius XII and John XXIII in Maxima Redemptionis, Cum Nostra, Rubricarum Instructum etc.
I just don't see why many Traditionalists have to be so hypocritical about real Tradition - many just don't see that there is much wrong with '62.
As regards homosexuality, the genocide of the unborn, artificial forms of contraception, divorce and other evils which create endless war on the Family which mirrors the inner life of the Blessed Trinity, I am well aware of these things, but I don't see that every Catholic blog need comment on them all the time - I leave that to blogs like SPUC. My chief concern here is, however, no less important.
Let me put it this way: I don't think you can remedy the evils of anti-life agendas in politics and other areas of public life by recourse to a private Votive Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes followed by a chaplet of the Divine Mercy and vernacular hymns...
I have only recently discovered your 'blogs. I read through all of the archives of your former 'blog, and have only not done so with your current 'blog thus far because of a lack of free time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a great deal that you have to say, especially as regards the use of the '62 Missal and many of the reforms of the 20th century.
What I find absent from your 'blog is the admission of a certain degree of pragmatism, given what we have on offer today. I don't think that this is your personal position, as, at least in your former 'blog, you described assisting at Mass according to the '62 Missal, etc. But you often come across as suggesting that it would be better to stay home and think pious thoughts than to attempt to make the best of a very imperfect situation. That's where I would part company with you.
I feel a bit like you are shouting into the wind here. If you really want pre-1962 liturgy, you really need to become a sedevacantist. I believe this church would be a good start for this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sgg.org/
But even they have Mass in the afternoon, and use that appalling post-Pius X breviary. Where will it end?!
That’s why I have to reiterate that “liturgy” as we know it is a racket. In the West at least, it is a legal fiction of those who give the imprimatur to publish service books. And it was never “popular” to begin with either. At best, it was the trade secret of the clerical classes, and was passed down like a haberdasher would pass down his art to an apprentice. People who were on the outside could care less about such things. And complaining about it is about as useful as complaining that your favorite football club changed the color of its jersey. It was never yours to begin with, and perhaps that fact that you think it is is part of the problem.
There was much more uproar amongst the people and lower clergy when they decided to get rid of the nightly St. Jude novena, or declare that St. Christopher is no longer a saint. I will concede, however, that how we worship, or even how a self-selected lay elite worships, is an important issue. Evoking Lenin’s concept of a vanguard, I would say that the Catholic masses are led by the example of an intellectual group who need to be formed by the highest manifestation of culture. When students of theology are being formed by charismatic services, and when seminarians don’t sing the Office in Latin to the traditional Gregorian tones, what chance is there for average Joe Catholic in the pews to have any sense of the ancient Faith?
I would add, however, that liturgy is not enough. What is done for an hour on a Sunday will not save the Church, and making people do “more church” will not save the Church. Unless average Joe and Jane Catholic find in themselves a spontaneous thrust to create a real Catholic culture and identity in the context of postmodernity, I don’t see any of this going anywhere.