Please don't throw me into the briar patch, Brer Reese!

Tom Reese SJ's latest embarrassment, The future of Catholic liturgical reform, is an elaborate trolling effort. Extra high marks to him for embedding incorrect assumptions in an absurd thesis, which is the troll master's greatest aim; because as we all know, it won't hurt his cause if the troll manages to get the target to agree to fallacies, even if it means that his main claims are dismissed. Distraction is one of the troll's best weapons in the war of disinformation.

Since this particular Jesuit's function is to further the (corrupted) Jesuit cause, and my aim is to oppose it, I will start by noting a few good and witty articles that energetically expose Reese's preposterous claims:

• Phil (my husband): On banning the Tridentine liturgy, and selling the Edsel

• An FSSP Parishioner Responds to Fr. Reese by Claudio Salvucci

• Jane Stannus on the Dangerous Latin Mass

But I can't resist adding a few observations of my own. Fr. Reese's article is like a mini-guide to the Spirit of Vatican II in action, including the desultory and unsupported form in which it's written, so redolent of our era's mode of thinking up mischief on the fly. So I can't help going through the whole thing. In the end I will tell you why I think he has done a service to the cause of Tradition.

Let's start with the first sentence: 

Other than sex, nothing is more heatedly debated by Catholics than the liturgy. Everyone has strong opinions based on years of personal experience.

Interesting, because the Catholic Church has only one idea about sex, that it is a God-given expression of love, oriented to the procreation of children, and its context is sacramental marriage. There is really nothing to debate, heatedly or otherwise. Thus it strikes me that it must follow that there is nothing to debate about liturgy either.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Pope Paul VI implemented revolutionary liturgical reforms laid out by the Second Vatican Council, but after his death in 1978, the Vatican put a stop to the changes. It is now time for a second phase.

Here is the first big fallacy that Fr. Reese slips by the reader before going on to his real point. We might be tricked into forgetting the afore-mentioned "strong opinions based on years of personal experience" of a sentence ago... but let me say it: No, the Vatican put no such stop to changes. It's precisely years of personal experience that remind us that our lives as Catholics have been nothing but a long series of changes, to the point that whenever things quiet down, the faithful get a little twitchy. 

Chanceries helpfully hire experts to calm the itch they have created by producing novelties on a regular schedule, while also incentivizing individual clergy to spring the occasional innovation on the congregation in a random manner, just because they can -- keeping the faithful hopping by constant freelancing. At the very least, the liturgy is punctuated by little jokes and asides, even on the most solemn occasions (like Ordinations and Easter Vigils). No one need worry, in the post-Vatican II era, that any given liturgy will proceed without a tweak of some kind! 

But does Fr. Reese advert to John Paul II, the successor to Paul VI (we will discount the one-month papacy of John Paul I)? That pontiff certainly did not put any brake on liturgical changes! While upholding doctrinal clarity for the most part, he embedded many overt innovations and allowed even more, implicitly. The nature of the post-Vatican II church being what it is, these reluctant concessions were taken for permissions and cartes blanches, and no one, besides those intransigent Traddies, ever looked back.

That "second phase" gag is cute! If every successive year's changes don't constitute phases of their own, then what will this second phase look like, we wonder! Some sort of quantum leap, apparently. Well, yes, he's getting to that. 

But first:

I argued [in a previous column] for more transparency and consultation in keeping with the principle of collegiality promoted by Vatican II and the principle of synodality promoted by Pope Francis.

The purpose of a transparent and collegial process is to develop good liturgy that is supported by a consensus within the community.

When a progressive calls for transparency, he means that he wants to use power covertly. When he calls for collegiality, he means he wants to deprive rightful authority of its prerogative. When he calls for consensus within the community, he means he wants to silence those who disagree. 

Inculturation

The Roman rite was developed in Italy and Western Europe centuries ago.

That's one way of expressing that the Roman rite (like all traditional rites) grew organically from ancient times into a beautifully articulated sacramental system that transcendently relates a culture to God -- as it must, for do we not all live somewhere? -- offering worship and subsequently transforming that culture, patterning it accordingly. It's an inadequate and fatally laconic way, but a way. 

St. John Paul II wrote beautifully about the importance of inculturating Christianity — grounding it in cultures beyond its European base. 

The unanswered question is how to carry out inculturation in concrete terms in the liturgy today.

Each bishops’ conference needs to be encouraged to gather scholars, poets, musicians, artists and pastors to develop liturgies for their specific cultures. When liturgy is out of touch with local culture, it becomes boring and dies. These new liturgies need to be beta tested before adoption. 

This superficial treatment ignores the cultural riches of the liturgy where it is transmitted intact, that is, with Gregorian chant and traditional principles of art and architecture. It also ignores the more fundamental question, which is the inculturation of the Roman rite in the first place -- for even in Italy and Europe (in Reese's poverty-striken formulation) the rite was at one time an emergent, that is, non-inculturated, phenomenon. Or does he equate the TLM with cultural imperialism? That's a big claim to pass off without support.

Ministry

Bishops’ conferences should discuss whether new liturgical ministries are needed and who may be called to perform liturgy. Can the work of liturgy be separated from the work of administration? Do all liturgical leaders have to be celibate, male, full-time employees? Can a deacon or layperson anoint the sick or hear confessions? In an age of declining numbers of priests, such questions must be faced.

Reese in this paragraph reveals something that might be overlooked at first reading, but which actually represents the heart of the progressives' agenda. Like all liberals, Reese and those he represents don't believe in the possibility of life organizing itself organically, whether we are speaking biologically or liturgically. For him (and I really do use him as a representative here, a sort of spokesman for a much larger entity within the Church), the question is one of administration. He views the Church as a bureaucracy, the functionaries of which can be interchangeable and bear no transcendent value. A woman can do a man's job; a layperson can replace an ordained man. Why not? 

Note also the defeated attitude of that "in an age of declining numbers of priests" -- as if by some inevitable, inexorable process, a man's desire to answer a call heard in other more challenging times has waned, soon to disappear: a sort of law of anti-fecundity.

Ecumenism

Besides liturgical renewal, Vatican II emphasized improving relations with other Christian churches. One way to do that is to move our liturgical ceremonies closer together. Is the Eucharist a sign of the existing unity among churches, or can it also be a means of fostering unity? The former excludes intercommunion; the latter does not.

The tired-out catalog of change offered as given. As a good progressive, Fr. Reese dishes up old ideas as if they are new, but we have to notice that moving our "liturgical ceremonies" closer together always means making ours more like theirs. We've seen how unsuccessful that strategy has been. We know that the ancient rites succeeded in bringing Christianity to the whole world, whereas it's precisely our remodeled rituals that have lost members and frittered Catholic influence. 

Translations

When he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, insisted that liturgical texts be translated word for word from the Latin. Experienced translators and liturgical scholars disagreed, and consider the resulting English translation woefully inadequate. There was another, better translation done in 1998, which was approved by the English-speaking bishops’ conferences but rejected by Rome.

Fr. Reese's experts handily to support his conclusions, but who are they? If we knew their names, would we find that we trust them in other matters? There is a reason the 1998 translation was rejected. It was not good, primarily because it sought in every case to implement the corrupt vision of the Church as a flattened and secularized entity.

It is more important that the meaning of the text be communicated clearly than that the translation be literal. There is no reason the hierarchy could not allow priests to use the 1998 translation as an alternative, allowing the priest decide which translation works best in his parish. This option would be limited to the priest’s prayers at Mass, since it would be too confusing to change the people’s responses without extensive preparation.

Nice concession there to the need not to confuse the people; just a bit too late. Dynamic equivalence simply ratifies innovation. 

It is time to return to bishops the authority over the Tridentine liturgy in their dioceses. The church needs to be clear that it wants the unreformed liturgy to disappear and will only allow it out of pastoral kindness to older people who do not understand the need for change. Children and young people should not be allowed to attend such Masses.

The bishops retain de facto authority over the "Tridentine liturgy" despite the de jure freedoms offered by Pope Benedict. The issue of obedience, something that needs to be confronted squarely, but perhaps not here at this moment, renders priests reluctant to celebrate the Mass of their and our birthright. This reluctance is not only attributable to respect, but reflects the reality that bishops can remove a given priest's faculties -- his raison d'être -- without due process. No priest committed enough to his calling that he would wish to express it in its fullness is willing to subject himself to the consequences of so doing. 

But it bothers Fr. Reese no end that at least in theory, he could.

At this point we enter the portion of the article addressed to great effect in the links above. It's beyond parody that Fr. Reese thinks the Traditional Latin Mass needs to be authoritatively withheld from young people. If the replacement is so self-evidently good, why does it require the strong arm of governance (usually so repugnant to his sensibilities) to enforce it?

And who is going to care for the children while their benighted parents attend this retrograde abomination? Is Fr. Reese volunteering to babysit for them at the local Novus Ordo? Will he personally watch them in cry rooms? Do he and his fellow Jesuits intend to stand athwart the doors of the FSSP parish, forbidding the literal hordes of young people entry? How does he envision his sanctions being implemented? 

While you are distracted with that point, he has others:

More important than the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is the transformation of the community into the body of Christ so we can live out the covenant we have through Christ. We do not worship Jesus, in this sense; with Jesus we worship the Father and ask to be transformed by the power of the spirit into the body of Christ.

The church needs more and better Eucharistic prayers based on our renewed understanding of the Eucharist. 

Strange to think that the new Mass hasn't already provided for this new understanding, and that we need newer new prayers to make it ever more clear. And yet, where is our faith if we believe what he states here, noticeably without any support whatsoever, that the community is more important than the attributes of Jesus Christ Himself? Or does Fr. Reese believe that the Eucharist is somehow separate from Him? What does he believe -- and is it Catholicism? Who gave him leave to impose his beliefs on us?

It would also be nice to have Eucharistic prayers that use more biblical language. When the Gospel reading is from Luke, the priest could use a Eucharistic prayer evoking the language and theology of Luke. A unique “preface” for each Sunday that picked up themes from the Scripture readings could also tie the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist more closely together.

Other Eucharistic prayers might develop other themes — the church’s concern for the poor, or for justice, peace, healing and the environment. All of these new prayers would require beta testing before adoption. 

Now he's just messing with us, although I grant that "themes" are central to the Novus Ordo Church, where every year, synod, gathering, and Sunday has a theme, easily exploitable by the aforementioned experts. But -- "It would be nice" -- imagine if the Roman rite had been invented in this casual, almost supine manner. Then indeed it would be the object of derision and reform. But it is his proposed rite, with everything up for grabs -- that has this slapdash quality. Again he strongly implies that liturgy is cooked up, as in committee, and then "beta tested," like a computer program or a pasta dish for a restaurant chain.

The rest of the article peters out in this lackadaisical manner. Having barraged us with spurious history and factitious observations, he hardly expects anyone to remain attentive to the end, nor are we.

All I am saying is that our internet age has bestowed on us a sharper understanding of situations in which someone is not proceeding with good will, but instead goads with distractions and falsehoods; in short, acts as a troll. 

Once we identify the treatment, the author's real anxieties are revealed. And truly, Fr. Reese and his cohort are anxious! They worry when they notice that however far-off the final reckoning, demographics are not on their side. The many-passengered vans are not lining up in the parking lots of those strictly progressive churches meeting with Fr. Reese's approval. When one surveys the backs of the heads of TLM congregations, one notices few gray hairs. 

So I say, all the more power to Brer Reese! The more he keeps up what he thinks is consolidation of gains from constant change for the sake of change, the more he convinces the actual younger generation, with whom he apparently has no contact and about whom he has no understanding, that they are on the right track. He also reveals to us in the older generation that our faith in the "reform of the reform" and "mutual enrichment," while it may have been pardonable in a more hopeful era, is now quite, quite defunct. So throw me into that briar patch too! I am happy to be one of the few graying heads in a sea of children -- all for Tradition.