Two Essays after Traditionis Custodes

The first, from my husband Phil, Three rhetorical questions about Vatican II and Tradition. These questions have to be pondered honestly. Sometimes I think that some believe the post-conciliar Church is sailing along very well, hindered only by pesky traditionalists who won't get with the program. But of course, one reason that traditionalists are gaining ground is the evident leakiness of the ship. And what it is leaking is children, sadly.

Phil's last point, especially, hits hard. If we are all pretty darned good -- holy, really -- and only need to be a bit better, then all catechesis, homiletics, and magisterial guidance ends up being nothing more than motivational material. And indeed, this is my experience with the post-Vatican II Church. The further along we go, the more the "new evangelization" resembles the secular self-help industry. 

The second, from Peter Kwasniewski; Why Restricting the TLM Harms Every Parish Mass:

"If you take away the Roman template, you take away the knowledge of how a Catholic liturgy looks, sounds, and functions."

The privilege of memory is one of the few that can be conferred on one's progeny quite easily, provided one offers what one has been given. But withholding this privilege is most unjust, because unlike money or position, when memory is lost, how will it be restored? What those rejecting the Mass of the Ages fail to acknowledge is the reliance of the new Mass on the old. Without memory, what goes on could be... anything.

Let me put it this way: someone who remembers a beautiful cathedral can picture it in his imagination when he's in an unfamiliar building set aside for worship, especially an ugly church, and indeed that picture helps reconcile him to ugliness. I knew a lovely elderly lady who grew up in a beautiful parish. When I asked her how she reconciled herself to the changes wrought there, she explained, "I just shut my eyes and think of it as it was." I couldn't help consider that she had never married and had no children. For a parent to resort to that tactic, however comforting for him, is actually irresponsible.

When all the cathedrals are torn down to make way for ugly churches, what will form or dwell in the imagination of the one who has never experienced architectural beauty? What will be the actual legacy of those assenting to destruction and ugliness? 

It's not possible to confer imagination itself on the next generation; only the externals on which imagination is built can be preserved and offered. 

Some years ago I wrote a piece that I thought would work to further the "mutual enrichment" envisioned by Pope Benedict XVI. I called it Three Liturgical Changes We Need Now, and argued that if these three changes were implemented, we would naturally find that others followed. If you read carefully, you can see how one restoration leads to another, and the important thing is to begin with the most fundamental points.

With the tabernacle in the center of the church, homage would shift from the priest to the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing along with that shift a salutary re-ordering of priorities. If we received Holy Communion on the tongue, sheer practicality would shortly necessitate kneeling and a renewed appreciation for the efficiency of the altar rail. Above all, if the priest simply turned to offer Mass ad orientem, the right order of worship would follow. Brilliantly, I pointed out that every one of these changes could be made immediately, no special permission required. 

Alas, the ensuing years have shown me that while any random "bright idea" cooked up in the chancery's Office of Liturgy or for that matter by the newly ordained pastoral associate or even the director of education, can be implemented -- in fact, must be implemented -- right away, my modest and utterly traditional suggestions represent insurmountable problems for the poor soul trying to bring them about. In my own parish, the tabernacle was, miraculously, restored to its fitting place in the center of the sanctuary -- but not without vast preparation, cajoling, virtual sleight of hand (a "repair" to the spot it had occupied needed to be carried out), and breath-holding to see if it would fly. And only because the pastor wanted it; had he not wanted it, it would still not be done.

It all seemed so clear to me when I wrote. Those of good will, wishing to reconcile the more tradition-minded among us and offer reparation for the constant, relentless irreverences foisted on us at every turn, ought to respond to these three thoughts with the open-handedness they pride themselves on possessing. You know, welcoming, accompanying, and presumably sharing in a desire for reverence, above all.

But no. Why this most fundamental feature of human life -- the passing on of memory -- has no importance for our hierarchy, I do not understand. But this is where we are.