Dom Alcuin Reid stands athwart Traditionis Custodes and its defenders

Three respected academics, John Cavadini, Mary Healy, and Thomas Weinandy, have written a five-part series in the Notre Dame Church Life Journal on the Novus Ordo, the Mass of Paul VI -- the Mass that the vast majority of Roman Catholics throughout the world attend. (The articles are linked here -- the last link gathers them together in one.)

This series is frustrating to read, because it assumes what it sets out to demonstrate, that the Novus Ordo is superior to the (in their view, following Pope Francis in Traditionis Custodis) superannuated Traditional Latin Mass; a premise that the authors seem not to understand is self destructing, as it undermines the ability of the Church to guarantee true worship, if it must discard as inadequate the form in which it was celebrated for Roman Catholics in a span comprising the greater part of its history. 

I commend to your attention this excellent response from Dom Alcuin Reid, published in OnePeterFive today: The One Thread By Which the Council Hangs: a Response to Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy.

“Don’t touch that! If you do, everything will collapse!” The warning is clear enough. Any sensible person would rapidly desist, lest their one seemingly minor act bring everything crashing down, undoing the work of many days, weeks, years or even decades.

I am not sure whether these were the exact words used by a number of bishops at the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, but, whatever words they chose, these bishops forcefully conveyed to him their opinion that he could not under any circumstances permit a wider use of the older liturgical rites without perilously detracting from the authority of the Second Vatican Council. “Don’t do it,” they insisted, “or the Council will seem to have been reversed and will lose its authority.”

Of course, Benedict XVI did “do it” with his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (7 July 2007)—having first spent a cheerful morning or two telephoning many of the bishops who had previously shouted at him, in order personally to ‘explain’ that they had little or nothing to worry about. The world did not come to an end. The Church did not implode, and the Second Vatican Council’s true authority was not undermined.

Dom Reid has the confidence of one well versed in his subject, who is not academically or in any other professional way beholden to the regime built up around what he calls "the super-dogma" of Vatican II. He is exactly right, that those in the extraordinarily entrenched status quo live in fear of challenges to their received notions about liturgy -- that this "old, thin, and worn" thread will be pulled and everything will tumble down.

His freedom from human respect (a breath of fresh air, for these academics have throttled us with their iron grip on how we may think about the post-conciliar time) allows him to respond to the arguments (some of which, as you will see, is aimed at him) with what is readily observable to those not invested in the opposing narrative -- what even the National Catholic Reporter, that bastion of unorthodoxy, has on many occasions noted as "the hemorrhaging of Catholic youth" out of our Church. And, what supporters of innovation do not like, the popularity amongst the young of Tradition:

Calvadini, Healy, and Weinandy are honest in seeing that this poses quite a problem when there is at least one generation of Catholics, young and growing in number, for whom the reformed liturgical rites are practically unknown. They have discovered or even have grown up with the usus antiquior—the older liturgical rites—and they are now raising their own children accordingly, having been assured by popes and prelates across the world—even by the likes of the then Archbishop Roche[1]—that this was perfectly acceptable and did not in any way damage the communion of the Church; indeed, that it enriched it as an expression of that legitimate plurality that is part of the One Church of Christ.  

Today, he goes on, 

"... as repeated statistical studies from various countries demonstrate, the reformed liturgy has simply not delivered the ecclesial renewal promised. Promised? Yes: the assumption that guided (“motivated”? “sold”?) the introduction of the new rites was that if the liturgy were simplified, modernised, made more contemporary, then people would participate in it more fruitfully and a new springtime in the life of the Church would be ushered in. Alas, the opposite has proved to be true."

I highly recommend reading the whole thing. It is long, but bracing. His words are a tonic for the wilting spirit, especially as the attacks on Tradition show no signs of abating.

The post-traumatic stress of the anniversary of Vatican II

As the tentative and notably uncelebratory observations of the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council wafted around the internet the other day, I was struck again by the phenomenon of commenters of a certain age (around my age and from my milieu, so I recognize their sort) keeping a desperate grip on the fantasy that the Mass of Paul VI, the Novus Ordo, can never be left behind -- that it is a permanent fixture. 

They think this even though the Novus Ordo itself was imposed with cataclysmic sudddenness, which certainly implies that it could as readily be changed back. Despite the obvious reality that the whole Roman Catholic world worshiped according to the 1962 Missal when it was promulgated, they insist that today's (virtually) universal practice of worship in the new form is decisive to its permanence, and they call it a fantasy to think otherwise. But theirs is the fantasy!

Permit me to wonder if their commitment to this dream-that-is-a-nightmare perhaps arises from their investment, academic or otherwise professionally, in the workings of the modern church -- even in their opposition to its worst manifestations. Some of them work for bishops. Some work at universities in which their positions depend on the status quo. Some depend on publishing houses that arose to offer a much-needed conservative voice in a time of turmoil but have not responded to unfolding events, culminating in Traditionis Custodes, appropriately.

Whatever the provenance of their loyalty, it is a kind of tribe, going by different and formerly respectable names (such as "the Reform of the Reform"), in which their prestige finds a home. But of course, Christianity cares nothing for prestige. To follow Christ means to follow the Truth. Perhaps they are and were wrong; perhaps they did their best at the time and now information that changes one's position, or ought to, has been revealed. But they are having difficulty admitting it.

They reserve to themselves the right to criticize the state of things. They often lament the situation in the church, a situation so dire that most of it is hidden even now. But they also hold in contempt those who, with ample evidence regarding the machinations of the past 60 years, seek to restore Tradition and rescue our precious Church from the continual process of liturgical and doctrinal destabilization. That is, they are angry at those who are not content just to deplore but seek a remedy. These traditionalist critics by necessity attack the fantasy of the permanence of this regime of change, and for that they are dismissed as fools.

The Novus Ordo defenders, who as far as I can tell have found rare bunkers (call them bubbles if you prefer a less besieged metaphor) where they are somewhat insulated from irreverence, can't face the internal contradiction of their position. Nor do they demonstrate much pity for those not able to find the same sort of refuge. 

This state of denial makes them testy and causes them to reject factual arguments with contempt and ad hominem attacks, or to cheer on those who do so even if they themselves refrain, which speaks to some private conversation amongst themselves (to which I too have been privy, back in my Reform of the Reform days) that is even more extreme. 

This attitude is dishonorable. They should either go all in on all the sequelae of the imposition of the Novus Ordo, along with accepting the virtually universal episcopal acquiescence of the decline, or they should face the conclusions of the evidence before their eyes and change their minds. They should not play both ends against the middle and cling to the juvenile pleasure of complaining without being willing to change.

Honor requires following logic to its conclusion, regardless of how that leaves one in worldly terms.

You can read more about why I say all this here, about Asking the Right Question:

"The liturgical situation, made so (uncharacteristically) clear by Pope Francis, leaves us then with no choice. We simply cannot accept a liturgy that has within itself the mechanism to become ever more banal and worldly, and the custodians of which demonstrate that they consider it to be in rupture with the past."

Lame (yet effective) Paganism

I was remarking to my husband (who is Phil Lawler -- you should follow him) that what struck me about the undeniable paganism of the Pachamama cult is how very, very banal it is. 

"It's so lame. It's people in t-shirts bowing down, sort of, before a plywood 2ft. high goddess. It doesn't rise to the level of paganism. Give me some scary paganism so I can grapple with it. I can't even, with this Boomer polyester thing they have going here."

He just unleashed it -- the perfect description: 

"It's Novus Ordo paganism."

Yes. It's valid, no question about it -- we are suffering its effects even as we speak, two years to this day.

 It's just not very inspiring, as idols and idolatry go, and maybe that is our downfall, because we couldn't quite grapple with it -- we are too used to ambiguity and too used to glossing over unfitting things. But I have a feeling the reckoning will come upon us, regardless.

Asking the right question

 ... is much more than half the battle!

Or to put it another way, he who demands that a certain question be answered controls the conversation.

Ever had this feeling? That you are going around and around... that you have answered the question, in this case, "Do you believe the Novus Ordo Mass is valid," over and over, and yet you are still in the same wrangle, getting nowhere?

Well, this essay -- and I won't deceive you, it's long --  offers that blessed sense of release only found when the right question is finally asked.

In Cancelling Pope Benedict: Reflections on a recent article and the “hermeneutic of rupture, a priest responds to a defense of Pope Francis' Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, making this important point at the end (I have highlighted it for you):

Here we have yet another rearguard attempt to achieve the permanent institutionalization of the “hermeneutic of rupture” which Benedict XVI had dedicated his pontificate to combatting. We are told in this article that with his motu proprio, “Francis defended both the liturgical reform of Vatican II and the council’s ecclesiology,” but that “to be more thorough...Francis should correct a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) from 2007, which asserts that Vatican II did not change the doctrine on the church.” In the rest of the article we can easily see the point: the author seems to bang his fist on the table and insist, But, yes! Vatican II really did change everything! Nothing can be the same anymore! You can’t believe like they did before the Council and you can’t worship like they did the before the Council! Although the author slams those he calls “Lefebvrists,” it seems not to occur to him that he shares their basic thesis that “Vatican II changed everything,” disagreeing only on whether the change was good or bad.

The importance of this article -- the decisive importance that I hope everyone will internalize -- is the author's question, which is bolded in the original, and which addresses the main thrust of the Motu Proprio:

The pressing problem in the Church today, then, is not: Do traditionalists accept Vatican II, but rather: Do the anti-traditionalists accept everything that came before Vatican II? The common lot of people attending Latin Masses today do “accept Vatican II,” inasmuch as it was legitimately convened and concluded by legitimate popes; yet they are not willing to let “accepting Vatican II” be a pretext or an occasion for rejecting or neglecting what came before Vatican II. And this is the real reason for the rage of the anti-traditionalists.

This point is what those who love tradition have trouble articulating, simply because we are always on the defensive, answering that other question of whether we consider the Novus Ordo valid. We are never allowed to get to the point, which is that we need more than mere validity to flourish, and that a bare adherence to not being invalid is ultimately corrupting of matters beyond liturgy, like doctrine and morality.

By the way, I include in "those who love tradition" people like myself, who up until recently considered ourselves "Reform of the Reform," Ratzingerian Novus Ordo faithful -- that is, not Traditionalists with a capital T. I understand that many will have in mind those who had always insisted on cleaving to the old form, but it's important to recognize Catholics like me who thought a "mutual enrichment" could be achieved and to understand why we we are puzzled that we didn't win out on something that to us seemed rather self-evident. 

We had thought and trusted, really, that reverence and true worship was actively being sought in at least some parts of the hierarchy who were faithful to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. With this Pontiff, have realized that our hope is in vain. Better late than never!

The liturgical situation, made so (uncharacteristically) clear by Pope Francis, leaves us then with no choice. We simply cannot accept a liturgy that has within itself the mechanism to become ever more banal and worldly, and the custodians of which demonstrate that they consider it to be in rupture with the past. 

That realization can feel like it puts us in the wrong, until we see that it's our defensive posture that creates that impression. We must stop accepting the premise that validity equals sufficiency. Yes, we think the NO is valid, but we also don't think that the barest legalism, affirmed by that response, can provide a fruitful path for what is, after all, the whole reason for our existence -- to worship God. 

Only when we ask the correct question -- does the anti-traditionalist accept everything that came before Vatican II -- that is, is our interlocutor in fact a Catholic -- do we recover the proper orientation. 

I urge you to read the whole thing. It's very freeing.

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. 

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.