A simple question for defenders of "THE Council"

Again and again, those who love the Traditional Latin Mass, the Mass supplanted by the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, are required to answer some form of the question, "Do you uphold the Second Vatican Council as a work of the universal Church, ratified by her bishops? Do you view it as valid? Do you accept its teachings, even though we agree that it was not dogmatic, as its own documents assert?" 

Anyone who is somewhere on the scale from "the Council in its evident results represents a super-dogma and I think it should be re-examined with a more critical eye" to "the Council was fine but was reduced to an amorphous 'Spirit' that makes me uneasy and has not quite borne the fruit it claimed would result from its implementation" finds himself required to preface any opinion or critique with an obligatory recitation of his credo, his "I believe" -- not in Jesus Christ, but in the Council.

But let us remember: The hand that strikes also blocks. The time has come to shed this defensive posture.

Martin Mosebach, in his First Things article responding to the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes in 2021, offers his usual insightful commentary. But perhaps the most important insight to help us overcome a fatally defensive position is this one:

"Francis appears to sympathize with the “hermeneutic of rupture”—that theological school that asserts that with the Second Vatican Council the Church broke with her tradition. If that is true, then indeed every celebration of the traditional liturgy must be prevented. For as long as the old Latin Mass is celebrated in any garage, the memory of the previous two thousand years will not have been extinguished."

A Christian ought to ground his faith in tradition. The Church Fathers are utterly unanimous on this. St. Athanasius exhorts us to have recourse to Scripture and to "the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers kept.  Upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Christian, and should no longer be so called” (Ad Serapion 1:28)

Therefore, let those who seek to suppress doctrinal and liturgical tradition answer the simple question: "Do you follow a hermeneutic of rupture? Do you hold that Vatican II broke with tradition?" 

Every thing they say must be prefaced with an answer to this question, and if the answer is "No, I do not," then every subsequent statement must be shown to be in continuity with tradition, as outlined in Sacred Scripture (see the letters of St. Paul) and the Magisterium. Or it must be rejected. 

It's a simple question. The conversation starts there. "Does Vatican II represent for you a break with tradition?"

Propping up Traditionis Custodes

Sometimes I need to write about two things at once, and this is one of those times. The need arises from my age, really -- I sense the urgency of making sure people get a context that might be lost in the passage of time.

So, first, let me say that I'm old enough to remember that the purpose of the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, a somewhat obscure publication you might not be familiar with, but which nevertheless has had its influence, was to offer clear teaching in a form that a priest could use in a homily. Its longtime editor, the redoubtable Father Kenneth Baker, SJ (that rare creature, a good Jesuit) established its reputation for providing solid doctrine to busy priests in the midst of the intense confusion of the post-Conciliar time. 

The HPR is not a scholarly journal per se. But its mission had been to offer carefully supported reasoning in the light of Scripture, the Magisterium, and Tradition; not polemics and certainly not propaganda. In the 70s, when Fr. Baker took over, the idea of the New Evangelization hadn't been formulated in those words, but that was the spirit of what you could find in its pages -- a trusted resource for encouraging the faith from the pulpit. It's telling, of course, that such an initiative became necessary; one would have thought that the Magisterium itself fulfilled that role and that those ordained to its promulgation would have continued to be given the formation necessary for the task, but such are the questions we are only now asking ourselves.

On to the second thing: a particular article published in the Review: Shepherding the Flock Out of the 1962 Missal by E. Tyler Graham. In reading it, we need to keep in mind the context I'm speaking about -- the purpose of an otherwise somewhat insignificant article found in its pages: to be a resource for a priest who might need, shall we say in contemporary terms, "talking points" for the congregation.

There's a big difference between offering someone solid material for reference in his own understanding of a problem, and disguising false conclusions in a cloak of rhetoric that can be easily assimilated without the bother of the person using his own mind to evaluate them -- in short, propaganda. I take issue with this magazine leveraging its reputation for faithfulness against those not necessarily equipped to detect hidden assumptions and contradictions. It's really a breach of trust, all too common these days (yet, sadly, reflective of intellectual, not to say moral, corruption at the very top).

Let me be specific.

Mr. Graham begins by folding the reader into an assumption about the Motu Proprio of Pope Francis, Traditionis Custodes. That assumption is that the document constitutes a "command" -- that it is an act of authority over matters that cannot be questioned. For Mr. Graham, the only issue is how high to jump, not whether to jump. At no point in his treatment does he examine, theologically or historically, whether the form of the liturgy is something that can be abandoned or capriciously changed, both considered in itself (worship handed down essentially unchanged for centuries if not more than a millennium) and in light of Pius V's Quo Primum, the previous teaching on the matter. 

Others have written on this topic quite expertly, something I cannot do. I will simply point out that to mention, as Mr. Graham has done (how can he not!), the teachings of both Pius V and Benedict XVI on the matter of the Traditional Latin Mass is to throw the message of TC into the swamps of contradiction -- not the other way around, as he seems to assume. In the spirit of Fr. Antonio "Two Plus Two Equals Five" Spadaro and other papal apologists, Graham is prepared to do his part in the normalization of contradiction.

Graham says at the start of his article, "it might not be easy for our Shepherds — the Church’s bishops — to fulfill the command" of TC. Well, that is certainly true, because it's not easy to fulfill something incoherent. The bishops must both "fulfill the command" to lead us out of the 1962 Missal and be mindful that "the document offers tremendous leeway for bishops. Article 2 boldly states: 'It belongs to the diocesan bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole liturgical life of the particular Church entrusted to him, to regulate the liturgical celebrations of his diocese. Therefore, it is his exclusive competence to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See.'" This statement in itself contains a contradiction (as nearly every line of TC does). 

Does the bishop have the right to regulate such things or must he abide by the guidelines of the Apostolic See? The ever-handy "law of gradualism" is a concept wrested from John Paul II; see Familiaris Consortio #34: "And so what is known as 'the law of gradualness' or step-by-step advance cannot be identified with 'gradualness of the law,' as if there were different degrees or forms of precept in God's law for different individuals and situations." It can't quite do the heavy lifting of reconciling the call to eradicate the Tridentine liturgy to justice owed the faithful -- and God. 

Graham's putative concern is that the authority of the papacy itself would be undermined, should the 1962 Missal not be abandoned post haste, but he can also foresee that "maybe, if we look at it all in a few years, not much really will have changed outwardly in Church liturgical celebration (at least in areas where bishops are largely favorable or indifferent to celebration of the 1962 Missal)." 

He puts the problem in a nutshell, without understanding the implications: 

"The 1962 Missal can never be the proper answer to the 1963 call to reform it, for such a claim would breach the principle of non-contradiction; one would effectively be saying that something could be “reformed” and “not reformed” simultaneously! Thus, there is always a danger in celebrating the 1962 Missal that one fundamentally rejects the call of the Council, however wonderful the older Missal liturgy may be."

Do you see the hidden assumption, that the newer document automatically supersedes the older --  that the 1970 Mass is a) a fitting conclusion derived from Vatican II's 1963 call to reform and b) that the contradiction lies in rejecting it? For there is another choice, c): the Mass of Paul VI is itself not what it purported to be (while still retaining validity), let alone Traditionis Custodes? Graham's "Thus" elides all these very real problems while wrapping his conclusions into one big ball of syllogistical error. 

But if you're there for the contradictions, you have no choice but to see them through to the end, even if it means conveniently leaving all the important issues out. I find it ironic that the very people always cautioning us not to cling to black-and-white analyses seem incapable of acknowledging complexity in matters spanning decades and whole eras, not to mention the motives, actions, and writings of those subject to forces that haven't been sorted out yet. 

Graham thinks that the real meaning of TC is theological, but he isn't ready to delve into what the Council wanted the reformed liturgy to look like (or even whether it knew), what other things the Council said besides what he quotes, whether the Mass of Paul the VI (1970) is the Mass the Council envisioned (if anything), whether the contradictions he warns against are not inherent in what Pope Francis wrote (and the question of TC's contradiction of Summorum Pontificum and Quo Primum). He isn't prepared to grapple precisely with the connection between tradition, worship, and knowledge of God (that is, theology). 

I have, until this pontificate changed my mind, characterized myself as an adherent of Pope Benedict's "reform of the Reform"; I've read a good deal of his writings. It's from that perspective that I say that I find it unintentionally ironic that Graham refers to the Mass that existed before that of Paul VI as "the Mass of John XXIII." It's Pope Benedict in Summorum Pontificum who made use of this term. As Fr. Richard Neuhaus explains:

By associating the Latin Mass that is now universally approved with John XXIII, Benedict steals a card from the deck of liberals and progressives, for whom John XXIII is always "good Pope John," in contrast to his successors. But this is much more than a deft rhetorical move. "Summorum Pontificum" is a thoroughly liberal document in substance and spirit, remembering that liberal means, as once was more commonly understood, generosity of spirit. In his letter to the bishops , Benedict is directing them to be generous in embracing the fullness of the Catholic tradition and responding to the desires of the Catholic faithful. This is proposed in contrast to the rigidity, bordering sometimes on tyranny, of a liturgical guild that mistakenly thought that the Second Vatican Council gave them a mandate to impose their ideas of liturgical reform on the entire Church. Benedict writes of the Mass of 1962 and that of 1970: "It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were ‘two Rites.’ Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite."

I fear that Graham uses the term for another purpose, to follow Pope Francis in his attempt to downplay differences in kind between the Old Mass and the Novus, the old pronouncements and the new. The idea, I take it, is to make it seem like popes just come up with Masses (just as they come up with Motus -- Traditionis Custodes, Quo Primum, what's the difference?).  But at this point, anyone who cares to delve into the matter the tiniest bit knows that the entire liturgy as a whole remained virtually unchanged from the time of its codification up until our era. It required and received reform at various points, but it never needed to be "led out of" in favor of something new. To pretend otherwise is not merely superficial; it's quite simply a lie.

Graham certainly does not grapple with the actual results of the near-universal implementation of the Mass of Paul VI (not even noting the mention of problems with the Novus Ordo made by Pope Francis in his Motu): the casual incorporation of irreverence, such that most of it has to be overlooked, even by conservative critics; the outright abuses that occur on such a regular basis that the beleaguered Mass-goer hesitates to travel or go on vacation without careful research or adoption of an attitude of fatalism; the incorporation of political agendas in prayers and visuals; the sad state of homiletics (which again, this very publication exists to remedy; one has to question its success); the blurring of fundamental roles of the sexes when they aren't trampled on; and on and on... He prefers to reduce the Traditionalist argument to a mere preference for Latin, as if the Latin in Traditional Latin Mass refers merely to language and not to the Roman rite itself, with all its rich history and meaning: "Furthermore, does the Catholic think that the 1962 Missal alone is celebrated in Latin, or is he/she aware that the current Missal can also be celebrated largely in Latin?" But is it? Let's be honest here: is it? 

Here we have an example of what Pope Francis has bestowed on the Church he has made a vow to protect: the intolerable stress of pitting obedience to him, even if what he wants could be ascertained, against obedience to the truth itself, which is above all in that very principle of non-contradiction that we see weaponized here in this article. Certainly, this effort is not new. We saw it early on when random statements from Pope Francis were explained away, and I did some of that myself at first, for who among us does not have the desire to protect the Pope's integrity from criticism? 

We saw it emerge as a consolidated professional endeavor when formal teachings began to appear: the veritable industry, mostly academic but also journalistic, of reconcilers of papal pronouncements, kept humming with its work of assuring us that allowing adultery is a development of doctrine contained in the Sixth Commandment, that the perennial teaching of the Church that capital punishment is in principle correct has changed, and that God is fine with other religions. If we see a problem, the problem is with us. In the new dispensation, we must submit to have our reason overturned.

This stress is fatal. If we don't want to lose our faith in the God of Truth, the person who imposes the stress of obeying contradiction must be resisted. Those who enable it the way Graham does in this article are, wittingly or not, accomplices to spiritual abuse. But in a special way, this article commits the offense of using subtle yet superficial arguments and faux scholarship to undermine trusting priests simply seeking some help in their quest to teach the faithful from the pulpit. Don't overlook the fact that this article is listed under the journal's "homilies" tab -- it is overtly meant to be lifted whole and presented to the people in the pews. 

Propaganda is never honorable; it's not magically normalized when put in the service of furthering false obedience in religion. Pulling the unsuspecting into the ranks of dissent from the truth is cowardly.

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.

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.

 

LifeTeen is fundamentally flawed

I wrote about LifeTeen here, on the Catholic Culture site.

I suppose it is possible that the Life Teen liturgy could be brought into conformity with the letter of the GIRM...Nevertheless, I think this movement is profoundly and fundamentally flawed because it does two things. First, it separates young persons at the most decisive stage of their lives from their families. Second, it panders to the teenager's inclination to live in a mentality of entertainment.

I realize parents are concerned about their young people keeping the faith, and when "everyone" is sending their kids to youth conferences, it seems hard to be that family that doesn't. But I urge parents to resist this failed system of youth ministry.

Fr. McTeigue has some good posts about the flaws of the "youth ministry" approach. 

Young people are actually searching for meaning in tradition. They may seem diffident, but they need their family in the teen years just as much as in the toddler stage. We need to shed our 70s attachment to innovation and emotionalism and return to practices of the faith that don't fade or tarnish. From my article:

Moreover, the suggestion that today's parents are too distracted seriously underestimates their true longings. Most of them are anxiously, if ineptly, seeking a way to help their children find meaning. Although we might not agree that it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes a family, together with a Church and a community. If parents are not doing a good job, it is certainly not for lack of interest on God's part. Perhaps the lack is elsewhere.