AND NOW FOR SOME ACADEMIC PONDERINGS ON THE CHURCH AND HER LITURGY

Fr.Christopher Smith has a very good academic article on the Chant Cafe.

Here are two paragraphs to tantalize you to read it:

The chief problem with this mindset is not the often sincere intentions for ecclesiastical renewal which accompanied it. This problem is expressed in two postulates. The first, is that there existed in the past some point of reference in which the liturgy, theology and Church life was pure, was what should be. This is incorrect, because the Church is never pure and what should be will only be in Heaven. The second, is that placing such a vision in dialogue with contemporary trends will renew the Church. This is also incorrect, because it assumes that such a dialogue and a renewal is always and everywhere possible.

After the Second Vatican Council, these two errors accompanied critiques of liturgy, theology, and Church life from left, right and center. Catholicism in the latter half of the twentieth century had imbibed the myth that there was out there a perfect way to do theology, make liturgy, and be the Church. If we read the memoirs of Annibale Bugnini and Cardinal Antonelli, both deeply involved in the Liturgical Reform and also divided by it, we can see that these two men in different ways took these postulates to be true, differing only in the details.

YOU CAN READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE BY PRESSING THIS SENTENCE AND GOING TO THE CHANT CAFE AND READING,"CHALLENGING THE LITURGICAL STATUS QUO!