Now that I got your attention and sidetracked you, substitute the word "Mass" for "sex" and "sexual" with the word "liturgical" and you get my point!
We got sidetracked by Archbishop Hector Aguer's use of the word "exactitude" as it concerns the Traditional Latin Mass that we didn't focus in on what the actual problem is with the Modern Mass. This is what he wrote:
Solemnity has been liquidated, in the practice of the new Mass, by trivialization; it is a smiling and friendly encounter in which the priest acts as animator. Eliminating ritual exactitude, special care is taken to create a "homely", everyday, ordinary atmosphere. In this way, the aim is to attract crowds, without realizing that solemnity is the guardian of the Faith, an invaluable gift of God, and that the Eucharist is a feast of the Faith.
In my most humble opinion, the main problem with the way the Modern Mass is celebrated has to be those who taught and teach priests and laity how to celebrate this Mass. Perhaps the priest most influential with this is the late Sulpician priest, Fr. Eugene Walsh, whose heyday was in the early 70's and through most of the 80's. He influenced scores of clergy and laity in the Church, especially those my age and older.
1. He encouraged the "affectivevity" of the
priest. He wanted us to smile during Mass, engage the congregation in
front of us, and not just during preaching and create an atmosphere of
warmth, hospitality and folksiness. Other liturgical theologians shared
his mentality and promoted it in seminaries, workshops and conferences. Traditional piety, reverence and solemnity were seen as an enemy of the new Mass and so pre-Vatican II!
2.
The 1970 Roman Missal and later incarnations of it, promoted in a
limited way, the allowance of the priest to ad lib at certain points in
the Mass. The Introductory Rite, seems to be the part of the Modern
Missal that is the most deformed by priestly antics and ad libbing. And
of course the Introductory Rite sets the mood for the rest of the Mass.
It can either maintain the ethos of prayer and reverence or it can
liquidate prayer, solemnity and promote the trivialization of the Mass.
"Affective" acts of of welcome, hospitality, banality at this point in
the Mass disrupts the trajectory of prayer and reverence and creates
that homely atmosphere that is non-sacred and ordinary to the detriment of "ritual exactitude."
3. The priest facing the congregation turns him into a talks show host, a kind of entertainer. What exacerbates this is the vernacular that he can manipulate to his pleasure and the congregation's amusement. Thus the move from Latin to the vernacular, with unbridled manipulation of one's native tongue, creates the problem of liquidated solemnity and the trivialization of the Mass.
4. The priest's personality then becomes the focal point of the modern Mass. One likes the priest and his antics and thus likes his Mass compared to listless Father Boring who simply "reads the black and does the red."
5. Hospitality and inclusivity seem to mandate that everyone in the congregation follow the "dancing" priest's initiatives and style. There is chatter and gossip and friendliness before Mass and afterward and sometimes during as everyone turns to the other at the Introductory Rite to greet their neighbor and welcome them. Sacred Silence in the Church building before and after Mass and respectful of the place of reservation of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the tabernacle, is completely disregarded and our Lord's post Mass, sacramental Real Presence is ignored in the Church in favor of the Lord in the person next to you, which could take place outside the church's nave rather than inside.
6. While facing the congregation, meaning the priest, need not turn him into an entertainer and ad orientem would solve the problem of much of the priestly antics of folksiness, the greatest problem with the modern Mass is the manner in which Holy Communion is received which has destroyed reverence for the Most Blessed Sacrament and the "handling" of our Lord under the Sacramental Sign! Kneeling and receiving on the tongue would solve that overnight! Call it restoration, if you will, but do it!
Until a future pope upgrades the the rubrics of the modern Mass (making them more traditional) and in an authoritarian way, imposes on bishops the duty to make sure that the modern Roman Missal is celebrated in a solemn way, eliminating any trivialization of the Mass through smiling and friendly encounters in which the priest is the animator, then the status quo will remain and more Catholics will make themselves absent from the celebration of the Mass, especially those Catholics who now will be denied the Traditional Latin Mass.
And while "exactitude" in celebrating the Mass by the priest might be misinterpreted to indicate a robotic, non human approach, improvisation of the ritual of the Mass, especially at the consecration and during the Eucharistic Prayer should not be tolerated.
18 comments:
A priest who taught me religion in high school once said that heresies arise when the Church is failing to address a problem or ignoring something that needs attention. The heresy of modernism isn't something new. It was simmering over 100 years ago. It came screaming out of the woodwork in the 1960's.
So what WAS the Church failing to deal with? I don't pretend to have absolute knowledge, but I can guess: The well-intentioned John XXII's desire to "open the windows of the Church" gives a clue: Something about the way Catholics functioned seemed stale. I think it is this same "staleness" that we see among some Jews. Many Jews are simply ethnic Jews, but there is no religious meaning to it any more. Many Jews go through the motions for their Bris, Bar Mitzvah's, weddings, etc., then go about living a relatively secular life. And a smaller group really embrace their faith and strive to live righteously as God's people.
By the 19th century, many Catholics seemed to function as fairly secular people who got baptized, abstained from meat on Friday, showed up for Mass, said the right prayers, but were essentially empty of any relationship with God. I believe this is part of what brought the evangelical dictum that we must "personally accept Jesus as Lord and Savior." We can all give the world the appearance of being people of faith, while just going through the motions. But at the heart of it, we MUST have a personal relationship with God. In some manner, The CHurch didn't deliver that as effectively as it could have or should have--I'm not sure. I am not trying to judge the Church, but I think a lot of the vapid silliness we are forced to imbibe at Mass today is part of a heretical overreaction against the ritualistic formalism that typified the preconciliar Church. To the Church's credit, a huge attempt was made to deal with it. Unfortunately, that effort went very, very wrong. The cure became worse than the problem.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Jerome Merwick,
There is a lot of truth in what you say but being Catholic prior to the Council was more than being ritualistic. Catholic life revolved around the parish far more than today. Our priests made routine house visits and we frequently had the teaching sisters on our home for dinner (my mother would make them a special “beverages”). We had many devotions outside of Mass which were well attended by young and old. Much of this came to a halt within a few years of the Council. All of a sudden Benediction and 40 hours became a thing of the past. Less priests and the sisters departed. We killed off venues which brought people to the Church other than Sunday. For me it was a joy being Catholic in those days. There is very little joy in the almost Calvinistic approach in many parishes today
Houses of worship - Churches, Temples, Mosques, Shrines, etc., - and their activities were the center of many people's lives decades ago. They functioned as the cultural as well as the religious anchors of the community. In those days neighborhoods were segregated religiously as well as racially. If you were from Philadephia and met a fellow Catholic you'd ask "What's your parish?" not "Where do you live?"
Many factors having nothing to do with faith or worship brought about dramatic and rapid changes in our culture after World War II. People had money, including many Catholic households, so they could have cars and travel. Suburbs started to grow and were not, except for race, segregated as they once were. A new cultural group - "Teenagers" - appeared. They had money, some had cars, and the options for how they wold spend their time grew tremendously. The place of worship was no longer the "go-to" location for social life outside the home.
None of this was caused by The Council. And it happened across the board in terms of religions. Catholic parishes, Protestant congregations, Synagogues - all experienced a decline, precipitous in many cases, in membership. Social service organizations also lost members in droves. Jaycees, Sertoma, Lions CLubs, Elks, saw memberhsip plummet. Again, now of tis was infleunced by the Second Vatican Council of the changes in the way mass is celebrated.
Fr Kavanaugh, respectfully, you repeat your protestations against the culpability of the stewards of our Church in their execution of Vatican II when we know that it was, and is, the responsibility of clergy and laity to defend against these corrupting attacks wherever possible according to their means. Your last paragraph reminded me of a similar response of characters in a children’s book:
“'If you understand it, then be content,' returned Denethor. 'Pride would be folly that disdained help and counsel at need; but you deal out such gifts according to your own designs. Yet the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men's purposes, however worthy. And to him, there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor; and the rule of Gondor, my lord, is mine and no other man's, unless the king should come again.'
'Unless the king should come again?' said Gandalf. '[...] I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I am also a steward. Did you not know?' And with that he turned and strode from the hall with Pippin running at his side."
A child’s story. Which character do we play?
With all due respect to Fr. K and his valid observations regarding the upheavals of the 1960's--I do not deny them. However, there does appear to be a difference between the decline of the other organizations and the decline of the Church. The Church chose to cripple itself from within and its managed decline continues.
rcg & Jerome - You both seem to believe that the Church was or should have been immune to the cultural forces in the West following WW2. But history shows that the Church has always been influenced, for good and for bad, by the culture in which it is situated. The Church adopted and adapted Roman hierarchical structures. Monasteries engaged in trade, and some became quite wealthy and powerful in local and national politics. The Church in South America aligned itself with dictators and tyrants.
It seems you are suggesting that is Vatican II had not happened and we simply kept doing things the way we had been doing them, all would be well. I don't think there is any support for that notion.
Fr. K., there is no immunity against the evils of the world but strength to endure them. There is the wag that the continued existence of the Church is evidence of the presence of the Holy Ghost because no other institutions would survive two millennia being led by fools. We have tested and tempted the Holy Ghost and have suffered more than we needed to for it.
How timely some things are! I just finished watching a video which quotes extensively from a priest who is well-respected and gaining a wider audience with time, Fr. Chad Ripperger. Fr. Ripperger is the author of a new book on spiritual warfare titled Dominion and he is am experienced exorcist (a retired priest recently told me that Fr. Ripperger was THE expert when it comes to matters requiring deliverance).
In a recent talk, Fr. Ripperger essentially said that the sorry state of the world is a reflection of the state of the Church--essentially, "as goes the Church, so goes the world." He insists that the doctrinal confusion in the Church MUST be repaired before the Church can once again reflect God's morality and the world can subsequently be "cleaned up." Ripperger says that their has been a "collapse in grace" in our Church, sparked by a theological collapse which began with modernism, which he says, "caused a series of collapses intellectually." As I noted in my first post, this isn't new. Ripperger notes that it began with a loss of faith in the 1800's, when doubts about the inerrancy of Scripture began to permeate more Catholic minds. This was followed by a collapse of ecclesiology, or how we understand the Church in the 1910's and, finally, by the 1950's a collapse in the natural law underpinnings for moral theology." This has led us to our erroneous "Cafeteria Catholic" mindset that we are free to believe anything w e want. When the theology collapsed, the morality in the Church collapsed. The McCarricks and other homosexual abusers and other sexual deviants in the priesthood were in the seminaries in the 40's and 50's--indicating the moral collapse was in place way back then.
Ripperger sums it this way: "Once the faith collapses, once the foundation intellectually for determining what's morally right collapses, then the morality collapses. He doesn't blame the Second Vatican Council, necessarily, but lists it as a "catalyst" which accelerated the effects of these latent problems within our Church. It is unclear whether Ripperger believes the Council itself was flawed or what has been done in the name of the Council, but I digress. He says that until the Church clears up its doctrinal mess, the moral situation will never be repaired. When it finally IS repaired, however, the "spigot of grace" will once again flow from the Church.
This begs the question, what are the doctrinal messes? For the average Catholic, it can be as confusing as going to Confession when one priest says that certain acts are sinful and another insists they are not. A married couple can go to one parish and hear that their use of birth control pills is wrong, then drive to another parish where the pastor will tell them to go ahead and contracept. The mess is reflected by the oft-cited statistic that less than 30% of Catholics believe in the real Presence. And it is overwhelmingly obvious when we have one pope who tells us that the Old Mass was never harmful, therefore it cannot be considered harmful now, while his successor insists that it must be stamped out because it reflects an outdated ecclesiology that is incompatible with the new Church.
Ripperger says the bishops are the "guys with their fingers on the spigot." They have the authority to deal with the demonic influences in the Church and they determine the formation of priests. The priests shape the laity's actions and that flows to the rest of the world.
There is much more to this talk of Father Ripperger's but, suffice to say, I think he is on to something.
Fr K’s stock and trade is defending a failed Council and a failed liturgical “reform.” It was a top down revolution which was not asked for by the laity nor a majority of the clergy. If the Council had not occurred, the Church could have served as a bulwark or “safe space” from the lunacy of the times. That’s a safe space I could support!
Jerome - Several questions. When you reference "modernism," what do you mean by that?
When you speak of "doubts about the inerrancy of Scripture," what do you mean by inerrancy"?
When you speak of a "collapse of ecclesiology," what do you mean by that?
In what way(s) was Vatican Two the "catalyst which accelerated the effects of these latent problems within our Church"?
Fr K,
Why do only 30% of those who bother to attend the OF believe in the Real Presence while 99% of those who attend the EF do believe in the Real Presence?
To Vendee's assertion (and Father Ripperger's), the Church MUST come to some kind of definitive or corrective reckoning about Vatican II.
Was the Council defective? Maybe. Was it evil? Possibly. Was it a well-intentioned exercise that took a wrong turn? More likely.
We have the documents themselves that inform us that this council is merely pastoral.
As I see it, God speaks through His Church and God does not and cannot, by His nature, contradict himself. The major beliefs of the Church have never been contradicted and, for 2000 years were non-negotiable. Yet Vatican II manages to contradict Tradition and Dogma by insisting we have a right to choose the wrong religion, that we can be saved by practicing other religions, that we can have a reasonable hope that people with no devotion to Jesus Christ can be saved and that Protestantism can be just as valid as our Catholic faith.
NOPE.
These seeming contradictions have to be addressed in a definitive way. I would even go so far as to say that we need to re-address Vatican I, as we have learned that we need some means of dealing with a pope who contradicts the faith. As long as this contradiction and confusion exists, there will continue to be bishops against bishops and error being tolerated and even enshrined across the breadth of the Church.
Frankly, Vatican II means little to me. For the most part, it just re-affirmed what the Church already taught in the first place. There was no schism or heresy that had to be dealt with in 1962 (except modernism, which is conveniently ignored) and there are no anathemas attached to any of the documents. If the Church chose to ignore the whole thing, I'd be fine with that. But that's not enough, because the loopholes and contradictions continue to plague us and this pope is a reflection of that confusion, as he apparently really thinks there is a "New Church" and, by God, no one's gonna stop him from imposing it. And when a successor of a different mind comes along and reverses some of the damage, that will still NOT be enough, because the partisans of rupture will continue to invoke Vatican II.
No, no, no. Vatican II must be addressed. It must either be corrected or scrapped. But leaving it as is will only leave this increasingly smelly elephant (and all of its troublesome offspring) taking up more and more space in our once-well-ordered living room. As long as Vatican II remains unchanged, we are vulnerable.
To Vendee's assertion (and Father Ripperger's), the Church MUST come to some kind of definitive or corrective reckoning about Vatican II.
Was the Council defective? Maybe. Was it evil? Possibly. Was it a well-intentioned exercise that took a wrong turn? More likely.
We have the documents themselves that inform us that this council is merely pastoral.
As I see it, God speaks through His Church and God does not and cannot, by His nature, contradict himself. The major beliefs of the Church have never been contradicted and, for 2000 years were non-negotiable. Yet Vatican II manages to contradict Tradition and Dogma by insisting we have a right to choose the wrong religion, that we can be saved by practicing other religions, that we can have a reasonable hope that people with no devotion to Jesus Christ can be saved and that Protestantism can be just as valid as our Catholic faith.
NOPE.
These seeming contradictions have to be addressed in a definitive way. I would even go so far as to say that we need to re-address Vatican I, as we have learned that we need some means of dealing with a pope who contradicts the faith. As long as this contradiction and confusion exists, there will continue to be bishops against bishops and error being tolerated and even enshrined across the breadth of the Church.
Frankly, Vatican II means little to me. For the most part, it just re-affirmed what the Church already taught in the first place. There was no schism or heresy that had to be dealt with in 1962 (except modernism, which is conveniently ignored) and there are no anathemas attached to any of the documents. If the Church chose to ignore the whole thing, I'd be fine with that. But that's not enough, because the loopholes and contradictions continue to plague us and this pope is a reflection of that confusion, as he apparently really thinks there is a "New Church" and, by God, no one's gonna stop him from imposing it. And when a successor of a different mind comes along and reverses some of the damage, that will still NOT be enough, because the partisans of rupture will continue to invoke Vatican II.
No, no, no. Vatican II must be addressed. It must either be corrected or scrapped. But leaving it as is will only leave this increasingly smelly elephant (and all of its troublesome offspring) taking up more and more space in our once-well-ordered living room. As long as Vatican II remains unchanged, we are vulnerable.
Fr. K,
Before I address your question, I think I should point out that the assertions I quoted are not mine, but come from Father Chad Ripperger.
As for myself, I am not as well educated as you, Fr. Ripperger or just about any other ordained priest (except perhaps the one illicitly ordained years ago by the Bishop of Santa Rosa). I cannot speak for Fr. Ripperger, but I CAN speak for what I think when he uses those terms.
When I hear any priest speak about modernism, I immediately think of St. Pius' assertion that modernism is the "synthesis of all heresies". If we want to be more specific, I would refer to all of the condemned ideas on Blessed Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors. I think one of the WORST tenets of modernism that is afflicting us today is the idea that dogma "evolves".
By the Inerrancy of Scripture, which every Catholic is OBLIGED to assent to, simply means that Scripture is free of doctrinal errors, since every teaching of the Church has a scriptural basis (which the Catechism demonstrates). Jesuit Jimmy Martin is probably the most visible opponent of Scripture's inerrancy, as he has publicly said that the Bible is wrong about certain sins attached to unnatural attractions. He's not too crazy about the Catechism either.
Collapse of Ecclesiology--I would NEVER use a term like that myself, as it's a bit "beyond MY pay grade" (to quote your favorite politician), so again, those are Father Ripperger's words. But I think of Ecclesiology as the nature and structure of the Church. There has been a constant state of upheaval for years with constant re-structurings of Vatican administrations, but that doesn't concern a minor-league player like myself. For me, it comes down to seeing the way local churches operate. Bishops have become CEO's of their region and, generally, put more focus on running a successful organization than on the pastoral needs of their flock. Parish priests are increasingly unavailable and many treat their vocation like a career. In many parishes, devotions are either not tolerated or tolerated with condescension. Many parishes don't even have a Confessional, where your anonymity can be guaranteed. For years, I've witnessed priests who severely restrict when Confessions are available and seem resentful that they have to be bothered with the Sacrament. And who can blame them? After all, we don't have any more sins except conservatism and intolerance, so I guess Catholics, for the most part are living in a golden age when most of us are in an unquestioned state of Grace. Those are small bits and pieces of what I understand as ecclesiology, but I may be completely wrong about what it even means.
Finally, your last question, Father Prosecutor, asks how Vatican II could be a catalyst accelerating the effects of these latent problems in the Church? Seriously? If anyone looks at the state of the Catholic Church before and after the Council, and ESPECIALLY after the imposition of the Novus Ordo, the answer is obvious.
And, once again, I answered your questions according to my understanding of SOMEONE ELSE'S ASSERTIONS. And that someone else was Father Ripperger.
I strongly recommend listening to some of his talks on Youtube and checking out his books.
Jerome - I am aware that you are repeating what Fr. Ripperger said, but it seems to me that you agreeing with his assertions.
Ecclesiology isn't Vatican administration. The various Congregations and Dicasteries are the bureaucracy of the Church, but have little, if anything, to do with the nature, the ecclesiological structure, of the Church. Here's a decent little intro to ecclesiology. https://www.simplycatholic.com/introduction-to-ecclesiology/
Vatican Two's declaration on Religious Freedom, it is wholly within the Tradition of the Church. Here's the explanation: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/vatican-iis-declaration-on-religious-liberty
Having said that, DECLARATION "DOMINUS IESUS" ON THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH, makes it clear that anyone who attains the beatific vision does so only on the merits of Jesus Christ. That includes Jews, atheists, practicers of animists, and even Primitive Baptists. "Extra ecclesiam nulla salus," if understood to mean that those who are not visibly members of the Catholic Church cannot, in any way, attain salvation, places limits on the desire of God, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.\
For as long as there has been Sacred Scripture there have been those who denied its innerancy. This is not a new phenomenon that has been catalyzed by the Second Vatican Council. The Church has held 21 ecumenical councils to deal with errors and to express, sometimes in a new way, the perennial Truths of the Scriptures and the teaching magisterium of the Church.
Not a few Catholics think that "innerancy" means "literally true" and they fall into the error of the modern day fundamentalists/literalists. There is a great variety of literary forms in the Bible from mythology to parable to poetry didactic fiction to epistles.
As for Fr. Ripperger, I have heard of him before. I watched a bit of one of his YouTube presentation and heard him say that "exorcised bells, each time they are rung, literally drive demons out of the area." (I would note that for a donation of $60.00, two such bells can be obtained from an organization based in Illinois.) The idea of driving away demons is attractive to some, but I cannot think of any doctrine that might support such an idea. When a priest presents such as idea as if it were somethign taught by the Church, I get a little concerned. Pious legends and tales abound - the reason the dogwood blossom and berries have their color and shape, the translation of the Holy House of Loretto, the post-decapitation evangelization carried out by St. Denis if France - are wonderful stories, But....
Fr K still lacks the courage and intellectual honesty to address why only 30% of Catholics who bother with the OF believe in the Real Presence. Just another empty cassock in a sea of empty cassocks. Apres moi le deluge types
"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the cunning statements of those who persistently claim to wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight so that people do not leave Her . . . but judge them by their works. If they despise the shepherds of the Church and even the Pope, if they attempt all means of evading their authority in order to elude their directives and judgments . . . then about which Church do these men mean to speak? Certainly not about that established on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone." Pope Pius X, Allocution of May 10, 1909, AAS 463-464.
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