Turning Back the Clock to... 1962
Benedict XVI is a reactionary. Or so Le Monde declared in an editorial from a few weeks ago. He "delights the militants of tradition." As we used to say in kindergarten when teacher scolded someone: oooOOOooohhha! One can practically see the scowl across the writer's face. The occasion for this remark is a rumored document, a moto proprio that will grant greater liberty to priests to say the traditional Mass according to the rubrics of 1962. For the non-Catholics, a bit of history: After the Second Vatican Council, a revised liturgy was introduced into the Church, called the Novus Ordo Missae or the Mass of Pope Paul VI. The big changes most parishes saw: priests facing the people during the mass, Latin dropped in favor of the vernacular, alter rails pulled out, chant also disappeared. Also, and perhaps most importantly, a number of prayers were omitted, changed, or translated into the vernacular in decidedly odd or new ways. Here is a concise summary of the criticisms. Here is Dietrich von Hildebrand's more lyrical plaint. And (now reaching overkill) the precise critique put forward by Cardinal Ottiavanni.
Anyway, devotees of the traditional liturgy have been laboring in small corners of the Church, or sometimes outside the jurisdiction of local bishops. Benedict, hoping to reconcile the renegade traditionalists and ease the burdens on those already in the Church, will likely encourage bishops to accommodate them. He may even allow them to organize their liturgy with local priests, sans a bishop's say-so. But Le Monde has an oddly politicized version of Christianity.
After issuing the usual complaints (too conservative in Poland, it weighs in against gay civil unions in Italy), the editorial goes on to say,
A papal decree will liberalize, in May, the ancient rite of the Church (Mass in Latin, with the back turned to the people). It is a measure dreaded by a majority of French Catholics, led by the episcopate, attached to the legacy of the council of the 1960s. If, in his recent "apostolic exhortation", Benedict XVI proclaims his fidelity to Vatican II, his liturgical legalism delights the militants of ancient tradition. These struggles are largely misunderstood by those, believers or not, for whom the vocation of Christianity expresses itself more through aid to marginalized populations than through this disciplinary legalism [lit.: pointillisme], more on help to those who suffer than on this reactionary temptation. - Le Monde translation via Rorate Caeli
You hear that: dreaded? You can tell how excised the French Catholics are because they are rioting in Gare du Nord and setting fires to cars and books of Latin grammar. Oh... wait. That's not the army of French Catholics revolting against a rumored moto-propio? Uh, nevermind.
It's fascinating that Le Monde would invoked what non-believers think the vocation of Christianity ought to be. Exactly where can I find the Dominical commands relating to "marginalized peoples?" I'm still waiting for that. Whenever I open up a New Testament I find exhortations related to my behavior with neighbors and enemies. Chesterton quipped that these are likely to be the same people. So they are.
When did Christian charity (love) become reduced to the coercive extraction and redistribution of surplus income by the state? Though it may or may not be necessary "aid" administered by the state is impersonal, undemanding and doesn't resemble at all the morality preached by Jesus. Is the editorial implying that traditional liturgy is antithetical to charity? Or that charitable persons can only be committed to "the legacy of the council of the 1960s?" As is the style for unsigned editorials - nothing makes any sense. It's just a series of stated prejudices straining to become an argument.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Religion, Culture
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Reader Comments (7)
http://www.unavoceca.org/Files/ottaviani.html
You can argue about whether or not a strong state or government is the mechanism to serve a charitable end but it is fairly difficult to argue that the religion itself does not call you to the service of "marginalized peoples" when your Savior stated that the treatment of "marginalized peoples" reflected your love for him and your treatment of him.
Of course, Le Monde wouldn't normally care whether or not Catholics follow the commands of the Saviour; this is an item aimed at tradition on the assumption that tradition is obviously an undesirable thing to preserve, and they make this point to reaffirm their own preconceptions. It would be one thing if maintaining said tradition did not serve the salvation of man (the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath, after all), but if it does then it is particularly absurd to ridicule support for such a tradition in the name of charity.
Rather than rigidity, this move reflects flexibility; rather than "intransigeantisme," Benedict is showing a spirit of compromise and broad-mindedness that liberal Catholics might claim to have but seem to have difficulty showing when it comes to their traditionalist brethren. They might instead see this move as one in which Benedict is aiding the traditionalists, who, it might be said, have been marginalised within their own church in certain ways. Mais oui, ces laicistes n'interessent pas aider les populations marginalisees et traditionelles.
I stand by what I said. I am not even saying that the state should never be used in distributing It may be good. It may be desirable. But I don't confuse my taxes with my charity. If I fail to pay taxes I go to jail - how is charitable to comply?
I do find it revealing that Jesus parables, like the Good Samaritan, are so much more personal, so much more concrete. Looking in the old Catechism, I see that the corporal works of mercy are these:
To feed the hungry; To give drink to the thirsty; To clothe the naked; To harbor the harborless; To visit the sick; To ransom the captive; To bury the dead.
These seem more demanding than voting up the tax rates of citizens more wealthy than myself.Coerced "Aid" to marginalized people may be necessary - but at its best its a completely depersonalized, and depersonalizing form of "charity."
A misleading statement if one believes that more than 20 percent of the 45-or-something million "French Catholics" actually practice their faith. Of course, the bloodthirsty Jacobins de la Montaigne who run the media and the republican establishment have only themselves and their own closed-mindedness to blame for driving sane-minded Frenchman to the "extreme" right wing of religion. (Not that I'm making a value judgment!)
It would be a man bites dog story if Le Monde supported the Latin Mass.
Btw - You and Kagan are wromg about Obama.