Demanding a Better Cult

Years ago I wrote a post about my searching for the true Church. I was heading towards the Catholic Church and I knew it. And I did enter the Church later that year. I “came home” as so many converts from Protestantism say. That was a little over six years ago. I do not regret my decision. In fact, I am so glad I became Catholic, and then that my wife and kids entered the Church.

But all is not well in the Church today. It never has been, I realize that, but it seems far, far worse now than in recent centuries. Personally this is a struggle. I know it is for many Catholics as well. My the struggle is not about whether I feel I made the right decision. I am convinced I did, by the grace of God. I applaud (and pray for) any becoming-Catholic person standing on the threshold today, perhaps in RCIA, who is hanging in there and not being deterred by the actions of evil men. For me, however, the struggle has to do more with how I raise my kids, how I and my family become more Catholic, how we move closer to God, and if we end up in Heaven.

I now look back on that post and I realize it was written two months before Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis. Since that time a lot has happened. A lot of water has flowed down the Tiber, a river I “crossed” later that same year. And then this year a couple of faithful Austrian Catholics threw pagan idols into that same Italian river, idols that they removed, no less, from a Catholic church, idols used in honor of demons and that had been worshiped by both pagans and Catholics together in a ceremony in the Vatican gardens at the feet of the Pope who gave his approval, on video, for the whole world to see. I don’t really know what’s going on, but this seems crazy–truly crazy, like antichrist crazy. (Pray, pray, pray for the Pope)

Sometimes I feel like one of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of the storm and wondering why Jesus is asleep.

Thus far I have not talked to my kids about these, and many other, dark things in the Church. I only say a few things about them to my wife. In light of it all she has asked if I want to remain Catholic. Honestly, more than ever. This is one of the most exciting times to be Catholic. There is a war for the faith that is evident, palpable, and existential. It’s hard to be lukewarm in times like these, and that’s good.

Over that last couple of years my eyes have slowly opened. I have learned about Fatima and related prophecies, I have witnessed (from afar of course) scandals both theological and moral perpetrated by many close to the Holy Father, I have heard the Pope say a number of highly questionable statements, and the list goes on and on. But there’s so much more. Back in the 1980’s Saint John Paul II (the great?) let a buddhist idol be placed on a Catholic altar in Assisi during an “ecumenical” prayer meeting with leaders of other religions. Earlier the Mass given to us by God was changed by men in the 1970’s into something less than excellent, and with it churches were destroyed with altar rails thrown into alleys, altars crushed and replaced by tables, and the glorious music of the Church replaced with crap, utter crap. And there’s so, so much more to complain about. The list is nearly endless. It’s been going on for decades at least. And it’s clear all this could only come about by the hand of Satan, the willful folly of prideful churchmen, and the eager acceptance of a laity awash in the worldly currents of a modernist, consumerist, distracted, self centered society. (Some have blamed the so-called boomers, and there’s some truth to that, but they are not all to blame.)

This has been an interesting couple of years of eye-opening discoveries for me.

In the meantime I have also discovered something of traditional Catholicism. I have gone to several Extraordinary Form masses. I have a TLM missal (1962), and a couple of much older French versions as well. I have ready many articles and some books on the topic, and been studying it a bit. I have also dug a bit into traditional Catholic practices. Over and over I am struck by what has been abandoned and lost, and by what an enormous amount of knowledge I don’t have. A vastly beautiful religion has been largely gutted with barely a shell left. We are left with an anemic Mass and recourse to whatever we can summon from within ourselves of faith and piety. Modern Catholicism is nearly identical with modern Evangelical Protestantism — a faith of feelings and personal truth. I gather most Catholics today are also mostly ignorant of what has been lost. And most don’t seem to care.

But I must confess that for how much I would love the simplicity of merely raising the flag of Catholic traditionalism, I think the answer is more than that. More than traditionalism, it’s orthodoxy. I believe that ideas have consequences, and that beliefs come before action. Or, perhaps better, actions arise from belief. Traditionalism is fine, but we must be very cautious not to be caught up in the aesthetics, even for all their beauty. We must first go back to the fundamental truths, to orthodox truths. Our actions, whether they look traditional, or a mix of traditional and new, or sometime else, will follow. We must find a way back to the profound truth of Tradition without falling into the ideology of traditionalism. Perhaps it will look like the traditional Church of past generations. I would love that. There is so much that was lost or forgotten that is worth bringing back. But we must make sure we aren’t just larping in the garb of a non-modernist cultural past. Whatever we end up with must first and foremost be based upon, be run through like leaven in dough, with the Truth of Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

And this brings me to the struggle I have today, and one of the reasons I long for the Church of the past. For all its faults (because every age has it faults), the Church of Tradition, of the past, was at its best a kind of totalizing culture. Catholics were trained in all aspects of the faith. Kids were taught the catechism, traditional prayers, Latin, and so much more. Catholic schools were actually Catholic. Religious vocations were a real option. Boys were altar servers and learned the Mass, and even wondered if they might become priests someday. (I believe that boys who learn the Mass become better fathers. Perhaps not necessarily, but I think it’s a good theory.) But I don’t want to romanticize the past. I actually know very little of the past, and certainly almost none of Catholic cultural past. But I can’t help but long for it.

As a new Catholic (it’s only been six years) and as a parent I need a Catholic culture. My family needs a truly Catholic, truly orthodox, saturated, rich, and encouraging culture so that our faith can grow and we can become more conformed to Christ. I want to know how to be Catholic. The examples available to me are not great. Social media doesn’t cut it. Cradle Catholics have no idea what it’s like for a Protestant to enter the Church. They have no idea what it’s like to know nothing of Catholic prayers, practices, and the million little things that Catholics take for granted. It’s like there’s a complete lack of understanding that there anything called “culture” in the minds of most Catholics. RICA courses often range between the pathetic and the heretical (the one I attended was some of both). And, on top of that, the modern Catholic culture is so anemic compared to what it could and should be that in many ways it’s nearly an embarrassment, or should be, to those few Catholics who still go to Mass and don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s the heresy of formlessness, as one author so eloquently put it. So many Catholics who seem all too happy in the midst such great losses, are utterly nonplussed by converts who stare aghast at the crumbled ruins. They sometimes blame the converts themselves for an imagined and caricatured fervency held-over from the ex-Protestant’s former faith. Rather, the truth is more mundane and spiritually dark than that. A great, bland blindness has settled on the Church like radiation fallout over the past few decades. Nearly everything is affected and infected. The reasons for this are legion. But I’m ranting. (And I’m saying nothing new.)

By way of encouragement, I want to say to my fellow faithful and open-eyed Catholics, and to those still considering entering (or re-entering) the Church, hold fast. Hold fast to Christ. Hold fast to His Church, which is His bride. Regardless of what you see around you, and especially regardless of what some scandalous bishop or heretical priest might do or say, hold fast. Hold fast regardless of the meagerness of the cultural feast presented to you. Remember this key truth, culture arises from cult (cultus), that is from worship. If we have a bad or anemic culture it’s because we have a bad or anemic cult. We see this is at play in our larger cultures (American culture is based on what and how Americans worship – money, distraction, sex, power, ideologies, things, themselves, etc) and we see the process at play in the Church subculture. The Novus Ordo Mass, though valid, is an objectively lesser Mass than the Traditional Latin Mass, and thus it produces a lesser culture. It says the Real Presence might not be all that real. It says it’s about us more than about Christ. It says it’s not that important to bring and do our best when worshiping out Lord and King. It claims symbolism more than Truth. If you wonder why it seems we live in a “power of myth” kind of church, begin by examining the Mass.

A faithful Catholic can cut through all that and still worship Christ in Truth, and still be moved and called to holiness, and still be deeply blessed. I certainly have. But when compared to the TLM, the Novus Ordo not only is a sad shadow of the TLM, it often works against itself, presenting strange and unnecessary challenges for priests, music ministers, and laity alike.

Okay, so a lot can be blamed on the past, and certainly on the Novus Ordo Mass and the “spirit” of Vatican II, but that’s the past (though, of course, still present). Let’s not be too emotionally burdened by the past. We must push forward for a better cult. Let’s us be like the Poles who shouted, “We want God!” Let us be like the Israelites who, upon hearing the forgotten and then rediscovered words of the Torah read to them by Nehemiah, wept for what was lost of both knowledge and culture. Then let us weep no more, but rather work towards the culture we need, based on right cult that is based on orthodox truth and that, sadly, must be demanded. Dive into you parish. Put your hand to the plough. Help with the logistics, with the maintenance, with what you can. Support your overworked priest. Don’t be the person who just points out what’s wrong and waits until someone else fixes it. But then claim your voice. Earn the respect in all authentic humility, and then own that respect and speak up, out loud.

We might have to be like the boy who said the emperor has no clothes. We just might need to point at the crap we see and call it crap, out loud. We just might need to tell our priests and bishops that communion in the hand dilutes the faith, and laity in the sanctuary is confusing, and bad music degrades the Mass, and that it’s not working anymore (and never did). We must, as servants of our Lord, demand a better cult. It just might be one of the most loving and humble things we can do.

And pray every day for the pope, your bishop, and your priests.

1980 Time Capsule: Ten Years after the 1970 Missal, A Debate over the Novus Ordo Mass & Catholic Orthodoxy

William F. Buckley Jr. was a faithful Catholic who preferred the Traditional Latin Mass and did not like the changes brought about by Vatican II or, perhaps more appropriately, the abuses in the name of Vatican II. In 1980 he devoted an episode of his television program Firing Line to discussing these changes, as well as the censure of theologian Hans Kung which had just happened.

On the show his guests were Msgr. Joseph Champlin, Michael Davies, and Malachi Martin. Fr. Champlin was a prolific author and vocal advocate of the new Mass, and a more liberal approach to Catholicism. Michael Davies was also a prolific writer and defender of the old Mass, warrior against the new Mass, and apologist of traditional Catholicism and those who continued to practice it, including Archbishop Lefebvre. Malachi Martin was also a prolific author, former Jesuit, advocate of the old Mass, frequent critic of the Church, television personality of sorts and, some would say, showman to a fault.

Here is the program:

I do not think this is one of Firing Line’s best episodes. Though the topic is of great interest to me, the guests are interesting, and the fact it stands as a kind of time capsule, nonetheless it lacks focus. On the one hand, the topic is just too big for an hour of television. On the other this is more like “inside baseball,” which, in fact, it needs to be but also suffers from. I wondered at times if the audience was bored stiff, thoroughly confused, or both.

Quick takes on each participant:

WFB: Always erudite, but his arguments remain more on the surface, expressing his personal proclivities and, I’m sure unintentionally, providing an excuse for viewers to assume he represents the old guard of stuffy Catholicism afraid of the new and exciting world of modernity and a more youth-oriented Church. And when he pushed on certain topics his interlocutors merely went their own way.

Fr. Champlin: My immediate response was negative. He seemed to represent exactly the kind of wimpy sentimentalist evasive liberal priests that turned the Church away from a cross-carrying, suffering servant, heroic virtue loving, proud-to-be Catholics, and hopeful to be martyrs Catholicism. Of course these are all stereotypes and we should be careful. Nonetheless, my inclinations are probably basically true. In light of a particular section of this program it is worth noting this observation about Fr. Champlin:

He is remembered in his own diocese of Syracuse (where he has served as Vicar of parish life and worship) for his fervent promotion and encouragement of Communion in the hand (when the practice was unlawful in the U.S.), thereby adding to the spirit of disobedience in which that practice was cultivated. He was also prominent in defending an aberrant policy of “Eucharistic hospitality” in the Diocese of Syracuse (which, in effect, permitted Protestants to receive Holy Communion in clear defiance of the restrictions contained in Vatican directives.) [From here.]

He also was wishy-washy on contraception in his popular book on marriage, “Together for Life.”

I must say, however, that clearly Fr. Champlin was “ganged up on” a bit. He was obviously (perhaps by design?) the only advocate of the new Mass, surround by three passionate and articulate advocates of the old. I think he did an excellent job of maintaining his composure and articulating his position.

Mr. Davies: He comes across a bit like a crusader, and his emotions nearly get the better of him several times. However, of all the participants he is the one I find most compelling. Like him I was a Baptist who converted to the Church. Like him I also have some Welsh blood in me, but not the Welsh culture or accent (actually his accent is from Somerset) . At times he seems ready to explode with information, which makes sense given his life’s undertaking of studying these things (and perhaps his passionate spirit). In short, compared with the others, only his arguments were actually compelling as arguments, though he did not have time to articulate them given the nature of television and the format of the show. He also kept his composure, and I hope he was able to pique the curiosity of many viewers to consider his views and his books.

Mr. (or is it Fr.?) Martin: Always entertaining, Mr. Martin loved the sound of his own voice. He seemed to be making an attempt to turn to show towards himself. I did not feel he contributed substantially to the discussion and, in fact, was a distraction. However, I do believe with a different format, for example a two hour discussion that was allowed the guests to ramble a bit more, and where he sat down with the others as a members of the group, he might have fit within the program better. Still, I never know how far to trust him.

Catholic Youth and the Old Mass: Worship, Reverence, and Doing Hard Things

Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis,
ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui,
ad utilitatem quoque nostram,
totiusque Ecclesiae suae sanctae.
[May the Lord accept the Sacrifice from thy hands,
to the praise and glory of His Name,
for our benefit and for that of all His holy Church.]

Catholic youths on pilgrimage in 2010 from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartres. A three-day, 70 mile trek. Image found here.

It is a fact that what’s driving the return of (and to) the Traditional Latin Mass is, in part, Catholic youth. Search online for that topic and one finds innumerable articles about the growing love of, and demand for, the old Mass on the part of young Catholics. (I encourage you to go search. I don’t have space to list them all here.)

In short, it comes down to three things:

1. Genuine faith seeking a proper form.
2. Finding a lack of proper form in much of the modern Church, and especially in the Novus Ordo Mass and its ancillaries.
3. Finding the proper form in the pre-conciliar traditions of the Church, and in particular the Traditional Latin Mass and its ancillaries.

The Youthful Choir at Saint Agnes Cathedral Latin Mass (found here) Photo Credit: J.B. Kelly

These three reasons are supported by the realization that the Novus Ordo Mass is linked, directly and indirectly, to so many problems in the Church today, such as loss of vocations, closing of parishes and Catholic schools due to lack of interest, loss of a corporate Catholic identity, and increasingly lax morals, especially in the area of sexuality (the very area the world sees traditional Catholics as being laughably foolish). The causal versus the correlative links between the new Mass and modern perils will be debated for ages, but the reality of the links seem real enough to warrant action.

I have seen some older Catholics show complete confusion about this. Why in the world, they wonder, would anyone want that old, rigid, dusty religion? But they do. It has been reported that even Pope Francis himself said about those who show a love for the Traditional Latin Mass: “And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.” I sense that the Holy Father, whom I love, has a fear that the old Mass will come back. My sense is that, while he has much wisdom, he is also of a generation that was formed by the spirit of the 1960’s. Alas. It has also been argued that what youth want is more of a desire for true reverence than the Latin rite, but there is certainly a connection. And there is more than enough evidence to say it’s also the usus antiquior, the ancient usage, that calls to them.

Ironically, the 1960’s was all about youth too, and listening to the youth, and letting the youth show us the way, etc, etc. And then, at the behest of the spirit of the 1960’s, it was all about casting off anything and everything that was traditional, including morals, conventions, and just about anything that smacked of liturgy. Now Pope Francis is saying something very similar about looking to the youth for answers. I say it’s ironic because those who were the youth of yesteryear, and who led the way from the 1960’s into the 1970’s Novus Ordo Church with it’s guitars and bongo drums, its liturgical dancers and the attempted eradication of Latin, are now saying that again the youth must show the way, and the youth are saying it’s time to move beyond the modernist hippy church — and many of the older Catholics are getting mad. Funny how that happens. For some reason many are still drinking the kool aid about how only in utter freedom (it’s a “freedom from” way of thinking, a kind of bra burning Catholicism) can one have a true relationship with Jesus, or have authentic faith, etc. Cast everything off. Even cast off the Church it seems sometimes.

But some older Catholics get it. And they can bring their wisdom to help guide the passion of the youth.

And some younger Catholics who have fallen in love with the old Mass are taking it to the streets. The caption for the following video reads as follows:

So over brunch after the Traditional Latin Mass one Sunday, we, a group of young Miami Catholics, thought it would be fun to visit the Florida Renaissance Festival… and even more fun to form a little procession, chant the Litany of the Saints, and hand out flyers inviting everyone to come worship like it’s 1399!

So we did exactly that.

I find this wonderful. It’s kinda hilarious and precious just how real it is. You want to know how to do real street evangelism? Well, there you go. (Take it from someone who has done some old-fashioned Protestant street evangelism. This is way way better.) I think the same is true with a good old-style Corpus Christi procession. We need more of those.

But it’s not easy. One has to put oneself “out there” as a witness and be willing to accept what may come.

There is also a “meme” of sorts going around where someone posts two pictures with the following text:

Left: What young Catholics want
Right: What old Catholics want young Catholics to want.

The pictures go like this: One the left will be a picture of something very traditional, like nuns in full habits, beautiful churches with stunning altars and tabernacles, priests in cassocks, etc. On the right will be pictures of “nuns on the bus,” bare and ugly modernist churches, liturgical dancers and priests playing folk guitars, etc.

Some examples:

I doubt this needs any explanation, but on the left is traditional, beautiful, historical, deep, Christ-centered Catholicism, and on the right is an aging, 1960’s, baby-boomer, me-generation, shallower version of an essentially smallish “c” catholicism (if it’s really Catholicism at all). Whether these images are entirely fair I can’t say, but the phenomenon of the meme’s popularity speaks to growing feelings and desires of younger Catholics for the substance of an older, historical Catholicism.

In other words, they want a liturgy given by God and not created by man. They want a faith of the ages not of the latest fashions (of course, and sometimes humorously so, for the Church “fashionable” means 20 years out of date, but oh well.) They want beauty not sentimentality.

Sentimentality is one of the worst features modern Catholicism.

Another example: Imagine well over 15,000 people marching for three days from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to the Cathedral in Chartres. They come as individuals and as groups. They carry banners and come from all over the world. They sing and chant along the way. Then consider that 80% of these pilgrims are under the age of 30 and you now have a picture of one of the Church’s most remarkable annual events. Here is a “video album” of the 2015 pilgrimage:

I love video documents like that. Simple, unadorned, merely presenting what happened. It’s long, but worth the time to watch.

Some older Catholics often seem to always seek ways to make it “easier” for young Catholics to be Catholic, and non-Catholics to be interested in the Church. This is true for Protestants too, who have been much better at applying modern marketing techniques to “evangelism” than Catholics. Make it effortless and you will win against the competition. But, in fact, young Catholics seem to thrive on what is hard to do. It is the challenge of holiness, not the low-commitment of a happy-clappy church, that intrigues them. Interestingly, in this sense many youth have the more Catholic view of the faith than far too many of their elders. And many young Catholics appear to have a clearer understanding and a greater love of what it takes to become a saint than even some Bishops. Talk about “active participation” in liturgy and in life, there you have it. Thank God for those older Catholics who get it, live it, and are examples to the youth.

In another story of how some Catholics just do not “get” the Catholic youth of today, there’s the example of some Catholic administrator or other sort of staff (I’m assuming a sweet, old-fashioned, 1960’s, well-meaning modernist — or someone directed by such a person) altering an image for a poster created to appeal to youth as part of a campaign to raise donations (and apparently to appeal to Catholic youth) in three dioceses France. A video was made and an image was taken from the video to make a poster.

Here’s the video:

Not great. They don’t look like they know each other, and the whole setup looks awkward and weird. Oh well.

But alas, and here’s the issue, Catholic youth would never think a priest in a cassock would be cool enough, right?? Obviously someone thought so, …so some graphic designer was asked to modify the image and make it look as if the priest was wearing blue jeans, because priests in blue jeans are what youth want right? Or is it what old Catholics want young Catholics to want? You decide.

And now here’s the blue jean wearing priest:

A total different priest — hip, with it, connected, relatable, relevant. Rather, he was all those things before, and now post edit, much less. Perhaps what Catholic youth want is not a priest who is really just one of the gang, just another youth like them, just another soccer playing priest or unicycle riding nun. Maybe they want to be called to something more than the quotidian. And maybe they don’t like to be manipulated and lied to. More profoundly, perhaps they don’t want to stay who they are and end up in Hell, but strive for holiness and Heaven. I bet they know holiness is hard and not easy.

The fuller story is here, and the comments are devastating. ouf! If a picture is worth a thousand words, this rather insignificant image probably says as many words as those published by the Second Vatican Council. Oh well. Catholics are human too, and often foolish. The Church goes on. No one was hurt. Right? Right???

Regardless, maybe we ought to listen to the Catholic youth of today. Or at least some of them. And then join them. Generally I am not for letting the youth lead, in fact I’m mostly against it, but this time that’s probably not a bad idea.

What are your thoughts?

Finally, a couple more videos for the curious: