Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Abrogation & Obedience

Upon Rorate's predictably sensationalistic report from Sandro Magister that Papa Peron will consider the "correction" of Summorum Pontificum and the 1962 liturgy, I thought immediately of a passing reference Fr. John Hunwicke made today to "Duffy's Parson Trichay" who "clung on" to older ways during the Edwardian and Elizabethian ages.

A suppression or limitation of the 1962 liturgy would cast a dubious shadow over much of the Church, at least in America, outside of parishes exclusively dedicated to the Rite of Econe. Supposedly there are 500 Pian-Johannine Masses, or Mass locations, in the United States every Sunday, the vast majority of them not under the Fraternity of St. Peter or the Institute of Christ the King; the text quotes figures for diocesan presence, so one may doubt the Fraternity of St. Pius X's considerable number of priories are included.

What would happen if Bishop Fellay signed the dotted line, Rome gave the Fraternity a personal prelature with immunity in their current locations, and Francis reconfigured Summorum back to Ecclesia Dei levels, when occasional Masses were permitted only with the expressed consent of the bishop? Surely the FSSP, FSSPX, Institute of Christ the King, and monasteries dedicated to the '62 rite would be left alone, but the majority of Masses would forcibly vanish. If a devout Catholic learned anything during the 1950s and 1960s he learned that the average cleric sees obedience to immediate, visible authority as the equivalent of right and wrong, even if the authority deems wrong what had once been right. Obedience is a means of preserving faith, not the actual faith.

Enter "Duffy's Parson Trichay," whose name was Sir Christopher Trychay (rhymes with "Dickey"). Sir Christopher—named when priests were called Sir or Mister—was ordained in 1515 and served the parish of St. George in Morebath, Devon from that year until his death in 1574. Early in priesthood, Trichay added statues and shrines to saints of popular devotion; Sir Christopher prayed frequently to St. Sidwell, a 6th century virgin martyred in the same county. The medievals sought the intercession of the saints for their common problems; their faith was casual, but that does not mean it was shallow or superficial. Townsfolk donated money at the shrines and bought candles from the St. George's to burn perpetually before the statues and icons of their favorite saints. Sir Christopher used the money from the "stores" to fund the parish's charitable functions, including the laudable participation of five men in the 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion. In 1538, amid Henry's dissolution and thievery among the English monasteries, Trychay gave his Missal, the relics of saints, holy images, and candles to various faithful so that when the authorities came to confiscate his Papist paraphernalia he could hold his hands up in innocence, all the while hoping he might one day call upon his parishioners to use the sacred objects and say the Mass again. In the mean time he used the Prayer Book and a wooden table and did not promote the veneration of saints. His patience was rewarded two years later when Mary assumed the throne and churches resumed the old ways. It was to be short lived. Mary died before the end of the decade with a considerable number of vacant episcopal sees for "Henry Tudor's bastard daughter" to fill. Sir Christopher again hid his Missal, relics, and images with the faithful and resumed the Prayer Book in hopes of another return to Catholicism. Alas, his patience protestantism would not be rewarded this time and the Mass never returned. Sir Christopher Trychay was buried under where the Catholic altar once stood.

He died obedient.

500 Mass locations is a drop in the water compared to the 18,000 (and shrinking) parishes in the United States, yet the opportunity to celebrate the odd 1962 Mass is a treat to most priests condemned to mundane parish life. Will they push back or be obedient as Sir Christopher if that day comes?

One remembers that after the introduction of the completely revamped liturgy in 1970 many priests chose retirement over the "Novus Ordo." Should their dichotomy have been "Will I say the new order or retire" or "Should I say the new order or refuse"? Many would-be opponents, like Cardinal Siri or the priests of the archdiocese of Baltimore, obeyed and left the few dissidents in a liturgical and spiritual ghetto where the FSSP and FSSPX now live. One wonders if Lefebvre would have gone as far as he did if a cardinal or archbishop somewhere not nearing retirement age had the fortitude to say "Not just no, but hell no" independently of the Gallican missionary.

In the mean time, Pre-Pius XII never looked so attractive, or at least so mute a point of contention by its opponents! Buy now while you have the chance!


23 comments:

  1. Unfortunate indeed was this mindset of most priests: obey despite misgivings. As many have stated, the seminary training was simply dismal in many pre-Vatican II seminaries, among other things.

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  2. Being situated in Central Europe and having found to the so-called TLM after Summorum Pontificum, I do believe the the time before the Motu Proprio also had its advantages. The church I attend, run by the FSSP, had almost double as much people assisting at Mass before. Nowadays, there is many a Motu-Mass around and people can stay closer to home. Certainly, a big relieve for many. But at the same time, the bleeding out of the bigger Mass-centres resulted in a loss of strength, I believe. Having a schola becomes more difficult, getting enough servers for High Mass etc. - while small congregations under the Motu Proprio on the countryside don't have either. Also, the few younger people have a harder time to find somebody else in their age group. That doesn't make the Latin Mass very attractive. And the people usually don't mix with the regular parish, anyway.
    What I see, on the other hand, is a greater and greater influence of neo-conservative ideas and personal, even "charismatic" ones. Some welcome this kind of deghettoisation by streamlining the traditionalism of old. I can't.

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  3. Tarquinius, you hit the nail on several heads which I have observed over the last decade in my parish. I don't think our challenges are limited to "competition" draining parishioners away, although this plays a strong role in the demographic holes to which you alluded.

    Your last point about an influx of neo-con idealogy is quite correct, and one I believe is a top concern. I've conveyed as much to my pastor to the effect that the neo-con/charismaticism is directly opposed to and undercuts anything we do to promote the primacy of the Liturgy.

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  4. I can't help but see this as profoundly grim. There's really no refuge at all, there's only our own will to hold on to what we can of our Patrimony,even if it's destined to be lived out in the privacy of our own homes.

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    1. I have seen this to be very true in my own experience. When I talk about the liturgy with my traditional friends, I will often bring up the old office, old Holy Week, octaves and vigils but even though they nod their heads in agreement, I often feel like I am speaking to no one since in their hearts, they hold the 1962 rite with its ethos as the apogee of traditionalism. Even if they did accept my claims, what would that mean in the larger scheme of things?

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  5. I think Joseph Shaw (who is, it's worth noting, also a Rorate blogger) is in the right of it in thinking the fears of Curia sources talking to Sandro Magister are overblown: "I think these sorts of stories come from people around Pope Francis who would like them to be true, perhaps even with a view to menacing potentially awkward people into quiescence." Francis does not care about the liturgy, though many of his close allies do, and this will likely limit how much capital he's really willing to invest in furthering their projects, especially as it relates to the 1962 missal. He has bigger fish to fry, keener vendettas to pursue.

    No, the real threat will be from the usual sources: local bishops (especially of the sort Francis likes to appoint when he can) and their creatures. Which could certainly mean some of those TLM-celebrating diocesan clergy might feel a chill wind with the next bishop, if they haven't already. In countries where Summorum Pontificum never moved beyond a dead letter (i.e., most of Latin America and Asia, certain regions in Europe, etc.), it will be business as usual anyway.

    P.S. I am not sure where you get 800 TLM's out of the CCWatershed link - his graph shows about 500, a number I independently came very near to when I did my own analysis of this for publication at the same time. There's been some minor growth since, but I feel confident in saying the number is no more than the low 500's at present. Which is still (I think) impressive, considering how rapid the growth has been over the past 9.5 years, and how much opposition it has had to overcome.

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    1. Pretty sure that was just a typo.

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    2. @Athelstane: Good catch on the 800 number! I misread CCWatershed's graph in my haste to publish. I called Rorate's report "predictably sensationalistic" because I do not assign a high probability to this happening, at least not without the FSSPX being normalized first. Still, the scenario does put in perspective how vulnerable the traditionalist world is to losing its gains in the name of obedience while the faithfully disobedient embrace the ghetto.

      @JD and On the Road to Damascus: Remember, the 1962 liturgy, defective as it is, has only been "available" outside the FSSP/FSSPX world and open to the general populace for 10 year. While some walk into their first traddie Mass, immediately find it spell binding, and are inspired to deepen their faith, others take time, often a life time; some may not be changed, but their children are. The solution is to expand the old (wishfully, pre-Pacelli) liturgy until it is as normal as possible. As they say in war, the best defense is a good offense. We have heard enough from Agatha Christie about the old Mass's cultural value and its place in the past. What about making it indispensable to the Church's future?

      @JohnR and Tarquinius: I cannot agree with your perspective on this. Truly, the 2007 indult did disperse previously dense communities of traditionalists who could fill a church on Sunday, but that only underlies that there has not been much real growth of interest in the old Mass, only in locations for it. A high Mass that once drew 400 may be split into three high or low weekly Masses that take 100-150. The failure—in part due to traditionalists' contentionment in their isolated parishes, in part due to fear in pastors, and obstruction on the part of bishops—is on its implementation. The old liturgy has still been limited to those who have interest in it.

      Traditionalists' disappointment may be rooted in that 1980s "if they changed the Mass back everything would be fixed" mentality when the normality of the Tridentine Ordo Missae was within memory and finances/attendance had not dwindled as severely as they have today. That turned out to be irrelevant by 2007 (and 2017). Traditionalists need to gain some vision and regain their militancy if they want real, grassroots strides to happen in the Church, even if that means a lifetime catechizing charismatics and neo-cons.

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    3. Agreed on that, but it still looks to be an uphill battle. Most Tradistanis are still hung up on mere number ratios (e.g., 500% growth or something like that, compared to -so and so percent in Novus Ordo land) and so are content. The parishes of the various traditional orders should act more like bases, from which Traditionalists should make plans and from there regain the local Novus Ordo parishes, even if it takes a lifetime.

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    4. Rad Trad,

      1. Oh, I agree on it being "sensationalistic." I as just amused at the obvious daylight between New Catholic and Dr. Shaw on this one. But those differences have been apparent for a long time.

      2. I'm afraid I am of your mind on the growth issue as well. The questions we must ask are: 1) Do we want traditional liturgy to grow or not? and 2) Do we really want the traditional liturgy to be the sole property of the Ecclesia Dei societies and orders (however much we admire them)? I would hope the answers would be "yes" and "no."

      Growth means taking in new elements. And sometimes that's been a good thing. With the others, one hopes that lex orandi lex credendi will eventually take its effect, even if solid catechesis is not always at hand.

      3. I think the dispersal issue is often overstated - and it doesn't account for areas which only gained traditional Masses and parishes as a consequence of Summorum (and friendly Benedict-appointed bishops). When I lived in Naples, Florida (I literally moved away the month before SP was issued), the nearest TLMs were two hours away, in Miami and Sarasota (which were also nearly the only ones in the state). Today, there are three parishes, one of which, at Ave Maria's Oratory, has two daily Masses as well. That's probably a gross attendance of several hundred a week, virtually all net growth - since none but a handful made those long four hour round trip drives on Sunday. Those are all people who did not have ready access to the Old Mass before.

      It is impossible to calculate just how much lay attendance has grown since 2007. But my sense is that it has not been inconsiderable (even if not what trads once assumed it would be after liberation, as you note). It's not just the same people spread around to more locations.

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  6. My dear RadTrad, I'm not sure we necessarily disagree. Yes, there is diaspora from once more densely populated cells, and growth is anemic. But, what you may or may not realize or experience the way those of us who are fixtures in these TLM parishes is that the small amount of growth that has happened since 2007 has been so overwhelmingly supplied by neo-conservatives who, if given the alternative of an EWTN-style Mass center, would jump ship from the TLM. They come to parishes like ours, not for the Liturgy, but for the presence of young, Catholic families who homeschool their children. Very few make any personal growth in their knowledge of or appreciation for the Liturgy or the necessity of liturgical Tradition.

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    1. The parents may be slow in being changed by the Mass; but perhaps the children will be a different story.

      Bringing in the more marginally committed is going to be inevitable with any serious growth. We are seeing it in our Juventutem parish Mass, too. All we can do is to redouble our efforts. And even the marginally committed help pay the heating bills - yea, even at the rate Catholics (even the ones in Tradistan) tithe.

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    2. Raw numbers also help with the bishop, too. We're just now starting to reach a size where any effort to squelch it will become difficult and noisy (and, uh, costly to the parish collection plate). The chancery isn't in a position to survey them all on their liturgical formation.

      Similarly, the growth helps encourage other young pastors who have been sitting on the fence to start taking the plunge.

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    3. Athelstane, I would be hopeful if the same parents were not preventing their children from being exposed to and imbibing the Liturgy. If the parents only go to Low Mass and never assist at anything "extra" (e.g. Vespers, Epiphany Water blessing), then their kids are not getting the exposure needed to effect change in the next generation. I've opened up membership to a new men's schola to 14 year olds and up, and only one family obliged - a family who is already committed and among the "99 not in need of 'redemption'".

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    4. Hello John,

      I hear you, and share your frustration.

      The thing is, though - you could almost be describing the FSSP community where I was first introduced to the TLM 15 years ago. Families parachuted in via their conversion vans for Mass, then parachuted right back out. The Mass was sung maybe once or twice per month (though they had a decent server crew). More than once the Fraternity pastor pleaded from the pulpit for families to actually register in the parish (never mind actually do anything beyond that). Some of that was dictated by location (in a bad urban area you did not want to be around after nightfall) and the long distances most had to drive, but there was a mindset at work, too. It really did, at times, feel like a homeschooling coop that also offered Low Mass.

      I don't know what your parish was like back then; but I my sense is that more than a few of the old indult parishes back in the day weren't really that different in terms of liturgical formation, even if the ratio of neo-caths was much lower and the Pat Buchanan bumper stickers more in evidence in the parking lot.

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  7. And also worth mentioning that these same newcomers in the last decade not only have no opposition/criticism (or want to hear any) to the Novus Ordo, they openly embrace it and attend it during the week negating any progress we make restoring pre-Pacellian liturgical life/spirituality.

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    1. There's also those (and I know a couple families who fall into this) who spent decades in different regions of the Tradsphere, got burned out by it all, and ended up in more conservative Pauline parishes so they could have something like a "normal parish". These people stay in the new Mass and cheer on any return to tradition that gets inserted into the new Mass.

      The sad fact is, some trad parishes don't want to "spread the word" in any way that will actually get people behind them. Some prefer to lock down in their bunkers and play the "No True Scotsman" game against other Catholics and traditionalists (SSPX vs. FSSP, Ecclesia Dei vs. Indult, etc.). Such parishes will suffer attrition from those who do not desire this or who don't play the game.

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    2. I'd like to second your entire post, Vigilante.

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  8. ABS assisted at the Lil' Licit Liturgy today and his Pastor lamented the fact the "Church looks so barren today with all of the Christmas decorations gone..." and his complaint is irrational enough that perhaps even he believes it even though he has (S.P.) permission to use the real mass ordo and keep Christmastide until the Purification of Mary (known in the Shadow Church as "The Feast of the Holy Groundhog")

    "I weep for you," the Walrus said;
    I deeply sympthasize.
    With sobs and tears he sorted out
    Those of the biggest size,
    Holding his pocket-handkerchief
    Before his streaming eyes."


    I am the Walrus is the motto of ABS' pastor.

    That is a Coo coo cachoo that Saint Blaise cannot prevent or cure.

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    1. Sometimes, ABS, I think it wiser not to try to understand you.

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    2. The trick to understanding those posts is about two pints of Flemish Ale, or the equivalent in Scotch Whiskey.

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  9. Dear R.T. Had you the consumed an optimal amount of Chartreuse you could see this shining knight was slaying a real Jabberwocky.

    Since the initiation of the epic epoch of Franciscus , it is important for man to consider whether or not he is getting enough alcohol in his diet.

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