Remembering the Personal Cost

Lukewarm Catholics at Mass

I rarely read news stories or blogs anymore, which perhaps contributes to the on-going diminishment of my prose, but when I do click on article I primarily read the comments. An old axiom I learned while working on political campaigns, "perception is reality," holds true precisely because perception guides how people make decisions, whereas reality can be and often is ignored. One such disconnect, which elicited the poor choices of those days, was the disparity between what people wanted and what they were given by the episcopate in the mid-20th century. A New Liturgical Movement blog post on tracking bishops' statements and policies has given way to an interesting series of exchanges between young Catholics in favor of the old liturgy, old Catholics in favor of the old liturgy, and old Catholics in favor of the Pauline liturgy. One commentator writes:

"Change needs to take place slowly. That was probably the biggest problem with the introduction of the Ordinary Form, to much to quick. A more balanced slow approach in hindsight would have been far better. Dr. Peter and other we're not around at the time of the change or very young (according to Wikipedia Dr Peter was born in '71). The fact is the vast majority of folks couldn't wait for the changes. Yes there were some who are not happy and that's understandable. But if you weren't there you can't possibly comment with any credibility. One can disagree with the Pope but the things being spewed out these days is not Catholic. I agree, the pope wants to move back to before Trent. Trent was not the end all of all that is Catholic. One of the councils goals was to return to the sources. I certainly have no issues with Dr. Peter's preferences, we all have them. But how dare he or anyone else tell me how I should pray and encounter God. There is room for all of us. Also, if he had any idea of what was really going on in the average parish he would know that slowly those of us involved in the music and liturgy have slow been trying to balance the older with the new. Done slowly it will be successful but attacks just exacerbate things."

This is one of the most audaciously ignorant comments I have read regarding amenability to liturgical reform since I last read PrayTell. This is akin to saying one could not make a judgment on the execution of Charles Stuart because one was not there when that genocidal social climber, Cromwell, sat opposite the King. Some perspective is lost in time, but some fresh perspective is gained by distance and aid of statistics. In retrospect the liturgical disaster really could not have happened at any point in history other than when it did, when old bishops recovering from the shock of war heard their baby-boomer clergy whisper in their ears that everything should change so that the Church might live. The Church was hardly dying anymore in 1950 than it was during Napoleon's age, and she even emerged from the Second World War with improved prestige and improved Mass attendance relative to the dawn of the 20th century. There was much to be desired concerning how Mass was celebrated and how priests were trained, but what transpired was the wrong answer to an entirely different set of issues the Church faced.

America especially suffered from "the changes" to the Mass, to episcopal governance, to priestly formation, and discipline. In 1960, 90% of American Catholics went to Mass; 75% believed the pope to be the last authority on matters of discipline. When "Blessed" Paul VI died Mass attendance was below 50% and a third of American priests, presumably heterosexuals, too, had left their vocations. Today Mass attendance sits below 20% and is due for another sharp drop when the last of the millennials have their Confirmations.

I may not have the "credibility" to judge how people "couldn't wait for the changes", but if my apostate father, born 1941, is any indicator, people couldn't wait to get to the door. Most people from that age are now former-Catholics still hoping for a Catholic funeral. Ask them, "When did the New Mass come out?" and they will look at you in confusion because they themselves cannot remember. It all happened in a rapid haze. Vernacular, women reading, and the priest standing opposite a newly-fashioned picnic table occurred in a mad rush; then came extra readings, more vernacular, "praise" music, and altar girls; by the time Paul VI issued his Missale Romanum half the congregation had thrown up their hands in [genuine] disbelief and found the nearest exit.

These changes happened too fast? Part of the problem is that they happened too fast, but the greater part is that they happened at all. If, after decades of fasting, regular Confessions, and devotions in preparation for Mass, a man with a microphone begins with "Good morning, all are welcomed!" a return to purer spirituality is not communicated. The one and only message, which the people of the day read clearly, is that "It wasn't really important after all."

Years ago Benedict XVI, as Joseph Ratzinger, anticipated a smaller, more devout Church. Along similar lines, Rod Dreher, who has left the Catholic Church but cannot seem to stop writing about Catholic issues for Catholic audiences, has proposed his "Benedictine option", something of a retreat from the world wherein the devout can create new communities for the future of Christendom. This is a misguided attempt to make lemonade out of lemons. For all the joking about "cafeteria Catholics" and the lukewarm, many of those who lost their faith back in the mid-20th century were lukewarm people who were clinging to the Church out of social custom, habit, convert's zeal, or a devotion borne in the mind rather than in the heart; those people may not have been "good" Catholics, but they were still Catholics, aware of their sins and availing themselves to the Sacraments. They clung to drift wood near the barque of Peter and the officers on the same barque saw fit to send them to the bottom. All that remained were the liberals who wrought the destruction and had not committed apostasy as a result and the conservatives who clung to what devotion they could in a world turned upside down.

For all the talk that transpires on this blog, NLM, PrayTell and elsewhere about whether or not something is liturgically correct it is useful to remember the actual cost in souls. For all the Protestant pastors illuminated by the concept of liturgy in the '90s hundreds of cradle and convert Catholics went into the outer darkness.

But then again, I have no credibility on this matter.