ITE, MISSA INLICITA EST?

Pope Francis’s recently-published limitations on the use of the Tridentine (Latin) liturgy for the Mass appear to have occasioned exactly the reactions he was doubtless expecting and may have hoped for: joy among the modernists, outrage among the “tradis”. It is useful to remember that he has not cancelled the Latin Mass, or Benedict XVI’s decree permitting its use. He has merely subjected its use in any parish or community to the authority of the local bishop. 

            Apparently, Francis decided on this measure out of alarm at what he saw as being an incipient schismatic cleavage in the Church, especially in America where the increasing political polarization of society is now seen as augmenting the existing divisions within the Catholic community – to the point where liturgy was being weaponized in the struggle about other things such as abortion, the role of women in the Church, gay marriage and so forth. What he either did not realise or weighed but found worth while is that he hemself, with this decree, is doing exactly the same thing, and thus in a sense already conceding a victory to his adversaries. 

            Exceedingly interesting in this regard is the 2018-9 study of Fr Donald Kloster, a Connecticut priest from the Diocese of Bridgeport who specialises in the study of the traditionalist movement, and who found that 99% of the those favouring the Tridentine Mass attended every week, whole of those favouring the modern Mass only 22% did so. Moreover, he found that the Tridentine Mass was particularly favoured by the 18-39-year-olds – which contradicts precisely the arguments of those who think that vernacular, familiar, happy-clappy liturgies will appeal to the young. Of the reasons given by the Millennials and Gen Z lovers of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) by far the most important (35%) was “reverence”.

            One of the rules of life that were dinned into me at an early age was “It’s rude to say ‘I told you so’”. Yet it is very tempting in this case to utter those words. I have been trying to tell people for decades that the continual modernizing and de-solemnizing of the liturgy, so far from counteracting the emptying of churches, encourages and increases it. Certainly, some people prefer a jolly, informal, cheerful Mass or Eucharist; but at least as many, if not more, people of faith love and long for a sense of reverence, or solemnity, of significant form. And this is every bit as true for Anglicans/Episcopalians as it is for Roman Catholics. 

            What seems to me of crucial importance is that, first, we should abandon the terminology of “modernists” vs. “traditionalists” when referring to liturgy and replace it with something like “informalists” vs. “formalists” or “proponents of togetherness” vs “proponents of reverence/solemnity”. Second, and even more important: all sides should be brought to agree to divorce discussions of liturgy from discussions of other aspects of religion in society. It is perfectly possible to love solemnity and reverence and tradition in a celebration of the Eucharist while accepting that such a celebration may be performed by a female priest or a gay priest, either or both of them married, and believing that abortion, while always sad and often traumatic, is permissible and not a sin. 

            Finally, a word to Anglicans and Episcopalians. While we do not use the ancient Latin liturgy, we have an equivalent. Like the Latin texts, the sixteenth/seventeenth-century words of the Book of Common Prayer (1662) are in a language that, while comprehensible, is distant from everyday modern usage and was specifically designed to convey the reverence of the older Latin. Moreover, even more than Latin, this liturgical language has shaped English usage for over three centuries: “to have and to hold”, “till death us depart”, “we are as the beasts that perish”, “devices and desires”, “peace in our time”, “sudden death”, “the kindly fruits of the earth”, “our bounden duty and service” – centuries of worshippers have repeated and loved these words so that they have acquired the patina and glow of handed-down family treasures. And thus and so, they allow us to combine reverence and solemnity with familiarity in a way that destroys and cancels neither.

            

 

OUTLINE FOR A PERSONAL CATECHISM

 

What is a personal catechism, and why make one? In the Roman Catholic Church, and for all I know in several other churches, one is emphatically not encouraged to define the elements of one’s faith individually. Criticisms of “smorgasbord Christianity” prevail: one is told that it is bad to pick and choose among the truths and dogmas of one’s religion, and that one should accept the lot both intellectually and in one’s manner of living. 

            This is a principle, and perhaps even admirable; but it is not a reality. I gravely doubt whether even the Pope and his closest advisers truly accept and follow everything contained in the Catholic Church’s dogma. For example: Pope Leo XIII formally proclaimed Anglican priestly orders to be null and void. From this, it follows that every Anglican priest is a charlatan, and that every time he or she gives Communion, he helps a soul to damnation. Were the Catholic hierarchy actually to believe this, they would refuse all contact with the Anglican Communion. In reality, relations between Canterbury and Rome are perfectly friendly, and conducted with mutual respect. 

            I posit that in reality all Christians (Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox) who are serious about their religion work out for themselves the elements of their faith, and give considerable thought to the reasons for such belief. In other words, all of us have, inchoate or detailed, a private catechism. Such a catechism is necessarily an elaboration of the basic Creed: virtually all Western churches accept the Apostles’ Creed as the foundation of their faith (though many individuals, if pressed, will confess to being quite unsure of several of its bits).

            In view of all this, I have been working out the elements, the building-blocks, of a personal catechism, which I here share with others who may be pondering such things themselves. 

 

1.     There is nor was a beginning. God is, was, and ever shall be, in His own dimension, which we neither know nor would comprehend. 

2.     God did decide to create our Universe. (There may be others.)

3.     Within this Universe, either we are alone, as a planet with intelligent life, or there are others.

4.     If there are others, God will have acted there in, perhaps, different ways, which we do not (yet) know about.

5.     If we are alone, it is reasonable to assume that God chose Terra as an experimental unit.

6.     Upon this planet, He let life grow and eventually produce something like humans, who had in common a growing potential of thought and action, and a sense of a/the Divine. (And yes, they also had in common a capacity for badness.)

7.     At a certain point, just as He had chosen one planet, upon that planet He chose one people, for the next stage of development: Israel. 

8.     With them, He conducted a long experiment of relationship, in the key of Law and Obedience, rebellion and salvation.

9.     At a certain point, He went to the next stage and gave them His Son as the Meshiach, to initiate them in a new relationship, of fusion with Him in sonship.

10.  By way of the crucifixion of the Meshiach and His resurrection, this fusion of sonship was a) extended in space, from Israel to all humanity, and b) extended indefinitely in time, recreated and thus accessible in every Eucharist.

11.     The key of this fusion is Love. The sine qua non of Love is free will. Hence the continuing existence of evil and of indifference: God cannot compel man to return His love, because He cannot go against His own nature (the only limit to His omnipotence).

12.     Man’s language for the fusion is Prayer, in three kinds: Petition, Thanksgiving, and Adoration.

13.     God does not micromanage His creation, hence the casualty lists of earthquakes, tsunamis etc. This is particularly hard for us to comprehend and accept. The other such thing is the origin of evil (perhaps a combination of nos. 6 and 11, above).