Looking at the whole issue

Looking at the whole issue of the life of the Church after the Second Vatican Council is often problematic, as we have a natural tendency to cast everything into two parties, and the issue is much more complex than that. It is not, however, a matter of two extremes and various compromise positions.

I tend towards the traditionalist side myself, while recognizing that there was a need for reform and a dire need for the Second Vatican Council. I would like to see the 1962 missal updated with a few of the successful elements of the 1970 missal (the restoration of concelebration, the presentation of the gifts, the prayer of the faithful, etc.), as called for by the council. While I love a reverent, Latin NO mass, the trappings that have come along ("folk" music masses, all-vernacular masses, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Good Morning!" hidden tabernacles, just about any stained glass made in the last 60 years, &c.) are abominations and must go, and the sooner the better. I tend toward the Torquemadian, so would have no trouble with imposing sanbenitos on Marty Haugen and the St. Louis Jesuits (I do stop short of calling for an auto de fe).

I have made up some lists of things that should be restored and things that should be tossed. The assumption is that an item that exists must be preserved unless there is good cause to change it (an assumption that is built into the language of the Second Vatican Council documents, but has been ruthlessly ignored in the last 30 years).

Things that should be absolutely and immediately restored to universal Latin Rite use: Processions, numerous popular devotions, the biretta (not to mention cassocks, Roman collars and the whole notion of clerics dressing like clerics), habits for religious, Gregorian chant (as specified in Sacrosanctum Concilium), Latin, good sculptures of Saints, good stained glass, pipe organs, fire and brimstone missions (one week’s worth of hellfire sermons are a good restorative, especially in the culture of affirmation), Church-state relations as outlined in the Lateran Treaty (ah, Christendom, how we miss thee), trade guilds, the Requiem (with the complete Dies Irae), the second Gospel reading, priests celebrating mass ad orientum, minor orders, universal ban on altar girls, Catholic schools and hospitals that actually have a Catholic mission, so forth and so on.

Some things that can be jettisoned from the pre-VII days: sentimental plaster statuary, 98% of all paintings of the Sacred Heart, translations in Elizabethan English (we're Catlicks! Got our own sanctified ritual language, thank you. It's called Latin. Translate all 2nd person singular as "you" please. Not even the Quakers can properly conjugate second person singular anymore. The language has evolved, and if we are aiming to restore the proper distinction between formal, polite, and familiar, we have to be prepared to shoot for restoring it in the whole language, not just in translations of religious works), rote manualism giving theological answers to 10 year olds that are supposed to suffice for life, mumbled and rushed liturgy, sentimental paintings, too much lace, maudlin hymns, rigid clericalism (although it takes an embittered modernist to really present the ugly face of clericalism, the roots of this problem go way back), so forth and so on.

What will the future bring? I am optimistic and tend to agree with the Holy Father that we are approaching a new springtime in the Church. The big mistake is to look for the new springtime to look like the old autumn or even the old springtime. We will not be entering a neo-Gothic or neo-Baroque era, although the lessons and spirit of those eras will be a part of what is to come. While we will be more in touch with the Eastern traditions, we are not going to be Western Byzantines.

The trouble with radical traditionalism is that it looks at anything that is not part of the language and aesthetic of the last great era of the Church as potential pollution. Radical traditionalism is fundamentally a revivalist movement (think of the Weavers and you will understand why I shudder at the notion). Likewise, folks who detest the excesses of modern and contemporary art and look to a restoration of pre-Impressionism are barking up the wrong tree.

The culture just will not do that. It never goes back to some mythical "Go" and pushes the reset button. The great music of the 15th and 16th Centuries did not sound like the music of the 13th Century. The 14th Century made its marks, just as the real music of the 21st Century will be somewhat influenced by dodecophonic, stochastic, free atonal, minimalist, and all the other methods of making music that came about in the last 100 years. The stuff that is championed by Crisis Magazine is nothing more than revivalist fluff that will fade with the third rate stuff from the period it imitates (please note that I am not saying that all late Romanticism is third rate, rather I am comparing the revivalist fluff to the third rate stuff of the period).

Liturgy is the same. The Sacred Council has called for reform, and, indeed reform was needed. The 1970 missal will not last, but we will not be going back to the 1962 missal either. It will stick around for awhile, since it is immune to the sort of nonsense that the 1970 missal is inflicted with, but eventually it will be unnecessary, as the Roman Rite finally gets the missal it deserves. My guess is that there will be a new missal by 2010, and it will be a beauty.