Winters attacks

Michael Sean Winters of the National Schismatic Reporter brought a smile to my face today!

Winters is primarily reacting to Ross Douthat’s recent piece HERE.  Douthat commented in his piece on those who are more traditional and how they see Pope Francis.

However, Winters take the time to attack both me and His Excellency Bp. Robert Morlino by name.  Winters, clearly reacting to this post HERE, is terrified of the fact that Morlino and the Diocese of Madison have lots of solid seminarians and that both he and they are open to the Extraordinary Form.   This terrifies the Fishwrap and their kind.  It’s really pretty funny.

Let’s see a snip or two with my emphases and comments:

When Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum, he was seeking to address a felt pastoral need that had been expressed to him: People missed the old Mass and wanted it back. [That’s only part of the story.  Benedict also did that as a way to jump-start a process of organic development of our liturgical worship.  But I have written about that elsewhere.  The point is, Benedict did not do what he did merely from concern for a small group of people.  He did it for the good of the entire Church.] The fact that this particular form of dissent [“dissent”?  Where did that come from?] is not new is not comforting, however. As I have written before, I think it may have been necessary but it was very harsh to ban the old Mass when the novus ordo was introduced. But, I do not believe that Benedict intended to start a movement, still less an ideology. [And then the introduction of another scare word.]

You have only to read some of the traditionalists’ websites to realize that they think like a movement and have turned the old Mass into an ideology. This applies, as Douthat argues, to Rorate Caeli, which is pretty far out there, but also to more mainstream sites like Father Zuhlsdorf’s. When he compares enthusiasts of the old Mass to the Maquis, or uses the term “Church militant,” as he does this morning, you see evidence of that movement mentality that could easily turn schismatic.  [ROFL!  Suddenly Winters is worried about dissent and schism?  THAT’s rich, coming from the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter.] And, it is one thing to see older folk who miss the old Mass seeking it out:  [See what he did?  The provisions of Summorum Pontificum are really only for old people who, from nostalgia, pine for the old days.  Fail.] It is another to find seminarians who do not remember it adopting it as a kind of badge of conservatism. [This is what scares them.  Seminarians, priests, bishops who are open to both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form.] If I were a bishop and I had a young priest or a seminarian who was attracted to the celebration of the old Mass, I would be worried not comforted. And, bishops like Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, who has taken to celebrating the old rite with greater frequency in public are not helping to keep this movement in check. [This is Winters way or signaling to his readers that it is time to attack Bp. Morlino.] The trads may be few in number but they are disproportionately represented among the clergy and that should be very worrisome. [It seems to me that Winters main problems is not so much that he doesn’t like the Extraordinary Form… he doesn’t like the people who like the Extraordinary Form.  He doesn’t like the people.]

Douthat correctly notes that a larger group of critics is found among those who do not much appreciate the pope’s comments on economics and politics. Douthat is right that this group is larger, and he is right that it is not schismatic, and he is right when he notes,

it’s still mostly a new version of a very old discussion among American Catholics — one that goes back to the Eisenhower-era controversy surrounding William F. Buckley Jr.’s criticisms of the encylical [sic]Mater et Magistra” and extends through Reagan-era arguments about economic policy — about how to apply Catholic social teaching in the American context, and whether that teaching can or should be reconciled with what you might call Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

The fact that this particular form of dissent is not new is not comforting, however.

This is rich.  Suddenly MSW and the Fishwrap are worried about dissent and schism!

I had to smile at the irony… and the additional traffic today!  Thanks!

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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35 Comments

  1. Adam Welp says:

    “Winters main problems is not so much that he doesn’t like the Extraordinary Form… he doesn’t like the people who like the Extraordinary. He doesn’t like the people.”

    Channeling your inner Ainsley Hayes there Father? Love the overt and covert West Wing references.

    [LOL! GMTA Well done. It is even more amusing that I might have an inner blond from a liberal TV show.]

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  2. dans0622 says:

    Yes, the use of “dissent” is quite absurd. People who had, and have, “legitimate aspirations” concerning the Liturgy are not dissenting.

  3. Supertradmum says:

    Well, the only Church which will last in the remnant will be the EF and reverent NO members, who will not mind suffering or perseverance. The liberals should be scared, as perhaps they see the end of their own kingdoms. This is real irony. God will have His Way in the end.

  4. Lutgardis says:

    He knows that we are all the “Church militant,” right?

    “The Church militant is the society of all the faithful still dwelling on earth. It is called militant, because it wages eternal war with those implacable enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil.”

    Or is the Council of Trent too passé and unecumenical?

  5. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    I can’t let pass the assertion that the “old Mass” was banned when the Novus Ordo was introduced. Summorum Pontificum affirms that it was “never abrogated” (Art. 1). I have no hope of instructing Mr. Winters, but Fr. Z readers might be misled.

  6. jasoncpetty says:

    The trads may be few in number but they are disproportionately represented among the clergy and that should be very worrisome.

    Disproportionately? Say there are 400,000 priests worldwide today (and that’s rounding down significantly). Say (generously) there are 3000 priests in traditional religious orders, and three times that many diocesan traditional or even traditional-ish priests. That’s 12,000 traditional or tradition-friendly priests worldwide. That’s three percent of 400,000.

    Something’s disproportionate all right.

  7. Siculum says:

    I’m glad Mr. Winters has labeled this is as a mainstream site. Every day I’ve come here for the past two years I’ve been wondering about that. :) I should have been reading this blog for years before.

    Of course, though, now that we’re assured Fr. Z is mainstream, that means the desire for wider and more generous application of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum is also mainstream. Hooray! :) And I’m glad to be a young non-seminarian who supports such a mainstream Catholic “ideology.”

  8. FXR2 says:

    I am certainly no expert, but, anecdotally almost all of the newly ordained young priests I have met in the last 10 years have been very orthodox and tradition friendly. I guess that is a no brainier, they seem to come from homes with very orthodox, traditionally leaning families.

    Fxr2

  9. Athelstan says:

    If I were a bishop and I had a young priest or a seminarian who was attracted to the celebration of the old Mass, I would be worried not comforted.

    Not like there’s been a lack of THAT sort of worry in chanceries over the last four decades, dear Michael.

    I think it’s long been apparent that it was not the authoritarianism of the pre-conciliar Church that bothered progressives like Mr. Winters. Rather, it was the theology that this authoritarianism was in service of.

  10. Athelstan says:

    Hello Grateful,

    Summorum Pontificum affirms that it was “never abrogated” (Art. 1).

    Yes, that is clear now, but it was obviously the subject of live debate before July 2007, and more than a few churchmen and canonists *were* willing and quite eager to claim that it had been abrogated. At any rate, if it was not abrogated, it was (alas) obrogated – banned as a practical matter in virtually every precinct of the Church, if not as a legal one.

  11. LarryW2LJ says:

    I am registered to a parish where the Novus Ordo Mass is celebrated (reverently). I have no problem with people, priests or bishops (or popes) who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass. I remember it from when I was but a mere youth, and I would actually like to attend a TLM sometime soon.

    What I don’t understand is the animosity between devotees of either side. Why should people who prefer Novus Ordo give a hoot about those who prefer TLM and visa versa?

    Winter’s assertion that those who prefer a TLM are somehow odd, mystifies me. I love tradition and ceremony – it doesn’t threaten me. On the other side, I’ve dropped out of a few Catholic Facebook groups that I thought I would enjoy, because I was informed that I was going to Hell because I attend Novus Ordo Masses. Really ?!?

    I’m not saying either side needs to necessarily agree with each other, but aren’t we big enough to exist side-by-side with out hype and bitterness and accusation?

  12. tgarcia2 says:

    LarryW2LJ What I don’t understand is the animosity between devotees of either side. Why should people who prefer Novus Ordo give a hoot about those who prefer TLM and visa versa?

    Winter’s assertion that those who prefer a TLM are somehow odd, mystifies me. I love tradition and ceremony – it doesn’t threaten me. On the other side, I’ve dropped out of a few Catholic Facebook groups that I thought I would enjoy, because I was informed that I was going to Hell because I attend Novus Ordo Masses. Really ?!?

    I agree, sadly I left a TLM for the same reasons here in Dallas. Questions as to why was I single at my age (just graduated) as well as the fact when I stated I see Anglican Use and the Eastern rites as legitimate I was told some…very worrisome things.

    Comments like that from either side do us no good, and feed into the irrational “paranoia” of the NSR and other like minded individuals who might come in to experience one of the oldest rites, yet be turned away because they are not “holy” enough. :/

  13. John Grammaticus says:

    To be fair Father, that blond from a liberal TV show is one of the few conservatives on said TV show…… and Bartlet / Santos were both pro-life liberals , a rarity in this day and age

  14. SaintJude6 says:

    All of the really weird things I have been told were at Novus Ordo parishes, not the TLM. Things like:
    Adam and Eve are really just symbols.
    The true miracle of the loaves and fishes was that everyone shared.
    The Church doesn’t really expect us to stop using birth control. After all God gives us the knowledge to use birth control.
    You can’t expect First Communicants to both walk down the center aisle AND genuflect.
    Baptism not only removes original sin, but also our inclination to sin.
    There was no Baptism of babies in the early Church.
    And (to my daughter’s Confirmation class) anointing was just like using Axe to make yourself smell good.
    Given the choice between having your children taught that or being asked about your marital status–easy decision.

  15. LarryW2LJ says:

    Apologies for my post – I certainly hope this doesn’t devolve into an “Us vs. Them” kind of thing.

  16. govmatt says:

    Yes yes Trads are mean old curmudgeons who only care about “going to Heaven” whatever that means! And they believe in “Hell” pshaw!

    The more the people at Fishwrap scream, the more I think things are going right (without equating the two, but draw your own conclusions: that’s also the logic I apply to the Enemy).

  17. SimonDodd says:

    LarryW2LJ says: “What I don’t understand is the animosity between devotees of either side. Why should people who prefer Novus Ordo give a hoot about those who prefer TLM and visa versa?”

    On the one side, because many of those who are attached to what they see as the “great postconciliar reform” feel very threatened by the persistence of what they see as “oldchurch” and the unexpected resurrection of the TLM (and its inexplicable appeal to a whole new generation) knocks the “biological solution” on which they had been relying out from under them. They whistle past the graveyard and tell themselves that it’s just a few retrograde types, but deep down they know this to be a lie and they are, secretly, worried that the reform may fail.

    On the other, because there is a small but persistent subset of Trads who believe that the novus ordo is invalid and/or deeply corrosive, and they are legitimately angry at what has been done to the Church and worried for the salvation of those exposed to the NO. Unsurprisingly, you’re much mroe likely to encounter them in TLM parishes than NO parishes (duh). They whistle past the graveyard and tell themselves that Newchurch is headed for the buffers, but deep down they are secretly worried that the resistance may fail.

    It seems to me that we now have three different strands of thought and two different Masses awkwardly inhabiting the one Roman Rite, and I have started to think and talk about it in language borrowed from our Jewish cousins. Bear with me here. The analogy is rough but, if you’re familiar with the materials, serviceable:

    1) You have reform Catholicism, which heralded the “great postconciliar reform” and is eager to press ahead with reconstructing Catholicism on new, more enlightened lines. Think NCR, Hans Kung, et al.

    2) And you have conservative Catholicism, which accepts at least the postconciliar settlement as a given but doesn’t want further “progress,” wants to use a hermenutic of continuity rather than rupture, wants to retrench modestly and “read newchurch through oldchurch,” so-to-speak. Think EWTN.

    3) And then you have orthodox Catholicism which wants nothing to do with the whole business and just wants to keep doing exactly what it was doing before, to keep doing Catholicism the way it’s always been done. Think the Remnant.

    (This is a development in my thinking from this post and the part of this post that discusses Joseph Shaw’s comments on Traditionalists. Eventually a post will sketch this idea, so I apologize for it not being fully-realized here.)

    These are broad trends, schools of thought rather than parties, and of course some people don’t necessarily fall cleanly into them as categories. I don’t. But the analogy is serviceable for most people, I think. Now, obviously, reform Catholics, they’re almost certain to be attached to the OF. orthodox Catholics, they’re almost certain to be attached to the EF. Conservative Catholics are tougher to evaluate; they tend to be sympathetic to the EF, but not attached to it exclusively, and they want the OF to look more like the EF (“more reverent,” they’ll say). I mention all this because it makes clear to me why there is some animosity: Sure, conservative Catholics have a foot in both worlds and are unlikely to be vitriolic, but not so the other two groups. If you talk to reform Catholics (go listen to them at NCR) and if you talk to orthodox Catholics, you’ll realize that these people have completely different religions, and because they tend to break down liturgical lines, liturgy becomes a proxy for those divisions.

  18. Athelstan says:

    tgarcia,

    …when I stated I see Anglican Use and the Eastern rites as legitimate I was told some…very worrisome things.

    There’s only one parish that could be, and I know the priests there would certainly not agree with such assertions. For that matter, neither would the laypeople I know who attend there. If what you say is true, that’s disappointing to hear, but I won’t say it’s impossible.

    Most of the Eastern Rites are nearly as old as the Roman Rite, and just as legitimate. The Anglican Use is obviously a more complicated case; but I will add that the ones I have attended come off as something close to the Traditional Roman Rite in hieratic English, but with even more penitential prayers. If vernacular liturgy looked like THAT, well…we would not be in the fix we are.

  19. LarryW2LJ says:

    Thank you, SimonDodd. You have put into terms what I have been thinking, but haven’t been able to express as eloquently as you have.

  20. Patikins says:

    Well said, SimonDodd. Good analogy.

    I just deleted most of what I intended to say after reading your post. I’ll just include this: I think Mr. Winters would fear my traditional NO parish as much as he fears the TLM. We have 10 (I think) men in formation for the priesthood. Only altar boys, no EMHCs at mass, Gregorian chant, smells and bells…

  21. Moral_Hazard says:

    @SimonDodd. Oh, my God. We’re all Jews!!!

    Seriously, though, I think MSW and Co. would think my parish’s NO mass just as ~dissenting~. Only altar boys, Latin Propers, ad orientem at one mass, etc.

  22. Sonshine135 says:

    MSW states:
    “When he compares enthusiasts of the old Mass to the Maquis, or uses the term “Church militant,” as he does this morning, you see evidence of that movement mentality that could easily turn schismatic.”

    From this statement, I have to believe that MSW never learned that the Communion of Saints has three parts: Church Militant is the body of Christ on Earth- militant because “the powers of Earth are ever restless to encompass her destruction.” – so says Pope Pius XII; The Church Suffering or all of those who are in Purgatory; and the Church Triumphant or all of the Saints.

    Either that, or MSW is playing to the ignorant.

    Actually, it is not a far stretch to consider a little of both in his writing.

  23. Volanges says:

    To be fair, the reference to dissent was in reference to Douthat’s original observation that there was a much larger group of conservatives Catholics who dislike and don’t agree with Pope Francis’s statements on politics and economics. Douthat said that it was nothing new and compared it to the controversy surrounding William F. Buckley Jr.’s criticisms of the encyclical “Mater et Magistra”. That’s when Winters goes on to say:

    “The fact that this particular form of dissent is not new is not comforting, however. It shows, instead, the deep level of secularization that has long afflicted the American Catholic right when it comes to issues of social and political obligations. They refuse to let very explicit Catholic teaching challenge, still less refute, their political and economic theories.”

    The comments at Fishwrap are vitriolic.

  24. Stephen Matthew says:

    SimonDodd,

    What exactly do you mean by “orthodox?” Do you mean in the sense of the peculiar attitude of some in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which are basically stuck on the model of doing things circa the year 1000 and elevating even disciplinary canons to the level of sacred tradition worthy of shedding blood over? Or do you mean “orthodox” in its literal sense of “true belief?”

    If the latter is what you mean, then you are implicitly accusing your “conservative” and “reform” categories of being heterodox, which is to say at least materially heretical, holding a false faith. That is a rather grave accusation to make, even only implicitly. Perhaps you should reconsider your schema.

  25. Kathleen10 says:

    Fear driven censorship is the default response of those who can’t use reason or logic to accomplish their goal. How is the EF of the Mass bothering you, Mr. Winters, and why do you think it is your business to prevent others from participating in it?
    Why do we have such busybodies inflicting themselves on us! What a pestilence these people are, minding other people’s business.
    What a treasure the TLM must be, for Mr. Winters to be so concerned about it’s popularity. I really must go see for myself very soon.
    Liberals are a hoot. For all their derision about censorship in days gone by, they don’t seem to have anything else in their arsenal when they dislike something.

  26. SimonDodd says:

    Stephen,
    Thanks for that comment. Because the idea is still quite plastic in my own thinking, let me answer you by explaining how I got to it and maybe you can tell me what I mean by the category and label better than I can tell you what I mean! The primogenitor of my thought-line on this was this post by the LMS’ Joseph Shaw, which forcefully argued that it is a mistake to think of the spectrum of Catholic opinion as looking like the political spectrum, and to assume that Traditionalists are simply further to the “right” on a lineal spectrum than the groups usually denominated “liberals” and “conservatives.” Shaw proposed that Trads are playing an entirely different game. That impression solidified in my mind with this article by the Remnant‘s Chris Ferrara, which described Trads in terms that, consistent with Shaw’s claims, do not map onto a linear scale where they can said to be merely a more “conservative” iteration of Catholicism.

    So what I think that I mean by the label “orthodox Catholics” is the group assumed by Shaw and described by Ferrara, often called “Trads.” There is a spectrum of views within that group, but it is not simply a continuation of any kind of left-right spectrum within Catholicism at large. That’s why the analogy to Jewish usage appealed: The groups that we call Conservative and Reform Jews disagree on a great deal, but they both accept the fundamental premise of reform, and so may be placed on the same spectrum. It is not wholly unreasonable, it seems to me, to say that “Conservative Jews” are actually the conservative wing of Reform Judaism, because they accept the need for reform, they just don’t want to go so far or so fast as those usually Denominated “Reform Jews,” who in this picture now appear simply the progressive wing of Reform Judaism. It is between those two groups, or perhaps between that spectrum, on the one hand, and Orthodox Judaism on the other, that the fundamental difference of opinion is found. Same thing here. One can argue that because conservative Catholics accept the postconciliar settlement, even if they don’t want to go so far as the liberals, they are at least on the same spectrum as the liberals; it is between those two groups, or that spectrum, on the one hand, and the Trads on the other, that there is a genuinely fundamental difference of opinion.

    Does that help explain what I’m driving at? Certainly nothing substantive is connoted by the adjectives “reform,” “conservative,” and “orthodox,” which are simply labels held over from their Jewish origins.

  27. benedetta says:

    He does sound quite worried. I will pray for him as I am all too familiar with excessive and unneeded worry. He of course is a famous paid blogger and person of notoriety whereas I am a nobody.

    Still, there’s no dissent like abortion lovin’, ordain all the women pretense with the “new Mass” gutted of the sacred. And, if you want to talk ideology, it’s not like the “new Mass” as he calls it has “never” been used to orchestrate, community organize, and, bash others who are not welcome under the magisteriumofthenytimes. Noooooo.

  28. benedetta says:

    While he may be very worried, I for one am not. Who does the Fishwrap Schismatic Reporter of Schisms so de facto we may as well call it de jure and call it a day have for an “audience”? Certainly, dubious 1% community organizers with scads of cash to waste on harassing law abiding citizens into their desires, of all religious and non religious and possibly not even spiritual as well as SuperSeculars…but, as to their audience, at this point, among practicing Catholics? Dwindling like all get out. What worries him et al is that ordinary practicing Catholics have had it up to here with the BigAbortion and BigPolitico Death Machine/pork/cash cow and the organizing in parishes to get votes for all manner of thing. That becoming sensitized to the sacredness of human life is going hand in hand with a desire by younger generations for reverent, worthy liturgy. That ten years out a new generation is going to demand the debacle known as NCR finally fold. I hear the tin cup a rattlin’! Must be fundraising time over at the Reporter! All you who hate Catholics, give generously, is his message…Desperation calling!

  29. Grateful to be Catholic says:

    Hello, Athelstan. Thank you for your clarification. As I wrote, I was thinking of the difference between “banned” and “abrogated” and decided that for Mr. Winters and most Fishwrap readers there probably isn’t one.

    You are correct that celebration according to the 1962 Missal was effectively banned because it required permission of the Ordinary, which was very hard to come by. I was amused by the cover letter to bishops that Pope Benedict XVI sent with SP, saying that he was acting in part to relieve them of the burden of having to decide whether to grant permission. That letter is well worth reading, as it refers specifically to many of the issues raised in these comments.

  30. Dad of Six says:

    MSW writes: ” If I were a bishop and I had a young priest or a seminarian who was attracted to the celebration of the old Mass, I would be worried not comforted.”

    Sort of like those aging profs at medical schools who cannot understand why ob/gyn students don’t want to learn how to perform abortions.

  31. Jackie L says:

    Winters and the entire NcR are not to be taken seriously, as no one over there is serious about their own faith. The entire paper, cover to cover is dissent, dissent is obviously not a real concern.

  32. benedetta says:

    The other interesting aspect to his latest rant on Catholics he hates the most is his couching in worry over “ideology”. The reality is that the EF effectively insulates the faithful from imposition or instrumentalization from ideologies far better than the ordinary form (cf Mosebach and widespread anecdotal experiences of many). The reality is that people are welcomed much more charitably in EF communities than liberal OF ones (ibid). The reality is that EF communities are often much more diverse than the usual faux Episcopal parish down the block. (ibid). Further, EF worshippers tend to read things, many things even, are widely read and quite literate, and not limited to thenytimesandmsnbc.

    But the best part is that nothing says “We’re Ideological” and “We want to use your faith to compel you against reason and free will to do what we say” than a former Obama shill and political hack posing as a “Catholic blogger/columnist” writing about the faith.

  33. Elizabeth D says:

    He may be worried, but my diocese (Madison) has really excellent seminarians to be priests for our future and that is a weight off ALL our minds here in Madison Diocese. The scaremongering about some new priests knowing and valuing both forms of the Mass makes zero sense. The younger generation does NOT see a conflict there the way the older generation does. It is NOT difficult for younger Catholics to say “yes” to both forms and we younger Catholics are not offended or “worried” about it. It’s not an issue, like it’s not an issue if you go to Spanish Novus Ordo or English Novus Ordo, or the Saturday night vigil Mass or Sunday morning Mass! To us it is just plain weird and sad that some people think the two forms, both part our patrimony of the rich treasury of the Faith, are matter for division and antagonism. If someone is rejecting one or the other form of the Mass in a strong way as something “worrisome” or “dangerous” and manufacturing conflict about it, then that needs to be clearly recognized as based either in misinformation, ideology or both. What matters is remaining in the truth of Christ in the orthodox Faith, keeping ourselves in a state of Grace and helping one another along home to heaven.

  34. benedetta says:

    Eizabeth D’s comments to me raise another aspect of all of this which bears noting generally.

    When it comes to green inkers, people like Winters et al who desire that no Masses according to the 1962 missal ever be celebrated anywhere ever again, and that no seminarian may contemplate it, ever, they always raise the chilling spectre of women in doilies reciting the rosary while the priest spoke gibberish and no music…etc. LOL…

    When they will never acknowledge that the new Mass as their confreres have interprefied it is really worse than the doily/rosary/gibberish.

    For a great many of us who never knew such images, or even good images that did not include all of that, the reality is that a chance discovery, perhaps in travels to some other parts of the world, that, the Real Presence lived, that, with quite simple accoutrements, the ordinary form could be said beautifully, with, yes, non Haugen and excellent, even fantastic, music, real candles, churches that retained sacral character or places for private prayer and devotion and did not smash the statues, and other things even, homily based on the readings and tradition, regular good confession, Adoration, beautiful music (did I say beautiful music already? non Haugen?), solidarity with worshipers and priest in solidarity, even ad orientem.

    For a great many of us, a journey to look at the EF of Mass stemmed from a hunger for worthy liturgy generally. It stemmed from the realization that the OF could be celebrated with great beauty, reverence, prayer, and joy, humility, and not omitting or mocking the sacred. I suspect that this mindset is where a lot of these seminarians reside — that the OF was crafted from the EF, and not vice versa, which is what we have been led to believe all these years. That saints grew in holiness with the EF, with or without doilies, and they can and do even now (Deo Gratias Pope Benedict).

    A regional blogger in the Albany Diocese who attended the recent Mass in the Cathedral but did not care for it wrote this week that she expected to love it as she loves, candles, incense, stained glass, and, ad orientem (!)…many of us in reply noted that the EF isn’t something one can just dive into and experience without any preparation at all. It’s of course true that no Rite can be that, even the OF requires this, whether from children, catechumens, or those who have been away. But I was astounded when she wrote that she had experienced many ad orientem OF Masses….I thought to myself, “Where, not here, surely!”. To my knowledge, there have been, in the last decade here, one, maybe two OF Masses celebrated ad orientem. Further though, it’s a rare parish locally that abstains from Haugen/ocp/Haas for even one full liturgical season. Many have rid of candles and tabernacle even…I think it quite interesting though, the palpable hunger, not only for EF but for worthy OF. It seems to me that worthy OF is the crux of someone like Winters’ militant attack. It’s not that he fears more EF. He fears OF being celebrated according to Vatican II…

    [I saw that blog post by the woman in Albany. I don’t think she grasps what happened. First, worship of God in sacred liturgy shouldn’t be easy. Also, the difficult, demanding elements of worthy worship (kneeling, silence, obedience to formal ritual, the centrality of the image of the Crucified Lord toward which priest and congregation ought to be oriented, and what is most challenging to many people today – the long, still silences) create in the soul the tensions that are essential for an experience of Mystery, which is tremendum et fascinans, frightening and alluring. This is our path out of the trap of Modernist self-absorption. People for whom transcendent worship is foreign quickly become uncomfortable during a TLM. They begin to long for their accustomed distractions, so prevalent in celebrations of the Novus Ordo.]

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