Opinion piece at NatCathReg about ‘Traditionis custodes’ three years on

I was made aware of a piece published last week by the National Catholic Register by Larry Chapp about Traditionis custodes three years on.  I was on the road, so I stashed it for a bit.

I was at first rather enthusiastic about Larry Chapp and his videos.  At a certain point I stopped watching them not just because they were a bit long, but also because he seems all too frequently to run down the Vetus Ordo and, by implication, those who wanted it.  It seemed that, for a while, every video got around to this even though the topic was entirely different.  Hence, he lost my regular attention and I only checked on him when his guest was of special interest.

That said, his offering at the NCReg is excellent, both in its points and in its phrasing. I’m sure you will agree.

Let’s go through this with my emphases and comments.

Pope Francis’ Latin Mass ‘Motu Proprio’ Has Generated Division, Not Unity

Three years after the promulgation of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, imposing severe restrictions on the celebration of the Mass in Latin, controversy over the use of the old Latin Mass is as strong as ever.

Therefore, if Pope Francis’ text was intended to bring some measure of peace to the liturgy wars by increasing liturgical homogenization around the Mass of Paul VI, it has been a failure. The rise of the popularity of the Mass of St. John XXIII (traditional Latin Mass) was caused, at least in part, by a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the Mass of St. Paul VI (or Novus Ordo) among a broad cross section of regular-Mass-attending Catholics. [And not just because of the externals or aesthetics, which of course flow also from the content of the texts.] And the move to suppress the Latin Mass has done nothing to change that entrenched reality, [“entrenched”… okay, there is a bellicose aspect to what is going on.  He probably intends this in the sense of “deeply committed”, but when people are shooting at you, you dig fox holes.] especially in light of the fact that the Vatican did nothing at the same time to reform the new liturgy in order to address in a truly pastoral way the legitimate sense of disaffection that many have.  [The incredible abuses that can occur so easily via the Novus Ordo are one thing, but there are aspects of the rite itself which can leave one puzzled.]

It is rarely a wise pastoral move to try and suppress via raw authority from above the spontaneous expressions of faith — expressions that are thoroughly orthodox and truly “from below” — since such exercises of raw authority absent a true engagement with those affected usually flounder.

The popularity of the traditional Latin Mass can be tied directly to its emphasis upon reverence, transcendence and supernatural verticality. And these are features that should be present in every Mass but are sorely lacking in many parishes. It is instructive that wherever the Mass of Paul VI is celebrated in deeply traditional and transcendent ways it is almost always successful, which only underscores the legitimacy of the desire of millions of devout Catholics for a Mass that is more profoundly reverent.  [It also underscores the fact that the more the Novus Ordo is celebrated like the Vetus Ordo, the better it seems to be.  That raises an obvious question.  Let me turn the sock inside out.  Benedict XVI wrote of ars celebrandi.  There are things learned from the predominance of the Novus Ordo which I believe have informed the ars celebrandi of most priests who celebrate the Vetus.  This is positive, perhaps in the sense of Tolkien’s eucatastrophe.]

Therefore, if the aims of Traditiones Custodes were primarily pastoral and not punitive, [then] it is a failure, since it did not in any way address this deep desire for tradition and reverence from so many Catholics. And since it ignored the needs and wishes of the faithful, [as a result] it created large pockets of open hostility toward the Vatican. This is understandable since the text was promulgated without any pastoral accompaniment with the affected groups or any sense that their liturgical preferences mattered at all on any level.  [Call to mind the pure contempt toward the people who want the Vetus Ordo exhibited by Andrea Grillo in that telling interview.]

Labeled as nostalgic “backwardists” and tossed out to the ecclesial peripheries, lovers of the Latin Mass were simply abandoned by this papacy and then vilified.  [Weren’t those on the peripheries supposed to be important?] Furthermore, the effective suppression of the older Mass went forward despite strong local support for its continuance from many diocesan bishops, which raises the question of how such an authoritarian move can be squared with all of the rhetoric from Rome about the need for a more synodal Church. [Not to mention subsidiarity.]

Where is the episcopal collegiality? Where is the much ballyhooed accompaniment? Where is the desire to “smell like the sheep”? And one can hardly see a synodal Church in play here when the Vatican went so far as to tell local parishes what they could and could not publish in their Church bulletins about Mass times for the old Mass. This is centralized Roman authority in the extreme and, therefore, Traditionis Custodes calls into question the sincerity of the entire synodal process.  [It leaves me puzzled how those who are in charge of things do not see this double standard.]

Pope Francis has repeatedly said that everyone is welcome in the Church (“Todos! Todos!” in Spanish), and he has made this call for radical inclusion in a variety of settings. The implication, of course, is that pastors must be tolerant toward human sin and the foibles of our fallen nature, ever aware of the woundedness of all of us. However, when it comes to those traditional Catholics who have been wounded by a Church insensitive to their needs, and often to the point of open hostility, there is nothing but a slap with the back of the Vatican hand.  [Am I wrong, or is there a silent implication that desiring the Vetus Ordo and then acting on that desire by going to it, is looked at as being worse than committing sodomy?  Recently, Card. Müller said he spoke with an official of the liturgy office in Rome who suggested that such people had psychological problems.]

There were, and are, problems in some traditionalist parishes with the acceptance of Vatican II, and many traditionalists on social media are often harsh toward the modern Church. [It would be helpful to have some terms defined.  Who is a “traditionalist” and what is the “modern Church”.] Nevertheless, one can clearly detect an increase in such attitudes as a direct response to the theological and pastoral confusions created by this papacy.

A Church that understands this human psychological factor would therefore also understand that the problem of truly radical traditionalism [Again, it could be helpful to have a description of what a “rad trad” is.  I think I know… but when I think more about such a critter, I wonder if I am on target.] is in many ways a beast of this papacy’s own making. Summorum Pontificum, the motu proprio issued in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI, in allowing for a broad and free use of the old Mass, sought to build bridges. In contrast, this papacy seems to want to burn that particular bridge while building other bridges to different constituencies.  [My experience was that, after some years of Summorum Pontificum being in effect, people were starting to unclench, even those who had been so badly injured in the years before.]

Along these lines it becomes glaringly obvious that the Vatican now is far more concerned about the problems in traditionalist circles (and the problems are real) [What are the “real” problems?  Does he mean that there are some who don’t like Francis or who deny that he is Pope?  Do deny the legitimacy of Vatican II?  Are the problems that they don’t give to Peter’s Pence or diocesan drives any longer?  What is a “circle”?  My experience is that those who attend the Vetus Ordo are a pretty diverse group.] than it is with the problems within more progressive Catholic parishes and dioceses.  [Would those problems be along the lines of barely any time for confession, few people using that essential sacrament while still going to Communion?  Perhaps not believing in the Real Presence?  Not going to Mass?  Not marrying in the Church or teaching children the catechism?   Shall we talk about liturgy and preaching?] There is an obvious double standard in play. Furthermore, this double standard becomes more problematic when one realizes that the wing of the Church that openly dissents from settled Church teaching in moral matters is far more prevalent and far more influential in the Church than are the small pockets of cranky traditionalists. [Not all “traditionalists” are “cranky”.  I like Scott Hahn’s threefold “mad trads – sad trads – and glad trads”.    The vast majority of “trads” I know are “glad trads”.  They aren’t all that concerned with the old controversies and issues flowing from those halcyon days of the Council and after.]

Meanwhile, the Germans continue on unabated with their heterodox Synodal Way; Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich (who dissents from the Church’s teaching on homosexuality) is put in charge of the synod; Cardinal Robert McElroy is given a red hat despite his public dissent from Church teaching on the same; and Jesuit Father James Martin is given yet more photo ops with the Pope.  [This is a good paragraph.   The main issue is support of homosexuality.  It is likely that those who are entrenched in the homosexualist agenda hate and fear the Vetus Ordo and the people who desire it, because of the content of the orations and because of the happiness and normalcy of those who attend to them.] I am not claiming that Pope Francis agrees with these folks in all ways, because he clearly doesn’t. But he is also clearly far more sympathetic to them than he is toward those in his flock who seek nothing more than liturgical sacredness and sanity.  [He does surround himself with people who align with that agenda.  Didn’t he just name Msgr Maurizio Chiodi who has suggested that homosexual acts are not sinful and who is in support of contraception?  There’s Archbp. Paglia, whose artistic proclivities are known.   Fr. Spadaro is not editor of La Civiltà Cattolica and longer, but he is now an official of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.  He has a website dedicated to  Pier Antonio Tondelli.]

[Now a shift…] There is also a level of mischaracterization of the typical Latin Mass participant that can be detected as the motivation behind Traditionis. My experiences here are purely anecdotal, but most of my Latin Mass-going friends are not radical traditionalists. They are simply devout Catholics seeking a safe space to raise their children away from our pornified cultural septic tank, [!] and they are not in any way deeply concerned with Vatican II and all the debates around it.  [Again, I am not sure what “radical” means.  Does it mean that these people would strongly rather attend the Vetus Ordo or they refuse to attend the Novus Ordo?  I want to know.  In my anecdotal experience, which I suspect is somewhat more extensive that Dr. Chapp’s when it comes to mingling with people who seek out the Vetus Ordo, they are as the Doctor says: devout, earnest, and not heavily burdened by controversies.]

They don’t really care about pachamama, Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Viganò or the Synod on Synodality. [I think they care when the topics come up, because they are horrified by idolatry, moral relativism, and punitive behavior.] In fact, most probably don’t even know what the synod is or what it is for and don’t really care one way or the other. [Heh… does anyone understand?] In short, they are not the ideologically driven pitchfork brigade of heresy-hunting reactionaries that the mischaracterizations would have us believe. Furthermore, in a truly synodal Church, it would seem that the few instances where such a radicalized element does exist should be dealt with by the local bishop involved.  [RIGHT?!?  If these people are such a problem then they need PASTORS not POGROMS.]

In many ways, therefore, Traditionis Custodes represents a solution for a problem that does not exist in any meaningful sense. It is a motu proprio oriented to combating a straw-man caricature of the angry and hostile traditionalists who are supposedly lurking around every corner.  [Well said.]

Finally, the promulgation of Traditionis took place after the Vatican received back the results of a questionnaire it had sent out to the bishops. But the results of that survey have never been made public, even with the names of the bishops redacted, which also calls into question the transparency of the entire process. [Just as transparent as the accord with a certain Asian regime.] If the problems among traditionalists that Traditionis seeks to address via suppression of the old Mass are widespread and metastasizing further, then one can only assume that this would have been brought up by many bishops in the survey results. And if that is true, then surely the Vatican would want to make those results known in order to give Traditionis a grounding in a more episcopally collegial manner.   [ERGO…]

Therefore, since the results were never published, the question of just how widespread the problems are in Latin Mass communities is left hanging. Indeed, the silence and lack of transparency give the definite impression that there is something the Vatican is trying to hide.

I myself do not attend the traditional Latin Mass and I have no particular attachment to it. [He should give it a shot, and not just a couple times.  It’s our patrimony.  It would help to grasp even more fully the rite of the Ordinariate and what is going on, and not going on, in the Novus Ordo.] Nevertheless, there are millions of devout and deeply sane Catholics who do love it. I see no reason why a pastoral Church that seeks out the peripheries would want to alienate them and push them away.  [One might conclude that those who are carrying on this alienation are not pastoral and don’t intended to be.] Thus, I think Summorum Pontificum was pastorally sensitive and wise. And I think Traditionis Custodes is pastorally insensitive and unwise, now and when it was first published three years ago.

This was a good piece by Dr. Chapp.  There are some loose ends.  That said, no limited essay can say everything or engage in explanations of every possible detail.

St. Pius V, pray for us.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us.