June 2004 Archives

I know very little of Rembert Weakland, former Archbishop of Milwaukee, other than the controversy in recent years over the destruction and modernizing of his Cathedral, and his disgraceful resignation last year. Imagine my surprise when I encountered this article from the Feb. 20, 1999 issue of America, in which he gives what I would consider a very balanced account of the state of liturgical reform. Regarding liturgical music, this passage stood out:

Finally, one should mention the nature of the music and the disagreements about its quality after Vatican II. Some might say that this is only a matter of taste, but the church has always seen a deeper relationship between word and music that takes it out of the question of taste and puts it on the level of the very nature of liturgy itself. Unfortunately, most of the new music created for the liturgy has been and continues to be trite in both musical form and text, more fit for the theater and the pub than for church. Music is one area where the market has been in command and not the reformers. New music of limited value and with no one in charge of "quality control" keeps being introduced, so that there is little stability and a general ennui among the people. Children learn no consistent repertoire of liturgical music that belongs to the Catholic tradition and that will serve them for their whole lives. Are our people being asked to sing too much new music that does not enhance the nature of liturgy, that is of poor quality and that does not begin to form a standard repertory that will be long-lasting?

Music is but one aspect of the influence of contemporary American culture on the whole nature of liturgical worship. One could ask if the models injected into worship have kept in mind the specific nature of worship and the "sacred" qualities S.C. called for. Has music, instead, tended to be inspired by the theater, the concert stage and by models from entertainment and religious programming on television?

If he, whom I thought to be one of the most progressive-minded bishops around, is advocating stability in the Liturgy, maybe other progressives will see the wisdom in his advice. Once we can agree there ought to be stability in liturgical music, then we can have a meaningful discussion on what that stability ought to entail.

Father Robert Sirico reflects on those global figures during the 1980's, who had a clear moral vision.

In 1978, Karol Wojtyla, Krakow's philosopher-archbishop was elected pope, taking the name John Paul II.

In 1979, a shopkeeper's daughter by the name of Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of England.

And in 1981 a former actor became President of the United States.

These three towering figures, each with modest beginnings, ascended the world stage at a critical moment. Their common link was neither their respective nationalities, nor their faith tradition, nor even their politics. It was a common moral understanding that bound these three, uniting them in what seemed to some at the time a rather fantastical, even dangerous vision. Specifically, the pope, the prime minister and the president were clear about two things: the moral reprehensibility of communism and the moral necessity of replacing it with institutions of liberty.

Sandro Magister, in this article, discusses how Father Richard Neuhaus' influence figures heavily in President Bush's decisions on religious issues.

The novelty is that, for some time now, the most inner circle of Bush's collaborators has included a very authoritative Catholic priest. He is Fr. Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor, who converted to Catholicism in 1990 and was ordained a priest the following year by the archbishop of New York at the time, John Cardinal O'Connor.

Fr. Neuhaus is among the most respected theologians. Even better: he is both a theologian and a political analyst, a bit like Reinhold Niebuhr was for Protestant Americans during the mid-twentieth century. He directs 'First Things,' the leading magazine for Catholic neoconservatives, whose regular writers include George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Avery Dulles, all three of whom are well-respected in the Vatican.

This one's for Bill White. It's Peggy Noonan on what Margaret Thatcher sees as critical for the future:

Walking into a room in the Capitol Wednesday before dusk: A handful of people were standing together and gazing out a huge old white-silled window as the Reagan cortege approached down Pennsylvania Avenue. The sun was strong, like a presence. It bathed the women in glow. One was standing straight, with discipline. Her beige bouffant was brilliant in the sun. I approached, and she turned. It was Margaret Thatcher. It was like walking into a room at FDR's funeral and seeing Churchill.

The cortege was coming toward the steps. We looked out the window: a perfect tableaux of ceremonial excellence from every branch of the armed forces. Mrs. Thatcher watched. She turned and said to me, "This is the thing, you see, you must stay militarily strong, with an undeniable strength. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated."

To my son, whose 17th birthday was the next day, she said, "And what do you study?" He tells her he loves history and literature. "Mathematics," she says. He nods, wondering, I think, if she had heard him correctly. She had. She was giving him advice. "In the world of the future it will be mathematics that we need--the hard, specific knowledge of mathematical formulae, you see." My son nodded: "Yes, ma'am." Later I squeezed his arm. "Take notes," I said. This is history.

It's interesting she did not say it was in "computers" or "technology", or something like that. It tells me, based on her penetrating insight, the future is going to need a return to the basics, to the beginning. Interesting thought. I feel fortunate to have heard it.

At the risk of taking something out of context, and extending it to liturgical progressives, consider this:

I think the term "Progressive" is mistaken. More accurately the movement should be called "Dismissives". Homosexuality a grave disorder? Dismiss it. Abortion morally wrong? Dismiss it. Contraception? Dismiss it. Submission to church teachings? Dismiss it. Of course if homosexual acts were moral then contraception immediately becomes moral too. To progress in the Church you must build upon the foundation of what already exists, not rip it away to install your own.

Obviously, a "progressive" can take many different forms. I don't mean to say that liturgical progressives necessarily believe in all these errors, but the analogy is spot on.

To be specific, if Jeff doesn't mind me co-opting his expression, "Don't like the pipe organ? Dismiss it. Don't like chant? Dismiss it." It doesn't matter how many excuses there are, when you take a step back, this is pretty much the current state of liturgical affairs. From how many liturgical music directors have you heard, "You know, I really don't like chant, but I'm using it out of obedience to the Church." Instead, today, choice reigns supreme.

[Via Curt Jester]

Moving and full of meaning for all.

[Via Catholic Light]

In today's column by John L. Allen Jr., in the National Catholic Reporter, we read of the Holy Father's recent trip to Switzerland, at which the organizers of the Papal Mass were trying desperately to appear relevant to a society that is largely hostile to the message from Rome. It is interesting that the usually mild John Allen has this to say about their efforts:

The pop tunes at Mass and MTV-style presentations at the Saturday rally sometimes had an almost desperate feel, as if the Swiss were trying a little too hard to be relevant. Can a robust Catholic identity really be forged by mimicking the modes of expression of the larger culture? Or would the church do better to foster its own distinctive speech, prayer and devotions?

I wish those liturgists, who program music for our run-of-the-mill North American Masses each Sunday, would take a cue from a moderate's view of the Modern Mass Writ Large, as seen in the most recent Papal Mass.

I don't believe it's even a question of saying I'm criticizing the Pope by criticizing the organization of his Mass. I have a CD of a 1985 recording of a Papal Mass in St. Peter's Basilica - with Gregorian chant for the Propers and Mozart's Coronation Mass for the Commons. It's amazing how the recent Mass is totally unrecognizable compared to when he is on home turf. I'm sure the Papal entourage is not going to demand what should be obvious, so they are content with the best that the host country has to offer. Prudentially, I don't agree with that tack, but that seems to be the current policy.

In examining Sacrosanctum Concilium, the magna carta of twentieth century liturgical reform, we see many worthwhile initiatives being spelled out more or less explicitly. Some of it, of course, provided only general guidance, where details were to be fleshed out later.

But it is hard to imagine that, in some cases, those details would actually contradict the mandates given in the Constitution itself. Not that the Church contradicted Herself, but that many reformers seemed to have established some sort of informal consensus as to what they really wanted the Constitution to say. And thus they imposed a new interpretation on the historical document. This is sometimes known as the "Spirit of Vatican II".

In many places in the document (and many other Church documents, for that matter), you will find an assertion made or mandate given. This is to be the general rule, which is to be observed. Then, you will find some sort of explanation, which attempts to shed insight into the rule, or sometimes highlight those instances where exceptions might be made. Under the hypothesis that I propose, one will see those desiring to faithfully take up, accept and implement the given rule. I'll call these reformers "realists", for they accept the document at face value. There are, of course, others who do not accept the mandates at face value. They are the ones who make it a point to find reasons why the mandate should not be carried out. This is often found in the explanation of the mandate. I'll call these reformers "dreamers", because they go out of their way to dream up ways to neutralize and vacate the mandates given.

There is certainly a risk of over-generalizing, in what I am about to say. But I believe that unless general patterns are detected and brought to light, we may never sufficiently clarify the issues for those whose responsibility it is to know these things according to the mind of the Church.

You see, the paradigm, as I have called it, is like a touchstone or reference point. The "realists" use as a touchstone the text itself. This is why they often refer to it, because it states explicitly what they believe needs to be carried out in liturgical reform. The "dreamers", on the other hand, have their own touchstone. Whenever they hear of a mandate, they put it in the context of the paradigm they already have in mind. Thus, hearing that the Church mandates a particular practice can easily be overriden to them, because of some other statement used as their reference point.

Todd, of Catholic Sensibility, ventures into deep waters with this post on Traditionalists. I started responding to his last post in the teeny-tiny 1K comment box, but I found I had way too much to say. Thus, I brought the discussion here.

Don't get me wrong. I am one of the last who would want to put the current Pope to rest, but I was intrigued by today's column by John L. Allen Jr., in the National Catholic Reporter. In it, he outlines the three main issues that are currently dominating discussion in Vatican circles, and four alternative scenarios that could emerge from the next Conclave.

The three issues are:

1. Collegiality - how power is exercised and decisions made in the Catholic Church.
   
2. Evangelization - what pastoral strategy is best suited to revitalize Christianity in the developed world.
   
3. Islam - the Church's relationship to it; governed by two extremes - the Doves, who believe the Church must reach out to moderate centers of opinion, and the Hawks, who advocate a hard-line approach, because they say it is naïve to believe there is such a thing as moderate Islam, in terms of social influence.
   

The four alternative scenarios, which could result from the Papal election of a candidate with those views, are:

1. The Border Patrol - theological conservatives worried about the impact of relativism and secularization.
   
2. The Reform Party - support internal reform in the church along the lines they perceive indicated by the Second Vatican Council.
   
3. The Integralists - society should be ordered according to the teachings of the Church. The State should protect, fund and promote the Church, and the Church in turn blesses and demands obedience from the State.
   
4. The Social Justice Party - interest lies in social issues such as debt relief, globalization, and racial justice.
   

Of course, it's impossible to predict how the Holy Spirit will play out the events at that time. Ideas are still shifting and developing. Our best approach from the pews would be to pray that the Cardinal electors will be open to the Divine promptings Our Lord sends them.

As I await Todd's response in Catholic Sensibility to my open-ended question from a previous post, I continue to ponder the idea of progress, in general. I have just finished reading a book called Flee to the Fields, a series of essays from the 1930's, which discuss the fragility of the world economy, and the ultimate necessity of return in large numbers to rural life - for the stability of the family, sustainability of the economy, and a re-birth of Catholic culture. I'm at a point in my life where I was ready for it, so most of the ideas resonate quite readily with me right now. You may or may not agree with its central thesis, but I think it speaks to a great deal of the uncertainty and instability of the modern world. I'm not talking about technology per se, rather the industrial behemoth that produces it.

One of the ideas dealt with in the book is that of indefinite "progress". This commonly held ideal traces its roots at least as far back as Darwin's Origin of Species. Here are a couple of telling quotes from the book:

And here we touch the master delusion of the nineteenth century for which Ruskin's name "the elect pattern of perfect Folly, for a warning to the farthest future" (Fors V. 1871), no longer appears extravagant. The notion of Progress reached this pitch of inconsequence: man is descended from an ape; Venite adoremus. The last word thereon may well be Maritain's: "The idea of a necessary historical progress is not less contradictory, fundamentally, than the idea of a square circle. To speak of historic progress is in effect to speak of evolution in time; to speak of evolution in time is to speak of matter; but to speak of matter is to speak of radical appetite for the new, appetite for what is different, as such, and not what is perfect, and so the absence of necessary progress or of necessary tendency to the more perfect. The myth of progress is an excellent type of a pseudo idea, an idea at once 'clear' to our emotions and fundamentally false in itself" (Théonas, 1925, p. 127).

Another penetrating comment, made some ninety years earlier, by Lacordaire, the more remarkable as coming from one who hoped for a modus vivendi with Liberalism, is well worth recalling today. "Predestined as we are to enjoy the infinite, the infinite is our want, and we pursue it everywhere. Now, novelty is the only thing here below which gives us some sensation of the infinite. As soon as we have considered an object, we say: It is enough. Who will turn the page? Novelty turns it, and in turning it, disguises its feebleness to our intelligence by a false gleam of progress, which enchants us." (Jesus Christ, Eng. trans., 1875, p. 107).

Is the liturgical "progressive" infected with the same unquenchable thirst for novelty? Clearly, applying labels across the board does little justice, but it seems reasonable to me that those who advocate progressivism have received more than a little influence from the historical "progress" movement. Maybe, instead of some vague "progress" in liturgical music, we can try to coax out of the progressives precisely what it is they are progressing toward. Then, at least, we can start a dialogue on goals we have in common. I suspect, however, that progressives do not like being pegged down to a specific goal, because that would restrict their ability to make further progress after that; which would render them, in their mind, well, less "progressive".

Granted, according to the wisdom of the Council Fathers, some cautious progress needed to be sought in how we do Liturgy. However, I'm certain they did not advocate an open-ended, ongoing progression of changes.