Sorry about the rant. I let my melancholic nature lead my thinking–kind of like Sarah Connor in T2 ranting about people like Miles Dyson creating deadly machines. I want to think I’m being fair, but evenly handing out judgments.
My main point is…the Mass’s liturgy and music and the church building’s art and architecture is a mini-catechism. Even if the Pope regularized “Pope Mike” and his bunch, it would not accomplish much. As most Catholics who go to Mass go to N.O. ones, those getting entertaining or people-oriented Masses and Mass buildings (though the Mass was made for the people, it was made for their souls and not the pleasure centers of the brain, though the latter is elevated if moved by the former) are getting a force working against any good that came from any Pope or bishop after Vatican 2. That needs to be cleaned up by anyone leading any body of the faithful.
I understand priests who feel afraid to run off their flock, but they’ve been leaving or practically making themselves "Pope Mike"s since the confusion of V2. I figure, priests, why not try tough love again? Try bringing people to the cross again. You might as well. In any case, if the priests are not going to do what’s necessary, the bishops should. If not they, the archbishop…and so on. All the Latin Mass communities together as licit and valid will not fix the problem, though Masses, reverently done and the people educated from their leader at the pulpit, would bring much more graces to the Earth.
Empathy with weakened priests is good. St. Francis would have done that. However, the people still need to be led and they need to be led with all their senses. They need the N.O. Mass and aesthetics done properly, catechetically-oriented, as they were, or they need to be all replaced by the Latin Mass and clergy (the former being retired or in some position where they don’t have to worry about pastoral issues) who are primed for feeding us with all the wisdom of the ancients of our Faith as well as Christ as the Eucharist. Empathy must also be given to the members of the Church’ souls. I can always go to Latin Masses and others can go to EWTN Masses, but many are lost and need to be regathered.
We all need the works. I think a mistake was made when it was somehow thought we could all be St. Francises in humble little unadorned chapels with possibly lousy singing (I don’t know if St. Francis or St. Clair had anyone with choir experience in the beginning) and a lot of simple sermons about love. Choosing to live their life would make them more attuned to graces that do not need all the art, architecture and truly soul-stirring music that does not bring attention to itself, but is part of the ambience. We, in our wear and tear mundane lives need our senses moved to understand certain things subconsciously and banners, people doing things meant to be done with minor orders, and the dropping of symbolic boundaries between the place for the offerer and the people–the whole people-centeredness are almost making a democracy out of a monarchy–God’s kingdom. The Mass and its surroundings are a mini-catechism.
The Buddhists understand the concept of sensed sacred space, the Muslims get it, the Hindus get it and even the high-Anglicans, who still have altar rails and gregorian chant, get it (well, they may not make places fancy on the outside in the city, but I snuck a quick look in a Buddhist place with its door open as I passed by and it looked pretty ornate–I certainly haven’t heard Buddhist rock coming out of any of their centers here in S. Korea)–why did we think ourselves above our psychological predisposition as everyday Joe and Jane-Catholic starting after Vatican 2? Obviously, the other religions and Christian faiths are in various shades of the dark, but they get that psychology, it seems. We still have Christ off the cross and/or with no cross in many places and, in some places, we might as well have the “Buddy Jesus” from “Dogma *”.
We wonder, then, how the homosexual movement, other promiscuity pushers and the naturists (probably plenty witches and shamans and their followers amongst them) is so strong in the world today. Many ex-Jews, ex-Catholics and ex-other Christians joined them or ok them uneducatedly or confusedly.
The Mass and the environment of it is a mini-catechism and the only one most will learn these days who have any Catholic beliefs in them. What have we all been taught? What in the world demands more respect and adherence–the ones God put in control or the so-called “rationalists”, their gatekeepers in big science, big business, big government, etc. and their master, practically or literally-speaking (depending on the individual)?*
