There is an element of truth here - not reform for its own sake but because most things can be improved.
Yea, maybe that’s a good description of the attitude: We gotta “improve” most things. It involves a certain, um, self-confidence. Like, the world is so lucky we finally got here.
On the other hand, in a sense, the perpetual reformer’s attitude I’m talking about is just the essence of the modern: What’s “modern” changes constantly, but we all gotta be “modern.”
Again think you have a point - it’s like the way some people are curious and others are not.
Ha. Touché.
Problem comes when both perspectives do not respect the difference and/or the right to have the other perspective.
But, to my mind, the issue is precisely whether or not a certain attitude or perspective :re liturgy is legitimate or appropriate. It won’t do to just wave the magic wand of “tolerance” and, in effect, rule out my question.
When the questions have to do with authority to make certain changes, or how representative the reformers really are, “live and let live” doesn’t seem like a responsive answer, as the lawyers say.
Dont’ you think that you are going a bit far calling us “commissars”
Well. Yea. That was heavy-handed. It’s meant to be rhetorical dramatization of a certain kind of compulsion, where changes are forced on us in the name of “the people.”
Except in terms of religion. Would understand more if other changes/improvements that improve life were also resisted eg health advances, new technology.
I think that’s a very good question. Although I know I’m going pretty far afield, this is my (hurried) take on it:
We live in a society that idolizes the new:
- Science and technology are oriented toward experimentation and exploration.
- Commercial culture focuses on innovation and novelty.
- Modern arts are all about creativity.
- Our conception of human personality emphasizes individuality.
- A prevalent kind of politics is all about “progress.”
But, obviously, the problem with idolizing the new is that we end up undervaluing tradition, the ideas, “improvements,” and wisdom of people who came before us.
So, at one level the issue is: Which of those attitudes should we take toward the liturgy and the Church?
Is the progressive attitude, the perpetual reformer’s assumption that he can improve most things, appropriate when we think about liturgy or the Church? Or is a more humble attitude appropriate? Should I be in the posture of one who will teach the Church the latest thing? Or should I be trying to learn from our rich heritage? Should the norms of the culture we live in guide the Church? Or should the Church be the guide?
AFAIK, there’s only one institution in our society that doesn’t always worship at the altar of the modern chimera: our Church. It’s the only institution that allows us to understand ourselves as part of a continuous tradition that is thousands of years old (depending how one counts).
ASD
Traditional Latin Mass: Translation and Grammar
Inclusive language is kind of like the priest facing ad Orientem: nobody thought anything about it until some theologian coined the catch phrase, “the priest has his back to the people.” Now, whenever the subject comes up, that’s the stock phrase most opponents of the practice will use without even thinking. It wasn’t until radical feminists started stirring up their anti-male agenda in the universities and convents that most women even gave any thought to “mankind” being an exclusive term. Today, even non-feminists have been conditioned to feel uncomfortable using such terms.
But, it’s a terrible truth told in jest. Who knows what the next righteous reform will be? (It already seems like “family” is a word that has to be used in quotes to be sure everybody knows that it means just whatever.)
I say we start another revolution and reclaim the word feminism!