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This is a great reflection on just how far the Traditionalist movement has come… Enjoy!
The Mansion of the Past Reopened
by Jeffrey Tucker
I was looking for a book and went to the website of the Oregon Catholic Press, and the following image appeared that just about knocked me on the floor. Keep in mind that this is the Oregon Catholic Press. It seems to recall the days when the same publisher was called the Catholic Truth Society.
With the passage of one year, we are beginning to see that the most substantial effect of Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum is not exclusively or even directly related to the liberalization of the Tridentine form of the Roman Rite. To be sure, this form is making a comeback in parishes and seminaries and cathedrals, and this is a glorious development. The pope brilliantly named the old form the “extraordinary form” and the new form the “ordinary form” and made it clear that they constitute two forms of the Roman Rite. With this change in language comes a kind of liturgical healing, one that reduces the distance that has artificially separated us from the liturgy of the past.
But the real implications here are more significant still. What Summorum has done is re-legitimate the whole of our Catholic heritage–in the broadest way with can think of that term–and free us from the deracination that had become common in the postconciliar years.
The banning of the past was not a policy. It was not a result of legislation. It was not instituted by any one group in particular. But it had become woven into the fabric of American Catholic life in subtle and deeply dangerous ways. In the tumult of the age, Catholics were not entirely sure what it is we were supposed to believe and do, but we were sure of this much: whatever we believed and did was different from what our ancestors in the faith did and believe.
The habitual sneering at the bad old days was the most predictable aspect of this period in which everything changed, and I don’t need to rehearse the details. Confession was different. Music was different. Liturgy was different. Theology was different. Morality was different. And in all these differences, it has been presumed that in all ways we are better off, more enlightened, more humane, and more advanced. Never mind that not a single piece of data seemed to back that view. Whether we looked at vocations, Mass attendance, family size, or the production of art in the postconcilar years, the presence of a new Pentecost has not been entirely obvious.
All Catholics have felt a grave form of discomfort all these years. The Mass that was displaced and then nearly suppressed was the center of Catholic life in the past. It made appearances everywhere in the art, the music, the theology, and spiritual writings. We would stumble upon an old Holy Card with a high altar and wonder whether it is really of any use today. We would find children’s books in used book stores and decide not to buy them because they featured priests facing liturgical East. The writings of the saints on the Mass didn’t seem as relevant to us since they seem to be talking about something we do not know or experience in our time. We would look at great musical compositions and wonder why the Sanctus is separated from the Benedictus and we would be tempted with the idea that this timeless music just isn’t viable in our day.
Even pictures of the past from our own parishes made us feel squeamish. What are these unusual vestments that the priests are wearing? What is that hat on the priest and is that even allowed today? Probably not. What happen to that altar that looks so beautiful and why was it replaced with this little table? Where did those altar rails end up, and is that stained-glass on the windows? It was hard for us even to look at all of this since it seemed like a period of time shut off to us.
The Mansion of the Past Reopened
by Jeffrey Tucker
I was looking for a book and went to the website of the Oregon Catholic Press, and the following image appeared that just about knocked me on the floor. Keep in mind that this is the Oregon Catholic Press. It seems to recall the days when the same publisher was called the Catholic Truth Society.
With the passage of one year, we are beginning to see that the most substantial effect of Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum is not exclusively or even directly related to the liberalization of the Tridentine form of the Roman Rite. To be sure, this form is making a comeback in parishes and seminaries and cathedrals, and this is a glorious development. The pope brilliantly named the old form the “extraordinary form” and the new form the “ordinary form” and made it clear that they constitute two forms of the Roman Rite. With this change in language comes a kind of liturgical healing, one that reduces the distance that has artificially separated us from the liturgy of the past.
But the real implications here are more significant still. What Summorum has done is re-legitimate the whole of our Catholic heritage–in the broadest way with can think of that term–and free us from the deracination that had become common in the postconciliar years.
The banning of the past was not a policy. It was not a result of legislation. It was not instituted by any one group in particular. But it had become woven into the fabric of American Catholic life in subtle and deeply dangerous ways. In the tumult of the age, Catholics were not entirely sure what it is we were supposed to believe and do, but we were sure of this much: whatever we believed and did was different from what our ancestors in the faith did and believe.
The habitual sneering at the bad old days was the most predictable aspect of this period in which everything changed, and I don’t need to rehearse the details. Confession was different. Music was different. Liturgy was different. Theology was different. Morality was different. And in all these differences, it has been presumed that in all ways we are better off, more enlightened, more humane, and more advanced. Never mind that not a single piece of data seemed to back that view. Whether we looked at vocations, Mass attendance, family size, or the production of art in the postconcilar years, the presence of a new Pentecost has not been entirely obvious.
All Catholics have felt a grave form of discomfort all these years. The Mass that was displaced and then nearly suppressed was the center of Catholic life in the past. It made appearances everywhere in the art, the music, the theology, and spiritual writings. We would stumble upon an old Holy Card with a high altar and wonder whether it is really of any use today. We would find children’s books in used book stores and decide not to buy them because they featured priests facing liturgical East. The writings of the saints on the Mass didn’t seem as relevant to us since they seem to be talking about something we do not know or experience in our time. We would look at great musical compositions and wonder why the Sanctus is separated from the Benedictus and we would be tempted with the idea that this timeless music just isn’t viable in our day.
Even pictures of the past from our own parishes made us feel squeamish. What are these unusual vestments that the priests are wearing? What is that hat on the priest and is that even allowed today? Probably not. What happen to that altar that looks so beautiful and why was it replaced with this little table? Where did those altar rails end up, and is that stained-glass on the windows? It was hard for us even to look at all of this since it seemed like a period of time shut off to us.
