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Jon_S_1
Guest
Are you saying Pope Francis has abandoned traditions at the expense if the faith?
As if him choosing to not wear red shoes , or to live in a small dormitory is somehow crushing people’s faith?
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As if him choosing to not wear red shoes , or to live in a small dormitory is somehow crushing people’s faith?
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
Never seen Fiddler on the Roof?
[Opening lines] A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay here if it’s so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!
Because of our traditions, we have kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything: how to how to eat, how to sleep, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered, and always wear a little prayer-shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is, and what God expects him to do.
Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as… as… as a fiddler on the roof!
[Opening lines] A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay here if it’s so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!
Because of our traditions, we have kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything: how to how to eat, how to sleep, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered, and always wear a little prayer-shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is, and what God expects him to do.
Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as… as… as a fiddler on the roof!
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TheresaLS
Guest
I never mentioned or thought about Pope Francis…please be careful of assumptions. For me manner of dress or dwelling is important. God bless, Jon.
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TheresaLS
Guest
Michael…I love it. Thank you and God bless!!!
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Jon_S_1
Guest
Not assuming just clarifying !
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YoungTradCath
Guest
I don’t think it’s crushing people’s faith (I hope not) but the Pope did not make those decisions out of a seeming contempt for tradition or indifference to his duties and/or expectations as a Pope. Rather, I think he made them because of a prudential choice, he being a religious. I think the only reason he wears the papal cassock is because he is a Jesuit and Jesuits wear what the clerics around them wear usually. If he were a Dominican I would fully expect that he would have chosen to wear his habit with a white zuchetto.
The reason things change is at least as important as what actually changes. (There are also other considerations as well.)
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ProVobis
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oldcatholicguy
Guest
You do realize your above pretty much compares the value of the EF to the shoes that the Holy Father wears. I’m not really a “fan” of the EF (“fan” defined as- the EF not fulfilling my personal spiritual needs as well as the OF; any definition concerning if the EF should be used/etc is too far above my “pay grade” for me to have any other opinion than “my opinion is the same as the Church’s”), but I do know that it is far more important than what color of shoe the Holy Father decides to wear.
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TheresaLS
Guest
I think what is bothersome,** in my personal experience**, is that to many progressive the shoes are a signal that will finally bring the Church into the year 2013. These changes are the same that are destroying our country…again this is MY personal opinion.
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oldcatholicguy
Guest
That’s my personal experience as well with regards to what some individuals are thinking, but I think most of them will eventually realize the Holy Father isn’t who they think he is and isn’t doing what they think he is doing. Give them some time and the “politics, my personal views > the Church and her teachings” individuals will realize that the only thing “worse” for them would be a Franciscan Pope who took the Papal name Ignatious.
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Jon_S_1
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Rich_C
Guest
It wasn’t always so. Until a couple of generations ago, Catholics protected tradition and changed things very reluctantly, if at all. Only a few generations ago (ca. 1941), Archbishop Fulton Sheen could say in an educational video on the Mass that nothing had ever been removed from the Mass.
The point of protection all the "little t"s was that together, they protected the big Ts. When the Church changed the vast majority of the little ts in the 20th century all within a few years, it devasted the western Church.
So they are certainly not pointless. Saints have died to protect them, because they help protect the core Faith.
That said, papal ceremonies (in my humble opinion, and I’m excluding papal Masses when I say this) are some of the least important traditions. The ones that matter most are the ones that everyday laypeople used to have contact with on a daily/weekly/annual basis. Those helped keep the Faith vibrant and were teaching opportunities for the young.
Modern electronic communications have blown the pope’s everyday actions out of proportions, but the little ts of home and parish live are needed more than ever. We ought to bring them back. My family and parish is doing just that.
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TimothyH
Guest
I challenge the idea that change in the Church is always slow, that it must be slow, and that it should be done reluctantly. Many things changed in the Church very rapidly.
The introduction of active religious took about 12 years to go from nothing to thousands of Friars all over Europe. Aristotlean Philosophy was introduced within one generation. Before that theology was monastic, based on prayerful meditation on scripture.
Many traditions changed very rapidly. Rapid does not mean bad.
-Tim-
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
The little t, can help us to keep our balance by reminding us who we are and what God expects of us. But that does not mean all traditions are helpful. The Pope’s red shoes???
And it is always helpful to actually know where the traditiosn originate and why we still keep them. That was the beauty of Vatican II. But we get comfortable with tradition, good and bad, so it is not easy to reform it.
Fish on Fridays, hardly an act of penance. But it became linked to our identity. It helped tell us who we are. But it was good to look back at its original purpose and see that ther are even more significant ways to do penance.
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Rich_C
Guest
Sometimes new things are added in a pretty short time, after they’ve been proven–the abandonment or altering of existing structures was a slow process, however.
Your examples do prove that sometimes new ideas did gain ecclesiastic acceptance in a short time. However, I would propose that in both examples you found, the average laity or even priest of the 13th century would have been almost or totally unaware of those changes for maybe a century after they were introduced, however much they turned Assisi or Cologne upside down.
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Avila123
Guest
Sorry if you thought I was for dumping traditions, I was really against getting too preoccupied with some of the traditions to the extent that it appears that God gets a bit sidelined. As an example, what is the problem if a UK Diocese has Masses in languages that reflect the needs of the congregations? Tradition isn’t lost in that the Mass went from Greek to the vernacular Latin so that people could understand the beauty of it and give due reverence? If someone only accepts the Body of Christ on the tongue and/or from the Priest, I believe in respecting and not questioning their choice. That was what I was getting at. Certainly if someone just made it up as they went along, ignoring Church teachings and guidelines, that is not dumping tradition, that is going completely off track.
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TimothyH
Guest
Francis and Dominic had thousands of friars all over Europe within one generation. The Franciscans were not a phenomena local to Assisi only. The same is true for the introduction of Aristotlean philosophy - universities all over Europe started offering classes in philosophy, seminaries started teaching it and books started to be written very quickly. It was not something which happened only in one small place.
And what about the tradition of the permanent diaconate?
The permanent diaconate was a tradition in the Church which slowly faded out of existence over a 500 year period and lay unused for 1000 years. The tradition of a robust permanent diaconate was restored suddenly in 1967. People in many places reacted extremely negatively but 45 years later few would say that the permanent diaconate is a bad thing.
-Tim-
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YoungTradCath
Guest
In these conversations it is very easy to push things to absurdity by using specific examples. I am speaking more generally. Of course no one would argue that the Pope’s red shoes are wonderfully important–although if a Pope is not a religious then I don’t see why not to wear them–but I mean an overarching attitude of, “Change change CHANGE,” that can be quite rude and rabid.
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ProVobis
Guest
It seems people who are in want of change are the ones who are “preoccupied.” If you take tradition/custom at face value, you just accept things the way they are if for no other reason they have always worked for you. Chances are you won’t even think about them.
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JReducation
Guest
Common’ folks . . . the person is asking a legitimate and intelligent question. But the answers are all over the place and some of them reflect personal opinions rather than solid theology and ecclesiology.
Sacred Tradition, which is what St. Paul is talking about whenever he speaks about what he has handed down to the Churches and to individuals does not change. It is what it is.
All of the other traditions that you mentioned and many that you did not mention came into existence through the process of ecclesiological evolution, as St. Bonaventure would explain it. He did not use the term evolution. That’s my term. He used the term, “theology of history”. Meaning that as history goes along, Truth finds different ways of expressing itself in a way that preserves Tradition (that which was handed down by the Apostles); but opens new paths that allow man to enter into the mind of God. Bonaventure uses St. Francis of Assisi as an example.
It’s actually a very good example. Until 1209, there were two forms of male religious life, monastic and canonical. Francis eschews both traditions. He bans the use of the choir, the use of Gregorian chant during the LOTH. He asks the pope for a form of the mass that is simpler than the form in use at that time and the pope grants it by giving him a missal that would later become what we know as the Tridentine Mass, which a little touching up. He banned abbots from our religious houses. He banned distinctions between priests and brothers. Everyone was a brother. He banned the cloister. He banned stability, which St. Benedict and St. Augustine has defended. Everyone had to be on the move, except for Clare and her nuns. He banned silence, which Benedict and Augustine had defended and the Church had practiced for about 700 years. He admitted married people to his order. He sold missals, chalices and other items to feed the poor. He moved the tabernacle from the side chapel, which Benedict had insisted on and the Church had upheld for about 700 years. Francis placed the tabernacle in the sanctuary front and center. So you see, the tabernacle front and center is NOT a Catholic tradition. It’s a Franciscan tradition that many cultures adopted. Today people fight over it as if it was handed down by the Apostle Peter himself.
To use the words of St. Bonaventure, throughout history, the Holy Spirit raises up men for the good of the Church. Very often, these men will introduce things or do away with things that at the moment may look unorthodox or contrary to tradition, but with the passage of time, no one realizes that there was a time when this was not there and the Church begins to benefit. Take the changes that Francis introduced to the consecrated life, to the liturgy and to the sanctuary. Who today would argue that it has not benefited the Church?
If it did not benefit the Church, then why are so many people up in arms about putting the tabernacle back where St. Benedict and St. Augustine has originally placed it, in a side chapel? If it did not benefit the Church, how would Christianity have spread to the New World, since it was friars who brought it here? If it did not benefit the Church, how did the Church find its way into the halls of higher education at Paris, Oxford, Salamanca, Padua, Rome when it was the Franciscans the first to become professors and chairs at these great universities?
None of the above was ever dreamed of by Benedictines or Augustinians. It was Franciscans and later Dominicans who joined them. But the Dominicans kept many of the monastic customs such as the monastic LOTH, which Franciscans did not keep. They replaced the monastery with a priory, which Franciscans did not do. They replaced the abbot with a prior, which Francis condemned. There are to be no priors. All superiors are to submit to the voice of the governed.
This is just one of many things that have happened in Church history that stirred people up, but as time passed, people forgot how it all began and simply took it for granted.
The same too will happen with the pope’s red shoes, female alter servers, CITH, mass in the vernacular or any of these other practices. If they are of benefit to the future of the Church, God will act through history and preserve these things and future generations will no longer ask “Why?” They will become natural to them. Whatever is not beneficial to the future history of the Church, God will simply allow it to die. But we don’t know what God has in mind for the future. So, as Bonaventure teaches us, we submit with grace and trust to the will of the Magisterium and wait for the God of history to act through history.
That’s the theological answer to this person’s question.
If anyone is interested in more, I suggest reading such works as:
The Journey of the Soul Into the Mind of God by Bonaventure, Theology of History In St. Bonaventure by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger or The Development of Christian Doctrine by John Henry Newman.
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