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Post by Askel McThurkill on Mar 12, 2013 14:21:00 GMT
Perhaps we just need to abandon name-calling. Didn't Benedict XV have something to say about qualifying one's Catholicism about 90 years ago?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 15, 2013 13:28:37 GMT
Well let me put a case regarding what is a "traditionalist" or not. I am constructing straw men here, but I am doing it to question a principle.
Take two Catholics, imaginery. One lives in Dublin and attends Mass at St Kevin's passing a couple of churches to get there. Aside from that, his observation does not ascend above the average Catholic observance. Another lives in rural Ireland, can't reasonably get to an EF Latin Mass, but goes to the Novus Ordo most days, says the rosary daily, perhaps makes a pilgrimage to Knock once a year, keeps the Friday penance and makes regular contributions to Catholic charity. Is one traditional and one not traditional just on the basis of the form of Mass one attends?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 27, 2013 10:38:46 GMT
Michael Davies is dead eight and a half years now, ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam, and I thought of him in the context of the New Atheists debating technique. Without question, no layman has done more to advance the cause of the traditional Mass since the Second Vatican Council as Michael Davies. At the same time, Michael would not measure up to many of the standards many do-nothing traditionalists have set for themselves. Rad trads eschew television; Michael was a TV addict. Rad trads have a poor view of imbibing intoxicating liquor; Michael was never far away from his next drink (I remember relating the story of St Macarius of Würzburg to him, which I did gratuitously. St Macarius was an Irish monk in the 10th or 11th Century and prior of the Schottenkloster in Ratisbon or Regensburg, appointed abbot of the Schottenkloster in Würzburg where Irish pilgrims visited the relics of St Kilian. Würzburg is in the heart of the wine producing Main valley, but the ascetical St Macarius changed the wine into water. Michael was horrified until he remembered that St David of Wales and his monks were known as 'watermen' because they didn't drink). US trads make a lot out of a dress code, though French don’t; I remember Michael telling a young American lady that she should get a pair of shorts for the Paris-Chartres walk like the French girls – when the girl said she didn’t for reasons of modesty, Michael said that was Jansenism. In the same context, I remember reading a chat group posting from a US rad trad about meeting Michael Davies and his family in sunny California in the 1970s – the damning comment was the fact Mrs Davies and her daughter were at the swimming pool in bikinis. At the same time, it was a frustration with moderate trads say in Una Voce America that Michael both wrote for and toured with the Remnant Newspaper. Michael privately advised people not to read the Remnant, but he wrote for it on the grounds it was better to keep the rad trads inside the tent. The criticism (by the FSSP as much as UVA) was that he lent the paper respectability. That would not have made a lot of difference to Michael. I think his approach to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei was heavily influenced by his understanding of Charles Stewart Parnell’s approach to Gladstone – that the PCED either dealt with him or Captain Moonlight (by which he meant the radical traditionalists). This is not necessarily a good strategy and one problem was that he created conflicting groups in a number of countries which didn’t necessarily help. He had a great sympathy for Ireland and the Irish, but he missed some of the nuances of dealing with Ireland. For example, his ‘You are a Celt and I am a Celt’ line was very reminiscent of his fellow countyman David Lloyd George’s approach to the Irish nationalists in the 1920s and we still remember that. His ability to interchange quickly between Welsh nationalism and British identity was something that not many Irish people and some of other nationalities found easy to take. When problems emerged between the LMSI and FIUV while he was president, his answer was to say it would be a pity if a dynamic organisation like the LMSI would leave the FIUV. The LMSI regarded this as flattery at the time, until it came to realise how little most FIUV member associations actually do. Michael did like to play to the gallery and to entertain. He regularly complained that married life was a life of misery, but he never lost an opportunity to match make among his friends either. I’m not sure he was only joking in this regard. Michael’s own family are hardly model Catholics. His son Adrian Davies was chairman of the British Freedom Party, a right wing group and for a number of years the barrister of choice of the far right, representing David Irving in one case. The LMS of England and Wales unwisely invited him to sign their petition to Pope Benedict in advance of Summorum Pontificum. Another son, Owen Davies, died in Belgium some years ago and was the centre of some bizarre litigation arising from the fact his girlfriend concealed his death from the Davies family for several weeks. But none of that was Michael’s fault. (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Davies )
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Apr 9, 2013 12:01:16 GMT
Maria Davies (Mrs Michael Davies) and her daughter Adrienne go to sunny California from rainy London in a rare holiday and - shock horror - they are seen around a swimming pool in bikinis? Maybe that is a scandal to Californian traddies, but what else do they expect? Swim burkas? Mrs Davies is a Croat. As such she probably has had a lot more experience of the Islamic world than US trads and therefore would have a different perspective on dress codes to those more isolated from this.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 10, 2013 11:51:14 GMT
I hesitate to write anything on this subject, given my ignorance, but I will make a few tentative remarks, since perhaps the view of a non-traditionalist (but certainly not anti-traditionalist) might be of interest. (Or maybe not.)
Being born in 1977, I never knew anything except the Ordinary Form. I can remember, as a child, the Lord's Prayer being sung to the music of a guitar and "Deliver us Lord, from every evil" being said by the priest over a woo-woo-wooo chorus. Even as a kid I laughed at this.
I only became aware of the EF in 2001 when one of my colleagues mention she attended the Tridentine Mass, as she described it. She was almost certainly a liberal Catholic and I think she went out of aesthetic considerations.
When I started attending Mass in 2010, I was extremely tentative and nervous, because I could barely remember the responses and genuflections from my childhood attendance at Mass. I think this self-consciousness could keep a lot of people from the Extraordinary Form.
I am glad that both forms exist, but I feel no particular urge to attend the EF, and I never have. The OF entirely satisfies me. I already feel like I am in communion with my co-religionists down through the ages, since every Mass is dripping with tradition as it is. And because the liturgy itself has evolved so much from the time of the primitive Christians. Finally, I feel rather more in communion with my fellow Catholics in Ireland and abroad, since the majority of them would be participating in this form.
I try to respectful of the Mass. I wear a suit on the Lord's Day, receive on the tongue, and don't join in applause during the sacrament, even when the priest invites us to. I avoid meat on Fridays, though my co-workers are often amused at the amplitude of my "penitential" lunch on Friday afternoons.
I prefer modern churches to old stone churches. Somehow, the modern churches seem more symbolic of a living tradition. I even like modern liturgical art, barring outright abominations. Catholicism is already ancient, don't new forms of expression merely emphasise its vitality?
So I don't know where I come on the traditionalist "graph"!
I feel sympathy towards those who think Catholic identity and (for want of a better word) otherworldliness should be strengthened. I do think Catholics are in danger of being "of the world" and I see nothing wrong in being more visibly and markedly different. There was an article in the Irish Catholic this week in which the writer makes Catholicism out to be a sort of bohemianism for free spirits. "Slowly I was drawn into the Catholic community. Here was a place where monks drank beer, priests smoked like chimneys and filthy jokes were at a premium. It wasn’t hypocritical, just human." That seems the wrong spirit to me (not that there's anything wrong with monks drinking beer, of course). All I am trying to say is that, though I understand the concerns aired in this thread and in others, of slipping into Jansenism and Pharasaism, I think most Catholics face the opposite danger and that we could do with some more rigorism.
Perhaps my musings here are completely missing the point, in which case I apologize.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 11, 2013 8:13:16 GMT
Maolsheachlann basically illustrates my point. The EF Latin Mass is an external manifestation of traditionalism - and in some cases, it may go no farther than that. In the Irish context, people are unlikely to go to any regular Mass outside Dublin on aestethic grounds (the Benedictines in Stamullen do chant beautifully, but are a bit off the beaten track). But people of otherwise liberal sentiment go to St Kevin's to hear the Lassus Scholars, while some real traditionalists stay away on those Sundays.
To be honest, I think there are many who go to ordinary form Masses who are internally much closer to what traditionalism is or ought to be than many who go to the OF. The Friday abstinence, to me, is one key point in the matter and I think that EF congregations are only a little more aware of its importance than those at OF Masses.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 11, 2013 15:06:41 GMT
I would say the EF is more than an external manifestation, and here are some reasons why people are drawn to it: (1) It's a link to the Church's living history - admittedly the OF is that too, but there are features of the EF which are not in the OF which bring this out (e.g. the knowledge that we are following the very same words and practices used by past saints). Note I say the Church's "history", not "past", which implies something over and done with. This is one reason why many liberals hate the EF - they assume everything is historically conditioned, so that the pre-modern can have no value for modern people. (2) It's not all on the surface - it inspires an awareness that you won't get it all first time - it has to grow on you and you have to explore it. Again, while the same is true of the OF it's not so immediately apparent. (3) Perhaps this is included in the last two - it emphasises the transcendent, the idea of reaching for Something outside time and beyond our personal experience. (Again, there is a corresponding reason why some people hate the EF - because they believe the liturgy and the faith should be remoulded at will to accord with people's perceived needs and desires, and to limit this process amounts to oppression.) The problem with Maolseachlainn's view, a trad would say, is that simply accepting what is there without reference to its connection with what has gone before leaves you vulnerable to being thrown around every time some arrogant little liturgical dictator decides to impose his own will on how MAss is celebrated locally or more widely. HERE is a specimen of the liturgical dictatorship I have in mind, in an article in NEW BLACKFRIARS magazine which the ACP recently posted on their website as an example of desirable forward-thinking. (Separate links for the article and the comments). The author's recommendations include (1) ALL churches must be remodelled to meet his liturgical specifications (i.e. the altar to be replaced by a centrally-located table with the congregation sitting round it), irrespective of cost or the congregation's wishes (2) The practice of communicating with hosts not consecrated at the mass being celebrated must be strictly forbidden (and thus, by implication, any form of extra-liturgical eucharistic devotion also). (3) The Mass must be based on what the congregation actually see and experience for themselves and not on a significance which has to be explained to them beforehand (this implicitly rules out any element of mystery and erodes the Real presence to vanishing point). The author is adamant that no exceptions to his nostrums must be permitted, because he says what he is advocating is the only real meaning of Vatican II because he sez so (anything in the Vatican II documents or post-Vatican II practice which contradicts this is explained away as transitional arrangements which must now be discontinued) and "it is necessary to take jackhammers to theologies just as it is necessary to take them to churches". If you want to know why trads of a certain age are bitter about Vatican II this hypocritical display of authoritarianism in the name of popular participation and quasi-heresy in the name of authenticity is a good place to start. www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2013/03/eucharistic-celebrations/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2009.01322.x/pdf
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 11, 2013 19:26:43 GMT
"It's a link to the Church's living history - admittedly the OF is that too, but there are features of the EF which are not in the OF which bring this out (e.g. the knowledge that we are following the very same words and practices used by past saints)"
I do understand the appeal of that.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 19, 2013 8:45:42 GMT
That is all true, but the traditionalist focus is on Trent and its aftermath, with little appreciation for the 1500 years of variations in liturgy, theology and spirituality before, for all the mediaeval fantasies discussed elsewhere.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 22, 2013 20:52:09 GMT
I'm not sure some trads even go as far back as Trent. A lot of them model themselves uncritically on the nineteenth-century ultramontane revival; you see this particularly with those who want the OF suppressed and the EF to be the only form permitted. This was a fairly widely-held though officially disapproved view before Vatican II, and was shortsighted then; to take it up now is beyond lunacy IMHO. These people have learned nothing from the bitterness created by the suppression of the EF and traditional devotions by diktat - their only objection to such diktats is that they are not the dictators
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 25, 2013 8:07:51 GMT
I agree with Hibernicus that a lot of the trad movement is focussed on a 19th century ultramontanism which they call traditionalism. Throw in mediaeval fantasies around an idea of monarchism which owes more to the 17th century age of absolutism, and you have most of the ingredients to the ideology.
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Post by rogerbuck on Apr 25, 2013 9:55:42 GMT
I agree with Hibernicus that a lot of the trad movement is focussed on a 19th century ultramontanism which they call traditionalism. Throw in mediaeval fantasies around an idea of monarchism which owes more to the 17th century age of absolutism, and you have most of the ingredients to the ideology. While I see considerable truth in this, I am interested in the deep questions that it raises. First: why should this particular period exert such a hold on the Traditionalist movement? And second, what the 19th century Ultramontane revival really was at its core? Was it simply a reaction to the French revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848 etc) and other revolutions? Or was it something far more profound than reaction which led to the astonishing papacy of Pius IX, Vatican I, Paul Cullen's astonishing impact on Ireland ... These are genuine questions in my heart: what it really was and why it continues to exert this influence. Yes - why should this particular stage in the history of the Church so fascinate today. Hibernicus speaks of trade who "model themselves uncritically" ... I do agree with the need for critical reflection, but I think critical reflection is also needed as to the strange, enduring fascination here and what may lie behind it.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 25, 2013 11:16:56 GMT
Certainly Ultramontanism was a reaction to the French Revolutionary period and it in turn glorified the Ancien Regime, which was far from unproblematic.
In relation to Cullen specifically, his family experiences of the 1798 Rebellion in Prosperous (a village in Co Kildare) and his own experience during the Roman Revolution of 1848 impelled him along that path, though he had some of his own independent policies (eg, he preferred the dis-establishment of the Church of Ireland rather than the proposal of co-establishment where the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland would both be established, which seems to me to be a compromise that the Syllabus of Errors would have preferred).
The period does need deep reflection.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 25, 2013 17:42:51 GMT
Ultramontanism didn't necessarily glorify the Ancien Regime - it started from the view that the subordination and corruption of the church by the Ancien regime had brought about the revolution. The big divide (to oversimplify) was between those who thought that the answer was to regenerate the ancien regime as a new sacred monarchy deferring to the Pope, and those who thought that the Church should appeal directly to the people and seek to evangelise and regenerate the new democracy - Ireland, particularly O'Connell, was often seen as exemplary by the latter group. (I might add that idealisation of the old regime is also to some extent a C20 phenomenon, given new scope after the fall of so many European monarchies in 1918.) There is a big argument about how far Cullen simply extended innovations which were already taking place in the earlier nineteenth-century; his Dublin predecessor Daniel Murray was certainly a builder of infrastructure and promoter of new devotions. One external factor which assisted ultramontanism was the development of new communications technology (railways, steel-plate printing etc) which made it much easier to organise mass pilgrimages, disseminate devotional literature, publish Catholic newspapers to spread the word about developments etc. Before Pius IX I suspect the vast majority of Catholics worldwide would have very little idea of what the current Pope looked like or his personal characteristics etc - they would have believed in the Pope in the abstract, but not with the sort of individual devotion we have seen since. As I have noted elsewhere on this thread, there was more similarity between C19 French and Irish Catholicism than is often realised, given that the French church's infrastructure and revenue base were to a considerable extent swept away by the Revolution, and the experience of martyrdom and resistance gave new determination to those who survived. One reason for the persistence of the C19 revival is that its achievements were so great it is easy to overlook its faults, especially when one contemplates the faults of our own secular modernity. Another is that C19 publications are still easily accessible in ways earlier literature is not.
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Post by rogerbuck on Apr 26, 2013 7:50:36 GMT
There are illuminating responses to my questions here and I am grateful for them.
I think I need to be a bit more transparent. In the above comments about ultramontane 'ideology' and "uncritical" reflection, I had a concern that may be expressed with that old adage about the baby and the bathwater.
There is no doubt plenty of uncritical, ideological 19th century bathwater here, but I think there are still further factors that are not being given enough attention.
In the spirit of further transparency, I will admit concern that I shall sound uncritical, wooly or mystical if I name them.
But I will try to at least hint by the saying the following.
While I feel that Alaisdir's and Hibernicus' analyses are excellent at a certain level, I fear that another level is being missed.
That level, for me, would factor in, for example, the profound effects of the post-revolutionary Marian Apparitions, with the Blessed Virgin weeping for the modern world (and in the Rue du Bac, Our Lady speaking with evident pain/horror about the 1830 revolution in France).
With that I would also factor in the new, profound emphasis on the Sacramentals that arose as a consequence.
I think of Miraculous Medal. In saying this, I am well-aware that I shall be lambasted by those of a modern critical persuasion as being "magical" "atavistic" "archaic" "superstitious" etc ...
But if Our Lady appears in the Rue du Bac 1830 weeping for the Fall of the French monarchy and imploring the wearing of a medal ...
And then untold millions start wearing that medal ...
Are we supposed to think that such a factor as this is of no consequence?
These things became powerful factors, I think, in the 19th century Ultramontane revival - and perhaps impacted Ireland more than anywhere else.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart is another factor.
Again, I am not so much arguing with the analysis given above by Alaisdir and Hibernicus. In a succinct space, it is truly excellent regarding the political and sociological factors.
My point is that there are other factors, which too many today - myself included! - fear to speak for fear of being ridiculed as "magical".
What I would like to see are approaches that combine the rigour of the above analyses with an openness to the intervention of heaven in the 19th century through Our Lady and the massed supplication to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
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