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JMJ
Rorate has posted an article by a Mr. John Byron Kuhner titled: “The Church’s Newman Problem” (link). The full article is worthy of a good read as it points out something that I observed as a then young Jesuit under went something of a transformation.
A little bit of back story.
The priest came into contact with a number of traditional Catholics (SSPX and Non-SSPX) in the years pre-dating Summorum Pontificum. He agreed to say the Tridentine Mass for a group and the bishop got wind of it. Within short order a message was passed from the Diocese to the Jesuit Provincial to the Priest in question. The message ordered him to:
- Breaking all contact with anyone attending the SSPX.
- Cease saying the Tridentine Mass.
Even Summorum Pontificum didn't alter the situation. Around that time I spoke with a parish priest (RIP) who was told by the Bishop that if he didn't stop lobbying ... I don't think he was saying the Mass yes ... for the Tridentine Mass, he would be sent packing back to his order. He didn't understand why the Bishops were so afraid of the Tridentine Mass.
Then Universae Ecclesiae was published giving the Laity the ability to bring their bishops before an Ecclesiastical Court. Within two weeks I (along with a number of other SSPX trads sprinkled throughout the room) attended a meeting with two Archbishops, eager to see how they were going to spin the SP and UE. I had heard that some faithful had contacted a canon lawyer to start proceedings, when the Bishops called the meeting.
After the meeting the young Jesuit told a small group of us that he was now allowed to speak with us and say the Latin Mass. Thus began a transformation. A short while later the Diocesan Latin Mass, despite attempts to keep it quiet, had filled its little church to capacity. The eruption of Catholicity expanded to include a Corpus Christi procession. All this seemed to be tolerated, until shortly after a Marian Conference was held in the city. A friend attended the conference and told me that, as part of his presentation, the young Jesuit said to those assembled, "You should be worshipping this way!". Meaning the Tridentine Mass.
For me this reflected the way the Tridentine Mass transforms those who say it. It was also the death knell for this work. Although he claims otherwise, shortly after the Jesuit was moved out of that parish and a series of different priests were rotated in to say the Mass.
Traditiones Custodes is simply this experience at the level of the Catholic Church. The problem with the Tridentine Mass is that it makes obvious what has changed in the liturgy and that begs the question what else has changed?
Here's some extracts from the Rorate-Caeli article:
It may not be so easy to go back to life before Summorum Pontificum, however.
The presence of the Latin Mass, in other words, has driven interest in what went wrong with the reform.
The problem is this: to be deep in the history of the reform is to lose much of one’s affection for the New Mass.
One of the most distressing recent developments was Pope Francis’s comment in Desiderio Desideravi: “I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do so — and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium.” In other words, the Pope, with a staff of liturgists and ghostwriters, is not even willing to address what his own predecessor called “the problem of the new Missal,” which, Pope Benedict stated, “lies in its abandonment of a historical process that was always continual, before and after St. Pius V” – precisely the thing which so attracted Newman to the Roman Catholic Church. Benedict continues: “I can say with certainty, based on my knowledge of the conciliar debates and my repeated reading of the speeches made by the Council Fathers, that this does not correspond to the intentions of the Second Vatican Council.”
In other words, we have a Newman problem. We have a Christian tradition broken in the name of a Via Media with immediate appeal but insufficient depth. We have people deeply versed in the history of the reform who find themselves intellectually compelled to admit that the liturgical reform was botched, and the Church lost something of importance as a consequence of it. And we have intellectuals crossing the Tiber to unite themselves with the Rome of tradition, and finding the pope on the other side, vehement in his opposition to them, and refusing even to engage with their concerns.
Looking back over the decades, I realized that the Roman strategy for the Tridentine Mass and practically all divisive Doctrines and Dogmas was revisionist.
In summary, the Second Vatican Council is like the Big Bang. There was nothing before it. We have always worshipped in a manner akin to the Novus Order Missae (i.e. New Mass) and always believed according to the post Vatican II spirit.
Only, V2 wasn't the spiritual "Big Bang" that the majority of the hierarchy seems to think it was, it was more of a neutron bomb that was an attempt to kill all spiritual life while leaving the structures in place.
Fortunately, neither V2, nor the New Mass were successful. There is still vestiges of a Catholic spiritual life in the decimated old structures of the Catholic Church and a thriving spiritual life in new structures of the Catholic Church ... of which we have to include the SSPX. Yes, you read correctly, the SSPX is a structure of the Catholic Church. The SSPX was founded canonically and is a work of the Catholic Church, even if they have attempted to disown it upon numerous occasions (in spite of what M. Voris et al think link).
P^3
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