Catholics Get Back To Where They Once Belonged

I saw an interesting article while browsing the news on the Web today.  Buried among the stories regarding student protests (but are they, really?) and the trial of America's Trimalchio for payoffs to a porn star was a story which claims to describe the rise of traditional Catholicism in these Not-So-Very United States.  Can it be so?

Perhaps.  Those who've indulged me by reading this blog with some attention will know of my sentimental fondness for the ceremony and ritual of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as it existed before, and even for a time after, Vatican II.  It seems that others are fond of them as well, and miss them or seek in them something they've been unable to find in the bland proceedings which take place each Sunday hosted by the local churches.

It seems to me that something not necessarily bad, but stupefying, happened as a result of the reforms of Vatican II, in this country at least.  I don't pretend to any knowledge of what took place elsewhere.  But here it seems that Tom Lehrer was right when he said that the reforms were being made in an effort to make the Church "more commercial" (as he noted in introducing his song The Vatican Rag on the TV show That was the Year that Was).

There was the switch from the recitation of the liturgy in Latin to English, of course, but other reforms were made as well.  For example, the priest said mass on an altar, which consisted of something resembling a large table, facing those attending the mass.  Prior to Vatican II, the altar was as shown in the picture above and the essential portion of the mass devoted to the transubstantiation of the water and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ took place with the priests facing the altar with their backs to the worshippers.

The idea was, I think, to make the worshippers participants rather than observers and make the mass and the Church more popular, as it was believed people were leaving the Church.  So, the clergy was to encourage involvement of laypersons in arranging the ceremony, and did so.  Whether as a consequence of that or of the efforts of priests and clergy as well, the music accompanying the ceremony was replaced by other music considered more popular, and the language of the liturgy itself was changed, not merely to English but to an English it was believed would be more comprehensible and less challenging, in other words more "modern" than "old fashioned."

Perhaps it was an effort to make the Church more "popular" rather than more "commercial" but I think that the result was the same.  It seems to be an axiom of marketing of products in our economy that the pitch to sell be aimed at the "lowest common denominator."  A formula was arrived at for that purpose.  There was to be nothing unusual or exotic.  Songs sung and words used were commonplace, and sometimes even maudlin or cheesy.  Attending mass became more and more a like watching a sitcom, or to put it more kindly a drama of some kind.

Instead of becoming interesting to more and more people, the Church became less and less compelling, less worthy of interest.  It was much the same as everything else.  

What it seems the Church forgot, I think, was that people don't want religion to be like anything else.  There's an expectation that it be different.  There's a view that those of a particular religion should be distinguishable from others--that they form a community, devoted to certain beliefs.  This is desirable as it is establishes the difference between believers and others.  It makes the followers of a particular religion special.  The best way of making a religion and its adherents distinct and a separate, presumably superior, community is through ritual and ceremony.

It seems to me that the apparent tendency towards "traditional Catholicism" is a result of these expectations and desires.  The Tridentine (Latin) mass was certainly exceptional, and some (like me) probably think it remarkable and even inspiring.  The old music was beautiful and ornate, not mundane imitations of bad rock or country songs with references made to Jesus and love.  The ritual, the incense, the chiming of the bells, the solemnity of the Eucharist, must seem quite attractive now in comparison with the tepid performances which have been endured so long.

What I find concerning, though, is that "traditional Catholicism" which may be making a comeback includes old doctrine and forms which express not the beauty of the old ritual but the repressive aspects of the Church.  That women are now beginning to wear hats or little lace hair coverings as they did in Church before Vatican II seems to single them out due to their sex, and in an oppressive fashion.  Requiring that only men be priests, and they be celibate, is much the same in that respect; the claim that men only be priests because the Apostles were all men makes no sense.  They weren't women, true, but neither were they priests.  Early Christianity owed much to the participation of women and they were very involved in its spread.  Only later did it begin to imitate Judaism and reduce their status.

There are various problems with Catholic doctrine, and I would find a resurgence of belief in them disturbing, but I can understand why the old ritual and ceremony that distinguished the Church before Vatican II is seeming more and more attractive to religious believers.

Sancta Mater Ecclesia

Holy Mother Church, or Sancta Mater Ecclesia in Latin.  The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, just as it's said, also in Latin, in the interesting picture above.  Or, according to the inscription at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, built at the order of the Emperor Constantine and dedicated in 324 C.E. by Pope Sylvester I, omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput, the mother and head of all the churches in the city and the world.

Old Mother Church, in truth.  Quite old, really, as age is measured in human history.  As I've posted before, I have a sentimental fondness for it as it was at one time, during my youth.  It gave a certain joy to my youth, as we as altar boys said its God did as we went to God's altar, or if not joy a kind of distinction. 

It's curious how we refer to institutions, particularly those we look back upon in fondness, as "mother."  We call our old schools Alma Mater.  I suppose we can call Mother Church the same, as it can be said to have nourished us Catholics for a time.  But nourished us in what exactly?

It must be admitted that one thing Mother Church encouraged, probably throughout its long history, is reason, or more particularly reasoning, as it was developed before the Church came to exist.  That may seem an odd thing to say, given that the beliefs of Catholicism, taken literally, seem unreasonable.  That's likely why they often are not taken literally, particularly by those believers who reason or employ reason in its defense.

Regardless, though, I think it fair to say that the Church has always honored reason and reasoning.  The Church Fathers employed reasoning in condemning the pagans.  Tertullian, a lawyer, knew reasoning in the form of rhetoric at least.  That was a lawyer's tool, particularly in those times.  The Church Fathers, like Augustine, knew their philosophy (pagan, of course) well, and were educated in the manner in which ancient pagans were educated and had been for centuries.  The great pagan philosophers didn't take pagan religion literally, either.  Why should Christian philosophers?

So, I think the early Church soon abandoned the position seemingly taken by Paul, rejecting the "wisdom of the wise."  Instead, it accepted it; assimilated it, in fact, and made it serve the purposes of the Church.

I think its also fair to say that the Church has always honored culture, education, history.  It kept the wisdom of the ancients alive, through the work of its monks, even if they functioned as mere scriveners, patiently copying the great works of the past.  As a result it fostered great thinkers even during what are called the Dark Ages; Abelard, Duns Scotus, Aquinas, Bonaventure, William of Ockham; it's an impressive list.  It borrowed from the heathen as needed in order to do so, and so rediscovered Aristotle via learned Moslems.  Aristotle so impressed churchmen he was called "The Philosopher."  Thomas Aquinas famously modified Aristotelian thought so as to make it the foundation of Catholic philosophy--known as Thomism.  It still has its adherents today.

For these services Mother Church deserves honor.  I wonder, though, if in inculcating its sons and daughters with a love or reasoning, culture, history and education Old Mother Church gave her children the learning needed to lead them to think her cupboard of reason was, ultimately, bare, as that of Old Mother Hubbard was bare of nourishment.

Learning can be dangerous to a religion, especially when learning involves fostering the capacity to reason, to think logically, to ask questions.  Eventually, those questions address the fundamental premises of Catholicism and Christianity, e.g. the divinity of Jesus, Original Sin, Heaven and Hell, the Trinity, the redeeming character of the sacraments, transubstantiation.  What could be their justification?  How can they be justified, in modern times?  How could Jesus be both God and man?  What sense does the seemingly endless list of sins, so specific to human beings, and a belief in a God-man, make given the vastness of the universe and given that our world is such a tiny, tiny part of it?

To someone trained to reason, recourse to revelation and faith is unpersuasive.  It's a kind of resignation.

Mother Church certainly has managed to survive for centuries, so perhaps it hasn't arranged its own destruction after all.  Perhaps it hasn't undermined the fundamental beliefs which make it distinctive.  But it seems to me that it does, necessarily.  And so a choice must be made, to be Catholic by disregarding reason or accepting that fundamental beliefs or premises are not to be "taken literally."  But that, it seems to me, is to accept a Catholicism, a Christianity, which has lost all which makes it distinctive.