I completely agree with your post below, John. I’ve met — and seen on the Web — far too many Catholics who proceed on two false assumptions:
1. The “traditions of men” prior to Vatican II are praiseworthy merely because they are old.
2. It is impossible to be too rigid or legalistic.
In the case of #1, an example: I’m not against folk masses because I happen to prefer Palestrina. I’m against them because I think they’re not conducive to repentance or adoration — and thus they do not lead to true joy. (I use the term “traditions of men” not as an insult, but to point out that they are secondary things that flow from the central truths of the Faith.)
As for #2, it’s common to think that because you see lots of people err in one direction that it is impossible to err in the other direction. While I would not join the chorus of people who think the Church in the 1950s was a cauldron of cruel pathologies, neither would I say that it was a paradise. Doubtless, in many, possibly most respects, it was superior to our state today; however, something made millions of Catholics abandon their faith in the ’60s, so if the Church were perfect before Vatican II, then why did so many people leave?
As for the word “restoration,” I rather like the term. Our task is not to “turn back the clock” to make things as they were. Our duty is to consecrate this time and place to Jesus Christ — and though that will assuredly mean reviving forgotten practices and strengthening neglected ones, it does not mean that all things must be replicated. They need to be re-ordered; restored.
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Eric, I’m in agreement with you. I think, however, we’re in a phase of history where the reforms of Vatican II can be implemented properly. I don’t know any priests who want to roll the clock back. They do, however, want the excesses of the post-concilliar years to be stopped – particularly in the realm of liturgy, religious education, and fidelity to the magisterium.
“They” who “took away chant” and “smashed our communion rail” are not the authors of the council documents.
Sal —
The Council fathers should not be so easily excused. They are, in my opinion, supremely culpable. They not only drafted the Council documents: they went home and *implemented* the Council according to their intimate knowledge and understanding. And so here we are.
If the bishops (including the pope) who created and ratified the Council documents didn’t know what “true implementation” of the Council was supposed to look like, to whom shall we turn?
Truly, I wish I could see an invading restorationist army on the horizon, “laying waste” to the doctrinal and liturgical abominations we have inherited. No, I don’t see this invading army yet, but I think I can hear the drums …
oh, mr. culbreath, we can only pray!
Jeff –
Can you clarify what you mean by “liturgical and doctrinal abominations”?
In a nutshell, new is not bad, change is not bad, different is not bad. It’s the strict adherence of these to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church that make or break them. Some Catholic philanthropist ought to fund a program that distributes copies of the revised G.I.R.M. free to every Catholic in the U.S. and Canada, so those of us in the pews can get the final word from the Vatican on whether the things we are seeing in our parishes are in line.