The FBI memo specifically stated that the Mass ritual was not the thing that made for a radical traditionalist, but that it merely made a person a traditionalist. That has gotten mostly lost and forgotten.
To add the "radical" part, you'd have to also be against abortion, or the LGBTQ+, or affirmative action. Which I suspect is the real reason the Republican representatives got active on behalf of a tiny percent of a minority of the country. Practically all of their constituents (along with all faithful Catholics) were being implicitly targeted.
With all charity Ed, and I say this as a secular lawyer barred in DC as well as other places, if you're going to have to make big speeches about how you covered a Mass strictly as a journalist in order to sidestep around your swearing to uphold canon law as a canon lawyer, then don't attend the Mass next time. Send another reporter who isn't a lawyer. A Catholic should ALWAYS be attending Mass with the primary intent of worshipping Our Lord Jesus Christ. The TLM has enough issues currently without you joining the group to throw it under the bus.
> A Catholic should ALWAYS be attending Mass with the primary intent of worshipping Our Lord Jesus Christ
What about the Masses at a normal parish that have a security guard or on duty police officer doing their job in the back? It doesn't happen often but for example there were some fraught times in blue cities around the RvW overturn and I saw visible police presence at a local weekend Mass then as a deterrent. Should only the non-Catholics take that job?
Security guards, ushers etc clearly have a role to play in hosting the Mass and when they are Catholics I always see them participating to the extent their duties allow. They don't say afterwards "I didn't participate in this at all, I was just standing around." And they don't have the same motivation Ed does as a canon lawyer who still wants to report on this, not only from the likely good motive of informing the Catholic public, but also from the economic motive of getting clicks and hits for his publication.
The Pillar isn’t based on “clicks and hits” though, it’s a subscriber-based model, as I’m sure you know. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Ed was throwing the TLM under the bus by expressing some valid criticisms in this podcast, which he didn’t do in the actual article reporting the event. There was more analysis here and expressing opinions and judgments, which I think is fair, but I also thought the reporting in the original article was fair and straightforward in presenting the facts.
I thought this was a great episode, and I appreciated the context of discussing the real choice to have a traditional Latin Mass on the anniversary of the Richmond memo instead of any number of other options that you both mentioned, that would have brought a lot more light to the traditionalist community targeted in the memo. I don’t know how the Arlington Latin Mass group got involved in planning this, but it sounds to me like that group (or individual involved with the group) took what seems like a good-faith effort by Speaker Johnson to make amends for the memo and turned it into an opportunity to show up Cardinal Gregory and win a battle in the liturgical wars. That doesn’t make traditionalist Catholics look great.
I tend to share Ed's perspective on this although I haven't been able to articulate it quite as well. I think that although both sides say "This isn't about validity! We promise!" The very act of promulgating law or breaking it (depending on the side) communicates that this is actually about something core to the validity of the Eucharist or the integrity of the Church. It also feels like a very Protestant way of dealing with things, which I thought I left behind when I joined the Church.
To be clear, I don't think that is what someone is saying with their actions when they attend a sanctioned TLM. But I do think it applies in this case.
Why are trad Catholics willing to go to the mat for the TLM? From what I've seen as a Novus Ordo guy, evangelism of their children and the next generation. Look at the horrendous faith retention at Novus Ordo parishes, even good ones, and parents are desperate for a form of faith that "will take." They are also desperate for a church community where people care about and love one another in everyday life, something that is also strikingly lacking from your average Novus Ordo parish. When they find it, and they come to believe that the praxis of their new faith community seems to be related to the liturgy, they are extremely loath to give it up. Most are even willing to defy the bishop, given that bishops have a terrible reputation for not caring about the souls, let alone the bodies, of children. IMO, this is why there is a rather large overlap between charismatic Catholic and TLM communities (tradismatics): they care a lot about the evangelization of their children, far, far more than the bishops, who basically hate them and would seemingly prefer that they and their children left the Church.
I'd strongly recommend Ed watch Mass of the Ages and talk to young TLM supportive priests about what differences they found once they began celebrating the TLM. Even as a Novus Ordo attender, I can tell that it runs far deeper than ascetics, even when celebrated in a conference room.
Thanks for this. I too primarily attend OF Mass. I do know Latin and attend a few TLM or other Latin rite (e.g. Dominican rite) Masses throughout the year. I have friends who attend mostly or exclusively TLM because they find it spiritually beneficial for all the reasons you mention beyond the "smells and bells". I routinely meet Catholics who are negative about the TLM mostly based on something they read that made them think "trads" were seeking to turn back the clock a couple centuries or seeking to make all parishes' Masses into TLMs or had some other sinister agenda, which is just silly. The vast majority of TLM attendees are not extremists, but rather are more what you describe, and thoughtful reporting needs to get in depth and understand that.
With respect to Ed's comment towards the end of the episode of being able to divide the parts of / questions regarding the liturgy into ultimately points of either validity or aesthetics, I post the following as food for thought from Cardinal Ratzinger's preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, OSB (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005):
"The author [Alcuin Reid] expressly warns us against the wrong path up which we might be led by a Neoscholastic sacramental theology that is disconnected from the living form of the Liturgy. On that basis, people might reduce the “substance” to the material and form of the sacrament and say: Bread and wine are the matter of the sacrament; the words of institution are its form. Only these two things are really necessary; everything else is changeable. . . . As long as the material gifts are there, and the words of institution are spoken, then everything else is freely disposable. Many priests today, unfortunately, act in accordance with this motto; and the theories of many liturgists are unfortunately moving in the same direction. They want to overcome the limits of the rite, as being something fixed and immovable, and construct the products of their fantasy, which are supposedly “pastoral,” around this remnant, this core that has been spared and that is thus either relegated to the realm of magic or loses any meaning whatever. The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to overcome this reductionism, the product of an abstract sacramental theology, and to teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of Tradition that had taken concrete form, that cannot be torn apart into little pieces but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone who, like me, was moved by this perception at the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for."
The FBI memo specifically stated that the Mass ritual was not the thing that made for a radical traditionalist, but that it merely made a person a traditionalist. That has gotten mostly lost and forgotten.
To add the "radical" part, you'd have to also be against abortion, or the LGBTQ+, or affirmative action. Which I suspect is the real reason the Republican representatives got active on behalf of a tiny percent of a minority of the country. Practically all of their constituents (along with all faithful Catholics) were being implicitly targeted.
Why is there no bonus episode here at all?
I can access the bonus episode like normal - it's just in a separate post. Here's a direct link:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/bonus-therapy-and-group-texts
It wasn't there when I went to bed but it was this morning.
Started this podcast and thought I hit the bonus episode first by mistake because I was laughing so hard.
With all charity Ed, and I say this as a secular lawyer barred in DC as well as other places, if you're going to have to make big speeches about how you covered a Mass strictly as a journalist in order to sidestep around your swearing to uphold canon law as a canon lawyer, then don't attend the Mass next time. Send another reporter who isn't a lawyer. A Catholic should ALWAYS be attending Mass with the primary intent of worshipping Our Lord Jesus Christ. The TLM has enough issues currently without you joining the group to throw it under the bus.
> A Catholic should ALWAYS be attending Mass with the primary intent of worshipping Our Lord Jesus Christ
What about the Masses at a normal parish that have a security guard or on duty police officer doing their job in the back? It doesn't happen often but for example there were some fraught times in blue cities around the RvW overturn and I saw visible police presence at a local weekend Mass then as a deterrent. Should only the non-Catholics take that job?
Security guards, ushers etc clearly have a role to play in hosting the Mass and when they are Catholics I always see them participating to the extent their duties allow. They don't say afterwards "I didn't participate in this at all, I was just standing around." And they don't have the same motivation Ed does as a canon lawyer who still wants to report on this, not only from the likely good motive of informing the Catholic public, but also from the economic motive of getting clicks and hits for his publication.
The Pillar isn’t based on “clicks and hits” though, it’s a subscriber-based model, as I’m sure you know. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Ed was throwing the TLM under the bus by expressing some valid criticisms in this podcast, which he didn’t do in the actual article reporting the event. There was more analysis here and expressing opinions and judgments, which I think is fair, but I also thought the reporting in the original article was fair and straightforward in presenting the facts.
I thought this was a great episode, and I appreciated the context of discussing the real choice to have a traditional Latin Mass on the anniversary of the Richmond memo instead of any number of other options that you both mentioned, that would have brought a lot more light to the traditionalist community targeted in the memo. I don’t know how the Arlington Latin Mass group got involved in planning this, but it sounds to me like that group (or individual involved with the group) took what seems like a good-faith effort by Speaker Johnson to make amends for the memo and turned it into an opportunity to show up Cardinal Gregory and win a battle in the liturgical wars. That doesn’t make traditionalist Catholics look great.
I tend to share Ed's perspective on this although I haven't been able to articulate it quite as well. I think that although both sides say "This isn't about validity! We promise!" The very act of promulgating law or breaking it (depending on the side) communicates that this is actually about something core to the validity of the Eucharist or the integrity of the Church. It also feels like a very Protestant way of dealing with things, which I thought I left behind when I joined the Church.
To be clear, I don't think that is what someone is saying with their actions when they attend a sanctioned TLM. But I do think it applies in this case.
This was a great episode. I really appreciated the discussion on obedience. Food for thought.
Why are trad Catholics willing to go to the mat for the TLM? From what I've seen as a Novus Ordo guy, evangelism of their children and the next generation. Look at the horrendous faith retention at Novus Ordo parishes, even good ones, and parents are desperate for a form of faith that "will take." They are also desperate for a church community where people care about and love one another in everyday life, something that is also strikingly lacking from your average Novus Ordo parish. When they find it, and they come to believe that the praxis of their new faith community seems to be related to the liturgy, they are extremely loath to give it up. Most are even willing to defy the bishop, given that bishops have a terrible reputation for not caring about the souls, let alone the bodies, of children. IMO, this is why there is a rather large overlap between charismatic Catholic and TLM communities (tradismatics): they care a lot about the evangelization of their children, far, far more than the bishops, who basically hate them and would seemingly prefer that they and their children left the Church.
I'd strongly recommend Ed watch Mass of the Ages and talk to young TLM supportive priests about what differences they found once they began celebrating the TLM. Even as a Novus Ordo attender, I can tell that it runs far deeper than ascetics, even when celebrated in a conference room.
Thanks for this. I too primarily attend OF Mass. I do know Latin and attend a few TLM or other Latin rite (e.g. Dominican rite) Masses throughout the year. I have friends who attend mostly or exclusively TLM because they find it spiritually beneficial for all the reasons you mention beyond the "smells and bells". I routinely meet Catholics who are negative about the TLM mostly based on something they read that made them think "trads" were seeking to turn back the clock a couple centuries or seeking to make all parishes' Masses into TLMs or had some other sinister agenda, which is just silly. The vast majority of TLM attendees are not extremists, but rather are more what you describe, and thoughtful reporting needs to get in depth and understand that.
With respect to Ed's comment towards the end of the episode of being able to divide the parts of / questions regarding the liturgy into ultimately points of either validity or aesthetics, I post the following as food for thought from Cardinal Ratzinger's preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, OSB (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005):
"The author [Alcuin Reid] expressly warns us against the wrong path up which we might be led by a Neoscholastic sacramental theology that is disconnected from the living form of the Liturgy. On that basis, people might reduce the “substance” to the material and form of the sacrament and say: Bread and wine are the matter of the sacrament; the words of institution are its form. Only these two things are really necessary; everything else is changeable. . . . As long as the material gifts are there, and the words of institution are spoken, then everything else is freely disposable. Many priests today, unfortunately, act in accordance with this motto; and the theories of many liturgists are unfortunately moving in the same direction. They want to overcome the limits of the rite, as being something fixed and immovable, and construct the products of their fantasy, which are supposedly “pastoral,” around this remnant, this core that has been spared and that is thus either relegated to the realm of magic or loses any meaning whatever. The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to overcome this reductionism, the product of an abstract sacramental theology, and to teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of Tradition that had taken concrete form, that cannot be torn apart into little pieces but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone who, like me, was moved by this perception at the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for."
Thank you. A fantastic quotation. We should pray for him and hope he is praying for us too.