»Looking to Christ our King, let us renew Western civilization« – this was the message Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco addressed in various ways to the faithful in Croatia during his recent multi-day visit to Zagreb. The solemn Pontifical Mass he celebrated according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite on Saturday, March 7, in the Church of St. Blaise in Zagreb, as well as the lecture he delivered shortly beforehand on beauty as a path to the renewal of the West, provided the impetus for a conversation focused on the liturgy. Yet the interviewee—already known to the faithful in Croatia for his clear and uncompromising articulation of Church teaching in the public sphere—did not avoid addressing current questions concerning both the universal Church and American society.
It is difficult to state anything about the extraordinary form of the Roman rite that Pope Benedict XVI has not already expressed. Yet I see in this form of worship a part of the Church’s patrimony developed since ancient times; a treasure that still speaks to many in our time. Moreover, it is a value in and of itself, a value that needs preservation and cherishing, along with other forms of Catholic worship.
I am not familiar with the way Mass is celebrated in Croatian parishes, but I know that in the United States and other parts of the world in the years immediately following the Second Vatican Council there was a period of very severe and intentional liturgical abuses. I have heard complaints from many devout Catholics about the way Mass is celebrated in our own time; perhaps they are not old enough to remember, or they have simply forgotten, how deplorable the situation was after the Second Vatican Council. The situation was far worse then than now, and those abuses are best described as horror stories.
Today it is more a matter of sloppiness, inattentiveness, and banality. But even when these are to blame, bad liturgy whittles down the faith, just as good liturgy builds it up, as stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium. In that sense, a repair of the Mass is necessary: the Church needs to reclaim the sense that it is dealing with the sacred, so every detail has its importance.
A different mindset will dismiss – sometimes even mock – the idea of attention to every little detail of the liturgy. But one can see what happens when there is little oversight and all is subject to the whims of the celebrant. There is a natural tendency – especially for priests who are extroverted – to celebrate Mass without being confined to tightly scripted rubrics, all the more so when Mass is celebrated facing the people. The sanctuary thus becomes a kind of stage, the faithful an audience, and the meaning of the Mass quickly vanishes. As Cardinal Sarah once said, it takes greater discipline to celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass than the Old Mass, precisely because the priest must keep this tendency in check. Of course, one may become overly focused on the details; but details instill a deeper sense of reverence. Just as detail is the language of love in a friendship or marriage, the same is true for the liturgy.
Why does redefining and destabilizing marriage ultimately harm the poor the most?
Yet tradition is not just a matter of beauty and reverence. If renewed interest in it is a sign of the times, in what distinct ways ought the Church to interpret it?
I am old enough to remember the years when the traditional Latin Mass was decried as no longer speaking to the times because it belongs to a past era, reflecting a period when Christian liturgy mirrored court ceremonies. This is a superficial, yet partially truthful, remark: liturgy does mirror a ceremony, but the court in question is not earthly, but heavenly.
At the time, there was another, less benign attitude towards the Old Mass: »The Church made a mistake. It distorted the liturgy after Constantine, with priests becoming somewhat of a higher caste and separating themselves from the laity.« The Novus Ordo was supposed to return the liturgical clock to the time of the Church Fathers. In both cases, it was claimed that a new Mass was necessary. The problem is that what is new today becomes old tomorrow. And many people do not realize that tomorrow is now.
The current form of the Mass still feels new to me and everyone else of my generation and older, although I was just a child when things changed; but this change occurred sixty years ago. Sixty years before the time I was a university student World War I was raging. To young people today, the Second Vatican Council seems as distant as World War I seems to people of my age, yet the traditional Mass does not seem old to them: they find that it takes them out of an earthly realm.
Certainly, youth have a natural attraction to the esoteric, the otherworldly – especially if it distinguishes them from their parents. Unlike people of my generation, the traditional way of worshipping seems to them precisely as such. But there is more to it. When young people discover this ancient patrimony and its beauty, their minds and hearts open to the truth. It is a door leading to moral conversion.
Therefore, this natural tendency of the youth is an opportunity for the Church to evangelize them, providing them with solid catechesis and a worshipping community. Perhaps surprisingly to some, it is precisely the teachings of the Church at and after Vatican II that can guide this process, because the Council Fathers envisioned the preservation of earlier traditions and the formation of the faithful in accordance with them. It is impossible to go back to a make-believe golden era – whenever one thinks it occurred: in the 1950’s, the 1970’s, or the era of the early Church Fathers. But the Church can discern what it has lost and what it needs to reclaim.
It would certainly slow things down. I think each side needs to understand the other side better. The Church has always had the ability to achieve this. The scholastic method – as applied by Saint Thomas of Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae – always presents the best possible arguments for the other side of a debate. This seems a necessary step now.
The impression of FSSPX leaders I have spoken to is that the Vatican has been obstinate as well. As the Superior General of the FSSPX wrote in his letter to the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Fernández, they have been asking for dialogue since 2013, yet it was only after the announcement of the consecrations that the Vatican proposed dialogue.
I am of the impression that there are differences of opinion within the Vatican itself, which thwarted Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts towards reconciliation. I think the Church needs to understand what the concerns of the SSPX are. We dialogue with Christians who are further away from our doctrine than the Fraternity – we even have interfaith dialogue. Why should dialogue be a problem with the SSPX? Even if there are differences in belief that are not doctrinal divides, only dialogue can bring that to light.
I do not think there is a unity of opinion on all issues. For instance, religious liberty as conveyed in Dignitatis Humanae is a doctrinal point of dissent. But we need clarity on that. Is there an interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae that accords with the basic view of the Fraternity? Dialogue is necessary to point this out. The consecrations would be an act of disobedience, but the Church needs to understand where this disobedience comes from.
The last time civilization collapsed, the Benedictine monasteries were the ones that preserved faith, learning, and even social care. We seem to be entering a similar era. Rod Dreher’s idea of a similar Benedict Option as a solution for today has been criticized for separating the Christian community from the world outside. But that is not what it means at its best. God set ancient Israel apart as a people »peculiarly His own«: He gave them the Law as a sign of this setting apart and promised to protect them if they obeyed Him. But they were also given the Law to serve as a light to the nations. Christ follows the same logic: He calls His followers to come aside before sending them forth to make disciples of all nations.
I think this is already beginning to happen. Certain parishes are attracting people serious about their faith who are not being fed elsewhere. Other types of communities – for instance, faithful Catholic colleges and seminaries – are building communities around them. It will take generations – possibly even centuries – for the fruits of this process to become visible; but eventually the world will recognize that this is the way toward human flourishing. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen famously noticed, when Western civilization has destroyed all the pictures of what that civilization is supposed to look like, it will discover that the Church has kept the negatives.
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Yet many would object to equating Western civilization with the Christian faith – especially in light of the Christian West encroaching on other parts of the world. The American attack on Iran is only the latest example. How do American bishops assess the justifiability of such encroachments?
The Church must always be a voice for peace whenever a war breaks out. We must urge peace and advocate for diplomatic solutions. Even in a just war, there are too many losers. We need to be very outspoken about this.
Having no army, the Church has a special role in diplomacy. But it cannot take sides in a war because that is the gift it has to offer the world. As the Catholic Church, it comprises people from all nations across the face of the Earth. It can bring neutrality to any kind of conflict, and that needs to be preserved.
Still, there are other things we can do – especially considering our possibilities for connection and information. We know what Pope Saint John Paul II did in collaboration with President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in bringing down the Soviet Union. There are things to be done covertly that do not contradict the Church’s principled stance for peace. But publicly, the Church must always advocate peace.
The rule that the Church must not take sides applies specifically to the outbreak of war. Speaking of the immigration issue, there are faithful Catholics in high government administrative positions, there are faithful Catholics among the officers enforcing immigration laws, and there are many faithful Catholics affected by them. We all believe those who are criminals should be arrested, given due process, and, if necessary, deported.
But many others are only striving to earn their bread and support their families. They should not have to live in fear. Government actions are causing such fear. There were many deportations during the Obama administration – earning the ex-president the nickname »Deporter-in-Chief.« But the officers primarily swept places where there were criminals, although sometimes non-criminal undocumented immigrants were caught up in those sweeps and deported. Although the government’s stated intention is now the same, i.e., deporting criminals, we are nonetheless hearing reports of them going to places where one would not expect to find criminals. For many immigrants in my archdiocese, it would be very dangerous to return to their home country – even fatal. The problem is that every case must be considered on its own merits. Providing them justice is an enormous task, but it must be done.
People often say that the Church should not be involved in politics – mostly when the bishops take a position they disagree with. I hope that people have eyes to see that the Church does not approach issues politically. When we advocate for policy positions that best support our moral considerations, it ends up spanning different areas of the political spectrum. It is advocacy based on a consistent ethic of the dignity of human life.
The whole process was directed not to a political, but to a pastoral goal: to bring about conversion and also prevent scandal. If I were being political, why would I ask the whole country to pray and fast for her? We need prayer and fasting to build a culture of life and to understand what is truly at stake in abortion – the killing of innocent human life.
When innocent human life is taken, a very serious intervention is always necessary. A famous example is the excommunication of Catholic officials who opposed the efforts of Joseph Rummel, the Archbishop of New Orleans, to integrate African-Americans in Catholic schools during segregation.
It is important to know that the most serious violations of human dignity were occurring exactly in the South, with people being lynched simply because of the color of their skin. I pray measures like the one I have applied never become necessary again, but such a development is not inconceivable.
There is certainly much pressure on the Church to change or at least ignore its teachings when it comes to practices or laws that contradict them. Unfortunately, a lot of that pressure comes from within the Church. That is why worship is crucial: if it imitates what is going on in the world, our faith will not be properly formed to resist pressures from the world.
As for overcoming gender ideology, God always provides the Church with what she needs to address what is happening in the world at a given time. In this sense, we have the Theology of the Body of Pope Saint John Paul II, a gift valuable for understanding the dignity of the human body, just as Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum is valuable for understanding the dignity of work. Even as Archbishop of Krakow, the Pope anticipated the processes leading up to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. As a true fruit of the development of Catholic tradition, his teaching still resonates with young people.
