Tea at Trianon: The New Catholic Culture War

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 28, 2014

The New Catholic Culture War

"These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth."
(Rev 11:4)

Is it now Francis vs. Benedict? I have always loved the traditional Mass and liturgy. What I do not like is the name-calling on both sides. I love both popes and they are the last people to want to cause more division. I personally think we should all start examining our own lives and relationships with God and not be worrying over every single thing the Pope says and does. He has to answer to God for his life and each of us have to answer for ours. Here is another excellent reflection from Fr. Angelo Mary of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. To quote:

The Catholic culture war continues to heat up. John Allen from The Boston Globe has recently noted the that there is a possible “right wing” backlash to the Franciscan pontificate that will pit a majority of “Francis Catholics” against “Benedict Catholics.” I believe he is right, though I would say that the backlash is well underway. (Read more.)

In the meantime, my friend Fr. Mark writes why he and his community have chosen to take the privilege granted by Benedict XVI of offering the Holy Mass according to the Extraordinary Form, HERE and HERE. Father makes many learned and poignant observations worth noting. To quote:

No one at the grassroots level was prepared to deal with the multiplicity of options set out in the Missale Romanum of 1969. Very few of the clergy, long accustomed to a dry rubricism with little mystagogical catechesis, could manoeuvre their way through the options of the Novus Ordo Missae intelligently. It was a blueprint for liturgical chaos. The Introductory Rites alone presented a bewildering array of options. Reading article 48 of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani one discovers, for example, that there are four or, some would say, five options for the Introit alone. There are, moreover, six different ways of executing the four or five options. In the end, concretely, what happened in the vast majority of parishes? The Introit disappeared altogether, and so too have the other elements of the Proper of the Mass. I am no Professor Anton Baumstark, but I have formulated my own law of degenerative liturgical evolution. It is this: elements of the rite tend to be neglected and, in the end, disappear altogether, in direct proportion to the number of options by virtue of which they may be replaced or modified. (Read more.)

Fr. Angelo discourses on the possibility of union with those in schism, HERE. Share