Tea at Trianon: Mass and Memory

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

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Mass and Memory

From First Things:

The vehemence of the motu proprio's language suggests that this directive has come too late. The circles that adhere to liturgical tradition have indeed drastically changed in the last decades. The Tridentine Mass is no longer attended only by those who miss the liturgy of their childhood, but also by people who have discovered the liturgy anew and are fascinated by it—including many converts, many who have long been estranged from the Church. The liturgy is their passion and they know its every detail. There are many priestly vocations among them. These young men do not only attend the seminaries maintained by the priestly fraternities of tradition. Many of them undergo the usual training for the priesthood, and are nevertheless convinced that their vocation is strengthened precisely by knowledge of the traditional rite. Curiosity about the suppressed Catholic tradition has grown, even though many had depicted this tradition as obsolete and unsound. Aldous Huxley illustrated this kind of amazement in Brave New World, in which a young man of the modern elite, without a sense of history, discovers the overflowing riches of premodern culture and is enchanted by them.

The pope's intervention may impede the growth of the liturgical recovery of tradition for a time. But he will be able to arrest it only for the remainder of his pontificate. For this traditional movement is not a superficial fashion. It demonstrated in the decades of its repression prior to Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum that there persists a serious and enthusiastic devotion to the complete fullness of Catholicism. Pope Francis's prohibition will arouse resistance in those who still have their lives before them and won't allow their futures to be darkened by obsolete ideologies. It was not good, but it was also not wise, to put papal authority to this test.

Pope Francis prohibits Masses in the old rite in parish churches; he requires priests to obtain permission to celebrate the old Mass; he even requires priests that have not yet celebrated in the old rite to obtain this permission not from their bishop, but from the Vatican; and he requires an examination of conscience of participants in the old Mass. But Benedict's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum reasons on a totally different level. Pope Benedict did not “allow” the “old Mass,” and he granted no privilege to celebrate it. In a word, he did not take a disciplinary measure that a successor can retract. What was new and surprising about Summorum Pontificum was that it declares that the celebration of the old Mass does not need any permission. It had never been forbidden because it never could be forbidden.

One could conclude that here we find a fixed, insuperable limit to the authority of a pope. Tradition stands above the pope. The old Mass, rooted deep in the first Christian millennium, is as a matter of principle beyond the pope’s authority to prohibit. Many provisions of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio can be set aside or modified, but this magisterial decision cannot be so easily done away with. Pope Francis does not attempt to do so—he ignores it. It still stands after July 16, 2021, recognizing the authority of tradition that every priest has the moral right to celebrate the never forbidden old rite.

Most of the world’s Catholics won’t take any interest at all in Traditionis Custodes. In view of the small number of traditionalist communities, most will hardly understand what is going on. Indeed, we have to ask ourselves whether the pope had no more urgent task—in the midst of the sex abuse crisis, the Church’s financial scandals, schismatic movements like the German synodal path, and the desperate situation of Chinese Catholics—than to suppress this small, devoted community. (Read more.)

From Crisis:

The traditional Latin Mass seems to be on every Catholic’s mind right now, up to and including the pope’s. The recent motu proprio Traditionis Custodes restricting the celebration of the TLM has brought the topic to the forefront. Importantly, the pope’s actions presume the TLM is growing in adherents and influence in the Church. After all, if very few Catholics were going to this Mass, why would Francis take action?

But is this the case? Is TLM attendance growing? Most advocates of the TLM have assumed growth in recent months and years; Crisis Magazine even hosted a podcast in March titled, “Why is Traditional Catholicism Booming?” But the “fact” of traditional Catholicism growth was anecdotal—although many people were noting an increase in attendance at their TLM, there was no data to prove growth was happening.

To remedy this, Crisis Magazine surveyed U.S. parishes that offer at least one regularly scheduled TLM. We sought to determine any changes in their TLM attendance since January 2019. While we could have attempted to ascertain a longer history of TLM attendance, we wanted to focus on recent growth, while also establishing a baseline that predated COVID-19 restrictions. This would give a solid idea of the extent of any growth in recent years. (Read more.)