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A plea for the promotion of the Tridentine Rite Holy Week this year found me and several of my friends making several long trips from Steubenville to Pittsburgh, to attend the Holy Week and Easter liturgies celebrated in the Tridentine Rite. As usual, many of our friends and acquaintances probably perceived us as opposed to Vatican II and all that the Holy Spirit has done in the Church since then, especially at Steubenville. However, I speak at least for myself when I say that my attendance at the Tridentine Mass (codified by St. Pius V in 1570) is not born of an opposition to authentic renewal in the Church, nor of a hopeless nostalgia for a time I don't even remember, nor of a simple reaction to some of the liturgical irregularities which many students complain of in campus Masses. I attend the Tridentine Mass because I believe it to be an inestimably valuable part of our Catholic heritage, which is still capable of allowing the faithful to enter deeply into the Heavenly mysteries. And I am furthermore of the opinion of those, like Cardinal Ratzinger and Fr. Aidan Nichols, who feel that the liturgical reforms made after the Council have at times not achieved their desired effects, and that a "reform of the Reform" will not occur without a rediscovery of the richness of the Tridentine Mass. John Paul II implied as much in a statement to the Congregation of Divine Worship last September: "The people of God need to see in the priests and deacons a behavior full of reverence and dignity, capable of helping them penetrate the invisible things, even without many words and explanations. In the Roman Missal of St. Pius V, as in many Eastern Liturgies, there are very beautiful prayers with which the priests express the most profound sense of humility and reverence before the Holy Mysteries, the prayers revealing the "Substance Itself of each Liturgy." The same Holy Father asked in his well known letter "Ecclesia Dei" for "a wide and generous application" of the norms permitting the use of the Old Missal. For various reasons that I hope to delve into in a forthcoming article, it seems to me that the promotion of the Tridentine Rite is something which will indeed facilitate the new springtime of evangelization, and of which its supporters should not be ashamed.
Michael Houser, FUS junior and Concourse Contributing Editor The mysterious difference between the sexes. Is it really wise to think that there is no fundamental difference between men and women? Isn't society enriched by the special qualities men and women each posses? Is there nothing beautiful, uniquely special, about a mother nursing her baby? Isn't it a grace of womanhood, to be the one to whom your little ones run for tender consolation when they are hurt, to be the one on whose lap is for them the safest, most loving place in the world? Isn't it tremendous, as a woman, to be the earthly reflection and reminder to the world of Jesus' spouse; this spouse who is so treasured in His eyes, for love of whom He gave His life, whose mysterious depths could be the object of such great love? Isn't it incredible, as a man, to be capable of noticing in a masculine way, the awesome depths of this secret and beautiful treasure that lies in the heart of woman? Isn't it wonderful to ponder, as a man, that we are resonating in a particular way with that manhood deep in the chest of our Lord and Savior when we experience the breathtaking inner pull toward the most beautiful and splendid creature on earth--woman--and that this draw to be with her, to protect her, to sacrifice courageously for her, to be looked to by her for security, to understand that she wants to see us as brave for her--is to share deeply in the very core of who Christ is in the loving eyes of His bride? Would it not be a good thing if priests, as men, understood themselves to be in a spousal relationship, reflecting and making real on earth the eternally fruitful heavenly marriage of Christ with the Church? And to aspire to emulate always, the husbandly gifts of Jesus to His Church of protecting, guiding, providing and caring warmly for her and her children, and of sacrificing courageously for her? Wouldn't it be good if all fathers prayed for the grace to model and to impart to their sons the gifts of authentic manhood, and a great desire to live them fully? And likewise, women in regard to their daughters? Or, is all this sharing and participating in the eternal dance of the marital union of God and man while even yet in this life, just another result of fanciful thinking, produced by arbitrary gender identities, mere accoutrements, slapped onto us by human society for convenience? I wonder, if the latter is true, which gender 'identity' among the presently talked about GLBT options (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) for convenience sake, could ever be thought as best characterizing the eternal relationship between God and man? That is, God as known through this actual world, His creation--the God of the Bible.
Scott Johnston, FUS class of '01 It's not the Vatican, it's the laity Mark Fischer is right when he says (in his page 3 article) that the scandal unfolding in the Church these days is different from scandals past. There is an altogether new kind of consciousness among the faithful. We are appalled not only by the discovery that so many priests have committed such unspeakable crimes, but even more that the hierarchy is implicated in a massive and unpardonable cover-up. Adding to our dismay is the lameness of clerical response to the revelations, even among cherished conservative stalwarts. Lay Catholics across the board seem united in their conviction that something dramatic needs to be done. In her March 22, 2002 column for The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan (like Mark Fischer) calls on the Vatican to act: "For the first time in my lifetime ardent Catholics, or perhaps I should say orthodox Catholics, no longer trust their cardinals and bishops to do what's right. They have pinned their hopes on the Vatican, and on the old warrior saint, JPII. They want him to hold up his silver crosier with the crucified Christ on the top and demand that priests who seduce teenage boys--or who sexually abuse, molest or seduce anyone--be thrown from the church, and that their protectors, excusers and enablers be thrown from it too." But may I venture a doubt that even our beloved pope can do much this time? Does anyone imagine that this problem isn't every bit as bad and widespread in the European hierarchy as it is in ours? Is it not rather all too likely that there are powerful Vatican officials who are guilty of similar sins and cover-ups? And if this has been going on not just for years, but for decades and centuries, then we should realize that the pope cannot crack down without risking a destabilization of the institutional structure of the Church and a disastrous undermining of her interests in the world. (Goodbye moral authority at UN conferences, to name just one relatively miniscule item.) Then, too, just think what a horrible position faithful priests, bishops and cardinals must be in these days. Though they may be innocent of crimes, I don't suppose there are many among them who are innocent of knowledge of such things. Remember the seal of confession. Consider the innumerable personal obligations and debts of friendship they must have with one another, making it virtually impossible for them to speak out. Think how acutely conscious every holy pastor must be of his own sins, and the unsuitability of his being the one to begin casting stones. For these reasons and others, my own hopes (which are high) are not pinned on the Vatican. They are pinned on the laity. It is the laity who must act in this case. It is we who must insist on reform, and lead the charge in implementing it. This scandal has uncovered a destructive residual clericalism in the Church (priests and bishops acting like a secret fraternity--protecting and promoting one another at the expense of the welfare and dignity of the laity) that must be decisively overcome if the Church is to realize the vocation laid out for her in the Second Vatican Council. There are functions that only priests and bishops can fulfill. No layman can say mass or absolve sins or ordain priests. But--this is a real question, not a rhetorical one--is there any reason why we cannot have a more substantial role than we do now in, for example, the selection of candidates for the priesthood, and in the operating of seminaries and diocesan offices? Even a greater presence in seminaries--in teaching or administrative positions--might have a wholesome effect. (Recall that not so long ago lay Catholics were thought to have no place in the running of universities or the teaching of theology.) One Harvard professor, who is a parishioner in the Boston area, is asking local Catholics to withhold donations to the archdiocese until there has been a much more thorough accounting of the scandal (e.g., where is the $30,000,000.00 due now to Geoghan's victims going to come from?) This seems to me a good beginning. Let's put our heads together and see if we can't come up with more.
Kathleen van Schaijik
© The University Concourse, April 20, 2002 |
