It is a bad sign when the head of a Catholic college’s theology department ends an interview by calling Pope Benedict an Austrian. Father Mark Massa rewrote the pope’s biography in an interview with the Religion News Service, which talked to him about his book The American Catholic Revolution: How the '60s Changed the Church Forever.
He was using Benedict’s origins to explain his support for liturgical reform as “partly personal preference.” The pope is Austrian, “and likes looking back to the past. He likes the smells and bells. I do, too. I suspect there's more to it than that, but I don't know.”
Nice of him to suspect that this profound theologian and author of a number deep studies of the liturgy might push for changes for reasons other than nostalgia and personal preference.
Like, oh, that they bring people closer to God, or better express an organic development of the Church’s liturgical tradition (thereby bringing people closer to God), or more fully offer an experience of counter-cultural and distinctively Christian worship modern man needs, or serve faithful people who find the old rite more helpful and ought to be offered a chance the advocates of liturgical diversity have long denied them. Maybe he looks back to the past because that is where the sources of wisdom for the present are to be found, exactly as a physicist studies Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg before developing theories of his own.
R.R. Reno dealt with the book in his column recently, pointing out that this theologian who keeps invoking history uses it in an ahistorical way. This he does in the interview as well. “The current battles between the left and the right,” he says, “are really between those who want to press a historical awareness of change and those who want to view the church as timeless.”
The first, the rest of the interview suggests, are the good guys, or the wise guys, so to speak, who know things change, the second the bad guys, or at least the simple-minded deluded guys who are trying (impossibly) to freeze everything in place.
But it’s not a very thoughtful distinction, and not a very helpful one either. The Church can be essentially timeless and still change through history, in fact change in order to remain who she truly, essentially, is. The analogies are all kind of obvious. Father Massa himself has changed through life and yet remains, timelessly, himself. Those who view the Church as timeless may in fact have the subtlest understanding of historical change, precisely because they are forced to reflect on how a body can remain essentially who she is while living in history.
I think there is in this kind of claim a strict meaning and an implied meaning, as the example he gives illustrates. “A great majority of Catholics (once) thought of the church as outside of time altogether—that what they did on Sunday is what Jesus did at the Last Supper, and early Christians did in the catacombs.”
The strict meaning is that these people did not know their history and projected the present they knew onto the past they didn’t. Which is true enough, if a bit sweeping (“outside time altogether”?). The implied meaning is that our fundamental understanding of the Mass has changed, but some people can’t see it. This movement between something like a fact and a dubious theological assertion seems to me characteristic of the public rhetoric of progressive Catholicism, especially when they talk about “change.”
Of course the ritual has changed over time, and some naive Catholics may once have imagined the first Christians celebrating a Tridentine Mass down in the catacombs, all decked out in elaborate vestments while Roman soldiers patrolled the streets above them. They were wrong about that, but if someone told them the real story of the development of the Eucharistic celebration through history, they would still believe the Church’s teaching.
The point is the Sacrifice, not the ritual. Catholics still believe this, because this is what the Church teaches. At the Mass, the Church does what Jesus did at the Last Supper and what his first followers did in the catacombs, however they were vested.
Father Massa supports his claims with, of course, an invocation of the Second Vatican Council. “Vatican II,” he says, “attacked this notion of the church as providing a timeless set of answers to life’s questions about meaning.” (As, for example, that at the Mass the Church does now what the Lord did at the Last Supper.) Nothing in the tens of thousands of words the bishops offered in the documents of their council says any such thing.
In the very first paragraph of the dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, for example, which begins with the stark declaration “Christ is the Light of nations”—which might be paraphrased as “Christ is the timeless answer to life’s questions about meaning”—the bishops say
Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils.
The Church, in other words, provides timeless answers to the most fundamental questions of human existence. She may apply them creatively and flexibly, in response to the needs of the times, as the bishops go on to explain, but she does not deny that she has them and is called to proclaim them. And that typifies the entire message of the Council. The Council did not come anywhere close to attacking the idea that the Church was the bearer of an eternal word.
In the Tom Cruise movie Jerry Maguire, the football star keeps telling his agent, “Show me the money!” At one point, if I remember right (and I’m not going to watch the movie again to find out), he keeps repeating the demand, almost like a chant, as his agent keeps trying to avoid admitting that he doesn’t have it.
Catholics faced with an invocation of Vatican II, or the Spirit of Vatican II, or the Vision of Vatican II, or almost any phrase that includes the words “Vatican II” but does not include the words “documents of,” should simply say “Show me the text,” and keep asking it until they get an answer. They have to keep repeating it with the calm intensity of a lawyer asking the defendant the question that will convict him if he answers.
They won’t get an answer, of course, because there isn’t one, when someone invokes the Second Vatican Council that way, so the conversations will tend to go like this:
“Show me the text.”
“Spirit of Vatican II!”
“Show me the text.”
“Spirit of Vatican II!”
“Show me the text.”
“Spirit of Vatican II!”
“Show me the text!”
“Traditionalist! Reactionary! ”
They won’t get an answer, but the conversation will still be fruitful. Not to get an answer is to get an answer.
David Mills is the deputy editor of First Things. His last contribution to “On the Square” was Spirituality Without Spirits.
RESOURCES:
The interview with Father Massa, How the Sixties Transformed the Catholic Church
R. R. Reno’s review of Father Massa’s book, Progressive Catholicism’s Simplistic Thesis
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium
Comments:
In particular, the Vatican II documents on liturgy tended to outline broader principles (the suppression of prime and the various ordained ministries being notable exceptions), and charged the implementation to the Holy See and national conferences, which went on to create committees, commissions, and so on.
So the argument can't end with "Show me the text!" unless you're ready to pore over an awful lot more than the council documents proper: the GIRM, the American variations on the GIRM, the various dispensations issued, etc. I would imagine that these count as authoritative documents of Vatican II, even though they're not "Vatican II" documents proper.
By contrast, Environment and Art in Catholic Worship certainly shouldn't carry the force of Vatican II, not even of the American bishops (they tell us now), but if you tried explaining that to someone who was sent by your bishop to direct a church expansion or remodeling during the 80s and 90s, you were out of luck. Your parish likely wouldn't side with you, either. Most people understand that principles are laid out in one document, and implementations elsewhere. So even if you can successfully point out that maybe the Council Fathers did not think parish churches should be limited to only one image of Christ and/or the patron saint, you'd have a hard time winning the argument, because it's right there in EACW, which is published by the bishops' conference, and they haven't contradicted it.
And don't get me started on the reception of communion on the knees.
I'm making a hash of the argument, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. Sorry...
Yes, we are hearing from Mark Massa at Boston College. He is quite a distance from what you might have expected to find in a Jesuit institution.
The saddest aspect of Massa's use of simple-minded dichotomies is that it blocks all of us from undertaking a serious and sophisticated study of the legacy of Vatican II. In his book, the episodes are responsibly described -- the history is the history. But the interpretation is willful, so much so that a fair-minded young Catholic will be repulsed by the apparent ideological blindness of the liberal Catholicism that Massa represents. This is not good, because some aspects of the liberal Catholic project, not the least its emphasis on the full participation of the human person in the great mysteries of the faith, are of lasting importance.
In other words, Massa way of thinking -- which David Mills couldn't caricature, because it comes pre-caricatured, if you will -- encourages an equally unhelpful, dismissive attitude among those of us who argue for a more traditional vision of post-Vatican II Catholicism (and I include myself as someone tempted to summarily dismiss liberal Catholicism).
Twenty years ago, I heard an awful sermon by a trendy priest (trendy
that for one trapped in a time warp and still living in 1968). He said, "Before
Vatican II, the Catholic Church taught that all moral issues were black and white. Now the Church wants us to be grown-ups and decide things for ourselves." I wrote to him and said, among other things, "Fr. It is true that not all things are black or white. But some things are black and some things are white. And everything the Church taught was black before Vatican II it still teaches is black, and everything the Church taught was white before Vatican II it still teaches is white." In other words, as David says, "Show me the money! Show me in the texts of Vatican II." Of course the priest couldn't. It was all hot air and atmospherics.
FYI, on the Ignatius Press blog, Carl Olson mentions this article and then responds to a "a thinly veiled hit piece" on the pope by the religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement.
The three-canary test for whether too much modernist gas was been inhaled within the seminary walls remains pretty failsafe, and I'd wager Massa fails it thrice over:
> Is homosexual behavior sinful?
> Is abortion always wrong?
> Is the Church right to ordain only men?
If he can answer a simple yes to any of those three, I'd be surprised.
The Novena or 9day prayers prior to the above Feast asks for the devotee to bring all , to His mercy and thus the theme of heaven , of unity ...of expansion ...
Vatican 11 possibly was also the Spirit led movement , to prepare The Church for this - a deeper unity of hearts , with all who need mercy , which is every one of us .
There is the parable of the pharisee and the publican - latter had recognised his need for mercy ; pharisee too could have seen not just his own need but that of the publican too and pleaded for mercy for both , thus doing away with the division , becoming one , with the merciful God , in their very need !
Such is what our Lord does for us , bearing our debts and giving us The Way , to do so for each other , not by incurring more debts but by the grace to stay close to Him , esp. recognising this very need for mercy for each ...
Seems may be in the zeal to become one , many in post Vatican days might have thought that the way to do so would be to become more like the publican - in his ( former ) lifestyle , instead of seeing even better the need for closer unity with The Lord and His Church , thus to draw forth all , through His mercy and grace !
St.Faustina , her way of The Cross, of being united with The Lord, in her sufferings and holiness and thus to bring down the Spirit of merciful love and thus spiritual unity with and into more lives - many simple folk seem to recognise this truth , that it is the well honored traditions of The Church that make such binding and closeness to Him possible , to lift others too to Him , for the joy of unity , of heaven ...too bad that the Woody Allen's of this world are too hardened to see this Light ...still , no need to despair - a promise of St.Faustina too has been to work for us from heaven - let us entrust esp. the disbelieving , to His mercy and the prayers of our powerful saints and angels !
Thank you for writing this piece. Where to begin? Such a mess -- but one has to begin somewhere.
Here, for one: I am amused by the same-old stance of the Enlightenment that Fr. Massa adopts. Back in the bad old days, says Kant, people took their spirituality from their pastors, but now, why now man is past his adolescent tutelage, and is free to think for himself -- and that is what Enlightenment is. Stunning, that a Catholic should say something so foolish. For it divorces a Catholic from the very history and the community that Fr. Massa thinks he is supporting. Notice the absolute lack of gratitude for his forebears, and the taking pleasure in noting, or exaggerating, or inventing their shortcomings. Why, it is the same snobbish (and anti-incarnational) philosophy that led the great minds of the Enlightenment to whitewash church art, to label that millennium of Catholic culture "the Middle Ages," and that late burst of glorious Christian art "the Baroque."
Then: I wonder if people who sniff contemptuously at the pre-Vatican II church have ever troubled themselves to ask what it was like to belong to a parish, say in 1940. I am not defending the actual liturgical practices of Anglo-American Catholicism before Vatican II -- Fr. Aidan Nichols, whose opinion I trust, asserts that there was much that was wanting, there. But what was it like to be a parishioner? Well, let's see -- if you lived in the United States, you had Catholic schools everywhere, free of cost; you had May crownings and patronal feast days and other celebrations; you had plenty of lay organizations, like the Altar and Rosary Society, the Holy Name Society, the Knights of Father Matthew, the Knights of Columbus, all kinds of sodalities for young and old -- so it is not at all clear to me that the actual participation of a parishioner back then in the life of the Church was not in fact greater than it is now, regardless of our greater participation in the Mass.
Third: this is a red herring, isn't it? No one, least of all Pope Benedict, is talking about disestablishing the Novus Ordo. But can we not at least have the Novus Ordo reverently (even intelligently) said? If the Vatican II documents explicitly state that Latin is to remain the language of the Church, and that it is to have an honored place in our worship, why in the name of all that's holy have some parishes not heard that language in forty years? If the Vatican II documents explicitly recommend Gregorian Chant as the basic music of the Church's worship, will somebody tell me why almost all of our churches hear none of it, and instead of nourishing the congregation with the hymnody of over a millennium of Christian culture, feed them the pablum of Haugen, Haas, and Schutte, and even at that, manage only a dozen or so "songs," the same, the same, everywhere?
Fourth: one of the commenters above is exactly right. Father Massa is arguing in bad faith. His problem is not with the liturgy. His problem is with the Word of God, as interpreted for two thousand years by the Church. But he hides his heterodoxy behind a concern for "participation in the liturgy."
goes forth each day to tend with mercy and charity all those in need, the mother of six who changes the diapers, rocks the restless babies, nurtures the little ones in the faith, all these can teach us all we need to know. The lessons of love! The lessons of the theologian will save no one! without the lessons of love taught by the humble of God.
What was essential then and remains essential today is the wisdom and courageous trust of Mary at the Annunciation, of Joseph when confronted by the angel, and of the Apostles at the Last Supper and at Pentacost. No one could credibly argue that we understand those moments any better today than they understood them then. What they did is a model for us of everything that is necessary.
What happened? Catholics got all the criticism anyway, and Mass attendance and vocations tanked.
I remember a thoughtful Anglican evangelist pointing out many years ago, "Old people will still go to church because it is what they know. But if the Church is run like a social club, there are better clubs out there. If it is a political party advocating good works, there are parties whose members can actually hold office and legislate the good works. But the day comes when the grandchildren don't even understand what Grandma and Grandpa are doing, and no one cares to explain."
It's not too late for the Catholic Church by any means, but the timeless dimension - denied everywhere else - is precisely what we offer that is of any worth.
People notice when an activist judge cannot locate the emanations and penumbras that underlie a "ruling". Similarly, they notice the thinness and contorted nature of the "spirit" arguments.
It is hard to convert someone via direct persuasion, but if they attend to the arguments for each side, then conversion just might happen, and in larger numbers.
David, please explain this one. For my part, at least, I simply asked for a confirmation of orthodoxy from a Dept. head who for all the world sounds overtly heterodox. In that sense, really, who is being unkind. Massa all but calls the Pope disingenuous, and encourages dissent. As well as outlooks that are well-known to encourage immorality. Really. So, if spiritual truth matters significantly, who is being unkind. I'd say the priest who was entrusted with headship of a prestigious and influential theology department. To indulge in deferrentialism when a priest is indulging in obscurantism... well, I respect your writings, but am mystified here. Clericalism thus far has served us all poorly, witness the abuse scandals. Massa is engaging in another form of abuse, plain and simple. That's the assessment I think of any honest man, no? Especially given his title and collar. Gentlemen's agreements and decorum are very nice, but when truth is being sold down the river, they also seem effete.
Nor do *most* liberals. In the case of conservatives, however, it is because they gravitate towards precision and clarity, and those documents themselves are embarrassingly prolix and unnecessarily obscure.
Since Ratzinger was involved in their composition, however--unlike practically everyone else commenting--and since he has demonstrated the staying power, the disputations on the viewpoints of the man who has personally labored for 40 plus years for their implementation, and whose efforts were confirmed by election to the papacy by a moderate college of cardinals, underscore the revisionist interpretation of guys like the Boston College Jesuits who have never met an orthodox affirmation from Rome that they've liked, despite their order's vows of loyalty to the pope. Believe what you want, any pay the intellectually superior trump card as you will, but calling Ratzinger revisionist in any sort of conservative sense is flat out false.
Can't blame him!
It's important here to remember, I think, that the Catholic tradition (and Orthodox tradition, for that matter) has never finally separated letter and spirit (even while using 2 Cor 3:6 as a warrant for allegory). For Augustine and Aquinas, any figurative, spiritual, allegorical meanings of texts are rooted firmly and logically in the priority of the literal sense. Seems to me this would be a good way of proceeding with the texts of Vatican II as well. The spirit must be derived from the letter, which has priority.