Filling in the Niches

About a week and a half ago, Monsignor Charles Pope, a priest of the Washington DC Archdiocese published an article in the National Catholic Register stating his conviction that interest in the Traditional Latin Mass (the pre-conciliar liturgy) is no longer growing and advocating a more aggressive evangelism among its devotees to restore the momentum of expanding the popularity of the old rite.  It was a remarkably balanced and well-written article although Monsignor’s observations are based on “anecdotal evidence” and not established statistics.  One facet of his observations is that as the number of TLM’s expands, the congregational base divides so that there are more Masses but those Masses are less and less crowded.  Monsignor Pope suggests that what is needed to restore momentum is a push for “evangelization.”

Now, to be fair to Monsignor Pope, he is a bit ambiguous about what he means by evangelization, but I would like to draw our attention to the fact that evangelization is not a matter of advocating for one form of liturgy or another, nor is the focus of evangelization advancing the Church.  Evangelization is spreading the Gospel (Ευαγγαλιον, Good News) of the Kingdom of God.  The Church is the agent of the Gospel, not its object, and while some rites might it express it more lucidly, every celebration of the Liturgy in whatever Rite is an expression of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery.  All Christians are call to evangelize; it is a responsibility given us at our Baptisms.  But this is not the focus of this post. 

According to Monsignor Pope, despite the availability of the TLM at five parishes in the Archdiocese the number of Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington who attend the Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form, not the Novus Ordo in Latin) are about one half of one percent of the Catholics who regularly attend Sunday Mass.  This translates to about one thousand people spread over five sites, or an average of two hundred people per site.  The neighboring Diocese of Arlington has a plethora of parishes that offer the TLM every Sunday but there too many of the sites draw less than 100 people for a Mass.  Across the country even as new TLM sites are springing up an equal (or even greater number) are closing down or cutting back for a lack of sufficient numbers attending. 

Monsignor Pope uses the example of a parish where he had often celebrated the TLM over the past quarter century.  When the Mass was first introduced, the Church was “almost full.”  Over the years the congregation has declined by two-thirds.  What is the reason for this?  One reason—and probably the most significant—is that with more parishes offering the TLM, people opt for a site closer to home.  A second reason is that just as some people have “graduated” from the Ordinary Form to the TLM, they go on to graduate school in the Byzantine or other Eastern Rites; some people are pilgrims and they migrate, never settling.  Still others make peace with the normative liturgy or find a place where it is celebrated in a way they can at least tolerate and return to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  And some simply lose interest in the spiritual journey, having sampled the honey from a variety of rocks, and just don’t go anywhere anymore.  But no matter what the reason, the impetus to return to the preconciliar rite seems to have lost momentum.  There will always be those who, for one reason or another, choose it but there seems to be little likelihood of it becoming universal practice once again.   

I think a big factor in the popularity (or survival) of the TLM is the reasons that motivate people toward it.  I hear all this “stuff” about “more reverent” or “a sense of holiness” but ultimately that is all pretty subjective.  Granted in the exceptional situation where it is a sung Solemn Mass there is a certain aesthetic beauty to it, but so too is there in a Novus Ordo Mass that is well done—just look at the papal Mass for Christmas Eve.  I know myself that I have some experience of worshipping with a Cistercian community and find the Liturgy—all very Novus Ordo—to be exceptionally beautiful and reverent.  And as for reverence, despite my liberalism I have yet to trip across a “clown Mass” or see some sandal-clad nun in wispy dress “preside” at Mass or any other such silliness.  I somewhat think such aberrations are a bit like the Loch Ness Monster: more a creature of legend than of fact.  If I have any criticism of the Novus Ordo it is that too many priests have fallen into a routine of how they “say Mass” and show all the enthusiasm of a tired mother at the end of the day folding the laundry.  But then I remember the 11 minute Saturday morning specials of my Tridentine youth and have no illusions how the TLM is inherently more reverent. 

I think people are drawn to the TLM for a number of reasons, not all of them spiritual.  I don’t mean to suggest an individual who prefers the TLM represents all of these characteristics and there may be other reasons as well.

1.    the TLM preserves that sense of individualism from the encroachment of a “community” of unknown (and undesired) strangers.  You don’t have to (and couldn’t if you wanted to) interface with your neighbor at the TLM

2.    The TLM permits you—if you wish—to pray via pious reverie rather than engage you with the Liturgy itself.  This is related to the sense of individualism in number 1.

3.    The TLM gives you an escape from the daily world and its pressures, allowing a peaceful and otherworldly respite for the duration of the Liturgy. 

4.    The TLM suspends the cultural tensions of our contemporary world and represents a retreat into a secure past with fixed answers and well-defined boundaries.  

5.    The TLM gives you a sense of intimacy with Christ that excludes others.

6.    The TLM marks you as different and distinct.  The sort of music, the use of Latin, the more formal tone gives you a certain status as a more cultured individual.

7.    The TLM draws people somewhat like-minded in their social and political views, namely of a strongly conservative conviction.

8.    For the spiritually restless, the TLM offers something new, foreign even, that creates an immediate semblance of religious experience. 

I don’t mean to suggest that all people drawn to the TLM have one or more of these (conscious or unconscious) motivations and do not mean to suggest that there are not other reasons.  But I think the movement in favor of the Traditional (Pre-Conciliar) Rites is, at best, a sort of niche Catholicism and I agree with Monsignor Pope that the niche is pretty well filled.  

Roots of the Reformation IX: danger signs of future Reformations.

Troops in Iraq receive Holy Communion at Christmas Mass
 Such situations are often the occasion where Protestant
Christians find themselves welcome to receive Holy Communon

I am including the following posting in my Roots of the Reformation series because I think the issues addressed here might well  be among the roots of the next Reformation.  Most of what I am dealing with in this series is not simply the story of Reformations past—but I am hopeful that you can recognize that they parallel some contemporary situations and could well be apparitions of Reformations-yet-to-come. 

I don’t normally read The National Catholic Reporter for the same reason I don’t read The Wanderer, The National Catholic Register, or most diocesan newspapers.  They are not newspapers.  They’re polemical pamphlets promoting a particular point of view—liberal or conservative—to which they will sacrifice not only objectivity but even factual truth.  That being said, I did recently pick up a copy of the NCR and found it, for the most part, as partisan as I had long thought it.  (I can’t say always because there was a time in the late sixties and early seventies I enjoyed it quite a bit and thought it reliable.  That may have been before I learned to think critically, or perhaps if I searched the archives, the paper itself had more to offer.)  I found two articles that gave me something to think about.  One was by Jamie Manson and discussed “how to lose Catholics and alienate people.”  The other referred to a conference at Marquette University Law School where Archbishop Diarmud Martin (Dublin, Ireland), Bishop Blase Cupich (Spokane, Washington) and several priests spoke about how a “culture of clericalism” has fostered the sex abuse crisis and hindered the ability of the Church to effectively recover and repair the damage—both to victims and itself—that the numerous instances of clerical sexual abuse have caused. 

The two topics—alienation of the faithful and the sex-abuse crisis—overlap but are two distinct issues.  There can be no doubt that one of the major factors in many people being disillusioned and disheartened with their Catholic faith is not only the numerous instances of sexual abuse by clergy, religious, and lay ministers in the Church but even more by the dreadful ways in which abuse cases have been handled over the years—and in some cases continue to be handled. (The same edition of the NCR said that there are 55 dioceses in the United States that are not complying with the protocols the bishops set for themselves in 2002—The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.)  At the same time, there are many more reasons why increasing numbers of Catholics are becoming discouraged—and alienated—in the practice of their faith.  Estimates claim that there are more the twenty-five million Americans who identify themselves as “former Catholics” (as distinguished from non-practicing Catholics), making ex-Catholics the second largest religious denomination in the Country, second only to Catholics (practicing and non-practicing, estimated to be 75 million).   It would be interesting to reflect somewhat on these two articles. 

Ms. Manson attributes alienation from the Church over the question of exclusion from Holy Communion.  There are many who are not permitted Holy Communion in the Catholic Church.  Indeed, more are forbidden the Eucharist than are welcome to it when you consider that, at least under ordinary circumstances, only those who have formal membership in the Catholic Church are welcome to receive Holy Communion.  (There are some limited circumstances when Protestants and other Christians can receive; these circumstances are largely unknown and, at least in the United States, almost always stingily applied when known).  In addition to being Catholic, one who wishes to come to the Eucharist must be “in the State of Grace,” that is they must not be conscious of having committed a grave sin and not (yet) having received sacramental absolution.  Catholics living together without benefit of clergy, those in a marriage not “blessed” by the Church, those in same-sex unions or the unmarried practicing sex—heterosexual or homosexual—are all prohibited from receiving the Eucharist.  Abortion is another block to receiving the Eucharist—indeed it not only bars one from the Eucharist but imposes excommunication on them.  Some would also say that voting for a politician or a political agenda that supports legalized abortion or would establish the legality of same-sex marriage would also excluded one from Holy Communion.  Sins outside the genus of sex don’t seem to incur this prohibition, at least in the popular understanding or from most pulpits.  It seems that in the eyes of many Catholics a sin can’t be mortal unless it is sexual. We certainly don’t talk of excluding from Holy Communion politicians or members of the judiciary who deviate on the conservative side from Church teaching.  

Our Catholic faith has a long tradition of requiring a scrupulous examination of conscience and sacramental confession before the reception of Holy Communion.  (Technically confession is only required before Holy Communion when the prospective communicant is guilty of “grave” or “mortal” sin.)  For the most part that seems to go by the wayside these days.  There are those who, reckoning themselves to be in good conscience, ignore Church laws and come to Communion blissfully unaware (or unacknowledging) of their moral failures .  And there are those—actually the majority—who simply come to mass rarely, if at all, to avoid the situation where they are left sitting in the pews while everyone around them goes to communion.  It is uncomfortable to sit back while everyone else goes forward.  I know.  When I am at Mass with my Methodist sister-in-law—who patiently accepts the fact that she is unwelcome at the Lord’s Table simply because she is a Methodist—I sit with her in the pews.  There is more than one way to be in Communion with Christ; sharing the loneliness of those members of his Body who must stand back is one of the alternative ways.     

Not coming to Holy Communion has not always been as uncomfortable a plight as it has become these more recent years.  Fifty years ago fewer Catholics went to communion.  Those who planned to receive went to early mass; those attending later mass rarely went to communion.  With each later hour, the number of communicants drastically fell.  The sinner and the Methodist need not have felt so alone.  This was because the communion fast made it difficult to wait until ten or eleven o’clock, much less noon mass.  Perhaps we need to add non-Eucharistic worship-Morning Prayer, for example—to our Sunday Services to accommodate those who want to be part of the Community of the Faithful and worship God but who find not being able to come to communion too difficult to bear.  This is not as revolutionary as it sounds.  Morning Prayer was long a part of the Sunday (and even daily)   liturgies in Catholic churches.  Moreover, in the Eastern tradition—both Catholic and Orthodox—those who attend “Orthos” (Matins) or Vespers fulfill their canonical obligation for Sunday Worship. 

Keeping people away from church, or making them uncomfortable once they are there, is no way to bring them back to God and to rectify their lives.  Nor is it consistent with the teachings and practice of Jesus in the Gospel.  Maybe it is time to look back into our tradition and find a way to make all welcome—if not at the table, at least in the household. 

The clericalism topic—maybe next time.