Avoiding Elitism

Liturgy and politics are not so dissimilar. For those who consider themselves aficionados or pundits, both spheres offer endless opportunities for analysis, discussion, and persuasion. There is a soteriological element as well—for if we can just get the liturgy right, just usher in the right candidate or political party, everything will be restored. “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

For those not so disposed, however, such heady bantering can quickly grow…wearisome. And though I may not be all that astute in things liturgical or political, I do have a workingman’s knowledge of human nature enough to know that it is fallen, prone to overcorrection, and subject to the law of unintended consequences. 

Movements—whether it’s MAGA or “Restore the ’54”—are reactionary; they do not rise but from a vacuum. John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In the gaping hole left by the dearth of that individual virtue—or even the knowledge of what virtus is—a populist nationalism has stepped in to take its place. And in the Church, the sinew that bound all Catholics together in a confident, unified bloc was severed by the Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms. What sauntered into the hollowed-out crater left in its wake—the Mass of Paul VI—was a willowy, uncommanding stand-in for the past fifty-five years. While the jury is still out that the “New Springtime” in the Church is yet to be realized, most of us are not holding our breath.

Americans are people of ingenuity, however—the time has always been ripe for the seeds of reform to be sown when the eschaton is imminent. MAGA is a disrupter response to lackadaisical, status-quo, center-right neo-conservatism that could no longer read the room. And the rise in interest in all-things-traditional in the Church—from attendance at the Traditional Latin Mass to the simple act of donning a chapel veil or turning one’s face aright toward Almighty God at the foot of the altar—is simply a return to what once was; what’s old is new again. Not to mention that the rife modernism baked into the culture of the post Vatican II Church holds little allure for the those who truly want to Make Catholicism Great Again.

But as in most things political and eschatological, we tend to overshoot and come closer to center with subsequent correction over time, not in our first- and second-degree responses in the immediate aftermath of reform. When James and John’s mother approached the Lord, jockeying for first and second position for her sons in the Kingdom, He set His disciples straight by instructing them that the last shall be first, and the first shall be the servant of the last (Matthew 20:21, 27). One could argue Salome was simply being magnanimous-by-proxy in her boldness, something to be commended (as with the persistent widow before the judge in Luke 18, or the woman with the flow of blood pushing through the crowd in Mark 5). But we can see that the model the Lord sets for us is that of a child: for “unless you turn and become as children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3).

I heard a quote years ago from the late Fr. John Hardon, S.J., that “Ordinary Catholic families cannot survive. They must be extra-ordinary families. They must be what I do not hesitate to call heroic Catholic families.” I thought it was a bold, prophetic proclamation; and the more of his writings I read, the more I admired the good Jesuit’s zeal—until I realized that the Traditionalists I had aligned myself with regarded Fr. Hardon as a “modernist.” I would hear this pejorative used time and time again—sometimes for good reason and sometimes as a simple and lazy slur—to malign anyone outside of the Traditionalist camp or calendar as a kind of grafted, tainted fruit. Never mind that the priest spent upward of three hours in Eucharistic Adoration daily, wrote voluminously, and is considered a Servant of God. That he lived during and was steeped in the post-conciliar reforms of the liturgy is enough to be dismissive of him, along with many other now-canonized saints of his time.

The Epistle from today’s Fourth Sunday After Epiphany poignantly shows Paul’s focus on “first things”:

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another. For he that loveth his neighbour, hath fulfilled the law.

For Thou shalt not commit adultery: Thou shalt not kill: Thou shalt not steal: Thou shalt not bear false witness: Thou shalt not covet: and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The love of our neighbour worketh no evil. Love therefore is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

And this is where I think the merits of the Traditionalist movement overcorrect, at least in my own experience. It is not unsurprising to find the regard for the law at the expense of charity—the fulfillment of the law—as more tangible, more within our power and control. We can keep the fast as absolute, but charity in the circumstances that demand it is optional. For love is nebulous, uncomfortable, demanding, and sometime intangible.

In accepting the merits of Traditionalism as meet and just, “first fruits” of my worship and an unblemished sacrifice, I had also imbibed a kind of unspoken and carcinogenic elitism: that Traditionalists—and to a lesser degree those who exclusively attended the Traditional Latin Mass—were like the Navy Seals or Marines of the Church Militant. In accepting the merits of Traditionalism as meet and just, “first fruits” of my worship and an unblemished sacrifice, I had also imbibed a kind of unspoken and carcinogenic elitism.Tweet This

After all, if Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi (the law of what is prayed is what is believed, is what is lived) shakes out, then of course the Traditional Mass is superior in every way, is the only way forward for the Church, and is the surest way of worship to produce sanctity in the individual assisting at it. Were one to know this and still attend the Novus Ordo willingly, it would be akin to choosing to enlist in the Army or Merchant Marine instead. 

Of course, this is an insulting way to regard the various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. And it is an equally maligning way to regard individuals of either different Catholic rites (Byzantine, Maronite, Coptic, etc.) or those who attend the New Mass. It didn’t shake out empirically either; for while within the folds of Traditional Catholicism I saw crisp bows and tight ribbons on the package of worship, the inner kernel of charity that Paul elevates to the highest place of importance did not produce an abundant harvest of the fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

That did not mean that I did not know lovely individuals who were wedded to the TLM, or that they exhibited the opposite of these virtues in their daily lives—only that the attendance at the Latin Mass did not produce visible fruit in proportion to the degree with which the Mass was itself regarded as infinitely superior to the Novus Ordo. For there were equal number of Catholics I knew who did, in fact, exhibit those seemingly-squishy fruits of the Spirit that had no interest or desire to assist at the Traditional Liturgy even when it was made available to them. 

When I did attend the Novus Ordo, I found my sense of reverence, zeal, and piety existed in spite of the often-banal liturgies I attended, not because of it. At the Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday (and First Fridays, First Saturdays, HDOs, etc.), I can rest on my laurels a bit more. I know what I am walking into, for the safety fencing of the rubrics keeps abuse and shenanigans in check. I still attest that the liturgy is not just preferred (by me, and many others) but objectively superior to the New Mass. 

But the sense of self-assurance—that I’m on some kind of “A-Team” of Catholic elites because of the superiority of the Traditional Liturgy—still creeps in from time to time when I’m not even cognizant of it. And in my mind, that’s a problem, whether it’s recognized for what it is and even if it’s not. For just as the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17-20), so the “first things” of salvation consist in the fruit produced by the Spirit in the individual, not by what Mass we attend. When the Mass (in whatever form) fosters this, it is meritorious for the soul before God at his Judgment. 

I used to think that we would all be better off had the New Mass never been introduced. It was our own kind of “Catholic Reformation” within the Church herself that went off the rails. Were fresh air and degrees of reform needed prior to the Council? Yes. Did that necessitate stripping all the churches of their Catholicity and instituting instead a kind of inorganic liturgical novelty that has failed to usher in the “new springtime” it promised? Then again, whose fault is it that we have not become saints ourselves—Ours? God’s? The Church’s? 

By God’s permissive will, the Council happened—for better or for worse. Even were it possible to pull back the reforms and “Restore the ’54” (or ’62, if that’s your flavor) as a kind of papal fiat over and against the will of those who would prefer to attend the Novus Ordo, it would be just as unjust as the present pontificate looking to abrogate the Traditional Latin Mass for those edified and nourished by it. That tells me that it’s not the Mass that’s the problem—it’s us.

For I have not seen the empirical evidence that the Traditional Mass will be the face of restoration of the Church, at least outside of my echo chamber and tunnel. It has its place and merits, as well as the potential to produce saints—just as any rite within the Church does. But that comes down to the soul itself, not the liturgy alone. 

Our Lord called men from all backgrounds, walks, and vocations to be His inner circle. He called Matthew from the Roman government. He called a radical Jewish patriot and Zealot, Simon, as an apostle. He trusted a traitor and defector, Judas, with knowledge reserved for only His closest friends. Christ prayed that “they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you” (John 17:21). 

I know I will be held to account at the Judgment for every scoff, every smirk, every denigration in word or deed toward those things I considered inferior, “normie,” or simply banal that may, in fact, have been the very thing that edified a fellow believer in the Faith—a fellow brother in Christ. When the devil cannot trip us on the lower rungs of the ladder of divine ascent, he reserves the stick of pride to do the work for him. And we often have our work cut out for us in that department.

The Church herself and those within her folds are much larger and more diverse than we give her credit for. We tend to think that everyone is like us, wants the same thing as us—a kind of embarrassing selection bias. We cannot go back to a time before the Council—this is the time God willed us to live in, to work out our salvation in fear and trembling without excuse. “You shall be holy,” says the Lord, “for I am holy.” In Heaven, we are all One. If you want to be part of a true elite squad, make Heaven your trajectory. By what means you arrive there is for the Lord to ordain.