Culture, Empty Culture, Counterculture: A Reply to Fr. de Souza on the Petition to Save the TLM

In the National Catholic Register, Fr. Raymond de Souza tries to articulate the discomfort some feel about the “Agatha Christie” petition that played a role in saving the Traditional Mass in 1971 and a new petition organized by Sir James MacMillan with a similar group of signatories to the same end.

Non-Catholic cultural figures signed these to save something (as they wrote in 1971) “that belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians.”

Fr. de Souza raises two distinct concerns. One is that while proponents of the TLM appreciate the distinct culture of their communities, their opponents regard them as “a narrow subculture” which can be off-putting to outsiders (Damian Thompson doesn’t like the pipe-smoking), and this may have something to do with Pope Francis’ characterization of Traditional Mass-goers as sedevacantist fanatics.

Fr. de Souza acknowledges that this is not what the new petition is about. So, the second concern is that the idea that the ancient Mass, like an ancient cathedral, “is a repository of wisdom, a vessel for ideals and an expression of noble aspiration,” is vulnerable to a different objection: that the current custodians of some of England’s great cathedrals treat them so lightly that they are used for raves, and that agnostics and atheists arguing for something on cultural grounds could look like a preference for “external form” over “interior integrity.”

I’m grateful to Fr. de Souza for trying to winkle out these concerns, but both are very confused. The first objection, as he concedes, really has nothing to do with the petition. For what it is worth, there is literally no connection between the handful of pipe-smoking young fogeys who attend the Traditional Mass in one (yes, one) well-known church in central London and American basement-dwelling keyboard warriors who create the kind of internet content that might possibly have inspired Pope Francis’ Letter to Bishops. The other 99.99 percent of people who attend the Traditional Mass around the world have no connection with either group. Not that I’ve got anything against pipe smoking; to make this is into a kind of shibboleth seems mystifying.

The second objection is more interesting. It is the presentation of what Martin Mosebach calls “the heresy of formlessness”: the idea that outward appearances of all kinds—decoration, ritual, symbol—are invitations to hypocrisy, since all that really matters is inner conviction. I don’t think supporters of the TLM should be worried that objections to the petitions might come from this direction, since, as Mosebach argues, this is the deep root, in the Western history of ideas from the Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation, of opposition to the Traditional Mass. The ancient liturgy is itself a highly-elaborated symbol complex, and people who can’t look at subtle, artful expressions of ideas without wondering if they are authentic are never going to be its friends.  The ancient liturgy is itself a highly-elaborated symbol complex, and people who can’t look at subtle, artful expressions of ideas without wondering if they are authentic are never going to be its friends.Tweet This

Indeed, even the simplified ritual of the Novus Ordo must fill them with misgivings: presumably they would only be satisfied with a congregation sitting still and in total silence, as in the Quakers’ “silent worship,” though they would regard the Quakers’ traditional “simple clothing” with deep suspicion. Yes, they have eschewed all decoration, but is this very eschewing of decoration heartfelt and sincere? How can one really tell? Come to think of it, the same question can be asked of silent worship itself. Who knows if the worshippers are thinking about their varicose veins or their next meal? The heresy of formlessness is insatiable. You can’t negotiate with it; you can only reject it.

What, then, is wrong with it? It completely misunderstands the function of a symbol. Think of a person waving a flag in a march. The point of these displays is not to reflect the inner life of the flag-carrier. The point is to convey a message: to promote some value or communicate an allegiance. It does so whatever the flag-carrier is thinking, and whether he is a true believer or has been hired for the occasion. People who see the flag can’t read the carrier’s mind, and they don’t need to to get the message.

As St. Teresa of Avila said about the Latin Office: “a messenger does not need to know the content of the letter he delivers.” The immensely rich symbolism of the Mass does not need to be consciously intended by the celebrant in every detail: in fact, the symbolism is so rich that such a thing would be impossible. It is there to be discovered and explored by the worshipper; and even more importantly, it conveys its message to God, the object of worship Himself.

The Traditional Mass, like the Church’s patrimony of sacred music and devotional art, is indeed “a repository of wisdom, a vessel for ideals and an expression of noble aspiration.” Catholics, whatever form of Mass they attend, are sadly familiar with custodians of sacred symbols and liturgical officiants who don’t appreciate the meaning of those things. If they are reasonably quiet about their opinions, it need not detract too much either from the objective or the subjective value of the symbol or the liturgy, or its meaning.

What has this to do with non-believing composers, arts administrators, and politicians who want the Catholic Church to preserve the inestimable artistic and spiritual treasure of her Traditional Mass? Fr. de Souza thinks that their enthusiasm can be turned against the traditional cause because if they are not Catholic they must appreciate the Mass only as an artistic—and not as a spiritual—treasure: as an outward form lacking in authentic, sincerely believed content. 

This is a very strange argument. What of the Catholics who signed, who make up about half the signatories? There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of their appreciation for the spiritual value of the Mass.

More fundamentally, why assume that people who don’t share all of our beliefs are incapable of understanding that the values represented by the Mass are, above all, spiritual? It would be a very strange classical musician or Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum who didn’t grasp that Mass, and the music and art connected with it, has got something to do with spiritual values. The petition text, indeed, makes this point when it refers to its “ability to encourage silence and contemplation.”

The metaphor of the cathedral used in both petitions derives from Marcel Proust, who argued against the secularization of France’s cathedrals, in an article translated by Christina Campo, the original author of the petition text (see my book on the subject). He was a non-believer but valued the liturgy of the cathedrals as their “life.” If Catholicism disappeared, he pointed out, people would want to see reenactments of the liturgy, but we are luckier: “It is the ministers of worship themselves who celebrate, not with an aesthetic outlook, but by faith—and all the more aesthetically for that very reason.”

The men and women of cultural sensitivity who signed this petition are perfectly able to understand, like Proust, that the aesthetic value of the Mass cannot be separated from its spiritual content.