Mark Shea on "Rad-Tradism"
Posted by: tony on 02/07/2008 03:40 AM
Updated by: tony on 02/12/2008 07:41 PM
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Expires: 03/09/2008 12:00 AM
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As a survivor of Vatican II... Let me rephrase that... As a survivor of my parish's implementation of Vatican II... I say it that way because the edict came down from above that the Holy Mass which I had attended for all 8 years of my young life was going to change.
Children usually take change well. I really didn't. I was very close to God, Jesus who was also God, and that bird who was the third person of the Holy Trinity. I felt closest to God in the celebration of the Mass, falling to my knees before the Creator of the universe, and accepting him on my tongue. After all, my hands were unworthy to touch my Lord and savior.
There was no catechesis. They only told us when and how, but never told us why. The only why we got was "the Pope said so". So yes, I was angry. My faith took a hit that laid me out for almost 32 years.
I guess I would have fit into the mold of the self ghettoized traditionalist. Vatican II was evil. They denuded my church. They removes most of the statues. They painted over the detailed murals and frescoes. They turned my beautiful Catholic church building into a warehouse. Mark Shea describes the syndrome:
Put simply, here's how the real world works: When the principle experience of Tradism is of mean people who are angry about remote arcana, the average person is not going to feel any obligation or interest whatsoever "in understanding the things we care about". Telling such people that they need to overlook their experience and stop talking about what they have actually seen and heard will be about as successful as Muslim attempt to force people to not notice the less-than-lovely face that the Religion of Peace shows the world. It would be better if this approach were abandoned and the less-than-lovely things that seem to crop up so often were addressed somehow. That's how you make progress with people who don't know you all that well.
Assuming, of course, that you *want* to make progress and grow in influence in the Church. However, the nature of sin (whether of the Left's favorite sin, lust, or the Right's favorite sin, anger, is that they both feed into the great sin, Pride. And pride is always ultimately a death wish that insanely prefers to die rather than live.
So I have to ask, is clinging to anger more important to you than actually winning hearts and minds to your cause?
Was I that much of a caricature? I guess I was. I used to visit churches and play "count the liturgical abuses". I'd walk into a new worship community and look for problems. Where's the tabernacle? Is there a red light there? How about the altar? How many banners? Did we get yet another mushy "peace -n- justice" homily?
So one day I came to the conclusion that I was just going to offer it up to God. He will take care of wayward priests and bishops in His way and in His time.
This is not to say that I won't comment on the more egregious violations, and assorted kumbaya episcopal policies, but I simply won't let it affect my peace.
Update: Welcome Catholic and Enjoying It readers. Poke around, and feel free to leave comments.
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