Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

Taki's Top Drawer ^ | July 10, 2007 | Charles Coulombe.


Posted on 08/05/2007 6:56:12 PM PDT by Diago


Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization?
Posted by Charles A. Coulombe on July 10, 2007

Islam is the obvious external
threat

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

Taki's Top Drawer ^ | July 10, 2007 | Charles Coulombe.

Posted on 08/05/2007 6:56:12 PM PDT by Diago

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization?
Posted by Charles A. Coulombe on July 10, 2007

Back during the Roaring '20s, a then-contemporary witticism had it
that four institutions would prevent the takeover of Europe by
Communism: the German General Staff, the British House of Lords, the
Academie Fran=E7aise, and the Holy See. Eighty years have brought many
changes, to be sure. On the one hand, Communism is as unlikely to
remerge in Europe as Fascism or Nazism. But on the other, the four
mentioned institutions have also undergone alteration. The German
General Staff was corrupted by Hitler, and destroyed by the allies;
the House of Lords has suffered the same fate (albeit in reverse
order) at the hands of the late Tony Blair. The cultural supremacy of
English has diminished the relevance and importance of the Academie
severely: as one French friend told me, "it would not be so terrible
for the language of Moliere to be eclipsed by that of Shakespeare; but
by that of Rod McKuen?" A horrible fate for us all, to be sure.

Moreover, if Communism has departed for the happy hunting ground of
evil philosophies, the civilization of the West has acquired other
enemies, unthinkable in the Flapper age. Islam is the obvious external
threat-not merely in terms of terrorism and the like, but by a
seemingly inexorable birth-rate within the Mother Continent herself.
This latter development is matched by a corresponding fall in the
fertility of the native population, itself bound up with a sickness-of-
self on the part of that same population. To a great degree, this is
the result of a second, internal enemy: a secularism that hates all
that Europe, North America, and Australasia once were, and that would
replace it with-well, that's just it. It is a state of mind that
cannot build; it can only destroy. Worse, it is the dominant mindset
among those of the Western elites who belong to that age-group called
the "Baby Boomers" in America , and the "Generation of '68" in Europe.
Despite the rapid onset of old age, they cling to the rebelliousness
of their youth as though it were a mystic talisman, protecting them
from Father Time. All that made the West strong, in culture,
governance, politics, and most assuredly in religion, is intolerable
to them. But if the identities of the nations they manage are
destroyed from above and within, how can those countries possibly
survive in the long run?

The one remaining member of the quartet earlier mentioned is the Holy
See. But it too is not what it was when Pius XI occupied St. Peter's
Throne. The horrors of World War II damaged the self-confidence in the
Catholic ethos of the generation of clerics who lived through them.
This would play a big part in the events of Vatican II and its
aftermath. However one wishes to view those occurrences, the fact
remains that by 1970, the Church appeared to be in an acute state of
what Paul VI called "auto-demolition." Although the Holy See under
John Paul II contributed heavily to the fall of the Soviet Union , and
its role in the diplomatic world expanded, the Church's ability to
counter the self-destructive tendencies in Western Culture became
severely limited. Supposedly Catholic legislators throughout the West
(even including such clerics as Congressman Robert Drinan, S.J.)
joined gleefully in wrecking the moral and political heritage of
centuries. Bishops themselves often quietly acquiesced in this,
refusing to discipline such members of their flock as, say, Teddy
Kennedy, for their anti-Catholic voting patterns. This was, however,
emblematic of said prelates' attempts to purge the Church of every
vestige of the Catholic past.

Nowhere were these attempts more obvious than with the liturgy, the
center of the Catholic religion. Most particularly, the classical form
of the Catholic Mass and various other Sacraments was virtually
banished from almost every nook of Christendom. With it went much of
the distinctive Catholic identity-so much a part of the very
foundation of Western culture. As the Harvard historian Christopher
Dawson famously remarked, culture flows from "cult," or worship; when
forces internal or external root out the forms or content of religious
practice in a civilization, they have essentially cut out its heart--
the brain will follow.

After some 36 years of liturgical controversy, Pope Benedict XVI, on
Saturday, July 7, 2007, in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, has
liberated the ancient Roman liturgy, which, after September 14 of this
year, may be celebrated by any priest anywhere in the Catholic world.
This action was angrily attacked by a number of bishops and other
liberal Catholics in the weeks leading up to its promulgation.

Now it may be objected at this point that this occurrence, while
doubtless of interest to Catholics, would have little interest to
those outside of their religion. But in fact, it has attracted angry
denunciations by such as the ADL's Abraham Foxman (admittedly, Mr.
Foxman has been described by his co-religionist, comedian and ordained
rabbi Jackie Mason as "more afraid of a real job than of anti-
Semitism"). Catholics might be tempted to angrily respond that
Foxman's statements upon an internal Church affair are as impudent as
Gentiles attacking elements of the Jewish liturgy that they might find
offensive (such as Yom Kippur's Kol Nidre prayer) would most certainly
be. But such Catholics would be wrong.

The truth is that the Catholic Church is a bellwether for the health
of Western Civilization in general-a sort of canary chanting in the
coal mine of culture. On the one hand, events within the Church cast
their shadow on the rest of the Christian ecclesial bodies. This
author has ventured, for example, into formerly beautiful Anglican and
Lutheran churches, only to find them sacked by their clergy in similar
manner to the depredations suffered by Catholic parishes in the past
four decades. Upon enquiring about the reason for such artistic
purging, he has often been told-"oh, because of Vatican II!" While he
understands that this a misreading of the Council common in Catholic
circles, he has never been able to understand how it could have any
relevance to other denominations.

But there are wider implications as well. When, in 1971, news came out
that the traditional Latin Mass was to be scrapped, a primarily non-
Catholic group of English artists and writers protested to Paul VI:

If some senseless decree were to order the total or partial
destruction of basilicas or cathedrals, then obviously it would be the
educated-whatever their personal beliefs-who would rise up in horror
to oppose such a possibility.

Now the fact is that basilicas and cathedrals were built so as to
celebrate a rite which, until a few months ago, constituted a living
tradition. We are referring to the Roman Catholic Mass. Yet,
according to the latest information in Rome , there is a plan to
obliterate that Mass by the end of the current year.

One of the axioms of contemporary publicity, religious as well as
secular, is that modern man in general, and intellectuals in
particular, have become intolerant of all forms of tradition and are
anxious to suppress them and put something else in their place.

But, like many other affirmations of our publicity machines, this
axiom is false. Today, as in times gone by, educated people are in
the vanguard where recognition of the value of tradition is concerned,
and are the first to raise the alarm when it is threatened.

We are not at this moment considering the religious or spiritual
experience of millions of individuals. The rite in question, in its
magnificent Latin text, has also inspired a host of priceless
achievements in the arts-not only mystical works, but works by poets,
philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all
countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well
as to churchmen and formal Christians.

In the materialistic and technocratic civilisation that is
increasingly threatening the life of mind and spirit in its original
creative expression-the word-it seems particularly inhuman to deprive
man of word-forms in one of their most grandiose manifestations.

The signatories of this appeal, which is entirely ecumenical and
nonpolitical, have been drawn from every branch of modern culture in
Europe and elsewhere. They wish to call to the attention of the Holy
See, the appalling responsibility it would incur in the history of the
human spirit were it to refuse to allow the Traditional Mass to
survive, even though this survival took place side by side with other
liturgical forms.

Fifty-six of the most prominent and celebrated English writers,
artists, and musicians of the time signed it --- among them Vladimir
Ashkenazy and Yehudi Menuhin (pace Mr. Foxman), Graham Greene, Robert
Graves and Cecil Day-Lewis (onetime poet laureate and father of
Daniel), Iris Murdoch, and, in the end most importantly, Agatha
Christie. The importance of the last signatory lay in the fact that
the then-Pontiff was a devotee of her mysteries, and so granted her
request. The resulting permission for the Old Mass to be continued in
England to some degree has therefore been dubbed the "Agatha Christie
Indult."

What these illustrious folk understood, better than many theologians,
was that the health of the Catholic Church was and is integral to the
health of the West. If our civilization is to withstand its current
slate of internal and external foes-throughout Europe and the Diaspora-
it must regain its hold on the things that first enkindled its spirit.
Restoration of liturgical sanity and unity within the Catholic Church
will inevitably have a beneficial "trickle-down" effect far beyond the
Church's borders. ...

read more =BB

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1876865/posts

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]

Taki's Top Drawer ^ | July 10, 2007 | Charles Coulombe.

Posted on 08/05/2007 6:56:12 PM PDT by Diago

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization?
Posted by Charles A. Coulombe on July 10, 2007

Back during the Roaring '20s, a then-contemporary witticism had it
that four institutions would prevent the takeover of Europe by
Communism: the German General Staff, the British House of Lords, the
Academie Fran=E7aise, and the Holy See. Eighty years have brought many
changes, to be sure. On the one hand, Communism is as unlikely to
remerge in Europe as Fascism or Nazism. But on the other, the four
mentioned institutions have also undergone alteration. The German
General Staff was corrupted by Hitler, and destroyed by the allies;
the House of Lords has suffered the same fate (albeit in reverse
order) at the hands of the late Tony Blair. The cultural supremacy of
English has diminished the relevance and importance of the Academie
severely: as one French friend told me, "it would not be so terrible
for the language of Moliere to be eclipsed by that of Shakespeare; but
by that of Rod McKuen?" A horrible fate for us all, to be sure.

Moreover, if Communism has departed for the happy hunting ground of
evil philosophies, the civilization of the West has acquired other
enemies, unthinkable in the Flapper age. Islam is the obvious external
threat-not merely in terms of terrorism and the like, but by a
seemingly inexorable birth-rate within the Mother Continent herself.
This latter development is matched by a corresponding fall in the
fertility of the native population, itself bound up with a sickness-of-
self on the part of that same population. To a great degree, this is
the result of a second, internal enemy: a secularism that hates all
that Europe, North America, and Australasia once were, and that would
replace it with-well, that's just it. It is a state of mind that
cannot build; it can only destroy. Worse, it is the dominant mindset
among those of the Western elites who belong to that age-group called
the "Baby Boomers" in America , and the "Generation of '68" in Europe.
Despite the rapid onset of old age, they cling to the rebelliousness
of their youth as though it were a mystic talisman, protecting them
from Father Time. All that made the West strong, in culture,
governance, politics, and most assuredly in religion, is intolerable
to them. But if the identities of the nations they manage are
destroyed from above and within, how can those countries possibly
survive in the long run?

The one remaining member of the quartet earlier mentioned is the Holy
See. But it too is not what it was when Pius XI occupied St. Peter's
Throne. The horrors of World War II damaged the self-confidence in the
Catholic ethos of the generation of clerics who lived through them.
This would play a big part in the events of Vatican II and its
aftermath. However one wishes to view those occurrences, the fact
remains that by 1970, the Church appeared to be in an acute state of
what Paul VI called "auto-demolition." Although the Holy See under
John Paul II contributed heavily to the fall of the Soviet Union , and
its role in the diplomatic world expanded, the Church's ability to
counter the self-destructive tendencies in Western Culture became
severely limited. Supposedly Catholic legislators throughout the West
(even including such clerics as Congressman Robert Drinan, S.J.)
joined gleefully in wrecking the moral and political heritage of
centuries. Bishops themselves often quietly acquiesced in this,
refusing to discipline such members of their flock as, say, Teddy
Kennedy, for their anti-Catholic voting patterns. This was, however,
emblematic of said prelates' attempts to purge the Church of every
vestige of the Catholic past.

Nowhere were these attempts more obvious than with the liturgy, the
center of the Catholic religion. Most particularly, the classical form
of the Catholic Mass and various other Sacraments was virtually
banished from almost every nook of Christendom. With it went much of
the distinctive Catholic identity-so much a part of the very
foundation of Western culture. As the Harvard historian Christopher
Dawson famously remarked, culture flows from "cult," or worship; when
forces internal or external root out the forms or content of religious
practice in a civilization, they have essentially cut out its heart--
the brain will follow.

After some 36 years of liturgical controversy, Pope Benedict XVI, on
Saturday, July 7, 2007, in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, has
liberated the ancient Roman liturgy, which, after September 14 of this
year, may be celebrated by any priest anywhere in the Catholic world.
This action was angrily attacked by a number of bishops and other
liberal Catholics in the weeks leading up to its promulgation.

Now it may be objected at this point that this occurrence, while
doubtless of interest to Catholics, would have little interest to
those outside of their religion. But in fact, it has attracted angry
denunciations by such as the ADL's Abraham Foxman (admittedly, Mr.
Foxman has been described by his co-religionist, comedian and ordained
rabbi Jackie Mason as "more afraid of a real job than of anti-
Semitism"). Catholics might be tempted to angrily respond that
Foxman's statements upon an internal Church affair are as impudent as
Gentiles attacking elements of the Jewish liturgy that they might find
offensive (such as Yom Kippur's Kol Nidre prayer) would most certainly
be. But such Catholics would be wrong.

The truth is that the Catholic Church is a bellwether for the health
of Western Civilization in general-a sort of canary chanting in the
coal mine of culture. On the one hand, events within the Church cast
their shadow on the rest of the Christian ecclesial bodies. This
author has ventured, for example, into formerly beautiful Anglican and
Lutheran churches, only to find them sacked by their clergy in similar
manner to the depredations suffered by Catholic parishes in the past
four decades. Upon enquiring about the reason for such artistic
purging, he has often been told-"oh, because of Vatican II!" While he
understands that this a misreading of the Council common in Catholic
circles, he has never been able to understand how it could have any
relevance to other denominations.

But there are wider implications as well. When, in 1971, news came out
that the traditional Latin Mass was to be scrapped, a primarily non-
Catholic group of English artists and writers protested to Paul VI:

If some senseless decree were to order the total or partial
destruction of basilicas or cathedrals, then obviously it would be the
educated-whatever their personal beliefs-who would rise up in horror
to oppose such a possibility.

Now the fact is that basilicas and cathedrals were built so as to
celebrate a rite which, until a few months ago, constituted a living
tradition. We are referring to the Roman Catholic Mass. Yet,
according to the latest information in Rome , there is a plan to
obliterate that Mass by the end of the current year.

One of the axioms of contemporary publicity, religious as well as
secular, is that modern man in general, and intellectuals in
particular, have become intolerant of all forms of tradition and are
anxious to suppress them and put something else in their place.

But, like many other affirmations of our publicity machines, this
axiom is false. Today, as in times gone by, educated people are in
the vanguard where recognition of the value of tradition is concerned,
and are the first to raise the alarm when it is threatened.

We are not at this moment considering the religious or spiritual
experience of millions of individuals. The rite in question, in its
magnificent Latin text, has also inspired a host of priceless
achievements in the arts-not only mystical works, but works by poets,
philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all
countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well
as to churchmen and formal Christians.

In the materialistic and technocratic civilisation that is
increasingly threatening the life of mind and spirit in its original
creative expression-the word-it seems particularly inhuman to deprive
man of word-forms in one of their most grandiose manifestations.

The signatories of this appeal, which is entirely ecumenical and
nonpolitical, have been drawn from every branch of modern culture in
Europe and elsewhere. They wish to call to the attention of the Holy
See, the appalling responsibility it would incur in the history of the
human spirit were it to refuse to allow the Traditional Mass to
survive, even though this survival took place side by side with other
liturgical forms.

Fifty-six of the most prominent and celebrated English writers,
artists, and musicians of the time signed it --- among them Vladimir
Ashkenazy and Yehudi Menuhin (pace Mr. Foxman), Graham Greene, Robert
Graves and Cecil Day-Lewis (onetime poet laureate and father of
Daniel), Iris Murdoch, and, in the end most importantly, Agatha
Christie. The importance of the last signatory lay in the fact that
the then-Pontiff was a devotee of her mysteries, and so granted her
request. The resulting permission for the Old Mass to be continued in
England to some degree has therefore been dubbed the "Agatha Christie
Indult."

What these illustrious folk understood, better than many theologians,
was that the health of the Catholic Church was and is integral to the
health of the West. If our civilization is to withstand its current
slate of internal and external foes-throughout Europe and the Diaspora-
it must regain its hold on the things that first enkindled its spirit.
Restoration of liturgical sanity and unity within the Catholic Church
will inevitably have a beneficial "trickle-down" effect far beyond the
Church's borders. Those who prize the health of the West must welcome
Benedict XVI's action, regardless of their own creed.

Of course, this is only one part of the new Pope's apparent program-
all of which, however, tend to the same ends. His ongoing efforts at
the formation of an Anglican Rite within the Catholic Church bode well
for members of that Communion who are disgusted with their
hierarchies' headlong retreat from Christian orthodoxy and morality.
The Pope's initiatives to shore up the beleaguered Patriarchate of
Constantinople show an authentic desire to move past the hatreds and
bitternesses of the past that have so long sundered East and West.
Recent moves to discipline erring theologians and free the Catholics
of China are very hopeful signs that the long slumber of the post-
Vatican II era is over. With Benedict's encouragement, the Cardinal-
Archbishop of Mexico City has excommunicated the Mayor and City
Council of his town, who have introduced abortion to their bailiwick
(although they seem less capable of policing the streets). This is an
example that-given the caliber of his episcopal appointments- may well
be echoed one day in New York , Boston , or even Washington.

Should the Pope be successful in his attempts to straighten the course
of the Barque of Peter, it will of course be of immense benefit to his
own flock. But more importantly, to the non-Catholic, it will restore
the Church's ability to function as effective a watchdog over the
health of the body politic of the West as ever she did under Pius XI.

But do not be fooled. The viciousness of the attacks of the liberal
media, such as Mr. Foxman, and various Catholic clerics and other such
pundits on the new liturgical decree are being echoed in other
spheres. From Belgium , news has come that homosexual activists have
brought charges against Mgr Andr=E9-Mutien L=E9onard, the Catholic bishop
of Namur , for homophobia. In that country, this is a criminal offence
under the country's 2003 Anti-Discrimination Act.

In an interview last April in the Walloon weekly T=E9l=E9 Moustique, the
bishop is said to have described gays as "abnormal". According to
Michel Graindorge, the activists' lawyer, the bishop intended to
"stigmatize" homosexuals, whose "identity and dignity is debased from
the moment that the bishop considers them to be abnormal." In
Australia, A New South Wales parliamentary committee will investigate
whether Sydney 's George Cardinal Pell was in contempt of parliament
in warning that there would be "consequences" for Catholic members of
the NSW parliament who voted for a bill that would scrap a ban on stem
cell research. The alleged free nations of the West, apparently intent
on suicide, will-should these trends continue-punish Catholic prelates
for doing their duty as they believe Christ has called them to do.
Nor, in the end, will it only be Catholics so threatened, but anyone
who holds to what the West has been, and what it needs to be if it is
to survive.

For such as these, then, any and all of Benedict XVI's efforts at
rebuilding the Catholic ethos should be welcomed, and their success
prayed for. But all of these things can bring little surprise to
students of history. Very often, down through the two millennia of the
Church's history, internal reform has been followed by external
persecution-itself usually the prelude to a period of triumph. In this
light, July 7, 2007, may well be seen in future centuries to be as
momentous a date as September 11, 2001--although, of course, one that
points not toward death but rebirth. Whatever the case, keep your eyes
on Rome.

Charles A. Coulombe is author of Vicars of Christ: A History of the
Popes.

Printer Friendly
Email Article
Email the Editor

Comments
As a complement to the superb scope of Mr. Coulombe's analysis it may
be worth observing that by casting aside the Tridentine rite,
Catholicism left it untouched by the pollution, Catholic and beyond,
of recent decades. Thus leaving aside such mystical strength as
Catholics will ascribe to it, even from a secular perspective there is
in the West today no more vivid a foundational alternative to said
pollution, than the historical Latin Mass.

Posted by Richard Cowden Guido on Jul 10, 2007.

Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization? [Catholic Caucus]