I would say that I have been a traditionalist, in thought and feeling, for a lot longer than I have used that specific term to characterize the movement to which I belong.
Thank you so much Peter for this invaluable resource and your recommendation for all sincere and truth seeking Tradionalists to read this book.
I have not read it yet, have heard of it and intend to read it asap.
"...the radio had replaced silence..." The death knell of the seminarian. Is it any wonder that in 1960 in Ireland there were 500 seminarians and by 2020 a total of one!
Thankfully SSPX have always considered silence a spiritual and integral aspect of Seminary life.
My own knowledge of the history of traditionalism, like most, is far from comprehensive. All the same, I'd hoped the traddier portions of the Catholic world had reached a greater understanding of modernity's unprecedented ecclesial chaos and the uphill battles fought by the early traditionalist movements. I thought our collective awareness had grown enough to make Catholics of goodwill a little more patient with each other, a little slower to judge one another's good-faith attempts at weathering the chaos. After all, history has already vindicated many "extreme" or "disobedient" actions taken by priests and laity in the face of total TLM suppression.
With the SSPX's July consecrations in particular, given they were in many ways a rehashing of the 1988 consecrations, I'd hoped the benefit of hindsight would inspire a greater rhetorical moderation or sense of perspective among even the Society's fierce critics. Love them or loathe them, the SSPX's existence is a symptom of a serious disease within the Church; I thought that disease had become enough of a common enemy by now to draw the primary ire of informed Catholics.
Alas, I feel terribly niave in retrospect. Setting aside the potential faults or merits of the SSPX's actions, I was disheartened by the number of public-facing Catholics who seemed to lose all pity or presumption of goodwill for affected laity if they didn't unequivocally disavow the whole Society in the aftermath. Public figures who I thought had taken time to grapple with the chaotic complexities of the 20th century Catholic Church, who had previously defended (or at least sympathized with) the actions or intentions of earlier traditionalists, acted like they were caught off-guard by this whole controversy and rushed to condemn large swaths of the faithful as disobedient schismatics. Would they have reacted this way back in the 60s or 80s too?
We live in scary times, and I get that the shock from the consecrations still fresh for everyone who cares about the issue. I'm sure public discourse will become (relatively) more level headed as time passes. Still, it's disappointing that even with decades of hindsight to draw from and the fraught Francis pontificate in such recent memory, we're apparently doomed to repeat history rather than learn from it.
All the same, it's painful to see the Vatican turning invested Catholics against one another in order to deflect from their own shortcomings. The divide and conquer strategy seems to have worked with great success.
It *should be enough to simply say, “I am Roman Catholic;” or, if that needs to be disambiguated because of the project of popular confusion, to say:
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae,visibilium omnium et invisibilium.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt.
Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris.
Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.
Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.
Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.
A faithful rendering into the vernacular as a means of making the precision of the original accessible to the listener would be, of course, a charitable act.
The information in this article is so important to understand. The SSPX is creating a year long study of the Catechism of the Council of Trent which will enable more laity and priests to learn the faith. Pope St. Leo called it the “Golden Book.” I am amazed at how Communism has spread her errors as Our Blessed Mother predicted. Thanks for this very informative article.
Sound liturgical praxis is undermined without sound catechesis. I recall Godfrey Diekmann OSB [who lives in my memory for proclaiming the Assumption of Our Lady is the greatest assumption ever made] proclaiming with utter conviction in Patristics class more than a half century ago that the liturgy is the primary means of catechesis. Surely in an orthodox sense this is true, the ineffable treasure is however more easily grasped with an academic catechesis.
That entirely abandoned or replaced by the erroneous before the end of the sixties, we are now on the cusp of experiential knowledge of Roman Catholicism being utterly lost. Was this not the actual intention of the "movers and shakers" in the "Catholic" academy since the end of the nineteenth century and by their progeny at the mid-century council?
You have to ask what amalgamation of vices was served and from whence was the project conceived. The answer can leave one shaken.
From what we have observed over the last few weeks, and what I've heard of the goings on at recent consistory, we are at the point where "they" will have their way in the relentless ongoing deconstruction project. With the few accurately catechised passing away the lads and lassies will have free reign during the current pontificate which reasonably threatens to be protracted.
Christ's will be the victory, but we know that in the eyes of God a thousand years are but a single day.
But we can (and must) try to get an idea, and this is important, because ultimately everything in history fades beyond the living memory of anyone alive.
Oh, yes, true. But if you have ever tried to tell the tale, you will find that there is at most academic interest, or outright rejection. Because who was left in the Church tell the tale to? Those who thought it all fine, or who were brainwashed, or, mostly, those who were not literally thrown out for objecting to the smallest thing. None of them want or wanted to know.l
My own mother kept going to Mass in spiritual agony. When she was dying of cancer in 1985, and her parish wouldn't bring her sacraments because she hadn't been a parishioner for the required 6 months (because she had just moved there because her house burned down), I took her to a Byzantine Mass, and she said, "I feel like I have been to Mass for the first time in 20 years."
Now that the resistance is of historical, not personal, interest, there is an opportunity. The cruelty of the priests and bishops was amazing. The trashing of the wealth of parishes - overnight - was like an invasion of Barbarians. The use of obedience as a weapon was everywhere. People were told, "Rome says you must." when Rome said no such thing. Worst of all, there were no resources. An underground newsletter passed around in the late 60s and 70s, sometimes the wanderer, but no catechetical resources - everything went out of print over night. A family had to catechize their own children using only what was in their head.
You write the plain truth. The ruthless character of the implementation of the mid-century council had the character of the English "reformation" or a communist conquest. Observing the hubris of the local clergy and religious at the time who had signed up for the sacking was impactful for this then adolescent.
The masks came off and it has only been with the passing of the decades that the character of the events has really sunk in.
I count myself as one still in recovery, thankful for the serious catechesis I was graced to receive from the Sisters of Christian Charity before lightning struck. Looking back one observes a battlefield littered with souls of the manipulated, deceived and ravished.
Thanks, a true miracle. And to have been able to raise one's children in the ruins another miracle. Amazingly, many survived because some things were done slowly and those who knew could read into the new way what was barely there or not there at all. Like a priest I know who says the Hail Mary wrong, leaving out a phrase ("the fruit of") but nobody notices because they read it into what he "must be" saying. But I was a university theology student (with good catechesis like yours, and having read every Doubleday Image book there was) and my head was spinning. And very sad later to see many fall away. But it is important to note that there was never a golden age - maybe some golden corners - because those who fell in the sixties and seventies were ripe for it. Whether they bought the revolution or fled, they were mature and well educated - but something was wrong. The Bad Behaviors were happening in the 40s and 50s. Satan can hide in lace better than camouflage.
You make me laugh a little. Myself, having inhabited many of the spectrum of Catholic perspectives and practices over my life, I’ve wondered at times what brought me back to fidelity in my forties. I’m humbled to say, besides my wonderful pre-conciliar catechesis, Doubleday/Image made available to me at the age of twelve Willliam Thomas Walsh’s “Our Lady of Fatima” which always remained in my soul through many years of heterodoxy. As a boy I was always looking for a new title at the back of Church…they were 75 cents back then.
And yes, pre-conciliar Catholicism had pitfalls. One was the remnant of Jansenism which the Irish clergy brought over with them and was very much alive back then. It crushed spirits. The council provided an approved way out of that neuroticism. And not to be neglected, evangelical obedience welded as a weapon. It engendered a lot of resentment in not a few clerics and religious. Oddly enough, we witness today it remains the weapon of choice by those in the episcopate who regard themselves as singularly “enlightened” and reading accurately the “signs of the times.” It appears to be the very stuff covering the floor of the clerical sandbox. They just can’t shake it, and it comes in handy when their arguments prove vacuous.
[Dr. K wrote: "Just being a Catholic, while it gets you very far in regard to the basics of salvation, does not automatically qualify you to set up as a Catholic apologist; and just attending the traditional Latin Mass does not suddenly qualify you to defend it or to interpret the many complex issues that arise in its ambit."
Similarly, I'll point out, such things don't qualify anyone to pass judgment and make idle comment upon the supposed relation of the Council to Jansenism, or of Jansenism to neuroticism, etc. On the other hand, anyone might have a substantive theological suggestion to make about such relations, which I would be interested to hear; but idle passing presumptuous vague unsubstantiated opinion isn't so interesting, or helpful to anyone, I think.]
Is "thou shalt not wield evangelical obedience as a weapon" a valid commandment?
How did the council provide a way out of the 'neuroticism' that is 'Jansenism'? (The Council as psychotherapy?? Enough with that "blessed are those who mourn" crap?)
Who are those in the episcopate who consider themselves singularly 'enlightened'? (Perhaps they'd benefit from a decent dose of neuroticism/Jansenism after all?)
Thank you for providing this clear insight. I look forward to the second installment. I have struggled with my acceptance of liturgical and doctrinal changes of the late 60’s, 70’s and beyond. Naivety/ignorance ushered in willing compliance. By God’s grace I rediscovered the full Faith during the plandemic and came home to the TLM after 50 years in the NO wilderness. As James said, to have survived is to have known a miracle. I too am still in recovery.
To your point, that's why Satan was given 100 years and greater power per Leo XIII, to destroy the Church.
Living memory, typically spans 80 to 100 years as long as the generation that witnessed the event(s) remains alive. Once living memory fades, the information transitions fully into cultural memory. At this stage, the past is sustained exclusively through texts, monuments, and institutionalized history rather than personal recollection. When history transitions entirely into texts and institutional memory, it becomes susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift.
The transition between living memory and cultural memory has reached a vulnerable moment, the critical crossroads where the final generation with living memory of the pre-conciliar Church is passing away.
This is where the Usus Antiquior plays the vital part in keeping the Faith of Our Fathers alive:
allowing modern Catholics to pray as the saints did for over a millenium,
anchoring the lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief) in a concrete form that cannot be easily rewritten or reinterpreted by contemporary trends, and
utilizing language (Latin), sight, posture, sound (Gregorian Chant) olfactory anchors (incense), gesture (signs of the Cross and genuflections) and silence to embed cultural memory directly into the human body, bypassing the need for purely academic instruction, and thus making the Sacrifice of Calvary truly present.
It acts as a time tested anchor ensuring that what was sacred for our fathers remains sacred and active for us today.
The Usus Antiquior serves as a living monument to prevent our history, which we must know, such as in the Offertory or Roman Canon, from being lost or distorted as it has been (and continues to be) in the Novus Ordo.
"When history transitions entirely into texts and institutional memory, it becomes susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift."
History (as history has shown) is always already susceptible... it never 'becomes.'
The distinction between living memory (the memory of a people who are still alive having lived through certain events) and cultural memory which has become history, was easily manipulated to reflect what that given culture (conciliar church) wanted to remember about that same epoch of “rigid Christians”.
Because of God and his enduring mercy, there has been tremendous movement in exposing the evils and aberrations that grew up along side of the firm foundations of our faith prior to 1958 (Pius XII). We are seeing more clearly the period of time after 1958 (the transitional time, “becoming") wasn't as it was promised to be, the “Springtime of the Church", a “New Pentecost", the time leading up to, during, and after the Second Vatican Council. It was during that transitional period where the distortions, historical, liturgical and theological drifts occured that set the stage for where we are now, re-discovering, recovering and securing that which was lost during that “becoming" between living memory and cultural memory.
I'm just pointing out that your distinction between living memory and cultural memory seems to be fetishistic and ill-founded. While it might seem counter-intuitive, eye-witness testimonies are in fact enormously malleable and inherently unreliable. In the current case, for example, it is obvious that one person's testimony about the 'reality' of the epoch/culture in question may be radically divergent from another's. Some say, "it was terrible"; others, "it was wonderful." There is no account of the matter -- whether 'living' or 'cultural' -- that is NOT "susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift [i.e., ongoing interpretation]." 'Ideological filtering' -- i.e., conceptual-doctrinal framing -- is in fact essential to the substantive constitution of any kind of 'memory.'
True. But for most people the Usus Antiquor is not the living monument preserved, but a self-consciously adopted playacting, however sincere. It would take another 80 to 100 for it to be "natural" and familial.
Respectfully, I would like to disagree. In most of the TLM parishes I've experienced, a large number of children have grow up in the TLM by now. Many are already married and having children of their own. For them, it is completely natural. Moreover, it was never a completely lost tradition. Many priests celebrating it today learned from older priests who had been trained in it before Vatican II. There is a living continuity.
That is true. But they don't have the same sense of belonging to the universal Church that we did. They are perhaps heroic figures in the struggle, but it is a struggle. They are aware of what they are doing.
Prayer is never "automatic". It is the work of grace by which we respond in conscious presence, intent, and divine cooperation.
Liturgy, from the ancient Greek leitourgia, means “the work *for the people.” [my original text was corrected].
The deliberate and intentional exercise of our faith through the Sacred Liturgy will strengthen us and cause us to find ourselves, our true identity, and our belonging by dis-covering the universal (Catholic) dimension that Jesus Christ came to give us in His Incarnation, bridging time, space, eternity, and human history. It is a divine action where Jesus Christ, the High Priest and Head of the Mystical Body, acts in, with, and through the priest (persona Christi) and the Church to offer praise to the Father and to sanctify us and the many.
Praying with the Church Triumphant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Militant can only be done in Christ Jesus:
Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever. Amen.
* “God’s work on us, in us, through us, and sometimes in spite of us.”
Sorry to Burst Your Bubble: Liturgy Doesn’t Mean “Work of the People”
It is kind of like the trads who veil and say it is tradition. But it never was traditional. Outside of Spanish nobility, and tiny lace circles for Catholic school chapels, veils came in when hats went out. When Jackie doffed hers, everyone stopped with the hats, and gloves and scarves went out of style also, and suddenly there were mantillas (because canon law hadn't changed yet. From 64-67 or so, everyone had a mantilla, though older women still wore hats. And even the mantillas were a sort of beauty contest, and still can be. Revolutions happen very speedily at the end.
Thanks for sharing this. It's a fascinating history of which I know too little.
But I have a question about the "1966 Catechism". I thought there have been only 2 Catechisms approved by Rome as valid. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) and The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). The 1992 Catechism certainly still mentions guardian angels, mortal sin, original sin, demons and hell. What is this 1966 Catechism the text refers to?
Your excellent summary reminded me to start reading the book, which I had bought awhile ago. Thank you so much for taking the time to summarize this tale of woe that is essential to know and remember.
It is is still a very anxious situation in which we are relying upon these coveted "islets" of traditionalism and TLM, but a consoling response is that it has often been thus among the faithful. How many have only had the luxury of the mass more than a few times a year? But that is not mitigate the issue. It is clear that far from what is said, it is what is not said that is ailing us--the old and angry elephant in the room, which is simply the undeniable truths of the faith. One cannot help but think of Jonah, whose silence incurs the wrath of the sea. Nineveh needs him, and he must not deprive them of the words he has received from God. I hope he turns around soon...
Thank you so much Peter for this invaluable resource and your recommendation for all sincere and truth seeking Tradionalists to read this book.
I have not read it yet, have heard of it and intend to read it asap.
"...the radio had replaced silence..." The death knell of the seminarian. Is it any wonder that in 1960 in Ireland there were 500 seminarians and by 2020 a total of one!
Thankfully SSPX have always considered silence a spiritual and integral aspect of Seminary life.
Look forward to part 2.
My own knowledge of the history of traditionalism, like most, is far from comprehensive. All the same, I'd hoped the traddier portions of the Catholic world had reached a greater understanding of modernity's unprecedented ecclesial chaos and the uphill battles fought by the early traditionalist movements. I thought our collective awareness had grown enough to make Catholics of goodwill a little more patient with each other, a little slower to judge one another's good-faith attempts at weathering the chaos. After all, history has already vindicated many "extreme" or "disobedient" actions taken by priests and laity in the face of total TLM suppression.
With the SSPX's July consecrations in particular, given they were in many ways a rehashing of the 1988 consecrations, I'd hoped the benefit of hindsight would inspire a greater rhetorical moderation or sense of perspective among even the Society's fierce critics. Love them or loathe them, the SSPX's existence is a symptom of a serious disease within the Church; I thought that disease had become enough of a common enemy by now to draw the primary ire of informed Catholics.
Alas, I feel terribly niave in retrospect. Setting aside the potential faults or merits of the SSPX's actions, I was disheartened by the number of public-facing Catholics who seemed to lose all pity or presumption of goodwill for affected laity if they didn't unequivocally disavow the whole Society in the aftermath. Public figures who I thought had taken time to grapple with the chaotic complexities of the 20th century Catholic Church, who had previously defended (or at least sympathized with) the actions or intentions of earlier traditionalists, acted like they were caught off-guard by this whole controversy and rushed to condemn large swaths of the faithful as disobedient schismatics. Would they have reacted this way back in the 60s or 80s too?
We live in scary times, and I get that the shock from the consecrations still fresh for everyone who cares about the issue. I'm sure public discourse will become (relatively) more level headed as time passes. Still, it's disappointing that even with decades of hindsight to draw from and the fraught Francis pontificate in such recent memory, we're apparently doomed to repeat history rather than learn from it.
I agree 100%. But I rejoice, in a way, to see people exposed for who and what they are; there's no benefit in false friends.
All the same, it's painful to see the Vatican turning invested Catholics against one another in order to deflect from their own shortcomings. The divide and conquer strategy seems to have worked with great success.
It *should be enough to simply say, “I am Roman Catholic;” or, if that needs to be disambiguated because of the project of popular confusion, to say:
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae,visibilium omnium et invisibilium.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt.
Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris.
Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.
Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.
Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.
A faithful rendering into the vernacular as a means of making the precision of the original accessible to the listener would be, of course, a charitable act.
The information in this article is so important to understand. The SSPX is creating a year long study of the Catechism of the Council of Trent which will enable more laity and priests to learn the faith. Pope St. Leo called it the “Golden Book.” I am amazed at how Communism has spread her errors as Our Blessed Mother predicted. Thanks for this very informative article.
What did he call the "Golden Book"? The Catechism of Trent postdates St. Leo by many centuries...
I think Lucy was referring to Pope Leo XIII
Sound liturgical praxis is undermined without sound catechesis. I recall Godfrey Diekmann OSB [who lives in my memory for proclaiming the Assumption of Our Lady is the greatest assumption ever made] proclaiming with utter conviction in Patristics class more than a half century ago that the liturgy is the primary means of catechesis. Surely in an orthodox sense this is true, the ineffable treasure is however more easily grasped with an academic catechesis.
That entirely abandoned or replaced by the erroneous before the end of the sixties, we are now on the cusp of experiential knowledge of Roman Catholicism being utterly lost. Was this not the actual intention of the "movers and shakers" in the "Catholic" academy since the end of the nineteenth century and by their progeny at the mid-century council?
You have to ask what amalgamation of vices was served and from whence was the project conceived. The answer can leave one shaken.
From what we have observed over the last few weeks, and what I've heard of the goings on at recent consistory, we are at the point where "they" will have their way in the relentless ongoing deconstruction project. With the few accurately catechised passing away the lads and lassies will have free reign during the current pontificate which reasonably threatens to be protracted.
Christ's will be the victory, but we know that in the eyes of God a thousand years are but a single day.
Cling to Christ.
You read about it. I lived it. People have no idea how bad it was.
But we can (and must) try to get an idea, and this is important, because ultimately everything in history fades beyond the living memory of anyone alive.
Oh, yes, true. But if you have ever tried to tell the tale, you will find that there is at most academic interest, or outright rejection. Because who was left in the Church tell the tale to? Those who thought it all fine, or who were brainwashed, or, mostly, those who were not literally thrown out for objecting to the smallest thing. None of them want or wanted to know.l
My own mother kept going to Mass in spiritual agony. When she was dying of cancer in 1985, and her parish wouldn't bring her sacraments because she hadn't been a parishioner for the required 6 months (because she had just moved there because her house burned down), I took her to a Byzantine Mass, and she said, "I feel like I have been to Mass for the first time in 20 years."
Now that the resistance is of historical, not personal, interest, there is an opportunity. The cruelty of the priests and bishops was amazing. The trashing of the wealth of parishes - overnight - was like an invasion of Barbarians. The use of obedience as a weapon was everywhere. People were told, "Rome says you must." when Rome said no such thing. Worst of all, there were no resources. An underground newsletter passed around in the late 60s and 70s, sometimes the wanderer, but no catechetical resources - everything went out of print over night. A family had to catechize their own children using only what was in their head.
You write the plain truth. The ruthless character of the implementation of the mid-century council had the character of the English "reformation" or a communist conquest. Observing the hubris of the local clergy and religious at the time who had signed up for the sacking was impactful for this then adolescent.
The masks came off and it has only been with the passing of the decades that the character of the events has really sunk in.
I count myself as one still in recovery, thankful for the serious catechesis I was graced to receive from the Sisters of Christian Charity before lightning struck. Looking back one observes a battlefield littered with souls of the manipulated, deceived and ravished.
To have survived is to have known a miracle.
Thanks, a true miracle. And to have been able to raise one's children in the ruins another miracle. Amazingly, many survived because some things were done slowly and those who knew could read into the new way what was barely there or not there at all. Like a priest I know who says the Hail Mary wrong, leaving out a phrase ("the fruit of") but nobody notices because they read it into what he "must be" saying. But I was a university theology student (with good catechesis like yours, and having read every Doubleday Image book there was) and my head was spinning. And very sad later to see many fall away. But it is important to note that there was never a golden age - maybe some golden corners - because those who fell in the sixties and seventies were ripe for it. Whether they bought the revolution or fled, they were mature and well educated - but something was wrong. The Bad Behaviors were happening in the 40s and 50s. Satan can hide in lace better than camouflage.
You make me laugh a little. Myself, having inhabited many of the spectrum of Catholic perspectives and practices over my life, I’ve wondered at times what brought me back to fidelity in my forties. I’m humbled to say, besides my wonderful pre-conciliar catechesis, Doubleday/Image made available to me at the age of twelve Willliam Thomas Walsh’s “Our Lady of Fatima” which always remained in my soul through many years of heterodoxy. As a boy I was always looking for a new title at the back of Church…they were 75 cents back then.
And yes, pre-conciliar Catholicism had pitfalls. One was the remnant of Jansenism which the Irish clergy brought over with them and was very much alive back then. It crushed spirits. The council provided an approved way out of that neuroticism. And not to be neglected, evangelical obedience welded as a weapon. It engendered a lot of resentment in not a few clerics and religious. Oddly enough, we witness today it remains the weapon of choice by those in the episcopate who regard themselves as singularly “enlightened” and reading accurately the “signs of the times.” It appears to be the very stuff covering the floor of the clerical sandbox. They just can’t shake it, and it comes in handy when their arguments prove vacuous.
[Dr. K wrote: "Just being a Catholic, while it gets you very far in regard to the basics of salvation, does not automatically qualify you to set up as a Catholic apologist; and just attending the traditional Latin Mass does not suddenly qualify you to defend it or to interpret the many complex issues that arise in its ambit."
Similarly, I'll point out, such things don't qualify anyone to pass judgment and make idle comment upon the supposed relation of the Council to Jansenism, or of Jansenism to neuroticism, etc. On the other hand, anyone might have a substantive theological suggestion to make about such relations, which I would be interested to hear; but idle passing presumptuous vague unsubstantiated opinion isn't so interesting, or helpful to anyone, I think.]
Is "thou shalt not wield evangelical obedience as a weapon" a valid commandment?
How did the council provide a way out of the 'neuroticism' that is 'Jansenism'? (The Council as psychotherapy?? Enough with that "blessed are those who mourn" crap?)
Who are those in the episcopate who consider themselves singularly 'enlightened'? (Perhaps they'd benefit from a decent dose of neuroticism/Jansenism after all?)
Thank you for providing this clear insight. I look forward to the second installment. I have struggled with my acceptance of liturgical and doctrinal changes of the late 60’s, 70’s and beyond. Naivety/ignorance ushered in willing compliance. By God’s grace I rediscovered the full Faith during the plandemic and came home to the TLM after 50 years in the NO wilderness. As James said, to have survived is to have known a miracle. I too am still in recovery.
To your point, that's why Satan was given 100 years and greater power per Leo XIII, to destroy the Church.
Living memory, typically spans 80 to 100 years as long as the generation that witnessed the event(s) remains alive. Once living memory fades, the information transitions fully into cultural memory. At this stage, the past is sustained exclusively through texts, monuments, and institutionalized history rather than personal recollection. When history transitions entirely into texts and institutional memory, it becomes susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift.
The transition between living memory and cultural memory has reached a vulnerable moment, the critical crossroads where the final generation with living memory of the pre-conciliar Church is passing away.
This is where the Usus Antiquior plays the vital part in keeping the Faith of Our Fathers alive:
allowing modern Catholics to pray as the saints did for over a millenium,
anchoring the lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief) in a concrete form that cannot be easily rewritten or reinterpreted by contemporary trends, and
utilizing language (Latin), sight, posture, sound (Gregorian Chant) olfactory anchors (incense), gesture (signs of the Cross and genuflections) and silence to embed cultural memory directly into the human body, bypassing the need for purely academic instruction, and thus making the Sacrifice of Calvary truly present.
It acts as a time tested anchor ensuring that what was sacred for our fathers remains sacred and active for us today.
The Usus Antiquior serves as a living monument to prevent our history, which we must know, such as in the Offertory or Roman Canon, from being lost or distorted as it has been (and continues to be) in the Novus Ordo.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was prophetic.
"When history transitions entirely into texts and institutional memory, it becomes susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift."
History (as history has shown) is always already susceptible... it never 'becomes.'
The distinction between living memory (the memory of a people who are still alive having lived through certain events) and cultural memory which has become history, was easily manipulated to reflect what that given culture (conciliar church) wanted to remember about that same epoch of “rigid Christians”.
Because of God and his enduring mercy, there has been tremendous movement in exposing the evils and aberrations that grew up along side of the firm foundations of our faith prior to 1958 (Pius XII). We are seeing more clearly the period of time after 1958 (the transitional time, “becoming") wasn't as it was promised to be, the “Springtime of the Church", a “New Pentecost", the time leading up to, during, and after the Second Vatican Council. It was during that transitional period where the distortions, historical, liturgical and theological drifts occured that set the stage for where we are now, re-discovering, recovering and securing that which was lost during that “becoming" between living memory and cultural memory.
I'm just pointing out that your distinction between living memory and cultural memory seems to be fetishistic and ill-founded. While it might seem counter-intuitive, eye-witness testimonies are in fact enormously malleable and inherently unreliable. In the current case, for example, it is obvious that one person's testimony about the 'reality' of the epoch/culture in question may be radically divergent from another's. Some say, "it was terrible"; others, "it was wonderful." There is no account of the matter -- whether 'living' or 'cultural' -- that is NOT "susceptible to editing, ideological filtering, distortion, and historical and theological drift [i.e., ongoing interpretation]." 'Ideological filtering' -- i.e., conceptual-doctrinal framing -- is in fact essential to the substantive constitution of any kind of 'memory.'
By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Matt 7:16 Douay-Rheims Bible
True. But for most people the Usus Antiquor is not the living monument preserved, but a self-consciously adopted playacting, however sincere. It would take another 80 to 100 for it to be "natural" and familial.
Respectfully, I would like to disagree. In most of the TLM parishes I've experienced, a large number of children have grow up in the TLM by now. Many are already married and having children of their own. For them, it is completely natural. Moreover, it was never a completely lost tradition. Many priests celebrating it today learned from older priests who had been trained in it before Vatican II. There is a living continuity.
That is true. But they don't have the same sense of belonging to the universal Church that we did. They are perhaps heroic figures in the struggle, but it is a struggle. They are aware of what they are doing.
Prayer is never "automatic". It is the work of grace by which we respond in conscious presence, intent, and divine cooperation.
Liturgy, from the ancient Greek leitourgia, means “the work *for the people.” [my original text was corrected].
The deliberate and intentional exercise of our faith through the Sacred Liturgy will strengthen us and cause us to find ourselves, our true identity, and our belonging by dis-covering the universal (Catholic) dimension that Jesus Christ came to give us in His Incarnation, bridging time, space, eternity, and human history. It is a divine action where Jesus Christ, the High Priest and Head of the Mystical Body, acts in, with, and through the priest (persona Christi) and the Church to offer praise to the Father and to sanctify us and the many.
Praying with the Church Triumphant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Militant can only be done in Christ Jesus:
Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever. Amen.
* “God’s work on us, in us, through us, and sometimes in spite of us.”
Sorry to Burst Your Bubble: Liturgy Doesn’t Mean “Work of the People”
Zac Hicks - March 23, 2011
It is kind of like the trads who veil and say it is tradition. But it never was traditional. Outside of Spanish nobility, and tiny lace circles for Catholic school chapels, veils came in when hats went out. When Jackie doffed hers, everyone stopped with the hats, and gloves and scarves went out of style also, and suddenly there were mantillas (because canon law hadn't changed yet. From 64-67 or so, everyone had a mantilla, though older women still wore hats. And even the mantillas were a sort of beauty contest, and still can be. Revolutions happen very speedily at the end.
This is so true and essential.
Thanks for sharing this. It's a fascinating history of which I know too little.
But I have a question about the "1966 Catechism". I thought there have been only 2 Catechisms approved by Rome as valid. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) and The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). The 1992 Catechism certainly still mentions guardian angels, mortal sin, original sin, demons and hell. What is this 1966 Catechism the text refers to?
I think it was an official catechism from the French Bishops, not a universal one.
The two you listed are universal catechisms, that is, promulgated from the Vatican.
But there have been many national catechisms, and some of them have been notorious, like the Dutch:
https://www.traditionsanity.com/p/history-repeats-how-the-dutch-council
Your excellent summary reminded me to start reading the book, which I had bought awhile ago. Thank you so much for taking the time to summarize this tale of woe that is essential to know and remember.
It is is still a very anxious situation in which we are relying upon these coveted "islets" of traditionalism and TLM, but a consoling response is that it has often been thus among the faithful. How many have only had the luxury of the mass more than a few times a year? But that is not mitigate the issue. It is clear that far from what is said, it is what is not said that is ailing us--the old and angry elephant in the room, which is simply the undeniable truths of the faith. One cannot help but think of Jonah, whose silence incurs the wrath of the sea. Nineveh needs him, and he must not deprive them of the words he has received from God. I hope he turns around soon...