Selective in our scandals--part

Selective in our scandals--part one
We make a serious mistake whenever we fall into the trap of considering the sexual abuse scandals in isolation

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

Fr. Joseph F. Wilson

Here is an interesting piece which journalist Rod Dreher has just posted online, which providentially serves beautifully to introduce the subject of this essay:

“Just got in a few minutes ago from Dallas, where we were visiting my wife's family. I had to write and tell you some wonderful news from that city, which has been so badly afflicted by Catholic episcopal leadership over the past decade. Fr. Joseph Wilson, our Brooklyn priest friend, recommended that we go to Mass at Blessed Sacrament parish in Oak Cliff, a relatively poor neighborhood in Dallas. The pastor is Fr. Paul Weinberger, an old friend and seminary classmate of Fr. Wilson's. 'You'll love it there,' Fr. Wilson said.

"Fr. Weinberger was basically sent in to close that parish, but he's revitalized it." So, we took the advice. Fr. Wilson has never steered us wrong. His record still stands. Mass was terrific! We went to the 10:45 a.m. mass, which is the Novus Ordo done almost entirely in Latin. The congregation was mixed by ethnicity -- Anglo, Latino and African-American -- and age (there were elderly folks there, middle-aged parishioners, and young families too). The mass began in a church filled with incense and Gregorian chant. Fr. Weinberger was astonishingly reverent (astonishing to those of us accustomed to the hugger-mugger mess that most Novus Ordo priests make of the liturgy), but he wasn't the least bit remote or stiff, and my wife and I didn't feel alien to the liturgy, as we have on the occasion that we've attended the Tridentine Mass.

"His homily was wonderful. He preached about how John Paul II was formed in sanctity by his own father, and by the good example and loving care of holy laymen throughout his early life. His point was that the laity was absolutely key to the making of our sainted pope's character, and that we in the congregation should understand that we too are the Church, and responsible for living and teaching sanctity. He said that in this time of terrible scandal for the Church, we shouldn't look to the bishops and the clergy to lead us out of the mess. If they do, that's great, but we mustn't despair and forget that the Holy Spirit is calling us to do our part to restore holiness and righteousness to the Body of Christ.

"The liturgy of the Eucharist was amazing. The lights went down in the church for the consecration, and Fr. Weinberger confected the Eucharist by candlelight, through a curtain of incense. He held the Host and then the chalice high for a solid minute. We received kneeling at the altar rail. When we returned to our pew, my wife was making her thanksgiving, and started crying. She couldn't stop weeping, and I asked her if she was okay. She said, 'This is what I thought the Church was. This is why I became Catholic.'"After mass, Julie was speaking to one of the parishioners outside the parish about how great the Mass was. She said to the woman, 'Do you realize what you have here?' The woman replied, 'You don't have to tell us! We know how blessed we are.'

"There is so much to be angry and depressed about in the life of the Church these days. In a poor corner of a troubled diocese, there is one priest lighting a tremendously bright candle. People should know. Best, Rod.”

I chose the title of this essay carefully: “Selective in our scandals.” Our attention is focused, and quite rightly, on the soul-searing clerical sexual abuse scandals which are rocking the Church in our country. But, as I have insisted elsewhere whenever I have written on the subject, we make a serious mistake whenever we fall into the trap of considering the sexual abuse scandals in isolation.

The truth is that we have ten or twelve major areas of crisis in our Church, and they have been serious crises for two generations. They are easy to enumerate: the sacred Liturgy, priestly formation, religious life, family life, scripture studies, moral theology, Catholic health care, our colleges and universities, catechesis. For all the incessant talk we have heard about ‘renewal’ in the Church, these areas have been in constant crisis for thirty five years, and little or nothing has been done about it.

Rod Dreher’s note deals with the area which touches, or should touch, the life of every Catholic: liturgy and worship. His reflection is even more interesting in light of some background. Rod and his wife Julie are converts to the Faith. Julie was an active evangelical Christian, at one point worshipping in Pastor Criswell’s First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX; she was thus used to an intense level of parish community and fellowship. Ideally, what ought to happen in the Catholic Church is that this is richer and deeper because it centers and is focused on the Eucharist and the other sacraments.

Instead, what happens is that one is dismayed and appalled at the anemic parish life and worship which obtains in most places in this country. The Drehers live within easy distance of a handful of parishes here in Brooklyn, the “city of Churches.” You’d think it might be easy to find a place where the worship and parish life will be soul-enriching. Well, no -- apparently it doesn’t work that way. If you’re not dealing with out and out heresy, you’re at least having to put up with the Monty Hall type of celebrant, the “Let’s Make A Deal” liturgical style with the hand mike roving up and down the aisle, the “Father Hank” intent on sharing his ebullient personality with the crowd.

This is not a phenomenon confined to Brooklyn. In the midwest there is a couple who converted from the Episcopal Church; I was able to be of some help via the internet in answering their questions. It was remarkable how difficult it was for them to find a parish where the liturgy was reverently celebrated in a way expressive of the worshipping tradition of the Church. They weren’t looking for a Latin Mass, or a Tridentine Mass; it was just that they weren’t looking for the Letterman Show, or a karaoke night. In an Archdiocese presided over by an Archbishop with classical liturgical training, it was impossible to find such a place.

As the Bishops of our country make their way to Dallas for their June meeting, the eyes of the country will be on them because of the sexual abuse scandal. How selective we are in our scandals. As horrific as the abuse situation is, it is but one of several areas of crisis, and those who are expressing astonishment at the response of the bishops to the abuse scandal should stop and think carefully about their response to the rest of the crises. It will become quickly clear that the sterling virtue of the bishops is their consistency.

Over two generations, Religious life has collapsed before our eyes in this country (amid much palavering about “returning to the charism of the foundress” and “renewal”); our Catholic universities and colleges have been secularized; stories of new mothers being offered contraceptive services in Catholic hospitals have become far too numerous to be dismissed; the Catholic divorce rate runs neck to neck with that of general society; two generations of Catholic school students have grown up abysmally ignorant of the faith, so that two-thirds of Mass-going Catholics do not even recognize the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist when it is set before them; seminaries are hopelessly floundering about, swamped by their problems, as CruxNews.com editor Michael S. Rose has recounted in Good Bye, Good Men; the attitudes of ordinary Catholics regarding moral issues are often indistinguishable from those of amiable pagans.

When I speak, in conversation, with young orthodox Catholics, they are quite frank about how demoralizing it is that they have so little support and so few people who agree with their ideals. That should give us pause. We have an extensive school system; we have poured millions into the development of new catechetical tools and series, workshops for the training of teachers, programs for youth groups, youth catechesis, youth worship... and, yes, one would expect that the turmoil in society would affect many young people. But the orthodox young adults with whom I am acquainted are keenly aware of how little help what the Church offers has been to them.

The crisis in worship stands at the very heart of the turmoil buffeting the Church today.

Some thirty-five years ago, a process was started which ultimately laid extremely violent and destructive hands on the worship of the Church. The rationalization offered for this was that over the course of “the Middle Ages” a lot of stuff had been added to the rites, obscuring the clear lines of the liturgy. We needed to return to the “springtime of the Liturgy,” to recapture the pristine worship of the early Church.

Most of this palaver was nonsense. If you were to go back to the Mass in the time of St. Gregory the Great and read through the Ordinary parts, you’d be reading substantially the same liturgy used in the time of Pius XII -- Gregory died in A.D. 604, Pius in 1958. If you returned to the liturgy of the early Church, you’d find them turning East for their prayers, east towards the rising sun, the symbol of the Second Coming of Christ -- which is why, up to 1965, both Priest and People faced East at Mass. The Priest wasn’t “saying Mass with his back to the people;” he was facing in the same direction as the People, towards the rising sun, symbolic of the whole Church awaiting His coming again. It was one of the most ancient customs of the liturgy, this eastward position. And we dropped it because we thought the Early Christians would like to say Mass at a picnic table, singing about Michael rowing his boat ashore.

In the wake of Vatican II, what people experienced was perceived as anything but a return to Tradition. The stories are legion -- the irreverence, the folk songs, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ at Communion. I would suggest that the impact was profound and far-reaching. If the central, sacred symbol of our Faith, the Mass itself, which has always been surrounded with such awe, loving care and reverence, could be treated in this cavalier way, then everything else could be as well -- Scripture, Dogma, Morality. ESPECIALLY morality.Religious Life needed to be de-constructed, catechesis needed to be more free-flowing, less doctrinal, more about ‘rapping’ about our experiences.

And here we are.

Paperback copies of the documents of Vatican II are readily available. Pick one up, and read through the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. See how many surprises are in there, things you thought the Vatican Council had NOT said. Check out the things you don’t see as part of your parish liturgy today. As our bishops converge upon Dallas, sheepish under the scrutiny of a world watching carefully these sexual abuse stories, ponder what has happened on their watch in these other areas of Church life, particularly the “source and summit of Christian Life,” the Liturgy. We won’t see the Boston Globe, or the New York Times, or the Washington Post ever paying much attention to the scandal of the Liturgy. But that doesn’t mean our bishops don’t have a lot to be sheepish about in that regard. Our Lord speaks in the Gospel of the shepherd who leaves the ninety and nine to go off in search of the one who is lost. At the end of a period of glorious liturgical renewal, we have lost sixty percent of our worshipping people over thirty years.

One wishes that someone might at least notice, and perhaps ask, Why?

Email author: frwilson@cruxnews.com

Used with permission

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