". . .liturgy can only be liturgy to the extent that it is beyond the manipulation of those who celebrate it." ----------Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in "Feast of Faith"

 

"Point-Counterpoint" - Commentarys from "The Southern Cross, Page 4 - Thursday, May 13, 1999 Traditional liturgy: yes; - traditionalist liturgy: no By Father Michael J. Kavanaugh I would like to offer a few thoughts regarding the "questions" posed in a letter to the editor appearing in the May 6 edition of The Southern Cross. I am concerned first by the misappropriation of the word "tradition" as the writers use it in their letter.   Every Catholic seminary,  parish,  and diocese is traditional.    Believing and celebrating  the  faith that comes to us from the Apostles makes us so.     One  may find 15 traditional parishes in the Savannah Deanery, stretching from Saint Anne in Richmond Hill to Saint Michael at Tybee to Saint Boniface in Springfield. In these and all the other parishes of  our  diocese,   the  rich  tradition  of  our  Church  is lived and celebrated.     It  must be understood,  though,  that tradition has a history which,  for the  Judeo- Christian believer, stretches back over 5000 years and gives ample evidence of its living, evolving nature. Any attempt to understand any part of our tradition as something static, however,  is to fall into the trap of trying to understand tradition separated from its history.  Take for example, the traditional  teaching  that Mary is Theotokos (God Bearer).    A particular set of historical circumstances led the fathers of the ecumenical council of Ephesus in A. D. 431 to define, to describe, to clarify Jesus' divinity  by calling Mary  "The Mother of God."    Without  this history,  one could (and many fundamentalist Christians do) conclude wrongly that the title somehow elevates Mary to a position superior to God or preexistent to God. With the proper knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  history  of Theotokos,   however,  one  comes to understand that what is being preserved for the tradition of the Church is the eternal truth that the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus, was always divine, even from the first moment of his conception.          I  suspect  that  what  the  writers are  looking  for is what has come to be known as a "traditionalist"- rather than a "traditional"- parish.   In many traditionalist parishes the so-called "Tridentine mass" is celebrated, priests wear cassocks and birettas, Latin hymns are featured, and black is the preferred color of vestments for funeral masses. These things, too, have a history, but are not eternal truths. The rubrics (norms for celebrating the mass) came from  historical circumstances  but do not constitute Divine Revelation.    The vesture of the clergy, the language of our hymnody,  and the color chosen for funeral mass vestments also arose in particular  historical circumstances but also do not constitute eternal truth.  These matters are,  rightly so,  subject to change, to updating, and to development.     While some Catholics  may  find a degree of  comfort in these traditionalist practices,   and  while some fewer  may be  well- served  spiritually  in  a traditionalist  milieu,   we  would  all do well to remember the warning issued by Jaroslav Pelikan,   the  Sterling Professor  of History  and Religious Studies at Yale University: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."    The  Diocese of Savannah  and our Bishop are in no way "hostile" to the tradition of the Church as the writers suggest. Nor does the diocese "thumb its nose" at the pope by not providing a "Tridentine"  mass for the relatively few individuals who have requested it.    All  due consideration was given this request;   it was discussed at length  by the priests of the Savannah Deanery, and the bishop,  fully within  his  episcopal rights and responsibilities,  did not grant the request.    To  suggest  that our  Bishop is not "tolerant of the wishes of the Holy Father" is, at best, a misrepresentation of the facts and, at worst, a calumny against him. We are a traditional Church, preserving and proclaiming that  which  is revealed by God and eternally true.  We are not a traditionalist Church,  in which one particular set of historically conditioned practices - such as a mass celebrated in the Latin language and according to a certain set of rubrics - is erroneously elevated to the level of "unchanging truth."   Father Michael J. Kavanaugh is Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Port Wentworth, Georgia, in the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. To Continue reviewing letters of response concerning this article press "Continue"

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