Person of the Year: A Missed Opportunity

Well, it’s out. Time just announced the person of the year: The Protester.

And I was so sure Time would name the new missal the “Thing of the Year.”

They’ve been stretching their categories for some time now – the “Man of the Year” in 1975 was “The American Woman,” and in 1999 the title changed to “Person of the Year.” In 1982 the winner was “the computer,” in 1988 it was “endangered earth,” in 2006 it was “you.”

This was their chance to go to the next level. But no.

Apparently when they selected “the protestor,” they didn’t even have in mind all those protesting the new missal- I asked. You believe that, don’t you?

awr

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a monk of St. John's Abbey. He teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John's University School of Theology-Seminary. He is widely published and frequently presents across the country on liturgy and music. He is the author of Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations, and of Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. He does priestly ministry at the neighboring community of Benedictine sisters in St. Joseph.

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18 responses to “Person of the Year: A Missed Opportunity”

  1. Elaine Steffek

    What next level are you thinking of, exactly?
    Who is YOUR Person of the Year? Mine is
    PrayTell blog 🙂

    Reply
  2. Lee Bacchi

    Maybe The Catholic Church’s Person of the Year — The RM Protester

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      I think the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland beat that one in the protest genre this year, hands down…

      Reply
      1. Joe O'Leary

        no

      2. Mary Burke

        Not so.

  3. M. Jackson Osborn

    I think the Person of the Year
    should be the Anglican Ordinariate(!)

    Excruciatingly beautiful liturgy
    the best of the Church’s musical tradition
    no lace
    no preciousness
    the best translation

    (Nothing to protest, though —
    we are rather an affirmative people.)

    Reply
    1. Gerard Flynn

      Without protesters we’d have no Elijah, no Isaiah, no Jeremiah, no Ezekiel, no Amos, no Hosea, no Joel, no Obadiah, no Micah, no Nahum, no Habakkuk, no Zephaniah, no Zechariah, no Haggai, no Malachi, and no anonymous writers like the one who composed the little work of protest religious fiction, Jonah.

      Are the Anglican Uniates less scripturally motivated and informed than their Anglican sisters and brothers?

      Reply
      1. M. Jackson Osborn

        All right: or some second thoughts on Protest –

        The whole august company of prophets have been invoked in the name of Protest. This is impressive and implores us to reflect on the importance (yea, even the duty) of Protest in our Judaeo-Christian witness. Still, I doubt that the subjects of Protest in this particular conversation would be impressive to our prophetic forebears, nor to those whose plight ‘in mind, body, or estate’ (to quote the BCP-BDW) should garner our impassioned concern – and Protest.

        Still, since the gauntlet was cast down, one hastens to point out that, indeed, the “Anglican Uniates’ have, in their journey across the Tiber, expressed at considerable personal cost and spiritual agony, rather a lot of Protest in and at the ecclesial community from which they came. Having treasured that Catholicism which they came by within Anglicanism, they found that it could be fully and safely believed and practiced only by vigourous and unwelcomed Protest against schism-aggravating developments within the Anglican church – Protest which took the final form of finding their true home in Peter’s barque; Protest which is at the same time an Affirmation.

        So, hint not that Anglican Use Catholics are unfamiliar with Protest. As for the topic of Protest current on this blog, it seems to me far, far out of proportion and most unjustifiably vitriolic; even, in some cases, peevish and utterly lacking in charity. Deacon Fritz has pointed in the right direction!

        And a note about the term ‘uniate’, used in an above comment: uniates are understood to be those non-Roman rite communities of the east which are in communion with Rome and are recognised as distinct rites. The Anglican Ordinariate will/does not fall into this category. It is a ‘use’ of the Roman rite, not a distinct rite unto itself. Also, I have been told that the term ‘uniate’ is considered a derogartory one by our eastern rite cousins and should not be used in reference to them.

  4. Janet Darcy

    I am sorry. I have not been to the doctor’s office in a while, Neither has my boyfriend.

    WHO CARES WHO Time Magazine names to anything? Their readership is non-existent anyway.

    Its a non-issue from a has been rag.

    Reply
    1. Paul Stokell

      As is often said across the ‘net: WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!

      Reply
  5. Sean Parker

    What? People aren’t supposed to protest. They’re supposed to keep quiet and just accept what happens and do what they’re told to do, regardless of whether they believe it’s right.

    Didn’t Time get the memo?

    Reply
    1. Jack Rakosky

      Canon 212 §2 Christ’s faithful are at liberty to make known their needs, especially their spiritual needs, and their wishes to the Pastors of the Church.

      §3 They have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church.

      They have the right also to make their views known to others of Christ’s faithful, but in doing so they must always respect the integrity of faith and morals, show due reverence to the Pastors and take into account both the common good and the dignity of individuals.

      While some have seen the part of this Canon in italics as the model of “protest” in the Church, as a social scientist I see the part in bold in its entirely as the model for grass roots movements in the Church.

      For the “conversations” among the faithful are at the heart of renewal. These conversations, more than conversations wth the pastors, facilitate the following important rights and duties:

      Can. 215 Christ’s faithful may freely establish and direct associations which serve charitable or pious purposes or which foster the christian vocation in the world, and they may hold meetings to pursue these purposes by common effort.

      Can. 216 Since they share the Church’s mission, all Christ’s faithful have the right to promote and support apostolic action, by their own initiative, undertaken according to their state and condition. No initiative, however, can lay claim to the title ‘catholic’ without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.

      Reply
    2. Sean Parker

      They have the right also to make their views known to others of Christ’s faithful, but in doing so they must always respect the integrity of faith and morals, show due reverence to the Pastors and take into account both the common good and the dignity of individuals.

      I will show reverence to them and take their good and dignity into account, when they show the same back to me.

      They stole my mass.

      Reply
  6. Bill deHaas

    Here you go – Person of the Year – Rev. Robert Taft, SJ –

    http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/liturgy-and-life-jesuit-scholar-reflects-his-46-years-rome

    Great quotes:

    – “There are two things you do not do alone: liturgy and sex.”
    – “Liturgy is a play where there is no audience. We’re all actors”
    – As for a popular notion that the so-called Tridentine Mass in the Latin rite approaches the Byzantine liturgy’s sense of mystery better than the modern Mass in the vernacular does, Taft said, “Nonsense.”

    “The prayers are not for God. God happens to know the whole show already,” he said. “The language is for us, and if you don’t understand the language” — whether in Latin or your native tongue — “then you’ve got a problem.”

    “The notion that the language creates the mystery is the height of asininity”

    – “The Tridentine reform of the liturgy was just as much of a change, with respect to what preceded it, as the Vatican II restoration of the liturgy was.

    – In terms of presiders making changes, he states, “Church leaders so froze the liturgy from the Council of Trent right up until the Second Vatican Council that when they opened the door of the freezer, everything poured out. It wasn’t the Second Vatican Council that created the abuses, it was the reaction to centuries of rigidity in the liturgy”

    “What the Second Vatican Council did was return the liturgy to those to whom it really belongs: the people of God,” which includes the clergy, but not exclusively.”

    –

    Reply
    1. Gerard Flynn

      Thank you, Bill!

      What a pity you didn’t recommend this at the beginning of Advent.

      +1

      Reply
    2. Mike Burns

      Bill,
      Thanks for sharing this. This room needs this kind of liturgical scholarship. As a student of the Liturgy I have always been in awe of Bob Taft, SJ. One of his sayings that has always stuck with me is that “all Liturgy dances around the same pole”. That is the Paschal Mystery of Christ.

      Reply
  7. Jordan Zarembo

    From a secular standpoint, I was convinced that Merkozy would win “Persons of the Year”. Despite their unpopularity in many quarters, it’s simply astonishing that the leaders of France and Germany could not only join together to try to save the common currency, but also almost morph into joint-leaders for two countries. We can’t call them a duumvir, however. I’m at a loss for Latin phrases.

    The current fiscal and economic crisis in the eurozone in a few respects resembles the fifty years of post-conciliar liturgy. Many economists, in hindsight, have reflected on the way in which the euro could have been better constructed to mitigate the current crisis. Similarly, many Catholics of diverse liturgical persuasions often dwell on the ways in which the liturgical renewal or revolution (depending on perspective) could have been executed in a less acrimonious matter. The new translation merely underscores that the Church’s liturgical life is never predictable. Rather, liturgy is an unfolding path whose future is largely unknown but whose present can be managed in a collaborative or combative manner. The past is beyond our control, but today is within our grasp.

    The ability for different liturgical ideologies to collaborate in the present day does not guarantee liturgical stability for the future, just as there is no way for EU “technocrats” to craft solutions which will permanently fix evident flaws in European economics.

    Reply
  8. Clay Zambo

    Since this one was filed under “humor,” I feel justified in referring the readership to the Twitterfeed of NPR blogger Glen Weldon (@ghweldon), who did a delightful (if not laugh-out-loud) series of postings suggesting the interactions of various “Collective Representations.” See #AtthePOTYparty.

    Reply

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