{"id":32675,"date":"2016-03-31T08:17:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T13:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=32675"},"modified":"2016-03-31T13:27:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T18:27:13","slug":"damian-thompson-on-ordinary-mass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/31\/damian-thompson-on-ordinary-mass\/","title":{"rendered":"Damian Thompson: Confessions of an Ex-Traddie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surely you remember Damian Thompson. Damian is highly opinionated\u00a0about things liturgical \u2013 for example this on BCM (Bad Church Music)<\/a>, complete with some swipes at Pray Tell.<\/em> (He seems to want<\/em> us to be lefty-lightweight so he can oppose us \u2013 wonder what he thinks about all my posts on Latin chant or traditional polyphony?) Damian has been a loud voice, to say the least, for a \u201cBenedictine\u201d (the pope, not the religious order) style of liturgy.<\/p>\n

But now this: \u201cConfessions of an ex-traddie,<\/a>\u201d his latest piece at Catholic Herald. <\/em>I\u2019m pretty sure Damian still supports the vision of Pope Benedict and still has \u201cgood taste,\u201d which is to say a bit on the high or elitist side, in things artistic and ceremonial and musical. Great.<\/p>\n

But something is changing. As he puts it:<\/p>\n

In the past few years I\u2019ve been reintegrated into the ordinary Catholic Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems that something happened when he began attending the local church closest to his apartment. We read that this church has good music by Damian\u2019s standards, and Benedictine mannerisms such as the candles across the front of the altar. Things are well done. But here\u2019s the money quote:<\/p>\n

Lots of [the servers] are girls and at every Mass there are lay ministers of Holy Communion. The sign of peace can be quite exuberant.\u00a0And it doesn\u2019t bother me in the least. These are signs of the comforting \u201cordinariness\u201d of worship that takes me back to my Catholic childhood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There it is \u2013 the reintegration. Now, Damian looks back fondly on Catholic worship a few decades ago, before the improvements under Pope Benedict:<\/p>\n

There was a warmth about the celebration of Mass and the welcome afterwards that was and is distinctively Catholic. (That I was too snooty to appreciate it was my loss.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Damian takes a swipe at the over-the-top \u201cOld Rite\u201d (his term) carryings on of the Latin Mass Society:<\/p>\n

Not to be mean, but I\u2019ve never seen so much flapping and semaphoring as I did at the last LMS Requiem I attended.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Damian speaks positively of the<\/p>\n

refreshing absence of High Church campery at the Oratory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you suppose is going on?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. I hesitate to do armchair psychology across the Atlantic. My first instinct is to be respectful of anyone in his faith journey. (I bet Damian doesn\u2019t like that squishy term.) I don\u2019t want to triangulate him or anyone else for \u201cmy side.\u201d People have the freedom to zig zag all over. I\u2019ve done my share of that, and I make no predictions where I next will zig or zag. Maybe someday Damian and I will meet in person and have a good visit about all this over coffee<\/span> tea. (I\u2019d start by confessing that I feel the same way when we get the short EP2, or the delay of the priest\u2019s post-communion piety! Don’t tell my confessor.)<\/p>\n

I wonder, though, whether a significant voice like Damian’s isn\u2019t emblematic of a larger trend afoot in the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s wishful thinking, but I wonder whether Pope Francis isn\u2019t bringing about a certain normalization<\/em> in things liturgical. In many ways, Francis is just a regular parish priest. This comes across as an affirmation of regular parish worship. And if that\u2019s what Catholic <\/em>looks like, then the weirdest of the traddie fringe stuff, the strangest of the Tridentine pretending and prancing around, is seen for what it is.<\/p>\n

Let us hope that that would still leave plenty of room for good taste and beautiful music and well-done ritual \u2013 Damian and I are of one mind on that, I believe. But: all that has to be \u2013 I don\u2019t know how else to put it \u2013 normal.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyway. Do go read Damian\u2019s essay<\/a>. It sure is well-written, complete with great lines such as \u201cCome on in \u2026 it\u2019s awful!\u201d<\/p>\n

(One caveat: at the Easter Vigil one comes into full communion with the Catholic Church, not with the Holy See!)<\/p>\n

awr<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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