Pope Leo XIV - Is he "Conservative," "Progressive," or simply a Catholic?
That all said, and despite its 'click bait' title, this article
in the European Conservative by Sebastian Morello caught my eye and whilst written from a traditionalist perspective, impressed as well-balanced and insightful.
Enjoy …. it's unedited ... Pope Leo XIV a Secret Conservative?
So far, the signs are good.
Bishop Robert Prevost, henceforth to be known the world over as Pope Leo XIV,
appeared on the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica wearing the red shoulder cape
called the ‘mozzetta’ and a heavy crimson stole embroidered with images of
saints and symbols of the papal office. This choice of traditional vestments is
significant, given that his predecessor Pope Francis had refused to wear these
symbols of the Holy See when he appeared on the balcony after his election on
the 13th of March, 2013. For those hoping for a more conservative papacy than
that of Bergoglio, Prevost’s appearance inspired some confidence.
In his speech from the balcony,
the first American pope said the predictable stuff about how wonderful Francis
was, and the need for a future ‘synodal’ Church, which he may or may not really
believe, but which was in any case entirely to be expected. Anyway, perhaps the
Church’s new path of ‘synodality’ could be given a conservative twist.
In centuries past, and especially
during the Church’s first millennium, the laity had a much more central role in
determining the Church’s direction. Moreover, since the Catholic lay powers,
represented in the sacral monarchs of Europe, fell in the 19th and 20th
centuries and were replaced with secular, democratic, grey-suited leaders, it
hasn’t been obvious how the laity are meant to relate to the ecclesiastical
hierarchy beyond just turning up to Mass occasionally and tossing something
into the collection. If Pope Leo can use the new synodal movement within the
Church to return clerical-lay relations to something resembling patristic
tradition, that may be no bad thing.
As it happens, he may be just the
man to do that. After all, he has spent his life in the Order of Saint
Augustine, being thus steeped in the thought of the father of Latin theology.
The 5th century Augustine wrote his magnum opus The City of God partly
as an extended meditation on the survival of the Church amid the fall of the
Roman Empire, as he observed the beginning of the Great Migration period from
his episcopal see in North Africa. Now, we are living through the rise of a new
empire, which has indeed just moved from its republican epoch to its imperial
one with the rise of Emperor Trump. The Church, whose Spirit guides it with
centuries rather than office-terms in mind, will undoubtedly seek to convert
that empire, and hence it is fitting that a pope has risen from its midst.
Some conservative-minded
Catholics are worried because Prevost has a reputation as a social justice
warrior. But part of the problem with the prevailing Left-Right political
divide is precisely that conservatives often see any social justice causes as
Lefty issues. The Church, however, should transcend such ideological
squabbling. Prevost’s choice of the name ‘Leo’ is a good indication that he
will contribute to the tradition of Catholic social justice teaching launched
(or re-launched, depending on how you look at it) by the last pope to take that
name, Pope Leo XIII. That 19th century pope’s encyclical letter Rerum
Novarum marked a major moment in the Church’s effort to achieve
greater justice in the emergent modern world. It is probable that Prevost was
inspired by this to take the name.
It certainly bodes well that
Prevost has both extensive pastoral experience and leadership experience,
having been both Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine and a bishop in
Peru. On account of the latter position, some fear he may be contaminated with
liberation theology—a noxious cocktail of superficial biblical criticism and
Marxist materialism—that has been at times hugely popular in South America. But
there’s insufficient evidence to suggest that Prevost has ever leaned in that
direction.
Some have pointed to his
environmentalist activism as evidence of him being a leftist pawn. As I’ve
argued in many places elsewhere, it is imperative that the debate about global
ecological devastation be seized from the hands of leftists and progressives,
so that their terrible solutions to the very real problem of the corruption of
complex ecosystems cease to be the only ones on offer. Having been based in
Peru for so long, where ancient and intricate ecological environs and habitats
are being destroyed and replaced with monocultures, if anything at all, he may
be just the person to reframe and revitalise the debate about what Christian
theology calls ‘stewardship.’ In the past, Prevost has publicly lamented modern
man’s “tyrannical dominion over nature.” Every sound Catholic should welcome a
shift away from the Cartesian, mechanical worldview, and towards something much
closer to the Church’s traditional, organicist philosophy of nature.
Serious Catholics were
disappointed time and again by Pope Francis’s protection of homosexual networks
in the Church, by which many speculated he procured the loyalty of such morally
compromised underlings. Prevost, however, has a history of strongly criticising
the so-called LGBTQ+ movement, and much indicates that he’s not going to
exercise much patience towards the gay ascendency in the Catholic Church. He
has said in the past: “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in
fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices
that are at odds with the Gospel—for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle,
euthanasia.”
So, who knows what the coming
years will bring. But, for those with a more conservative or traditional
attachment to the Church and her mission, there are already a number of reasons
to be moderately hopeful. It is worth noting that Pope Leo is a trained canon
lawyer, holding both a licentiate and a doctorate in canon law from the
prestigious Angelicum University in Rome. One of the most painful aspects of
his predecessor’s papacy, at least for conservative-minded Catholics, was
Francis running roughshod over the Church’s law and circumventing due process
whenever it suited him. (After all, in Pauline theology, the “lawless man” is
another name for the antichrist [2 Thessalonians 2:1-12].) Following the last
papacy, having a man in the Chair of Peter who takes the Church’s law seriously
will be for many people quite a relief.
In Pope Leo’s address from the
balcony, minutes after it was announced that he was the Petrine Office’s new
incumbent, he repeatedly stated that he planned to “build bridges.” One of the
most divisive policies in recent Church history has been that of Pope Francis’s
maltreatment of Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass which goes back
to the Apostolic period, preferring it to the new liturgy invented in the
1960s. This unjust discrimination by Rome has been chiefly orchestrated by
Francis’s henchman, the English cardinal Arthur Roche. Perhaps Leo XIV will
begin to roll back this disgraceful policy and “build bridges” with the
Catholic Church’s traditionalists. There is a rumour currently circulating that
he has long had an affection for the ancient liturgy and likes to celebrate it
when he can.
Roger Scruton used to remind his students that “Progressives are always optimistic and yet despairing, whilst conservatives are always pessimistic yet hopeful.” Surveying the infelicitous condition of the Church in the modern world, racked as it is by moral and financial scandal as well as in-fighting, whilst most of its faithful have given up on attending Mass or inducting their offspring into the Faith, there are few reasons for optimism. Nonetheless, with the election of Pope Leo XIV, there are already some signs offering traditional Catholics like me reasons for hope. What’s more, a Vatican insider that I know sent me a text message with some very important information about Prevost which I will share here, and I quote verbatim: “He’s a nice chap.” After twelve years of having a bully leading the Church, having a “nice chap” is no small thing. I will be watching this papacy unfold with great interest.
Predictably, more "modernist" publications like the National Catholic Online are seeking to claim the new Pope as a one of their own, a “moderniser.” Thei publication boldly asserted Pope Leo XIV pledges to pursue the reforms of Pope Francis:
Pope Leo XIV laid out the vision of his papacy Saturday (May 10), making clear that he will follow in the modernizing reforms of Pope Francis to make the Catholic Church inclusive, attentive to the faithful and a church that looks out for the "least and rejected.”
True, as far as it goes. After all, despite all the noise and controversy, Pope Francis actually achieved very little change in the Churches doctrine.
There was a similar show of enthusiasm from Where Peter Is in The Peace of Pope Leo XIV. Quoting extensively from one of his past homilies on social justice that referenced Saint Oscar Romano, a saint who I greatly admire, it simplistically summarised Pope Leo thus:
Such is the “peace” of Leo XIV. It is a peace
rooted in justice, a peace built up on sacrifice and solidarity, but also peace
of contented hearts that rest easy like the South American pampas and stand
strong like the mighty Andes.
Being American both publications, perhaps understandably given the predominant Presbyterian - Calvinist position of most Americans on social welfare, focussed on the social doctrines of the Church. There was a deafening silence concerning the views expressed by the new Pope on the ordination of women, on abortion, on homo-erotic relationships, and on transsexuality.
We should be thankful for small mercies. Silence is golden ...
This is a refreshing and perceptive article from a non-Catholic blogger I’ve been following for a while - American Hope - Leo XIV will elude capture by the culture war:
The immediate online response to
his announcement yesterday, across both sides of the culture war, was striking:
a frenzied rummaging in rumour, social media, and previous utterances for where
the new Pope might stand on political matters, especially immigration and
“gender”. On the Right, the howls of
WOKE MARXIST POPE are now raising the roof, based on Twitter posts about
topics such as George Floyd and JD Vance’s views on the ordo amoris.
On the Left, the muttering about
his insufficiently radical views on “LGBTQ issues” has likewise begun.
In other words, both sides of the
culture war are already squaring up to him, for not aligning perfectly with
their view of the way the world should be. As Mike Solana put
it, with characteristic dryness: “For people who don’t go to church, and
were hoping for a less Catholic pope, this was considered a mixed bag. For the
rest of us: AMERICAN POPE.”
Its worth a read but, be warned, it needs time.
And finally, a firm favourite of mine, Father Dwight Longenecker. With his usual honesty, he outlined Ten Good Things to Know about Pope Leo XIV:
My initial reaction to the
election of Pope Leo XIV was caution and curiosity. I was suspicious of his
connections to Cardinal Cupich’s Chicago and his being a protégé of Pope
Francis, but after listening to the analysis of some folks who are smarter and
more knowledgeable than me I am, this morning, feeling increasingly optimistic.
Here are ten reasons why…and I’m saving he best and most important for last…
Read them all but here’s the tenth:
Saving the best for last: Pope Leo’s first words on the loggia and in his homily to the cardinals this morning were full of the first priority: the preaching of the gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I encourage you to go here and read the text of his homily to the cardinals. I was very happy with how he did not promote a political ideology or a social gospel message, but first and foremost spoke about the need to preach and live the life giving gospel of the Lord. As a former Evangelical (who is thankful for that upbringing) these words warmed my heart and (I admit) made my eyes leak with joy.
The fact that people are asking the question, “Is he conservative or progressive?”, I see as a good sign in itself. It suggests that he is likely to steer a middle course between the two extremes, and that he will feel free to go one way in some matters and the other way in others.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it’s bound to be quite some time before we have a clearer view, at least a year until his first encyclical, is my guess. Give him time to act carefully and thoughtfully, listening to everyone who may have useful inputs to offer.
In the meantime, as I said on another thread, it’s worth keeping an eye on three key posts in the Curia to see how long the present incumbents survive and who their eventual replacements will be. Those three names are Parolin, Roche, and Fernández.
I agree. I suspect he'll move cautiously and, as he says, "build bridges." Not easy in our times. I'm especially interested in how he reacts to the Church in Germany, for example, and to those pushing for major doctrinal change. Time will tell. I think Father Longenecker's assessment is sound. Incidentally, his reflections on Pope Francis was good too.
DeleteThe Church needs a period of calm and stability, clear teachings, pastoral approaches in tune with the Gospel and Tradition, and well balanced, reasonable governance.
Apparently, the German bishops view him as an obstacle to the 'kind of reforms they want to implement.'
DeleteSounds promising. But time will tell: a lot of people are leaping to conclusions and the poor guy hasn't even been pope for a week.
Let's pray he is .... the German's need hauling in.
DeleteYes they are, but that's understandable given the division of the past 13 years.
Bishops complaining about the pope thwarting their plans seem to have their Catholicism on backwards. If they don't like the concept of obedience, there are many other churches that they can move to.
DeleteInterestingly, Essen's Bp. Franz-Josef Overbeck lauds the fact that 'Er wurde Augustinermönch und gehört damit zu dem Orden, dem Martin Luther angehörte' - [Prevost] became an Augustinian monk and so belongs to the same order that Martin Luther did. A very strange endorsement!
Not all the Augustinians were as confused as Luther!
DeleteI did think this was a deliberately evasive and rather condescending observation:
Question: How do you assess his stance on the issues being discussed in Germany ? For example, greater equality between different genders and lifestyles?
Overbeck: He's reserved in this regard, I think. He's a person who recognizes concerns, but also knows that assessments vary greatly in different cultures. We're operating in a truly different world than the one he experienced in Peru. In the past two years, a lot has happened in Rome, for example, with the World Synod of Bishops on a synodal church. Synodality was one of the major themes of Francis's pontificate. Pope Leo XIV made it clear in his first address that he would continue to pursue this course.
Overbeck is very kindly giving Pope Leo important information about recent events in Rome that he could not possibly have found out for himself, since at that time he was ... where, exactly? Oh yes, in Rome, where Pope Francis had appointed him the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, while all that time poor old Overbeck was still at home in Germany.
DeleteHere is an assessment of Pope Leo’s election by Thomas Sowell (23 min)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqrReC0UL4c
It’s on the Channel Macro Minds, who have an axe to grind, so please ignore the cover picture, which bears little or no relation to Thomas Sowell’s podcast.
Very few sites have taken notice of Thomas Sowell’s podcast, but it does sound like authentic Sowell rather than something generated by AI. It does in places touch on matters of faith, which is something Sowell rarely does.
That's a good analysis. I've always admired this guy's honesty.
Delete“Pope Francis didn’t change doctrine. He did something more subtle, far more dangerous; he changed the tone. He muddied the boundaries ... His strategy was not frontal assault, but instead a gradual corrosion ... He did not defy tradition, he reframed it until its sharp edges were dulled beyond recognition ... In economic terms, he was practising a form of spiritual inflation, increasing the supply of empathy while diluting its purchasing power of clarity.
“Robert Prevost is not an outright reformer. He is a company man. It’s not a continuation of Francis’ pastoral openness. It is instead a kind of conservative pragmatism wrapped in the aesthetics of continuity ... Pope Francis nudged from the left, Pope Leo may tighten the leash just enough to keep the conservatives pacified while avoiding open war with the modern world.”
Not sure he's correct ... but, even so some astute observations.
The Vatican’s financial situation is getting worse all the time. Yesterday’s post on the Pillar website pulls no punches (link below).
ReplyDeleteIn itself, the Holy See’s budget deficit is nothing new. Pope Benedict had already inherited it from John Paul II and in due course he passed it on to Francis, who recognised the need for major changes and concentrated his efforts on that in the early years of his pontificate. He started off well, but somewhere along the way he seems to have started giving priority to other matters.
In the finance & budget area, as the Pillar article points out, there are three key positions in the Curia:
• Card. Reinhard Marx, Coordinator of the Council for the Economy (since Februrary 2014)
• Alessandro Cassinis Righini, Auditor General (since May 2021)
• Maximino Caballero Ledo, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy (since November 2020)
Two of those three are laymen. That means, among other things, that they can have no expectation of a career advancement of any kind in the Roman Curia outside their own specialist field of economics and finance. That leaves them free to concentrate on doing their jobs as well as they possibly can, without being distracted by other considerations.
Where, then, can the obstacles have arisen that prevented Pope Francis’ reform efforts from fulfilling their early promise? Could the finger of suspicion possibly be pointing at the Council for the Economy?
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/on-pope-leos-desk-fixing-vatican
The Pillar is a good website ....
DeleteUnder the title “Does MAGA have a Pope Leo problem?” a Spectator article by Thomas Edwards notes that both Pope Francis and (though before his election) Pope Leo XIV have taken the trouble to correct J. D. Vance’s mistaken views about the Catholic teaching on immigration.
ReplyDeletePope Francis and Vance came to ideological blows when, in February this year, Vance justified the administration’s immigration policy by invoking the Augustinian teaching of ordo amoris – the ‘order of love’: the idea that one’s first duty is to love those closest to you – your family, neighbour and nation – and only after that extend love to the wider world.
Less than ten days later, Pope Francis issued a letter to US bishops, refuting Vance’s interpretation of Catholic teaching and citing the better-known Christian ethic found in the parable of the Good Samaritan.
... Three of the then Cardinal Robert Prevost’s most recent X posts were criticisms of the Trump administration’s immigration policy – two of them directed at J.D. Vance, and one of them stating plainly: ‘J.D. Vance is wrong.’ Vance’s papal problems are far from over.
https://archive.ph/L9H98
Both J D Vance and Pope Francis were correct and incorrect. Aquinas is more supportive of J D Vance. However, and here's the kicker, according to Aquinas, once one's family's needs are met there is than a moral duty to meet the needs of other vulnerable people.
DeleteI'm naturally suspicious of attempts to leverage religious teachings to justify political decisions. But this highlights the problem with taking Christian (or any other faith's) teachings out of context. It doesn't really matter what Augustine said, if you're divorcing that principle from the rest of the Christian faith. It's exactly the same error that evangelicals make when they find a bit of Augustine's (or whoever) writings that seems to justify their own worldview: it can't be divorced from his wider faith *and* the way in which that teaching has been understood by the Church.
DeleteVance was raised as a conservative evangelical and, like many American converts to Catholicism and Orthodoxy, brings a very Protestant hermeneutic to his faith: these converts tend to pick apart the Fathers for proof texts in the same way that they did the Scriptures as evangelicals.
Augustine is Vance's confirmation saint, according to Wiki.
You're way to sensible, Lain.
DeleteYou're way to sensible, Lain.
DeleteThank you, thank you.
DeleteIt's disappointing to see the number of people fawning over Pope Leo just because 'he sang in Latin'. Is not the Body more than raiment?
ReplyDeleteYes:
ReplyDeleteThe Church needs you. The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense! We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty! It is likewise important to rediscover, especially in the Christian West, a sense of the primacy of God, the importance of mystagogy and the values so typical of Eastern spirituality: constant intercession, penance, fasting, and weeping for one’s own sins and for those of all humanity (penthos)! It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism.
Your traditions of spirituality, ancient yet ever new, are medicinal. In them, the drama of human misery is combined with wonder at God’s mercy, so that our sinfulness does not lead to despair, but opens us to accepting the gracious gift of becoming creatures who are healed, divinized and raised to the heights of heaven. For this, we ought to give endless praise and thanks to the Lord. Together, we can pray with Saint Ephrem the Syrian and say to the Lord Jesus: “Glory to you, who laid your cross as a bridge over death… Glory to you who clothed yourself in the body of mortal man, and made it the source of life for all mortals” (Homily on our Lord, 9). We must ask, then, for the grace to see the certainty of Easter in every trial of life and not to lose heart, remembering, as another great Eastern Father wrote, that “the greatest sin is not to believe in the power of the Resurrection” (SAINT ISAAC OF NINEVEH, Sermones ascetici, I, 5)..
ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER LEO XIV
TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE JUBILEE OF ORIENTAL CHURCHES
Audience Hall
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/may/documents/20250514-giubileo-chiese-orientali.html#:~:text=It%20is%20very%20moving%20for,are%20precious%20in%20God's%20eyes.
I think this is very promising. The West needs re-mystifying.
DeleteBut I've already seen trads moaning that 'Eastern Catholics get to keep their traditions but we're not allowed ours' and arguing with each other over the Filioque. Don't these people ever take a day off?
I worry that we've normalised tribalistic polarisation to such an extent that people don't know how to stop. Pope Leo has his work cut out.
The West needs re-mystifying.
DeleteThis truth is obscured in the Catholic Church by the tribal divisions over the Latin Mass. Sadly, I think Pope Francis made this situation worse, not better.
I never really understood why the Traditional Mass wasn't simply made available in English instead of the dramatic changes in the late 1960s. Involving the laity didn't mean having an endless procession of people traipsing across the altar. That said, in the right environment and celebrated sincerely, the New Mass is inspiring too if doctrinally 'light.' The Sauron liturgy is celebrated in English by the Ordinariate and is a beautiful, rich service.
Pope Leo will, I suspect, permit the Traditional Latin Mass again. Personally, I'd like it translated into English.
The "war" over the TLM has, I suspect, much more to do with the bad faith of the vernacular mass advocates -- at least those of them working at Vatican II -- than it has with the TLM itself. It's true that there are Catholics who will travel for literally hours to get to a TLM rather than walk down the street to the local parish church, but it isn't always a case of "holier than thou" with such people.
DeleteI personally drive for about 35 minutes on Sunday morning to get to my nearest TLM simply because I want to sit in the "mysticism" Lain speaks of. I don't really have an objection to the Novus Ordo, and often attend, particularly on holy days when I don't have time to travel, but I just prefer the attention to ritual detail the FSSP priests engage in at a 1962 service. Other people in attendance have different reasons.
The outright dishonesty of many NO advocates at Vatican II -- particularly of Annibale Bugnini, labelled by one of the scholars working on the new mass as "a lying scoundrel" -- enraged a lot of people. To them, it was the Church equivalent of what Tony Blair did to the UK: no matter what way you vote, you'll always get Labour control because they took over the institutions and used them to force their ideology on the people regardless of what the people themselves wanted. The attitude was always "we just know better." If you sat down and designed a policy to alienate people and stir up division, you simply could not do better than such an attitude.
And it has to be said of many -- by no means all - bishops that, successors of the apostles or not -- no, they did not always know better, but their raging pride has continually stopped them admitting this and backtracking. Instead, they have constantly doubled down, and that reached its height under Francis. Benedict probably had the most sensible and ACTUALLY progressive policy towards the Latin Mass. Let any priest who wants to celebrate it do so, and let's see what happens. As a TLM Catholic, I could live with that, and I suspect most of those who attend my service could too.
I agree with most of that except the self identification - As a TLM Catholic. No, you're not; you're a Catholic who prefers the liturgical beauty and sacred symbolism of the Latin Mass.
DeleteI would have thought it obvious that by "TLM Catholic" I meant "TLM-attending Catholic." The entire problem with this culture war is the lack of goodwill granted to trads.
DeleteYes, I don't understand why, when the decision taken to offer Mass in the vernacular was taken, the TLM wasn't simply translated. The Orthodox Church has traditionally translated its liturgy into the vernacular (although the traditional language English version is more popular than the modern English, presumably for its gravitas).
DeleteThe biggest problem I see between the TLM and NO isn't the language, but the fact that the TLM is much more explicit in its theology. If an uncatechised person spend time with the Latin Mass (with a translation), I think that they would gain a reasonable understanding of the Catholic faith. I don't think that's the case with the NO, which seems to assume you already know all this. I wonder if this marked a shift from catechesis by living the faith to catechesis by classroom.
I agree that the whole issue has been mishandled. Most TLM attendees, in my experience, simply want to worship and be left alone. For others, the TLM became emblematic of a larger erosion of the traditions of their faith. A small number hijacked it for cultural and political purposes - at which point the form of religion became more important than the object of religion. Instead of ignoring the fringe and pastoring the uncertain, Pope Francis punished everyone, like a class full of school children given detention because one acted up. Making the Eucharistic celebration a political cudgel is scandalous.
@Lain -- the Mass approved at Vatican II was basically the TLM with a few vernacular passages, but in my 61 years, I've only ever seen that Mass celebrated once. As soon as ANY kind of change was approved, committees had to be formed to give it shape, and once those committees were taken over by the reformers, they simply ignored the bishops' instructions and drove through their own agenda. There's a YouTube series called "Mass of the Ages" which goes into the detail of it, if you're interested.
DeleteThanks, I wasn't aware of that and I'll look those up.
DeleteI can see how that would be a liturgical death knell. The modern CofE liturgy was written by committee, which is why it's so offensively shallow and dreary. The BCP, for all its theological errors, is at least clear and bold in proclaiming what it believes.
Much of the BCP was plagiarised from Catholic texts and "amended" to suit "Reformed" doctrine - for example, the Sarum Rite, an ancient English liturgy, was stripped of its sacrificial content but has now been re-re-revised and is used by the Catholic Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
DeleteYes and no. The BCP follows the structure, roughly, of Sarum, but is heavily eviscerated (and increasingly so throughout its various revisions) to remove references to the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the saints and so on. Dr Taylor Marshall has a brief summary here: https://taylormarshall.com/2006/01/was-prayer-book-translation-of-sarum.html
DeletePersonally, I don't see much in common between Sarum and the Ordinarite Rite. The 're-Romanised' BCP has always felt to me like a gimmick; it's still basically the BCP with a few 'Catholic' bits stuck in. I really don't understand the thinking behind using it, given that a) it still contains, almost in its entirety, a vehemently anti-Catholic book that symbolises a period of history where Catholics were persecuted and martyred; and b) very few Anglo-Catholics who went to the Ordinariate would ever have used the BCP (because of (a)) - all the Anglo Catholic parishes I've ever know use either Common Worship or the Roman Missal. So the 'Anglican patrimony' argument is bizarre.
Why not just return to the Sarum Use in English? It is, to my mind, a far superior liturgy (https://liturgies.net/Liturgies/Historical/sarum.htm) - it is an English rite (for the patrimony), but similar to the Tridentine Mass: it's therefore both universally and locally Catholic.
As an aside, saw a breviary from the mid 1500s the other day. All of the 'Catholic' prayers had been violently scribbled out, presumably because the owner was either scared of being accused of Popery or had radically embraced the new faith. It started with 'Lord, open thou my lippes / And my mouth, shall shew thy prayse' &c. And then the Hail Mary had been obliterated by black crossings out. Fascinating historical document, but an awful time.
Pssst! Wanna buy a house? It's the former Prevost family home in a \Chicago suburb.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/pope-leos-childhood-home-was-on-the-market-for-under-250k-until-thursday-2/3747403/
Auberon Waugh wrote on the new face of Catholicism and the abandonment of the Tridentine mass in the 1960s.
ReplyDelete"It is hard to believe that these new kindergarten assemblies bear much relation to the ancient institutions of the Church as it survived through the Renaissance.The new Mickey Mouse church has nothing to do with the old religion,being no more than an idle diversion for the comunally minded. Whatever truth survives is outside it, buried in the historical awareness of individual members."
It is always so refreshing to have one's thoughts validated by an eminent author. ...Cressida