Weekly Roundup, November 1 Edition

Happy feast of All Saints to all my readers!

Having just returned from the pilgrimage, I’ve still so much to think about — and so much sleep to catch up on. I’ll be writing soon about Greece & Turkey. For today, we’ll do our usual weekly roundup, although this time it will comprise two weeks’ worth of news and reflections. Without further ado…

Sacred Heart, Latin, and “Luce”

While I was on pilgrimage, on October 24 the pope released a new encyclical, Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart. I have seen very little analysis of it yet, and the length of it, plus my current pressing duties (I came home to three sets of page proofs to review!), have prevented further engagement. However, my friend and colleague Gregory DiPippo pointed out a most amusing passage, no. 88:

I would add that the heart of Christ also frees us from another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes.

Synodality, anyone?

Do these people have no sense of irony whatsoever?

The day before, October 23, Vatican News told us:

Pope Francis praises Latin scholars for protecting a great heritage in a message sent to mark the conferral of the “Pontifical Academies Award 2023.” [Evidently they are a little behind in giving the awards.-PK] He speaks of “a linguistic and cultural heritage of inestimable value: Latin ... a treasure of knowledge and thought, a key to accessing the classic texts that have shaped our world.” It represents “the roots of Western civilization, and, in many ways, our very identity.” Latin provides “fertile ground" for exploration and synthesis between science, culture, and politics. Pope Francis went on to marvel that Latin, along with the intellectual heritage of humanity, “can become a tool for harmony among peoples, promoting mutual respect and human dignity.”

Right, got all that. So why are we not using Latin every day for liturgy, education, and communication, as John XXIII solemnly enjoined in Veterum Sapientia, and as Vatican II reaffirmed in Sacrosanctum Concilium? Why are priests not being thoroughly trained in Latin, as Canon Law stipulates? Having one common, traditional language is actually enormously practical, in addition to all the other benefits mentioned. Well, neither self-awareness nor consistency are to be expected at this time, it seems.

A much bigger splash was made by Archbishop Fisichella’s unveiling, a few days later (October 28), of a new Vatican mascot for the 2025 Jubilee.

When I first saw the photo above, my immediate reaction was “Ha, that’s a funny joke!” I figured it was Photoshopped. And then I found out that it wasn’t.

I’m not interested here in going into the incredible amount of ink that has been spilled on its name, “Luce,” nor its colors, its designer, its manufacturer, etc. Particular theories may or may not hold water. What I did react to, however, is the overall significance of this mascot. Even if Luce is not “evil,” the fact that she’s kitschy, cutesy, cringey, merchy, and childish is already offensive to the religion of the Logos.

I really think the people behind this sort of thing have lost the last scrap of faith in Christianity as a religion divinely revealed by the God of glory and in the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. For them, Aslan is not only a tame lion, he’s a stuffed animal in bright fuzzy colors that tinkles “All Are Welcome” when you squeeze it. At this point there is nothing left of religion as such, and certainly nothing that resembles a serious Christian culture in any way. If, as Pope Francis said, “Christendom is dead,” then a Nietzschean would be right to add, “and it is we who have killed it.”

Some people seem to have misunderstood the nature of my objection. I am not so much objecting to Luce per se as to all that this thing represents or signifies, the trend of which it is the latest expression. As many philosophers have argued, everything human beings do is symbolic or caught up in symbolism. We can’t avoid it. And our symbols tell a story, encode a doctrine, establish horizons, reveal a worldview. Great Christian art did that in centuries past; the ugly or kitschy art of recent decades does it too... but in a quite different way, and to opposite effect.

Once again, I marvel that there are so many who do not see the significance of signs and symbols, and of the official artforms that institutions choose for themselves. Perhaps the reason is that most moderns are nominalists and materialists, so this symbolic dimension eludes their awareness. Nothing is insignificant or trivial when it comes to public gestures on behalf of, or supposedly in promotion of, the Catholic Faith. The tiniest thing like this can be symptomatic of an entire worldview.

My three favorite humorous takes were, first, Eric Sammons’s:

Then, Gregory DiPippo’s, who introduced another character in the Luce expanded universe, Tenebro, her putative antagonist:

And finally, Lutheran Satire’s short video:

Of the vast amount written on this topic, my recommendations are:

• Kevin Tierney, “Luce and the Audacity of Frivolity”

• Steve Skojec, “The Problem with Luce”

• Thomas Graf, “Live, Laugh, Luce” (if you’d like to see an attempt at a defense)

Favorite reading online

Aaron Pattee asks “Did Medieval Nations Exist?”

Eric Sammons cautions against embracing opposite lies as part of our reaction against perpetual gaslighting:

Our Elites lie to us so much that anyone with commonsense knows to doubt the veracity of anything they claim. The gaslighting reaches into most areas of life: medicine, foreign policy, and the role of women in the Church just to name a few. I’m waiting for someone to declare with a straight face, “We need women deacons to wear masks in order to defend democracy in Ukraine!”

Lies have consequences beyond just the falsehood being perpetrated. The primary consequence of repeated lies is a breakdown of trust. We simply don’t believe Elites anymore. Of course our leaders have always lied to us on some level, but today’s lies are far more insidious. They know we know they are lying, but they lie to us anyway, because they can.

The impact of being constantly and consistently lied to weighs heavily. The victim of such gaslighting begins to question everything, and in an effort to combat the lies, he may even begin to accept alternative lies as a defense against the mainstream lies. He becomes reactionary, disputing solid history, morality, and facts in order to oppose the Elitist gaslighting.

Robert Keim explains why “There Is No Feast without Symbol” and how “Some Certain Significance Lurks in All Things.” He also wrote an article related to mine, “When Numbers Were Poetry,” on why, in spite of the existence of a Septuagint/Vulgate numbering system, the medievals hardly ever referred to psalms by number. And he discloses to us the rich flower symbolism of the medievals in “The Lilies of the Field.”

Robert Lazu Kmita explains “The Last Bastion of Authority: The Office of the British King.” And if you’ve ever wondered about the “three days of darkness,” look no further than Kmita’s essay “The True Origins of the ‘Three Days of Darkness’ Prophecy.”

Robin Phillips discusses “The Role of Beauty in Worship.” An excerpt:

Church communities without a strong understanding of creation often view art as purely functional, perhaps as an adjunct to preaching, as a marketing tool, or as a medium for illustrating truths… At best, these approaches leave us with very bad art; at worst, they help fortify the illusion that even the most creative and beautiful artifacts remain spiritually neutral until Christian propositional content or utility functions can be externally imposed.

The theological consequences of these moves are severe, for they concede ground to three great idols of our age: Gnosticism, pragmatism, and atheism. They concede to Gnosticism that the visible world of space, time, bodies, and stuff is not important to God. They concede to pragmatism that the value of an artwork lies in functional goals outside the work itself. And they concede to atheism that works of aesthetic creativity are in themselves spiritually passive and neutral—a realm independent from the Creator God.

“A Teen’s Testimony of the Impact of the Latin Mass in Her Life” was written as a homeschool assignment by a 15-year-old from California. The piece was shared at NLM. To me, it speaks more truths, and more profound truths, than we will ever hear from any “Synod on Synodality.” (This piece has been included in the recently released anthology The Latin Mass and the Youth: Young Catholics Speak about the Mass of the Ages, which features a Foreword by me.)

John Byron Kuhner writes on “Building a Culture of Gratitude for Our Children,” and Karen Darantière asks where the denigration of motherhood comes from, and how Our Lady, who alone is both “Mother and Priest,” can help us overcome it.

The Synod goes to sleep

The concluding session of the Synod on Synodality has provoked a world of yawns. I’m not saying it’s harmless, not by any means; but it’s boring as heck. If it’s all about the process, then I’d rather watch grass growing, and I suspect most people feel the same way. This business was past its sell-by date before it even started.

Michael Pakaluk expresses it well:

When I was asking myself, why has the Synod on Synodality been a failure (as I think we can agree that it is), or why is “synodality,” that is, “walking together,” irrelevant to me and to everyone else I know, the following words came to mind: "We can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail. We will become a pitiful NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. . . .When one does not profess Jesus Christ – I recall the phrase of Léon Bloy – ‘Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the devil.’ When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil."

Perhaps you remember these words also. They are from the very first homily of Pope Francis. And there was my answer: the Synod is church people “walking as much as they want” but without seeming to be confessing Jesus Christ. That is why it strikes me and others as, at best, the proceedings of a pitiful NGO.

Timothy Flanders and Eric Sammons think the last session of the Synod proved to be a big nothingburger. I hope they’re right, but I’m skeptical.

Even if it’s good news that there will be no final “apostolic exhortation,” the bad news is twofold: first, the final synod document was elevated into “ordinary magisterium,” which is totally incoherent inasmuch as it was a mixed episcopal-lay gathering, and second, synodality is now to be a permanent, never-ending process (see Emily Finley’s remarks). Until, that is, it dies of inanition and benign neglect.

Part of this pope’s strategy is to introduce anarchy, confusion, and disarray, to promote endless meetings, talks, and dialogues, to issue dozens of legally convoluted motu proprios, to advance and overthrow ambitious courtiers, all in a bid to radically destabilize the Catholic Church and complete the Modernist project. I do not think we are ready to bid goodbye to Bergoglian synodality; rather, it’s like a poison that has entered the bloodstream and will need to be purged by a future pope or council. As readers know, I am hopeful about this purgation happening, in God’s good time.

Cardinal Müller giving Benediction to all the TLM pilgrims at St. Peter’s Basilica

Good News

And now, for my favorite category.

I was very sorry when Ignatius Press abandoned the project of publishing The Collected Works of Joseph Ratzinger. Bishop Barron recently announced that the multi-volume series will now be released by Word on Fire. Yes, we may have our difficulties with this or that aspect of Ratzinger’s thought (and don’t even get me started about the renunciation of the papacy); but of the twentieth-century theologians, none can outrank him in profundity and breadth of thought. He has benefited me more than I can possibly describe. I would not be a traditionalist today without Ratzinger’s writings. Moreover, I think even his weak points are instructive, in the way that any great thinker’s missteps are instructive.

The 13th Annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Rome last weekend was a tremendous success, with a high number of participants, and the support of several bishops, including Cardinal Gerhard Müller. You can read about his remarks here, and see galleries of Stuart Chessman photos here.

A grand new shrine is being built for the martyrs of Florida — in a gorgeous traditional style.

To an outsider, the Sunshine State seems a land with no history. Yet, it was in Florida where the first Mass on American soil was celebrated, by the chaplains of Ponce de Leon’s 1513 expedition. In 1565, in America’s oldest city, St. Augustine, our first parish church was founded, and half-a-century later, our first Marian shrine, Our Lady of la Leche. It was also in Florida where the future United States had its first martyrs—at first, missionaries slain by natives, and then, at the turn of the eighteenth century, friars, Spanish laymen and native Catholics who died at the hands of English soldiers and their Creek allies.... Soon, these martyrs will have their own shrine that tells their story in stone and stucco, located on an expansive wooded site outside Tallahassee. Dedicated to Mary, Queen of the Martyrs—and perhaps, in time to Mary, Queen of the Martyrs of La Florida—the venerable Boston-based church firm of Cram and Ferguson.

Liturgical Matters

My new book Turned Around: Replying to Common Objections Against the Traditional Latin Mass is off to a good start! Of course you can purchase it from TAN Books (where it’s on sale today and tomorrow at 40% off) or from Amazon (where it’s not on sale), but if you’d like a signed copy, you can get one by ordering via the Os Justi Press website.

Two reviews have appeared: Stuart Chessman’s, and Leila Marie Lawler’s. Chessman did me the honor of comparing my book to one of Mosebach’s, and since he’s a hero to me, that means a lot!

In 2002, Martin Mosebach gave us The Heresy of Formlessness, the first handbook defending the traditional liturgy based on objective liturgical principles. Now, Peter Kwasniewski has given us a new guide to the TLM. Its content has been enriched by the experiences of the last quarter century, which saw the unanticipated expansion and flowering of the traditional mass and then the all-out war by the Pope and the Vatican to suppress it. But, as always, out of such conflicts, a new synthesis, a deeper understanding has emerged. Turned Around is for anyone who wants to understand why traditionalists fight for the TLM – as well as being a tool for those who need to defend it.

Leila, on the other hand, compared me to Picasso… and to P.G. Wodehouse, so all is forgiven! I do think Turned Around is the book to hand to TLM skeptics, curious inquirers, and folks looking for apologetic strategies. The objection/reply format worked well for Aquinas and it still works well today.

Unam Sanctam Catholicam is producing excellent videos these days at their YouTube channel. Be sure to check this one out. Its topic: How does the existence of the so-called “Unicorn Novus Ordo”—an Novus Ordo celebrated in the most traditional, reverent manner possible—factor into discussions about the Catholic liturgy? Does it prove anything? Is it really an alternative to the Traditional Latin Mass?

Catholic Answers published a well-argued piece against the Protestant objection that “Tradition” is too vague a category to serve as the foundation of any Christian argument. However, what I find striking is that the traditional liturgy offers a clearer and more articulate expression of nearly all of the author’s examples than does the postconciliar reformed liturgy. The author could also have given as an example of unanimous agreement worshiping ad orientem. It seems to me that the leaders of the Catholic Church lost their confidence in the concept of Tradition and tried to back off on it, under the false idea that they could win over Protestants with a more “biblical” approach. This has failed; indeed, it has made Catholics less Catholic and more Protestant.

As I watched the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass unfold on the morning of October 31st, offered by a priest standing at the elevated altar, facing in the same direction as the faithful, I thought: How beautiful is the mystery of mediation!

The priest mediates for all the people.
The servers mediate for the rest of us by making the responses.
The people inside the church mediate for the world outside.
And the whole Church meditates for the visible cosmos, elevating it through contemplation and oblation.

In the modern Church, it is quite different.

The pope lords it over the bishops.
The bishops lord it over the clergy.
The clergy lord it over the people.
Everyone lords it over the liturgy, making it a vanity mirror.¹
And the world is no longer sacramental; it has become mere matter for manipulation by power.

How good it is to be confronted by and immersed in a traditional liturgy that emerged from a different world, the inverse of this one; that demands a different mentality, the inverse of ours. The power of hierarchical mediation, streaming from Christ and returning to Him in exultation, is the power of servanthood, one serving on behalf of another. This is what is missing from the hyperpapal, synodal church, self-absorbed and self-exalting. Servanthood's template can be found at every humble low Mass, every uplifting sung Mass.

Thank you for reading, and God bless you!

1. This happens in a lot of ways, as parishes constantly promote lay activism in the liturgy, which is thoroughly anti-traditional; moreover, clergy are especially manipulative toward liturgy. And everyone, whether they know it or not, is complicit in the massive rupture from the Roman tradition represented by the “reform” of the 1960s. For a full explanation see my book Ministers of Christ: Recovering the Roles of Clergy and Laity in an Age of Confusion.