Mark Lambert @sitsio:
There is a peculiar tragedy unfolding in the Catholic Church and it's one I have been observing & writing about for more than a decade: the Church's authorities sometimes seem more uncomfortable with Catholics who take their faith seriously than with those who openly disregard its teachings.
The latest example comes from the Vatican's Dicastery for Divine Worship, where discussions with the bishops of Panama reportedly raised concerns about “liturgical extremism” in a context that included kneeling for Holy Communion, receiving on the tongue and women wearing mantillas. Just think about that for a moment.
These are not innovations introduced by rebellious Catholics. They are venerable expressions of Catholic devotion and the Church herself permits them. Yet somehow they have become entangled in a discussion about extremism and liturgical division. I would argue that this is symptomatic of something much deeper, a conflict which has been needlessly exacerbated during the pontificate of Francis, particularly through the liturgical policies associated with Cardinal Arthur Roche. For years, Catholics attached to the Church's traditional worship have been treated as though their attachment constitutes a problem requiring management, restriction or correction. Traditionis custodes was the most conspicuous expression of this approach, but the mentality extends well beyond the Traditional Latin Mass. It can be found at diocesan level too, where enthusiastic, orthodox Catholics sometimes discover that their knowledge of the catechism, commitment to traditional doctrine, reverent worship or serious catechesis makes them objects of suspicion rather than welcome. Meanwhile, a kind of practical cafeteria Catholicism, in which difficult teachings are quietly ignored, never provokes anywhere near the same institutional anxiety.
I am not suggesting that every bishop behaves this way, nor that traditional Catholics are incapable of factionalism, arrogance or genuine disobedience. Some undoubtedly are. But those failures should be addressed as failures of charity and obedience, not used to cast suspicion upon fidelity itself.
It seems glaringly obvious that there is a profound ecclesiological problem here. The Church is not a voluntary association whose teachings can be endlessly renegotiated according to contemporary preferences. She is the guardian of a deposit of faith received from the Apostles. Her bishops are entrusted with preserving and transmitting that inheritance, not treating an unusually serious attachment to it as an embarrassment. Of course, fidelity is not measured by how often one attends the Traditional Latin Mass, whether one kneels for Communion or whether one's wife wears a mantilla. There are holy Catholics who do none of those things, just as there are traditionalists whose behaviour falls painfully short of the faith they profess. But neither should these practices become warning signs of ideological deviance. What particularly troubles me is the entirely unnecessary antagonism this approach creates. Many of the Catholics caught up in these controversies are among those who give generously to their parishes, volunteer, teach the faith, raise their children as Catholics and make extraordinary sacrifices to remain faithful in an increasingly secular society...So why on earth would the Church wish to alienate such people? Why should a young family discovering the beauty of Catholic tradition feel that their enthusiasm is something the diocesan authorities might regard with apprehension? And why, when we are constantly told that the Church must listen, accompany and welcome, does that generosity sometimes appear to evaporate when the people asking to be heard are orthodox Catholics attached to traditional worship?
This is not an argument for giving traditionalists everything they demand. Bishops have a genuine responsibility to govern the liturgy and preserve ecclesial unity. It is an argument for exercising that responsibility with justice, consistency and genuine pastoral charity. The Church should not manufacture enemies out of her most committed children. At a time when Catholic belief and practice are declining across much of the West, it seems extraordinary that we should expend so much energy making life difficult for people who actually believe what the Church teaches.
Perhaps the real question is not why some Catholics take their faith so seriously, but why that seriousness should make anyone in authority uncomfortable.
