Motumania: Finding The Sin In Others

I don’t know if reading Father Z’s blog constitutes a guilty pleasure or not. It is amusing to see the TLM linked to homosexuality. In some sort of reverse, mind you.

I often wonder what it is that critics of Summorum Pontificum are really objecting to. Some say that they object to the “out dated” ecclesiology. Quite often I think their objections go deeper… to Catholic moral teaching. Traditional liturgy usually goes hand in hand with traditional Catholic teaching on faith and morals.

It (sic) suspect most critics of the older Mass don’t, for one reason or another, want traditional teaching about morals.

This kind of reasoning would probably wash you out of high school debate. But it’s not out of touch from the coaching you might get if Karl Rove were your icon.

I find it interesting that a discussion about other people’s morals is as juicy as well-cooked beef. Equally interesting is the line of thought that liturgical traditionalists have settled some sort of moral high ground above the rest of Catholicism. I have to ask: what would the pope make of this?

As for a discussion on sin, I’d prefer to stick to my own and keep it in context of a meeting with my spiritual director or my confessor.

As for the merits of the TLM or lack thereof, it seems there’s enough to discuss on the matters of ecclesiology, schism, obedience, charity, and Vatican II without trying to cloud matters with some pharisee moment of morality.

About catholicsensibility

Todd lives in Minnesota, serving a Catholic parish as a lay minister.
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2 Responses to Motumania: Finding The Sin In Others

  1. It is a classical example of an ad hominem.

    On the other hand, I think there is more going on here. Ultra-Traditionalists tend to have legalists dwelling within them; indeed, it’s how many of them find ways to reject the Church (SSPV, SSPX, et. al.). So in their churches — they see more legalists, and so it appears it is the liturgy doing it. So… they “reason”… if everyone went to a tridentine liturgy, everyone would be moral too. Of course, history shows the exact opposite: immorality remained in the church during those years the tridentine liturgy was followed.

  2. Liam says:

    Henry

    To be fair, though, many of our fellow progressive Catholics had not entirely different hopes about liturgical reform – that, if we finally reach our liturgical nirvana (however defined), the people will finally be roused to usher in the Kingdom of the Beatitudes.

    And legalisms of a different type are often very much at work in that mix, too.

    So I see a good deal of similarity here, albeit cosmetically different.

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