What is the Anglican Patrimony spoken of by Pope Benedict? Part I

As an anglophile who has the highest hopes for the Personal Ordinariates envisioned by the Pope for the salvaging of all that’s good in Anglicanism and replanting it within the Roman Communion, a question keeps recurring among those Anglicans who are seriously contemplating taking the Holy Father up on his offer. In his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, Pope Benedict calls “the Anglican Patrimony” a “treasure to be shared” with the entire Church.(1) The difficulty for Anglicans, however, is that most are unsure what precisely “the Anglican Patrimony” (henceforth AP) is. Having discussed the matter at some lengths with some of the Anglicans and Episcopalians that I respect and having listened to the recordings of the latest conference on this subject that recently convened at Oxford University,(2) I would like to bring to your attention four possible, mutually enriching answers to this question. I encourage all of you who would like to pursue the matter further, to listen to the recordings of the conference in full to hear learned men with really posh accents bringing forth their answers to this question. In the meantime, here are the answers that seem to me to have the most validity:
1. The AP is a distinctive way of celebrating the liturgy which draws on The Book of Common Prayer for its inspiration and texts.
2. Closely connected to #1, the AP is the rich Anglican tradition of choral music.
3. The AP is a predominantly married clergy.
4. The AP is that position of privilege Anglicanism enjoys in England to re-evanglize and minister to society at large, afforded by establishment.
In my next few articles, I shall take up and analyze these answers in order. But do notice something astonishing first: Most Anglicans today are unsure what their patrimony is! Secondly, we should note that whatever answers we bring to the question, the Holy Father certainly has in mind elements of Anglican identity and practice that are compatible with Catholic (i.e. Roman) doctrine. Whatever is explicitly heretical in that identity and practice must be rejected, whatever is orthodox may be imported, and whatever floats in-between must be analyzed by our theologians with a fine-toothed comb.
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Footnotes:
(1) Complementary Norms, Article 10, §1, §2; Anglicanorum Coetibus, III, VI §5.
(2) Available at http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2010/04/anglicanorum-coetibus-conference-presentations/

Why the Bishops hate Latin

I know it may sound strange to begin my second post with such a title, but a little squabble recently with a seminarian has proven to me (again) that, contrary to the express admonitions of the current Code of Canon Law, most bishops do not want their priests to know Latin. But first let us consider what the Church specifically dictates regarding the matter:

Can. 249 - Institutionis sacerdotalis Ratione provideatur ut alumni non tantum accurate linguam patriam edoceantur, sed etiam linguam Latinam bene calleant necnon congruam habeant cognitionem alienarum linguarum, quarum scientia ad eorum formationem aut ad ministerium pastorale exercendum necessaria aut utilis videatur.

My translation: In the program of priestly formation let provision be made that the students [i.e. seminarians] not only be carefully and thoroughly taught their native language, but also know well and by experience the Latin language; let them also have a suitable knowledge of those foreign languages, knowledge of which seems necessary or useful for their formation or for carrying out the pastoral ministry.

A few remarks regarding the precise wording of this canon are in order. The first thing to notice is that the Holy See envisions three kinds of language studies for seminarians: their native language, Latin, and other foreign languages necessary or useful for the priestly ministry. Because any language might theoretically be deemed “useful or necessary” for priests, there really is no limit to what a seminarian (or priest) might ask to study. More importantly, we can reasonably understand the Church to be stressing language study in a particular order. The top priority for future priests is their native language, then Latin, and then other foreign languages.

Now let us consider how universally ignored this canon is by the empowered. Do priests in the U.S. even know their native tongue? Given the low quality of sermons in most places with which one is regularly bombarded, we can tend towards the negative. Who learns the proper use of who and whom anymore? Dare I even mention the classical distinction between will and shall? Does anyone realize that the expression It’s me is grammatically incorrect? Perhaps the clergy should be more pitied than berated in this regard, for the translations of the Missal, Breviary, and Bible forced upon them for the past forty years have done nothing but vulgarize the speech of us all.

Returning to the details of Canon 249, we must note that seminaries ought to lay greater stress on Latin than on any other foreign language in the intellectual formation of seminarians. We now encounter the real lunacy of the post-conciliar Church, for who can imagine a bishop in the twenty-first century actually expecting his English speaking priests to know Latin better than any other foreign language, including Spanish? Not even the Jesuits know Latin that well anymore. (Pro dolor!) The chasm between the letter of the law and our daily lives widens when we consider the verb used to describe the sort of attention seminarians owe to the language that built Western civilization, callere. The verb originally meant to be callused with something and then came to mean to be skillful or versed in that something. By using this word, Canon 249 should give us the mental image of nineteen and twenty year old adolescent men in cassocks and Roman collars callusing their knees by genuflecting on massive tombs of Cicero while doing long-term damage to their eyes as they try to read the fine print of Lewis and Short under insufficient candlelight. Alas! As the current liturgical crisis has all too well taught us, said Canon takes 249th place on every bishop’s list of 100 things to do.

But why have things gotten to be as they are? The most obvious and superficial reason is that the priests of the Roman Rite no longer need Latin to go about their daily routine. If the Church never forces them to use an ancient and (mostly) non-spoken language, why should they bother learning it? Or rather, how could they when every opportunity has been denied them? At a deeper and more insidious level, however, is the grim reality that bishops do not want their priests to know Latin. In fact, the majority of bishops appointed before April 2005 probably hate it. This deep-seated desire to keep their priests ignorant has a two-fold cause to be discussed below:

A) “No Latin, no Latin Mass:” This one should be fairly straightforward. Young priests will not bring the traditional liturgy back into parishes if they cannot read and understand the text.

B) “Know Latin, Know too Much:” This is the real heart of the matter. Priests who have gone through the toil (Latin: labor) to make the Church’s language their own usually emerge with a thoroughly sharpened mind that enables them to read between the lines of the constant dribble of post-conciliar blah-blah-blah and episcobabble and reject it. Not only does a thorough knowledge of Latin predispose priests to reject what most of the bishops are saying now, it makes them impenetrable to claims and fallacies based on the “sprit of Vatican II” (not the Spirit of God), for they can actually read for themselves the texts of the Council. Make no mistake about it, those who can read the Council for themselves in its original language know it better, hands down, than anyone who can read it solely in translation. And that’s not all they know. They also have first hand access to a majority of the texts that have formed the Church’s magisterium for two millennia, and they know that those texts cannot be easily reconciled with the doctrinal novelties of the Council, especially those of Dignitatis Humanae. “Indeed,” assert our enemies behind closed doors, “keep them ignorant of Latin and they will have no choice but to believe that the Council means whatever we tell them.”

Of course, we must judge our shepherds mercifully. Why, after all, would they want classically trained presbyterates regularly spewing off quotations from Cicero and Pope Innocent III to the consternation and incomprehension of post-modern, pro-choice, we-just-want-to-sing-a-new-church-into-being, blah-blah-blah-loving Americanist congregations running around in Catholic drag? Can you imagine the toil and calluses to be suffered by a bishop in a diocese staffed by 150 Fr. Zuhlsdorfs? What about 150 Fr. Reginald Fosters? The solution, clearly, is to ordain only easily controllable men to the priesthood who know next to nothing and think they have some vague idea of the as yet unspecified, unculturally conditioned, post-modern meaning of O Salutaris Hostia from seminary Latin class. Let’s just hope that these men will one day learn enough Latin to mumble the Words of Consecration in more than just gibberish.

Some Reflections on my visits to Clear Creek

At Tancred’s suggestion, I have agreed to broaden the scope of the Eponyomus Flower to include entries of general Catholic interest that do not directly involve a news story. While a great many people find my insights provocative, I have never had the time or energy to keep a blog of my own. A few years ago, I sometimes contributed to the Cornell Society for a Good Time’s blog (www.cornellsociety.org) to usually pleasant results. Those of you willing to go through entries from years ago will find my contributions there under the name “Maximilian Hanlon,” which I shall continue to use here.

For my first entry, I would like to reflect upon my visits to Clear Creek Monastery, truly the future of the Church in the U.S. The first thing that catches the eye is its edifice. The monks there are clearly intent upon founding a monastery that shall last for centuries and have enabled a distinctively American kind of Catholic architecture to emerge. While it certainly possesses roots in Catholic Europe, this architecture is somehow also distinctively American, a rare combination indeed! The iron working on the doors is especially impressive, reminding one of The Lord of the Rings, and has inspired similar ornaments at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Nebraska.

More importantly, the architectural beauty one finds there is nothing less than a physical manifestation of the inner life and spiritual beauty of the community. Upon one glance, one knows that those monks are there to experience God and become holy through the twin Benedictine imperatives of ora et labora. I can breathe freely there, for by being absolutely faithful to the historic standards of monastic life as laid down in St. Benedict’s Rule, the community has utterly rebelled against the foul spirit of Vatican II (not the Spirit of God) which would have all Church institutions geld themselves so as to avoid offending modern man. Indeed, the monks at Clear Creek know two things all too well that have been almost lost through cultural amnesia: A) Modern man’s (henceforth “Brad Craven”) comfortable, infecund, economically stable, suburban life is not worth living; and, B) Only recourse to the Tradition on its own, sometimes scandalous and unpleasant, terms can save him. And so we come to Latin and the Liturgy.

Some French visitors to the monastery during my last visit complained to me that the chanting at Clear Creek is mediocre. While I am sure that by French standards they are correct, I must insist that it is the finest I have encountered in North America. “Super-reality” comes to mind as the best way to express the intensity of the Divine Office. Humbling oneself to chant back and forth the psalms as millions of Catholics across the ages have known and loved them plunges one into the timelessness of the Church. The realization quickly descends that this is the culture that saved Europe from the Dark Ages and gave us the West, this simple monastic culture of chanting the old psalms back and forth for four hours each morning followed by planting squash or washing windows or painting the side of a barn. Truly, terribilis est locus iste, truly this is the closest thing to paradise before the Great Divide.

All of this is just to say that the Liturgy at Clear Creek is truly living. To please some in Rome, they have made some adjustments to the traditional Missal. Whenever a liturgical office precedes High Mass (which happens almost every day), the prayers at the foot of the altar are dispensed with, as is the Last Gospel. Whoever presides at said Mass (be he Abbot or no) presides from the throne, where he intones the Gloria and Credo. Deacon and Subdeacon chant the lessons into a microphone, versus populum. The high altar can be circumambulated and all the monks “participate” by singing the full propers each day and by exchanging the sign of peace. In these respects, the conventual Mass wreaks of the Novus Ordo, but the changes are not all bad. On their own authority, without Imprimatur or Nihil Obstat, Clear Creek published its own “Supplement to the Roman Missal” last year, in which are found their textual deviations from the Missal of 1962. These include incorporating some of the prefaces from the new Missal as well as reconciling what can be salvaged from the new sanctoral cycle with the old. Again we can breathe free, exulting between the two extremes of modern liturgical shitiness and a petrified, stultified, and lifeless traditionalism. The result is men fully alive, rooted in their tradition but engaging the future, and truly flourishing.

It goes without saying that those of you, my readers, who are willing to escape the spiritual abortuary which is the post-modern world, should take refuge at Clear Creek at once. Although life for me would be easier as a monk, I have discerned quite a different call, the call to follow Christ my Master in his descent into hell. And make no mistake about it, the contemporary world is a contemporary hell, filled with men like Brad Craven. He likes Starbucks, listens to Hip-hop on his ipod, lives in the suburbs, derives economic security from his job as a paper-shuffler, thinks that unwanted kittens should have rights but not unwanted fetuses, has a master’s degree (although he does not know what ineffable means) and voted for President Obama. Brad, of course, likes all the Vatican II changes, thinks the Church just needs to “get with it,” and may attend Mass once or twice a year around an especially groovy coffee table disguised as an altar, but feels alienated by vibrant, young religious communities which are praying in Latin and therefore growing. I have the much more unpleasant vocation of trying to evangelize Brad and wake him up from his post-modern stupor. But perhaps you, should you be blessed with a monastic vocation and get to the monastery soon, may escape such people forever. Lucky you.