I was recently on Matt Fradd’s Pints with Aquinas show. It was a 4.5-hour show that we did live and it was a blast. A few times we talked about the liturgy. Matt asked me about my recent joining of the Ordinariate as well as my thoughts on the future of the Novus Ordo. I said a bunch of stuff, but stuff needs clarification from time to time, and that came from this great email from listener.

Here is our exchange, edited for publication here and for anonymity.

The first email

Hey Gomer! Listening to you on Pints with Aquinas and have a question.

Around minute 2:35 you’re talking about how the Liturgy has caused all of these downfalls in the Church and how it failed to evangelize the nations. Is this an overreach? Can we really blame a liturgy for not evangelizing over culture, families who were not catechized and didn’t pass on the faith, feminism, the over sexing of culture and rise in abortion and contraception, etc? I go to an orthodox and beautiful Novus Ordo (communion rails, lots of chant, pattens, etc) and I just can’t believe we can actually blame the liturgy with the gusto that we do.

A truly beautiful Novus Ordo was the ideal of the Council, was it not? Was it not a lack a virtue in leaders of the church, a lack of communication of what the liturgy should actually look like, a lack of virtue in the culture as a whole that led to the continual bleeding of souls from the church? Whenever I enter into this conversation my husband and I always feel this tension with others who want to die on the hill of the liturgy conversation and seem to put an uneven emphasis on it. Thank you and thanks for what you do! For the record I can’t stand rock and roll Church, ressurrexofixes, etc

This is a very fair and valid response. Is the liturgy the sole object of destruction for Catholicism in the west? Now, here is my response:

Happy to chat more about this! Also, I’m not being rude or snarky at all in this response, just brief as I can be, so please don’t read anything mean-spirited in this email. It’s easy to do, but that’s not at all my intention. Also also, I’m supposed to be doing the dishes right now.

First, I didn’t say it caused all of the downfalls of the church. I don’t think that at all. However, the church believes in Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, which means that when we change the liturgy dramatically, it’ll affect practice equally dramatically. The Catechism on Lex Orandi says not the community or even the pope can change the liturgy… except the N.O. community changes it all the time today. St. Paul VI changed it in a big way (Pope Pius XII was the first to implement major changes in 1955 which was the precursor to the 1970 Nous Ordo).

Second, I wasn’t blaming the Novus Ordo for everything wrong. What I said was, Saint Pope Paul VI himself said all of these bad things will happen as a result of the new Mass, and that’s lamentable, but it will all be worth it. Why will it all be worth it? The new Mass will lead to the evangelization of the nations. These are his beliefs and his words. Given in 1969 in Italy before Advent, which is when the Novus Ordo took effect…The first 9 or so paragraphs are all about preparing for what’s going to happen, then around paragraph 11 he says why all this hard stuff is worth it.

Third, Vatican 2 did not give us a Mass. There is no new mass of Vatican 2. It gave us governing principles of reforms. I’ve read Sacrosanctum Concilium about five times in the last year due to these fun liturgy conversations. The missal of 1967 was this reformed mass. It was closest what the council fathers wanted. Almost no priest celebrated this Mass or has even heard of it. It was ENTIRELY scrapped for the Novus Ordo, which was not done by council fathers, but by a very manipulated committee called Consilium.

Fourth, the results were so terrible Saint Paul VI wrote a follow-up document demanding the bishops to continue using Latin and chant and even sent a list of songs that every parishioner should know in Latin. Never used. Never implemented.

Fifth, the governing document of the musical patrimony of the church is Musicam Sacram. …search [for] the “tiers”. There are three, I think. Basically, you can’t sing the parts of tier 2 until you’ve done all of tier 1. You can’t sing tier 3 without all of tier 2 and 1. You get it. Virtually zero priests follow this, no bishops enforce this. But it was the principle text that informed the 1967 missal no one used and is the last official Magisterial document on sacred music, so it still has authority.

Sixth, the Novus Ordo retained only around 13% of the TLM’s missal’s prayers. So to say it’s a continuation is a misnomer. It’s a gutting. Again, I’m not an attendee of the TLM, I’m a NO and Ordinariate guy.

Seventh, this goes to the many problems with the Novus Ordo, when it was promulgated in 1970 for the US it wasn’t even finished. In fact, the [Propers] were just translated into English…

Eighth, when we think of a good and reverent Novus Ordo liturgy, we usually mean “one that retains the most portions of the TLM.” That should be a cautionary sign for us. Your parish does an amazing job at the NO mass. Awesome. I want more of that! So I’ll say to you what I said to Fradd: “Is that the norm or is that the exception?” Why is a really traditional NO is not the norm? Why is it you can find all of “those parishes” that do not do a reverent job (that Vat 2 and St. Paul VI insisted upon) with the liturgy, but make it folksy and relatable, and the reverent parishes are in the extreme minority in almost every US diocese today?

But also, there is a single paragraph in the General Instruction on the Roman Missal that talks about the Rituale Romanum is the standard for the NO mass. (“Therefore, attention should be paid to what is determined by this General Instruction and the traditional practice of the Roman Rite and to what serves the common spiritual good of the People of God, rather than private inclination or arbitrary choice.“) I think it’s #42. Yet whenever common NO parishes implement traditional practices in the liturgy, they are met with extreme hostility.

Ninth, good liturgy is not everything, but it is the table stakes. Christ gives Himself to us in the Eucharist, the Church, the Priest, and the Saint. But also in the Sinner, the Poor, and one’s Neighbor. Ignoring any of these is doom for a soul. No one can rest by saying, “I have no need for loving my neighbor or evangelization. I have the Latin Mass with tons of dudes in lace.” But the opposite is also true. We cannot say, “I love my neighbor” and neglect the liturgy, especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

And on a pastoral note: Do we think Catholics at parishes [have sloppy or banal liturgies] will tend to be more or less strict in their moral teaching? Their sacramental practices? Their instruction of children or adults? As someone who has worked for 17 years in NO parishes I can tell you they go hand in hand.

Also, there are plenty of [jerks] in traddy communities. So many think they are saved because they attend an SSPX or FSSP parish and that’s it. They are not. That scares me.

Yet, more often than not, a parish that is traditional was bought with the blood, sweat, and tears of the priest. He had to fight for it. Hopefully, it will remain the custom of the parish…

From the hip!