Did you get that memo? We're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now.

[Writer's Note: The following is bitter, not superbly-organized, and somewhat unfair. It focuses on the bad to the exclusion of the good. Then again, it is the nature of this particular organization that both are woven together, to the detriment of the latter. Never moreso than right now. Nevertheless, I need to get this out of my system, no matter incomplete and partially-blind my own view may be.]

Welcome to Worship Space.

Larry Chapp has an interesting blog post wherein he tries to diagnose the condition of the Church vis-a-vis modern society. It's long and liberally salted with theological terms--but know that Chapp is a theologian and can't help himself.

As a lawyer, I understand perfectly and am in no position to judge.

Chapp talks about the motu propriu in the context of the Church's ideological civil war. His argument is that Catholicism has failed to discern the signs of the times or to actually "return to the sources" in order to do so. In that context, he notes that the growth of the Latin Mass should be seen as one of many instinctive responses to our existential crisis.

 What all of this points to is that the debates and controversies that we see now all around us are not going to go away until we start taking seriously the deep spiritual crisis that is at the core of every single one of them.  And we are not going to get anywhere so long as we persist in seeking bureaucratic or “structural” solutions to what are at root deeply spiritual problems. 

You can legislate away the widespread use of the Tridentine liturgy, but you cannot legislate away the conditions of possibility that led to its rise in the first place.  You cannot legislate away the boring and banal mediocrity of so many suburban Catholic parishes. I am a cradle Catholic, a former seminarian and a trained theologian.  And I attend an Ordinariate parish rather than my territorial parish.  And no motu proprio can legislate away the reasons why I do.  

The Church can remove the Ordinariates tomorrow and ban every Latin Mass and every altar rail and every veil and every extruded tongue at communion time, and mandate that all Catholics must worship with the “Gather” hymnal in heart shaped churches, with bare concrete walls, holding sweaty hands, while watching maladroit octogenarians do liturgical dance in the sanctuary with streamers, sparklers, and sock puppets, and it will do nothing to ameliorate the spiritual dread that gnaws at us all.  All that such legislating will ever do is to deepen the abyss below us as it hollows out the heavens above us.

A lot to chew on in a long essay, found courtesy of Amy Welborn. Who, it has to be emphasized, has been blogging away all along, even as most of the rest of us giddily embraced Zuckerberg's panopticon self-gulag or Dorsey's digital bedlam.

As someone much more inclined to traditionalism, I have my disagreements with Chapp, but he's always been a thoughtful writer and (this is trickier) a decent soul on social media.

My points are cruder, less-theological, and to use the modern catchphrase, black-pilled.

(1) Maybe an arrogant, autocratic, insular and in too many ways corrupt institution is incapable of accurately diagnosing its own problems or (2) reforming from within? 

But how can you say that when the Church is protected by the Holy Spirit!? comes the reply.

My reply: in light of the fractured wasteland around us, reformulate the question to remove the question-begging.

Chapp lauds the jettisoning of the first set of schemas at V2. That's his right. But these were simply replaced by another set of intra-office memos put together by another small group empowered from on high. 

Ditto the reformed liturgy.

In short, the church used the autocratic mechanisms inherent in the papal office and its curial appendages to both set the agenda and blast out the "reforms." Which were sent off to men formed by and operating under the same institutional prerogatives and mindset. And that includes every pope who has ascended to the throne since, most definitely including the boundlessly-self-assured, parochial and inflexible Jesuit currently running the show.

Because, as church history teaches, there are few things more resistant to self-reform than the religious orders.

There were, as Chapp says, truly prophetic nuggets strewn by Holy Spirit into the documents of the most prolix council in history. Such is always likely, and to be looked for. Even clunker councils offer insights into the deposit of faith.

But that doesn't mean that the church, configured and staffed then and now, is capable of fully grasping them, much less putting them to use.

I'll go ahead and say it: right now, it is not capable of it.

There is nothing that Catholicism more resembles today than a struggling corporate brand. After last Friday, it certainly isn't a field hospital for the wounded. Unless the pontiff was thinking of one in Holland when he was jawing with his fellow jebbie back in 2013.

Instead, it acts like a closely-held corporation which assumes that ecclesial life is just the product of policy from the home and regional offices. 

Indeed, the liturgy itself is no more than a spiritual health benefit plan granted by and subject to modification from corporate without notice or consultation.

The Holy Spirit Guarantee™: They're Called and in Charge. That's How You Know They Know Better. 

So don't think of Friday as the literal shuttering of masses--much less on a national scale.

No. 

No no no no.

Just think of it as your parish being "right-sized." Your liturgy is part of an outplacement. The church is going in a different direction. They're not picking up your sacramental option. Take your pick. We got more.

Sorry, but I'm having a tough time seeing an ecclesiam in action here. Much less the extra, nulla or salus. 

. . .

Upon further reflection, I will concede the extra and nulla.

But even if 2021 Catholicism too-eerily resembles your average cack-handed, bloated, unaccountable corporation, it is essential that you recognize how good a gig it can be for a certain subset of the clerical managers. 

I mean, in the world of non-ecclesiastical corporations, you won't find, say, a Ford executive describe a sexually-deranged colleague as "vulnerable" or fret about his privacy rights when he was getting it on using hook-up apps with no age verification while on the clock. Nor would you see Ford customers try to shame in God's name reporters who exposed the misconduct, or argue we're no better than compulsive sex freaks who who use hook-up apps without age verification to get our rocks off while punched in, so who are you to judge?

But at CathTech, you can count on all of the above.

Like I said: good gig.

Also: Almighty God save us.

But it's this last phenomenon that confirms the Catholic Church isn't capable of moving forward in its current form. Namely, even the laity--touted as the best educated ever!!!--have internalized the arrogant, dismissive dysfunction of the institution.

And how many people of goodwill on the outside looking in are going to want to be a part of that? Lord forbid they should associate Christ or the Gospel with such special pleading.

Maybe the collapse of the Church in the "First World" is God's way of purging the arrogant and corrupt insularity of it all? That's the best I can come up with. If so, it looks like it will be thorough, as the bottom of the curve is nowhere in sight.

Even if there's definitely a strong whiff of justice here, there are plenty of innocent souls sucked down in the aftermath. His ways are not ours, but it still rings too much to my mind like "punishing" the steerage passengers of the Titanic for the arrogance of the White Star Line.

But there is precedent.

 
How lonely sits the city
that was full of people!
How like a widow has she become,
    she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the cities
    has become a vassal.

She weeps bitterly in the night,
    tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
    she has none to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
    they have become her enemies.

.  .  .

Her foes have become the head,
    her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has made her suffer
    for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away,
    captives before the foe.

From the daughter of Zion has departed
    all her majesty.
Her princes have become like harts
    that find no pasture;
they fled without strength
    before the pursuer.