The Perils of Digital Pastoring.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is a good-hearted man.

But he has a tic about verbally positioning himself in the middle between "extremes" in the Church that has worn out its welcome. "Here I stand, right here in the median. Mainstream as all get out, unlike the radicals at either end." 

And it's all right here in this piece about the motu propriu, with jabs at schismatic trads and..."Sister Sandals and Father Fabulous."

Houston, we have huge cringe here.

At least he is starting to admit that he doesn't understand traditionalists. He also has no interest in trying to do so in depth. 

Which--and I mean this with absolute sincerety--is fine. He's a parish pastor with a full plate and has to tend to his flock first. Theological disputations involving people you do not shepherd should not be a priority.

Yet, that hobbles attempts to communicate with them. Indeed, that surface-level understanding stands out in sharp relief in his commentary:

"Oh, well. The TLM's gone now. 

Naught for it. There's some folks 'tootling' off to the Eastern Rites, or others off to schism. Sad.

But did you know can celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin? With chant and fancy chasubles, too?"

. . .

[Exhausted sigh.]

 To which I reply:

"A Novus Ordo...in Latin? There was one parish on my archdiocese of 1.5 million Catholics that offered such in my 22 years as a Catholic. 

More damning yet: the number of times I have heard the very ancient and very much very optional Roman Canon in the NO in that same time frame in Masses across the United States does not reach the mid-two figures.

And on what planet is a parish in a diocese that just snuffed the TLM because the pontiff said traditionalists are nasty rebellious division-mongers going to cater to said bad people by incorporating "outdated" worship elements congenial to them? 

No one wants to be on the bad side of a Merciful® bishop. Least of all his priests.

And that's assuming you don't trigger the spiritual allergies of older Catholics who hated everything before Vatican II and are also strengthened by the pontifical pronunciamentos. 

Said laity are one of the main reasons you do not see Latin NOs.

Or chant.

Or fiddlebacks.

Abstraction smashes into reality with predictable results."

Not all problems can be solved by claiming there's a compromise in the middle. Especially when one party has the whip hand and has just blooded the other's face with it.