As a way of indirectly answering a few questions I got while teaching last week, here's a repost from 2010 on modern liturgical abuse. . .
In the early 20th century, the American crypto-fascist ex-pat poet, Ezra Pound, issued a three word manifesto that came to define the modernist movement in poetics: "Make it new." Reacting to what he saw as the calcified conservativism of formal verse in the West, Pound urged poets to strike out into unexplored poetical territories and bring to the art of the image and line the perpetual revolution of novelty for novelty's sake.
In the early 20th century, the American crypto-fascist ex-pat poet, Ezra Pound, issued a three word manifesto that came to define the modernist movement in poetics: "Make it new." Reacting to what he saw as the calcified conservativism of formal verse in the West, Pound urged poets to strike out into unexplored poetical territories and bring to the art of the image and line the perpetual revolution of novelty for novelty's sake.
Pound's orders were faithfully
followed by his loyal troops and the hydra-headed monster of modernist
poetry laid waste to traditional versification. The influence of his
revolution of novelty was not limited to the arcane practices of poets.
Novelists, dramatists, artists, musicians, dancers, architects, all
heard the call of "make it new" and went about deconstructing centuries
of subtle, complex beauty with the fierce simplicity of the single,
powerful image.
As any Catholic who has
witnessed the dissolution of our faith's liturgical heritage can attest,
Pound's revolution had no respect for the Church or her treasures. The
central document outlining the Second Vatican Council's plan for
liturgical renewal, Sacrosanctum concilium, was snatched by
Poundian revolutionaries in the Church and used to dismantle the 500
year old tradition of worship in the Catholic faith. Pope John Paul II,
and to a much greater degree, Pope Benedict XVI, have mitigated, if
not yet entirely reversed, the lasting damage done to the liturgical
heritage of the Church by insisting on the organic development of
liturgy and the need to read the Council documents with a hermeneutic of
continuity. What remains of the Novelty Revolution lies mostly in the
misplaced creative efforts of priests and religious who, for whatever
reason, see it as their vocation to make sure that the Church's worship
remains "relevant" and "up to date."
By placing relevance and novelty
above organic development and continuity, liturgical Poundians ignore
the historical and ecclesial nature of the liturgy and privilege their
subjective cultural assessments above the real spiritual needs of their
charges. The widespread phenomenon of liturgical abuse is an insidious
form of clericalism that encourages those with clerical power to use
that power to inflict their private preferences, political agendas, and
ideological quirks on congregations powerless to stop them. Though
Catholics have seen a dramatic decline in liturgical abuse in the last
twenty-years, abuses still occur, and in some places, abuses are the
norm.
Liturgical abuse comes in three varieties:
1). a misplaced emphasis on the immanent at the expense of the transcendent
2). the elevation of the purely intellectual at the expense of the affective/experiential
3). an emphasis on the local at the expense of the universal
(NB. there is absolutely nothing wrong with the liturgy expressing the immanent, the intellectual, or the local. The problem is an emphasis on these aspects at the expense of their balancing opposites.)
(NB. there is absolutely nothing wrong with the liturgy expressing the immanent, the intellectual, or the local. The problem is an emphasis on these aspects at the expense of their balancing opposites.)
Immanent vs. transcendent
In reaction to the
over-clericalization of the medieval liturgy, Poundians worked hard to
redirect our liturgical attention to the presence of the divine among
us. Initially a necessary reform, this redirection quickly became a
foil for all-things-transcendent. The most notable example of this
abuse is the almost-disappearance of the notion of the Mass as a
sacrifice. In order to displace the over-hyped role of the priest,
Poundians turned the Mass into a communal meal, distributing the larger
portion of the priest's role to the community and making Mass all about
bringing the community together. We still see this happening in the
unnecessary use of communion ministers; the priest refusing to use to
presider's chair; folksy language used to replace liturgical language;
and the illicit use of gender-inclusive language.
Intellectual vs. affective
Many older Catholics lament the
demise of traditional devotions after Vatican Two. In an effort to
bring our undivided attention back to the celebration of the Mass,
Poundians waged war against devotional practices. Seen as private,
affective luxuries, devotions were railed against as willful acts of
rebellion against the need to build community through individual "active
participation" in the Mass. Modernist innovations in the secular arts
always required some knowledge of the theory that produced the art.
Pollock's paintings only make sense if you understand what he is trying
to do in the context of traditional painting techniques. Poundian
liturgical revolutionaries were quick to dismiss criticisms of their
innovations with ringing calls for more catechesis--more education would
somehow diffuse the overwhelming discomfort most Catholics felt when
confronted with disruptive, alien liturgical practices. We still see
the intellectual being privileged over the affective in abuses like
monologues on the meanings of liturgical symbols; an insistence on
equating stark, barren sanctuaries with "noble simplicity"; the
deconstruction of traditional church architecture as a way of embodying
ideas about the nature of community; and the dumbing down of liturgical
language so that immediate cognitive understanding trumps the more
profound experiences to be found in elevated language and ritual.
Local vs. universal
As part of the effort to
undermine a universally told story about the faith, Poundians began
emphasizing the need for more and more local options in the celebration
of the liturgy. Citing the Council's call for inculturation, the "Make
it new" crowd attacked the notion that our liturgical worship connects
us to a historically-bound narrative of God's Self-revelation; in other
words, their novelty revolution would not tolerate a liturgy that
privileged tradition as the clearest lens through which the Church
understands her historical relationship with God. Building on the
growth and spread of subjectivity and relativism, the Poundians latched
onto a rarefied notion of the local church ("this church-community") and
opposed it to the universal Church as the most authentic expression of
catholic identity. This move allowed them to argue for more and more
specificity, more and more idiosyncratic innovations in how the liturgy
was celebrated at the parish level. It quickly became commonplace for
parishes to be identified by their "worship-style," and even Masses
celebrated at different times within the same parish were described in
terms of style. This abuse is most clearly seen in so-called ethnic
parishes where attempts are made to accommodate the dominant culture of
the parishioners (Latino, African-American, Vietnamese) at the expense
of the universal story of our faith. (NB. not all cultural accommodation
is necessarily an abuse; abuses are almost always perversions of allowable
uses.)
Liturgical Poundians are on the decline. Like their counterparts in literature, the excesses of novelty for novelty's sake have proven that the revolution has no underlying principle of restraint, no intrinsic limits. What counts as "new" is itself subject to the whims of those deemed avant-garde enough to define the term. Poundians have been rightly criticized for becoming staid, predictable, and highly orthodox in their privileging of a late-20th century liturgical aesthetic. Anyone who has clashed with a professional liturgist knows that the principles they espouse are as plastic as they need to be to justify the preferred worldview of the liturgist. Rubrics, magisterial documents, liturgical law, tradition, all form a repugnant canon to those who see it as their sacred ministry to shape the liturgical lives of the less enlightened.
Though it is not entirely clear that young Catholics will embrace the ancient liturgical tradition of the Church in large numbers, what is clear is that the age of experimentation is over. Novelty for the sake of novelty is an exhausted project. Deo gratis!
P.S. Here's another post on how to address liturgical abuse in your parish.
___________________Liturgical Poundians are on the decline. Like their counterparts in literature, the excesses of novelty for novelty's sake have proven that the revolution has no underlying principle of restraint, no intrinsic limits. What counts as "new" is itself subject to the whims of those deemed avant-garde enough to define the term. Poundians have been rightly criticized for becoming staid, predictable, and highly orthodox in their privileging of a late-20th century liturgical aesthetic. Anyone who has clashed with a professional liturgist knows that the principles they espouse are as plastic as they need to be to justify the preferred worldview of the liturgist. Rubrics, magisterial documents, liturgical law, tradition, all form a repugnant canon to those who see it as their sacred ministry to shape the liturgical lives of the less enlightened.
Though it is not entirely clear that young Catholics will embrace the ancient liturgical tradition of the Church in large numbers, what is clear is that the age of experimentation is over. Novelty for the sake of novelty is an exhausted project. Deo gratis!
P.S. Here's another post on how to address liturgical abuse in your parish.
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