At the Ascension, the Lord Jesus gave His disciples the mission to go forth and preach to all nations, to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That mission to increase and multiply the new creation in God's grace is defining for what the Church is and must be, faithful to the Lord's command. Sadly, we seem to be far from Apostolic zeal, sort of static or perhaps even stagnating as messengers of the Gospel. I think it is a fair assessment of a situation looking for culprits to bear at least a part of the burden of blame for the Church's contemporary failure to fulfill the apostolic mandate. Maybe the fact that the soul-searching seems to have begun is a hopeful sign?In that sense we need to look at these days post covid lockdowns where people tend to do a lot of what ostensibly seems to be soul-searching but in reality amounts to a paltry apologetic to explain away the decrease in Sunday Mass attendance, which might amount to an evident 20% loss of pew occupants in not few parishes. People are eager to describe this loss of attendees as something new and attribute this net loss to people's covid fears, which have drawn them out of society and not just away from the practice of the faith. Some people will blame the church lockdowns and the hierarchy for having eviscerated the Church Precept binding us under pain of mortal sin to assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. TV masses are supposed to be the popular alternative, not just for shut-ins but for perfectly able-bodied folks as well. Try and verify this new faith practice or find another excuse for the empty pews! The point is that the hemorrhage is not new, but that covid mania has given many people permission to address what just might have been the elephant in the room for well over a generation now. The downturn in the practice of the faith has been noted already for decades and not just two.
It is into this malaise that many interject the rising phenomenon of the traditional Latin Mass. Some gladly point to it as the future or hope for the Church. Others rightly observe that the matter is not so easy to describe and sort out despite the life and growth, despite the youth associated with your average TLM community or parish. An article I just read in Crisis Magazine may have either confirmed in part my own assessment of the situation or given me pause to think about just where we are as western Catholics when it comes to the propagation of the faith. For years now, in talking about the eclipse of the Catholic Church in France, for lots of years people have pointed to the growth of traditional Catholicism in France as a sign of hope for the future in the midst of falling numbers of vocations and church closings in that country. The blossoming of the tradition in France, both in terms of the return to the sacraments and of traditional vocations to both the priesthood and the religious life, most notably to the monastic life in France, cannot be said materially to offset the losses to the faith since the 1950's. Is this where we quote Cardinal Ratzinger's prophecy about the Church of the future being a smaller one and for the most part at odds with the dominant culture?
The article I mention speaks of the hallmark of traditional Catholicism today of being its staying power within the family. Traditional parishes, religious orders and communities grow because it is there that generous big families stay Catholic and beget the vocations which will assure the divine praises and the celebration of the sacraments into the coming generations. It appears to me, however, that the author describes the phenomenon of growth in traditional Catholicism as more demographic than missionary. I don't think he sees the Church of today harkening back to the mount of the Ascension and the mission thereon imparted.
To say, as the author seems to, that the traditional movement within the Catholic Church is demographic, even to say that it is principally demographic, is of course folly. All of us know stories of young people won over by the Mass of the Ages, who have then proceeded to find their home in this kind of integral Catholicism, which prays, which educates itself in the eternal truths. The parish communities and the institutes born of Ecclesia Dei are indeed people on mission whose Catholicism may be anchored in Sunday, but which pervades their whole lives and gives them their reason for living (see the first part of the Mass of the Ages trilogy).
These days I am inclined to see Traditionis custodes as a scythe or a winnowing fan, which will further bring to light that good seed, which like the proverbial mustard seed will come to fruition and shelter a new world in its branches. Pacific, tranquil demographic growth does not fit the bill. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
