The Liturgy, the Family, and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays of a Traditional Catholic
Joseph Shaw
Os Justi Press, £15.95, 294 pages
When Evelyn Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930, he famously defended his crossing of the Tiber in a letter to the Daily Express, explaining that the choice before him and his contemporaries was “no longer between Catholicism, on one side, and Protestantism, on the other, but between Christianity and Chaos”. He went on to explain that Christianity existed “in its most complete and vital form in the Roman Catholic Church” and that the other religious bodies showed “unmistakable signs that they are not fitted for the conflict in which Christianity is engaged.” Joseph Shaw presents a similar analysis of the current situation within the Catholic Church in his new book, The Liturgy, The Family, and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays of a Traditional Catholic. While we ought to hope and work for the day when “Catholic” alone will suffice, until then, I am heartily grateful for the concise and effective definition that Shaw provides of a “trad” in his opening chapter: “A Catholic who wishes to live in continuity with previous generations.”
Faced with the crisis of our day, Shaw – who chairs the Latin Mass Society – finds “traditional” Catholicism up to the task at hand, fitted for the conflict. Surveying the Catholic landscape, he explains that the progressive project leads to apostasy and will be extinct not so long from now. On the other hand, the conservative project – as distinct from the traditional – is intellectually dishonest in its dependence upon pretending that the Catholic tradition does not exist, establishing for itself a substitute magisterium, splicing out those parts of Catholic teaching that are no longer acceptable or out of touch. Shaw acknowledges his critique of the conservative movement as painful and difficult, as many conservatives “were the first to emphasise that the Church has a long history, and that the force of her teaching derives from the fact that it is unchanging. This is, however, incompatible with the way they themselves approached a long list of the theological issues.” Happily, his projection of the future of the conservative project is a positive one, recognising that they will not peter out like the progressives, but can only merge with the traditional project. The future belongs to the trads, all those who have learned docility and “regard the historic teaching of the Church, not with contempt (the progressive attitude), or with a blind eye (the conservative attitude), but with love, attention, and respect.” Elsewhere is only chaos.
In the 18 essays that comprise his book, Shaw provides for his readers a robust description and defence of the traditional movement. While Shaw has worked zealously and admirably over the years in defence of the traditional liturgy, he knows that being a “traditional Catholic” is more than simply attending the usus antiquior. Traditional Catholicism seeks to embrace the Catholic life of our ancestors in all its dimensions: liturgical, devotional, catechetical and disciplinary. The liturgy is where the various competing visions of the Church are made visible and publicly played out, which is why the liturgical battles of today are the subject of so much strife and debate, and why, Shaw argues, everyone should pay them due attention. “For the Church is not simply old: in a certain way it preserves the past. It is a feature of the Catholic worldview to take seriously, within certain limitations, her own past practices and to regard them as action-guiding, normative, for the present and the future.” Our traditions can be heavy; they do limit our options; they impose a responsibility on those who bear them; and yet, they give us life, freedom, and meaning. “The richer the tradition, the more there is to contemplate, to inspire art, music, and poetry”, such that while tradition binds us, it also frees us to know and love more deeply the Truth around which it has grown and developed, namely Christ Himself.
The first part of the book is dedicated to the traditional liturgy and the reforms which followed the Second Vatican Council. Shaw provides a helpful explanation of the history of the liturgy and how changes can occur within a tradition, and his chapter on liturgical participation is especially perspicacious, refuting both the claim that the use of Latin in the liturgy presents an obstacle to participation and the idea that the pre-conciliar liturgy failed to speak to the “ordinary” faithful.
In part two, “Crisis”, Shaw turns his attention to divisions within the Church and various critiques of the traditional movement. He assesses concerns that traditional Catholics are “rigid”, maintain a faulty ecclesiology, or that their communities lack diversity and promote clericalist structures of abuse. His conclusions may prove unsavoury to some. Among them, Shaw points out that the most vocal critics of the hierarchy of the Church in the last decades have been found among liberal Catholics, and that heterodox thinking is more widespread among those who dislike the “old” Mass. He provides evidence of the traditional liturgy as a “bulwark of orthodoxy”, defends traditional communities as places where social and ethnic diversity can more easily flourish, and suggests that a connection between progressive theological positions with sexual abuse deserves further honest attention.
In the final part, Shaw examines questions of sexual complementarity, patriarchy, the all-male priesthood and the role of the family in Church and society. In his defence of an all-male priesthood, he clarifies that “what Christ did in instituting the all-male priesthood was to create a parallel patriarchal structure to that of the family and the temporal order in general.” Thus, the social practice of patriarchy and the all-male priesthood are necessarily linked, established in a proper understanding of God the Father, “of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named.” Shaw’s writings offer ample evidence of his respect for the equality of men and women, as well as his love for their complementary roles in the order established by God. The final pages are devoted to another “bulwark”: the family, which Shaw elegantly describes as the privileged place for the fostering of culture, religion, and tradition.
Shaw’s work will prove both a source of encouragement to those already at home in traditional Catholicism as well as a compelling read for those seeking to better understand the discussions and debates now underway in the Church. Above all, he provides a rich description of tradition not as a list of obligatory behaviours or preferences, but as an overall stance towards Catholic history – one of docility and respect – and in so doing presses upon the question posed by Cardinal Ratzinger in 1997: “A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. Can it be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe tomorrow what is prescribes today?”
Fr Kevin Chalifoux is a priest of the Diocese of Burlington, VA, now studying in Rome.
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