John Allen disappointingly plays to his audience in the NY TImes op-ed on the Pope's anticipated motu proprio loosening the restrictions on using the 1962 Missal for Mass.
This is shameful language. Not the long arc part - that's true and it's a good thing. I mean the part where he audibly exhales in exasperation and casts a pox upon both the Blefescuian trads and Lilliputian liberals.
He's right of course, in that most Catholics don't care, won't know what the motu proprio is (or even what that Latin phrase means) and won't notice anything different when it is released. What he doesn't address is whether those are good things. It is obviously not good and a sign of spiritual malaise that the average Catholic is ignorant about his spirtual patrimony, but Allen here laughs it off as a big-end/little-end squabble.
Is the Mass the source and summit of our Catholic lives? If so, is it a concern that many Catholics probably couldn't tell you what the Real Presence is? Or that others find the Mass at their local parish so spiritually uninspiring that they worship at schismatic traditionalist chapels? These are serious questions that touch on the center of the Catholic faith, not peripheral issues. What Allen dismisses as a food-fight between partisan "activists" is actually a discussion about the very substance of Catholicism. By liberalizing use of the old missal, the pope will be making an emphatic statement in that conversation.
Sure, Allen doesn't have to be an apologist, but with a slot in the NY Times, Allen had a teaching moment. He could have taken any number of angles that would have demonstrated the mystery and importance of the Eucharistic celebration in the Catholic life. Instead, he proudly proclaimed how embarrassed he is that his crazy uncles won't shut up.
Thanks for nothing.
http://www.stblogs.org/scgi-bin/mv/mt-tb.cgi/22150
