By Marie Cabaud Meaney

(Marie Meaney has summarized for us the presentation she gave on November 9, 2024 for the St. Hugh of Cluny Society. SC)

Biographical Introduction

Simone Weil is not someone one might expect to hear about at a society centering on the liturgy. For this French philosopher was not a Catholic; she came from an agnostic, Jewish French family. Only in the aftermath of several mystical experiences did she come close to the Catholic Church (though she had already felt attracted to the liturgy earlier on). But she had
always had a great sense for beauty and its significance; and after encountering Christ, the supernatural became the focus of her thought. Hence, I believe she can teach us something about these matters.

In hindsight, she thought that she had always been Catholic de facto, if not de iure. For she shared the Catholic worldview, always sought the truth and the good, lived charity to a heroic degree, chose poverty, and embraced chastity. As she would come to see later on, she had loved God implicitly and obeyed His commands without knowing Him – thus proving Christ’s prediction that at the Last Judgment some who did not know Him will be surprised to sit at His right hand for having served Him.

For a long time, she had embraced agnosticism, believing that the human mind could not reach God. That God would descend to man came as a complete surprise to her in November 1938. It was when she was reciting George Herbert’s poem “Love” that “Christ came down and took her,” as she writes in her famous autobiographical 4th letter to Father Perrin (to be found in Waiting for God).

Though astonishing, this mystical encounter had been prepared in various ways. There were three “contacts” with Catholicism that truly mattered. During the academic year of 1934-5, she had taken time off from teaching to be employed among factory-assembly line workers to understand from the inside their working conditions. Attracted to Communism, she hadn’t kept
her concern for the oppressed on a purely theoretical plane but wanted to gain insights based on experience in order to find workable solutions (she would later criticize Communism scathingly). Given her bad health and natural clumsiness, the work on the assembly line was particularly
grueling for her. She came out of this experience, broken in body and soul. As she writes: “There I received forever the mark of a slave, like the branding of the red-hot iron the Romans put on the foreheads of their most despised slaves.” To recover, she went with her parents on a holiday
to Portugal in September 1935 where she witnessed a religious procession in a poor fishing-village, perhaps on the feast-day of Our Lady of Sorrows. The people were singing hymns of such “heart-rending sadness” that “there the conviction was suddenly borne in upon me that Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of slaves, that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and I among others,” as she explains. This was not a Nietzschean position about the weak resenting the strong and trying to control them through a restrictive morality, but rather the realization that Christianity recognizes suffering by showing affliction’s true face as Christ’s Passion.

In the Spring of 1937, she travelled to Italy, where, in Assisi, “alone in the little twelfth-century Romanesque chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, an incomparable marvel of beauty where Saint Francis often used to pray, something stronger than [her]self compelled [her] for the first time in [her] life to go down on [her] knees.” Though her kneeling-down was not yet prayer, it was a definite step in that direction, i.e. the implicit acknowledgement of someone infinitely holy and good calling for this posture of reverence.

A year later, in 1938, she spent Holy Week at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes, which is famous for its wonderful liturgy and Gregorian chant. Non-believers were known to go there for the beauty of the liturgy. She writes: “I was suffering from splitting headaches; each sound hurt me like a blow; by an extreme effort of concentration, I was able to rise above this
wretched flesh, to leave it to suffer by itself, heaped up in a corner, and to find a pure and perfect joy in the unimaginable beauty of the chanting and the words. This experience enabled me by analogy to get a better understanding of the possibility of loving divine love in the midst of
affliction. It goes without saying that in the course of these services the thought of the Passion of Christ entered into my being once and for all.” That Christ’s Passion left its mark on her came through the liturgy and implies already a kind of union with Christ through the Cross.

There too, she was introduced to the Metaphysical Poets, and in particular to George Herbert’s poem “Love III” depicting a dialogue between the soul and God, ending on a Eucharistic note. She would recite it during her violent headaches, thinking it was merely a beautiful poem without realizing that it “had the virtue of a prayer.” As she succinctly states: “It
was during one of these recitations that… Christ himself came down and took possession of me.”

After this, everything changed and nothing changed. Everything changed in that she now knew that God existed; hence, the supernatural was going to become the main focus of her philosophy. Nothing changed in that she’d already led a highly moral life – so there was no moral turnaround. Nothing changed in that it didn’t lead her to engage in any steps towards the Catholic Church, nor did she start to pray. A mystic who doesn’t pray is a surprising combination, nay even seems like a contradiction in terms. But she was fearful of auto-suggestion and therefore resisted giving her intellectual assent to her experience for the sake of the truth, knowing that “if one turns away from him [Christ] in order to go towards the truth, it will not be long before one falls into his arms.”

But this changed, when she decided with Gustave Thibon in September 1941 to learn the “Our Father” by heart in Greek. Thibon was a thinker and gentleman farmer whom she met during her exile in the South of France, where she had fled from the Nazis with her parents to the unoccupied zone. Remembering her promise a few weeks later, she did so, reciting the prayer
from then on with the utmost attention at least once a day. Each time, she would have another mystical experience, where her spirit was transported beyond time and space, where she experienced a silence “which is more real than a sound,” and where “Christ is sometimes present in person.” And after having met the Dominican priest Joseph Marie Perrin in June 1941, who raised the question of baptism with her, she went to mass every Sunday, and often daily. Weil also frequently spent hours in Eucharistic Adoration.

The question of baptism haunted her for the rest of her short life. She left France with her parents for the US in May 1942, though she would have preferred to stay in France, to continue helping in the Resistance and suffering with the oppressed and persecuted. She applied for and
obtained a position in the Free French Government of General de Gaulle in London. She arrived in the UK at the end of 1942, but died on August 24th, 1943 from tuberculosis, overwork, exhaustion, and malnutrition. 1)

I will now turn to Weil’s reflections on beauty that are significant in and of themselves, but also in terms of their importance in the liturgy, even if she didn’t reflect much on the latter.

Beauty

Every time we experience authentic beauty, “there is a real presence of God,” Weil writes in her notebooks, for “it is like a kind of incarnation of God in the world of which beauty is the mark.” “Beauty is therefore nothing else but God who comes to seek man,” as she states in “God in Plato.” More precisely, the beauty of the world is that of God Himself, rendered graspable to the senses, while all other beauties are reflections.

When you ask people to define beauty, they have a very hard time doing so and will often say that it’s in the eye of the beholder and therefore purely subjective. Or they will state that the experience of beauty is due to a chemical reaction, such as hormones set in motion. But even
without a reductionist approach, one can find it difficult to capture it in words. It is not surprising therefore that “when one reflects on the beautiful, one is stopped as by a wall.” Weil therefore sternly states in her notebooks that “Everything that has been written on this is miserably and obviously insufficient, for this study needs to start with God,” for the simple reason that beauty is God. By taking Him out of the equation, one ends up doing injustice to it.

Beauty is “a reflection of the supernatural in the natural,” which doesn’t mean it exists disassociated from us (Prechristian Intuitions). For it occurs as a relationship between our senses and this world. It is meant to be enjoyed by human beings and even by all rational beings in the universe to whose sensory perception it is geared, is Weil’s claim. But beauty is real and of its own kind (sui generis). It cannot be explained by anything else but itself and is its own criterion.

Beauty as Sacrament

Yet beauty has an incomparable role to play. Weil even compares it to a sacrament, since it unites God and human beings. Without beauty, therefore, human beings would be lost. Those who have never experienced beauty “could perhaps reach God by no other means.”

Though there are a number of openings to the supernatural, “the beauty of the world is almost the only way through which one can let God penetrate” people’s lives in the West, as she writes in “Implicit Forms of the Love of God.” Yet, “the white race has almost lost its sensitivity towards the beauty of the world.” If it was bad in Weil’s day, one wonders what she would say
today.

But this sense of beauty, “even if mutilated, deformed, and sullied, remains indestructibly in the heart of man as a powerful motive.” If rendered “authentic and pure, it would transport in one fell swoop secular life at the feet of God” and make a “complete incarnation of faith” possible.

However, this isn’t easy, for it means abstaining from using beauty for one’s own gratification. Therefore, “only those can be saved,” she states in her notebooks, “that something compels to stop when they would like to approach that which they love, those in whom the sense of beauty has put contemplation.” This detachment is motivated by beauty itself, by the
realization that beauty is fragile, at least in this world, and can be destroyed and debauched. It implies a renunciation of one’s selfishness or a “decreation,” as Weil calls it, that comes down to a painful death to self.

Beauty and the Liturgy as Metaxu

Beauty is one of the metaxu, the bridges or “holes” in the fabric of our artificially secularized world, that lead to the supernatural. The supernatural is obviously not the demonic, but is “that other reality,” namely the absolute good which turns out to be the triune God, Love
itself.

It has its own laws that can be drawn up and are just as certain, if not more, than scientific laws. If someone directs all his attention and love towards the absolute good, then he will eventually perceive it; it will “descend upon him” and shine “through him upon all that surrounds him.” However, this will not happen primarily through perception or reason (though these can confirm it) but through the heart, of which Pascal already said that it “has its reasons which reason does not know.”

Another manner to get to “touch the supernatural,” another metaxu, is through the liturgy. In a time where people have lost their roots, the liturgy is key to give them back these roots, as Weil states in “Le christianisme et la vie des champs.” In “Human Personality,” she compares the human person to a tree that has roots both in the sky (the supernatural) and in the earth (their culture, traditions, and history) that have so often been lost through industrialization and secularization. The supernatural is often accessed through those cultural roots: through customs, art, literature, architecture. But when these have disappeared, been disfigured, or remain
inaccessible, then the supernatural in the form of the liturgy becomes even more essential in helping people grow these roots again (though Weil mainly thinks of farmers in “Le christianisme,” it is applicable to all).

Conclusion

The cult of ugliness seems to reign everywhere. Unfortunately, beauty has often even been removed from our churches and our liturgy. But the beauty in the liturgy is essential, as Weil is implicitly saying, in drawing people back from the secularized and uglified universe they live in, giving them roots to grow and the capacity to understand what life is truly about – not a comfort-zone that tends to our desires and need for distraction, but a heroic choice between good and evil, for God or against Him.

 © Marie Cabaud Meaney

1. All quotes in this section were from Weil’s fourth letter to Perrin that is to be found in Waiting for God.

For more elements regarding Simone Weil’s thoughts on the supernatural, see my analysis in: https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/spaziofilosofico/article/view/9964

For Weil’s thoughts on beauty, see my chapter in the forthcoming volume: Amazon.com: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Simone Weil (Bloomsbury Handbooks): 9781350341623: McCullough, Lissa (Editor)

We read that the New York Archdiocese (in a message from the vicar general, Msgr. Joseph P. LaMorte) )has advised that “there is no need for” altar rails when “restoring places of worship.”.

Archdiocese of New York dismisses increased requests for altar rails, claims ‘no need’ for them.LifeSiteNews (1/7/2025)

Some pastors have been inquiring about reinstalling an altar rail. According to current directives there is no need for it. The General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM) specifies that the normal posture for the reception of communion is standing. To install an altar rail would be to suggest a posture other than the GIRM’s stated norm. 1)

Now only last month Cardinal Cupich of Chicago had stated his displeasure at the faithful kneeling when receiving communion. His argumentation, insofar as he relies on authority at all, resembles that of Msgr. LaMorte. I would be surprised if these developments are unrelated.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credenda, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (12/13/2024)

 What Cardinal Cupich and Msgr. LaMorte don’t bother to mention is that the GIRM specifically provides for kneeling at Communion. Furthermore, in the United States, the bishops had tried to make standing mandatory – this was changed at Vatican insistence in 2004 (Redemptionis Sacramentum). A position paper of the New York Archdiocese (On Receiving  Holy Communion), upon which Msgr. LaMorte relies for authority does mention the relevant provision of Redemptionis Sacramentum but gives a distorted presentation of the history and current legal status of the issue which exclusively favors standing. (Moreover, it also denies to kneeling and reception of communion on the tongue any special Eucharistic reverence). 2)

Of course, the original (and current) purpose of the altar rail is to mark off the sanctuary or chancel from the nave. It is the descendant of the medieval rood screen or the Eastern iconostasis. It does not primarily derive from the mode of receiving communion. The topic of the altar rail, involving separate ideological issues and ignorance as to what the Vatican Council and the Church actually decreed,  is a separate subject altogether. 

In the Archdiocese of New York itself, as recently as 1998,  a new church (St. Agnes) was built featuring an altar rail. However, as I wrote in 2011:

(C)an the “language” of Catholic traditional art indeed express the modernistic, non-traditional and ever-changing nature of the new liturgy? To point out just one example, by setting up a communion rail, the builders of the new St. Agnes intended to memorialize the return of the traditional mode of receiving communion – kneeling and on the tongue – to the Novus Ordo liturgy. Yet not too many years after the completion of this church, the US bishops tried to mandate receiving communion standing as obligatory in the Novus Ordo. 3)

If I were in a Novus Ordo parish yet desperately seeking to preserve traditional practices of piety, I would be worried. For it seems that some hierarchs would welcome revisiting and overturning  the compromise regarding the posture when receiving communion established in 2004. Cardinal Cupich, after all, has also effectively banned celebrations ad orientem in the novus ordo, which seems to contradict the liturgical books (if not the liturgical practice).4)  And this time there would be no resistance from the Vatican, for Cardinal Cupich enjoys the best of relations with the bishop of Rome. The war of Pope Francis and the progressive establishment against Catholic Tradition is by no means limited to the Traditional Mass!

Yet nevertheless the struggle goes on. As Msgr. LaMorte notes:

No one is sure where the impetus for this (altar rails– SC) is originating, but it seems to be picking up a bit of  steam. 5)

Could it be originating from man’s innate sense for beauty, truth and reverence? A sense that keeps breaking through and making itself felt despite all the official ideologies and attempts at manipulation. Just last year at the church of Corpus Christi in Manhattan, the tabernacle was restored to its old place of honor in the center of the sanctuary – supposedly at the express direction of Cardinal Dolan.  Yet the bulletin of this same parish had published earlier a statement – again by Cardinal Cupich – summarizing ideological reasons why the tabernacle shouldn’t be placed in a central position in a church! 6) The endless ideological conflict that defines the post-Conciliar church continues. Catholic Traditionalists, however,  long ago concluded there is a better way….

1.  Combined Mailing, Archdiocese of New York (December 2024). This entire publication, apparently intended for priests and religious of the archdiocese, is most interesting in its tone and subject matter.
2. Archdiocese of New York, On Receiving Holy Communion.
3. The Churches of New York VII: the Reform of the Reform, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (4/13/2011)
4. Msgr. LaMorte recently assumed the duties of pastor at Holy Family parish in New York City. Under the prior pastor, Fr. Gerald Murray,  the Novus Ordo service was celebrated ad orientem. I recently observed that the parish is now back to the “mainstream.”
5. See footnote 1 supra.
6. A Visit to Columbia, The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (11/16/2023) (all links accesssed 1/10/2025)

We have observed an increasing attraction of Eastern Orthodoxy for “conservative” Catholic spokesmen dismayed by the post-Conciliar drift in the Western Church. This blog has commented on the cases of Alessandro Gnocchi, Rod Dreher,  and Michael Warren Davis. That list, moreover, is not exhaustive. Now the New York Post takes up the topic, looking mainly at why men convert from Protestantism to Orthodoxy:

Schlott, Rikki, Young men leaving traditional churches for ‘masculine’ Orthodox Christianity in droves (12/3/2024)

Christenson, who works as a fundraiser for nonprofits, attends Saint Mary’s Orthodox Church in Falls Church, Virginia. Conversion (from Protestantism to Orthodoxy-SC) means that he now must frequently attend confession, recite prescribed prayers, and endure extreme fasting, sometimes over 40-day stretches. Weekly services are also highly ritualized and regimented, and can last up to two hours.

Christenson’s story isn’t just anecdotal. As more and more Protestant churches unfurl Pride flags and Black Lives Matter banners in front of their gates, young men are trending toward more traditional forms of worship.

 A survey of Orthodox churches around the country found that parishes saw a 78% increase in converts in 2022, compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019. And while historically men and women converted in equal numbers, vastly more men have joined the church since 2020.

Father Josiah Trenham, an Orthodox priest, attributes this to the “feminization” of Western Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant)

“The feminization of non-Orthodox forms of Christianity in America has been in high gear for decades,” Trenham explained.

He points to the fact that the vast majority of attendees at most Christian churches are female, and many services are accordingly dominated by emotional songs, swaying, uplifted hands, and eyes closed in ecstasy.

“Men are much less comfortable [in those settings], and they have voted with their feet, which is why they’re minorities in these forms of worship,” he said. “Our worship forms are very traditional and very masculine.”

Other witnesses cited in this article speak of the stability and unchanging nature of Orthodox ritual, of the beneficial challenges Orthodoxy imposes on its members and of the freedom of the Divine Liturgy from the personality of the priest/preacher. As one convert concluded:

“One might say Orthodoxy itself is more masculine, especially when compared to the more feminized forms of Christianity that exist today where the emphasis is on emotional experience, feeling good, and appealing to the self.”

Although this article deals mainly with Orthodoxy as an alternative to Protestantism, do I need to point out the similarity of the “Western” services described above to the Novus Ordo? Indeed, the “Synod on Synodality” and Pope Francis have committed to increase the presence of women within the Church. And did not some Orthodox churches and churches of the East (like the Copts) speak out forcefully against the errors of Pope Francis in Fiducia Supplicans when most Roman Catholic bishops (outside of Africa) were silent or even supportive of the Vatican?

These are all valid points. Those tempted to explore this path, however, should be aware that there is much more involved in such a conversion than what is described above. For a dominent tendency of Eastern Orthodoxy today posits an unbridgeable theological gulf existing between the churches of the “West” and “East.” According to this line of thought, the abyss dates back at least to the 4th century. This position is reflected in the conversion process. A convert to Orthodoxy from Catholicism will be required to expressly abjure the entire Western (Roman) Church: all its saints, liturgy, history, philosophy, art and literature.1) I doubt many Catholic traditionalists are ready to take such a step or to adopt such preposterous notions of ecclesiastical history. After all, have the traditionalists not made, often at great personal cost, a commitment to cultivate and defend these very things?

Certainly, I am not claiming that everybody in the Orthodox world has such exclusivist views. But I am afraid their prevalence makes it unlikely that Orthodoxy can be the answer to the spiritual crisis in the West anytime soon.

1. See the book referenced above by Alessandro Gnocchi. Michael Warren Davis also posted this year on his substack a testimonial setting forth the reasons for his conversion to Orthodoxy, which was endorsed by Rod Dreher. It no longer seems to be available online. (checked 12/3/2024)

By Peter A. Kwasniewski

273 pages

TAN Books (Gastonia, NC, 2024)

Turned Around is Peter Kwasniewski’s latest contribution to the literature on the traditional Latin mass. (henceforward, the “TLM”) It is a kind of Summa of what he and others have written in recent years. The book is organized around commonly raised questions regarding this liturgy. The list of the chapters illustrates this practical approach:

Why we worship facing east;

Why the priest is separated from the people;

Why the traditional mass is kingly and courtly;

Why we follow inherited rituals and strict rubrics;

Why we repeat ourselves in traditional worship;

Why we use a one-year lectionary of readings;

Why we pray in Latin;

Why it is better not to understand everything immediately;

Why we kneel for communion and receive on the tongue; and, finally, 

The Mass is the faith and the faith is the mass. “Why are you people always going on about ‘the TLM this’ and ‘the TLM that’?”

Like most of Dr. Kwasniewski‘s works, Turned Around is passionately argued. The author summarizes much recent literature, including his own! But Turned Around permits the opponents of the traditional Latin mass – liturgists, publicists, Pope Francis, even the supposedly sacrosanct texts of the Second Vatican Council – to speak as well. This is absolutely foreign to the modus operandi of the Catholic establishment and Catholic media. But this openness to the “other side” actually furthers the arguments of the book. Because for the perceptive reader, the language of these contrasting views – superficial, platitudinous or pompous – only serves as a self-indictment.

Dr. Kwasniewski is not afraid to argue for the unique excellence of the TLM, and,  in contrast, to point out the many deleterious effects of the Novus Ordo liturgy. This book does not at all make a plea for toleration, on the desirability of respecting the attachments of a minority in the Church. Rather, as did Mosebach’s Heresy of Formlessness 20 years ago, Turned Around leads the reader to the inevitable conclusion that the TLM should be restored as a matter of principle for the entire Church. 

Dr. Kwasniewski dares to say that there was no need or advantage to the liturgical changes made in the 1950s and 60s. There was a need to purge sloppiness and carelessness in the execution of the liturgy and to combat utilitarian and minimalist practices of celebrating it. The Solemn High Mass and sung liturgy in general, needed to be restored to its central position in Catholic liturgical life. But this could have been handled through a reform similar to what was suggested in the very early days of the liturgical movement. Indeed, Dr. Kwasniewski makes a number of suggestions regarding improvements to the TLM which could be made while remaining within tradition. By the way, those pre-Conciliar abuses of the past are even more widespread in the celebration of the Novus Ordo today.  

 Dr. Kwasniewski takes head on the objection that the TLM reflects an earlier, monarchical age and is thus inconsistent with our cultural sensitivity today. He celebrates the fact that the TLM – especially the Solemn High Mass – is courtly and kingly. He denounces a mass that has been “deroyalized and decelestialized” (!) (p.67), For, after all,  the mass is the worship due to a Divine King. The contrary arguments, on the other hand, reveal all too clearly the secular political factors underlying  the liturgical changes in the 1960s.

It is notable that Dr. Kwasniewski does not address the (non-substantive) argument most frequently cited by Pope Francis and his acolytes in favor of the Novus Ordo and against the TLM: that God ordered the current regime, that Vatican II and the popes ( at least John XXIII, Paul VI and Francis) are acting at the immediate behest of the Holy Spirit. Of course this makes moot any rational analysis of the liturgy whatsoever. Dr. Kwasniewski does consider this position indirectly, for he points out the inconsistencies between some of the conciliar texts and their later implementation as well as citing  papal utterances since Vatican II which support the underlying arguments for the TLM

Dr. Kwasniewski draws on a wide variety of sources: theological, liturgical, historical, and practical. In this, he is aided by the vast explosion of works on the liturgy, not just by traditionalists, that have appeared in recent years. The chapter “What Next?” and the bibliography very conveniently summarize these resources. He also makes numerous references to the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern tradition. But Dr. Kwasniewski also draws on his concrete experience of the TLM.

I myself have been attending the old Latin Mass for over thirty years, and the sense of wonder , the regimented peace, the freedom of prayer, the desire wakened again and again for God, the joy(and frankly the relief) of never seeing any human being as the center of attention – all of this hasn’t “worn off.” The old rite is ever-new and ever-renewing.(p. 210)

I can only support Dr. Kwasniewski’s conclusions by reference to what I personally have seen of  both the TLM and the Novus Ordo, including at events where they could be compared side-by-side. The former rite is a unified ceremonial of gestures, readings music and movements, the latter – regardless of other trappings – a succession of texts read facing the people. Those of us who experience how the TLM is celebrated today in numerous parishes can testify that such engaged and committed congregations have previously hardly ever been seen (or heard). Is this not active participation?

In 2002, Martin Mosebach gave us the Heresy of Formlessness, the first handbook defending the traditional liturgy based on objective liturgical principles. Now, Peter Kwasniewski has given us a new guide to the TLM. Its content has been enriched by the experiences of the last quarter century, which saw the unanticipated expansion and flowering of the traditional mass and then the all-out war by the Pope and the Vatican to suppress it. But, as always, out of such conflicts, a new synthesis, a deeper understanding has emerged. Turned Around is for anyone who wants to understand why traditionalists fight for the TLM – as well as being a tool for those who need to defend it.

Post Scriptum:  I feel compelled to comment on the “Publisher’s Note” affixed to Turned Around by TAN books. It states:

 “TAN books, in its loyalty to the Church’s, teaching, has taken measures to ensure that what is opinion and what is dogma are clearly distinguished. The author herein published is, and intends to be, in all of his works, acts, and writing, a loyal son of the Church, and writes as such. The author holds, as to all Catholics, that the Novus Ordo is a valid mass, in which the Body and Blood of Christ are confected “ (ix)

This note is reminiscent of Fr. Joseph Fessio’s introduction to the original English language version of the above-mentioned Heresy of Formlessness. Turned around, if I am not mistaken, does not even discuss this issue of validity.  The Publisher’s Note, which in effect offers a partial apology for the book it introduces, reveals only the continued obsession of a significant part of the conservative and traditionalist community with issues of authority and validity.

by  Ida Friederike Görres

Translated by Jennifer S. Bryson

Cluny Media LLC, Providence RI ( 2023) 

Ida Friederike Görres, a German Catholic writer and apologist well known in her day, slipped into undeserved obscurity after her death in 1971. In recent years devoted followers of hers like Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz and Jennifer S. Bryson have labored to rescue Görres from oblivion. Jennifer Bryson maintains a  website that covers all things related to Görres, to which she has recently added a substack. Jennifer Bryson is also the translator of The Church in the Flesh (in other words, the Church incarnate, the “really existing” Church), a volume originally published in 1950. 

Now The Church in the Flesh differs from two works of Görres I have previously reviewed, which, consisting of diary entries or letters, commented on a wide range of literature, personalities and current events. 1)  The Church in the Flesh, in contrast, is a more integrated,  theological presentation –  an apologia of the Catholic Church as she concretely exists.   But Görres seeks to link this description and defense of the Church to the subjective spiritual life of the believer. She employs more concrete, conversational,  and emotional language then one would encounter in a neo-scholastic treatise on the subject. In a sense, The Church in the Flesh is also a work of Catholic spirituality

The Church in the Flesh takes the form of letters addressed to (fictitious?) correspondents.  Görres’s dialogue partners present objections to – or at least raise doubts regarding – the Catholic Church to which Görres responds at length. The criticisms of her correspondents are not those of a theologian or philosopher but platitudes one commonly encounters in the news media or educational establishments in 1950 and today. So, for example, the chapter “The Nuisance of Morality” deals with the claim that the Church is reducible to a system of morality and, simultaneously,  with the opposite position: that the Church has nothing to do with morality. Long ago I heard the first statement solemnly uttered by a representative of a much older generation; the second, of course, is something we hear now every day. So, the questions Görres addresses remain relevant.

Görres emphasizes that the Church is not a disembodied idea or “religious concept” but a concrete reality. “The Church has always understood herself to be historical, that is, to exist in time and space.”  And that is because the Church is an extension of Christ, both God and Man. In the incarnation, God really entered our world. So we have to deal with Him here from now on:

with the traces and witnesses, the memories and attempts of this long-standing interaction with Him – you see, this life and its visible manifestation are what we call the Church. (p.15)

Thus, a believer’s relation to the Church is also his relationship with Christ. 

The Church has not deviated from an allegedly perfect “Early Church” but has developed from it. Görres argues for the role of tradition,  drawing heavily on Cardinal Newman’s thought on the development of doctrine. Tradition is a support for the believer  – but it also includes development. And one cannot absolutize any given era in the Church’s history. 

In the chapter “Church of the Saints “ Görres writes perhaps the most eloquent and passionate pages of this book. For hagiography was her profession.  Why does she write books on the saints? They are not, after all, necessarily perfect. 

Yes! For me, the saint is the most important person, not only in the Church. The saint is the most important person on the world because the saint is the decisive answer to the big riddle: What is a human being? … Humans are beings who can already partake of God’s holiness in this mammalian body, in this so widely explorable, transparent, predictable soul, in the midst of this world: visible, verifiable, real.  The human is created and called to be perfected in such holiness and to exist in it for eternity. (p. 184)

Throughout this book Görres writes of “the Church” being this or “the Church” teaching that. The Church, in her institutions, practices and doctrine, appears as a uniform, coherent bloc. This is entirely typical of the self-understanding and self-presentation of the Church in that period. Today, of course, we can hardly think of any teaching or aspect of the Church that is not questioned or outright rejected by a party within the institutional Church itself. Today the Catholic can no longer state baldly “the Church” teaches or does this or that without specifying who in the Church teaches or does it.

Görres sets out an extremely “conservative”  (in other words, limited) explanation of papal infallibility – quite different from ideas of some Church circles in that day or what is asserted now for Pope Francis. She indeed wishes to deemphasize the Catholic fixation on this doctrine. Instead, she speaks warmly of the infallible “ordinary magisterium” of the universal Church.(pp. 88-89)

Curiously, while emphasizing the living presence of Christ in the Church, Görres devotes relatively few pages to the liturgy. There are exceptions -such as the following eloquent passages on the witness of the liturgy to the reality and necessity of the personal spiritual struggle:

The liturgy is also full of evidence of this struggle(against the devil – SC). Every baptism begins with an exorcism. demands the solemn renunciation, of the Devil. his works, his splendor. …The Holy Mass , the memory of the Lord’s Death, brings before our eyes the terrible seriousness of this struggle, its final consequences, and the cost of this victory, and even over the coffin of a person we beseech God that it would please Him to deliver at the gates of hell the soul that He has recalled.

Have you ever taken part in the wonderful rite of the consecration of water [for the baptismal font] on Holy Saturday where the “water, a creature,” the eloquent symbol of everything elemental,  unsubdued, of the netherworld in and outside of man, is taken into consideration and is called to be a means for his rebirth.

The cult of the martyrs, the oldest cult of saints in the Church, the veneration of the Holy Cross, the whole Good Friday liturgy, mean exactly the same thing as the sacrament of the Eucharist on every weekday: the Church knows that the victory of God in this world is only visible by exception; that it must time and time again take place the form of destruction, in the testimony of defeat.

(pp. 174-175. Of course, these examples are taken from the traditional liturgy!)

Towards the end of this book, Görres makes an extraordinarily perceptive observation in critiquing a somewhat esoteric spiritual temptation of some contemporary Catholic writers. Their characters refused the support and consolation of the spiritual treasures offered to them by the Church and elected to “go it alone” and rely on their own spiritual experience.

In his War Journals, Ernst Jünger makes this very fitting remark: “Property is considered suspect not only by outside observers, by the disinherited; it becomes suspect, even burdensome and boring, from within, for the owners themselves…  Possessions require the strength to possess…. (p. 203) 2)

Görres applies this profound insight to a problem of personal spirituality,  but does it not also perfectly describe one of the main (unspoken) psychological motivations of Vatican II and its aftermath? The mania for simplification in the liturgy, the abandonment of fasting and other ascetical practices, the jettisoning by the religious of their habits and rules, the scorning of traditional ecclesiastical art– had not all these spiritual “possessions” or “inherited wealth”  (Görres’s phrase) become dubious – too burdensome, too boring, to hold on to –  at least in the minds of the clergy and religious? 

Yet Görres’s defense of the Church as she concretely exists is not at all unqualified. She writes of internal conflicts, of failings, even of spiritual decline. The criticisms of Görres have a certain vagueness and lack of specificity. Yet we can discern the beginnings of  lines of thought that would later be used to justify radical change in the Church.3)

For example, at the very beginning of this book, Görres gives us a kind of “parable” which I quote at length:

[W]hen I ask converts what the first noticeable reason was for their turning to the Church, their answer almost always mentions one of the things that you summarized in exasperation (I already know what you meant!) under the word “knickknacks“: the impression from a Mass, the sight of penitents waiting in front of the confessional,  a procession,  the chance participation in a Catholic funeral, a Marian devotion in May, a stay in the hospital under the care of Catholic sisters, a visit to a monastery – in short,  an encounter with precisely that visible, tangible element of the Church that so many of her own children call burdens and embarrassments and even view as objectionable.  4)

On the other hand,  when I asked a French worker-priest from that bold vanguard of the Paris Mission what actually prevents the majority of workers from believing,  whether it is the dogmas,  the strictness of Catholic moral demands …. (He said) ”Oh no, that’s all too complicated, too fundamental; the external manifestation of the Church as she is, that is the big obstacle.” 5)

There is room for both statements; both concern us.“ (Pp. 3-4)

The author seems to regard this asserted dualism with a certain ambivalence. The external manifestations of if the Church are both an attraction – at least for outsiders – and a stumbling block for “so many of her own children.”  But is not this comparison weighted?  The layman (especially the convert!), captivated by so-called externals, is contrasted with the “bold” clergy who reject them in favor of direct communication and social action. In the 1960’s, of course, the clergy would wage war upon these “externals” and would feel empowered to forcefully enlighten the benighted laity attached to them. One is reminded of the insights of Fr. Bryan Houghton on this very subject.6)

In The Church in the Flesh Ida Görres undertook to justify the Church to “modern man” utilizing fresh language and concepts.  As always, her work is studded with brilliant observations and beautiful passages. At the same time, we can discern ideas, if only in inchoate form, that later became the dogmas of a future Catholic revolution. Indeed, some  of the criticisms Görres addressed in this book are today routinely restated by those holding the highest offices in the Church herself!  But these were future developments which Görres herself would be unable to support. In dealing with “timeless” issues raised by the Church’s presence in the world, The Church in the Flesh remains a valuable resource –  and also an intriguing witness to a particular moment in the history of the Church. 

1.  Broken Lights: Diaries and Letters 1951-1959 (1964); „Wirklich die neue Phönixgestalt?”  Über Kirche und Konzil: Unbekannte Briefe 1962-1971 an Paulus Gordan (2015)
2. The translation of Jünger’s diary quoted in The Church in the Flesh omits several words, which obscures the meaning of what he  – and Görres –  are saying. See Jünger, Ernst, Strahlungen II, at 276 (Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart, 1949). I have taken the liberty of amending part of this quote.
3. Coincidentally or not, in the immediate post-World War II period, another female German Catholic author, Gertrud von Le Fort, was also creating  a minor uproar with her 1946 novel The Wreath of the Angels.  It set forth a precursor of the moral philosophy we have since seen expounded in Amoris Laetitia.
4. This recitation of aspects of Catholicism resembles certain statements of Simone Weil (for whom Görres later expressed dislike).
5. The “worker-priest” movement would experience grave conflicts with the Vatican beginning shortly after the publication of this book. 
6. Especially Judith’s Marriage (published in 1987,  but describing the Catholic world from the 1950’s to 1968) (Angelico Press, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2020)

Dimes Square is back in the news! This emerging outpost of bohemianism – yet with a traditionalist Catholic  flavor –  is the subject of a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor. 1) “Dimes Square” is a downtown area bordering Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The author of this piece, Leonardo Bevilacqua, describes this scene and some of its main personalities:

The Dimes Square scene began to include a number of artists with more conservative and religious visions. Writers, filmmakers, and fashion designers have been dabbling in pre-Vatican II Catholicism. They play the church organ rather than DJ at nightclubs. Instead of free love and polyamory, they espouse commitment and monogamy. And the flip phone is a favorite accessory – a statement against the herd and its iPhones. 2)

The nonconformists of Dimes Square are distancing themselves not just from the “establishment” but from the “official” counterculture, symbolized by “Brooklyn”: 

“I certainly don’t need to tell you that this place is also, emphatically, not in Brooklyn,” wrote the leftist Substack blogger Mike Crumplar in 2022, with a bit of snark. “You already know how Brooklyn is too political, too woke, too soft, too soy, too consumed by cancel culture…. 3)

And one focus of this movement is the traditional Mass:

“Leftists see greatness, and they see beauty, and they’re threatened by it, and they want to destroy it,” says Salomé, who says the Tridentine Mass is “the greatest work of art” for its superior musical composition. 4)

But is this link between “bohemianism” and Catholic tradition all that strange? Hadn’t Joris-Karl Huysmans established the connection as long ago as the 1880’s? A link that was maintained by a long succession of writers and thinkers in France and elsewhere.  

Inevitably, the renewed interest in Catholicism among the downtown bohemians is decidedly for traditional Catholicism. For is not the present Catholic Church establishment itself the incarnation of “bourgeois” conformism and philistinism? Didn’t Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose countercultural and anti-establishment credentials are impeccable, describe the mission of the Catholic Church, confronted (and subjugated)by the “modern world” and its ideology, in the following stark terms? 

Maybe the end of the Church has already been sealed by the “treason” of millions and millions of the faithful (particularly the peasants who have converted to secularism and consumerist hedonism). Maybe the end has been sealed by the “decision” of the rulers who are meanwhile certain of getting in their clutches the ex-believers – given the affluent conditions and an ideology that has been imposed on the masses. An ideology, moreover, that does not even feel it to be necessary any more to act as such. That may be. But one thing is sure: the Church has certainly committed many awful mistakes in the long history of its regime, but she would commit the worst of all if she passively stood by while she was liquidated by a power that mocks the Gospel. In the context of a radical, possibly utopian or – here one really has to say it- eschatological perspective, it’s clear what the Church has to do to avoid an inglorious end. She has to go into opposition. 5)

Now Salomé, quoted above in the Christian Science Monitor article, plays the organ at Most Holy Redeemer Church, the grand building that until 2019 was the center of the Redemptorist Order in New York City.  The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny was instrumental in returning Catholic tradition to Most Holy Redeemer after many decades. Such as by sponsoring Solemn vespers with Bishop Athanasius Schneider in 2013. Or subsequently,  Solemn Masses on St. Nicholas’s feast day (2019) (with a visit from Krampus!) and Epiphany (2020) 6)

I wrote the following in 2023 on the occasion of a splendid concert of the music of William Byrd:

Since 2011 we at St. Hugh of Cluny have often covered events at the grand Church of Most Holy Redeemer, formerly Redemptorist, formerly German. Indeed, this Society has sponsored some of them. Today a young priest of the archdiocese leads this parish in the midst of what some might consider one of the city’s more inhospitable surroundings – half party land, half “underprivileged” neighborhood. Yet, under Fr. Sean Connolly, the church looks better than ever before, and the parish is sponsoring an ambitious program of musical performances. 7)

For within the limits of Traditionis Custodes, Most Holy Redeemer parish after 2020 celebrated the TLM on a regular basis. A brief search of this site will demonstrate that.  And repairs were made on the building itself after decades of neglect – most recently the tower was restored. The tower now has a functioning clock, carillon and lights (the color of which can be changed for the liturgical season). 8) Thus, this parish had entered a period of restoration – in the liturgy, in the restored splendor of the building, in the attention paid to musical excellence. 

Now the young pastor of Most Holy Redeemer has been transferred to bigger, if not better, things in the Bronx.  The pastor of Immaculate Conception parish has been appointed the administrator of Most Holy Redeemer and St. Brigid. He is also now the administrator of Most Precious Blood shrine/church in Little Italy. And this territory includes that of three other parishes that have been completely erased since 2010: St. Emeric, Nativity and Mary Help of Christians. That is a lot to cover! 9)

Will the renewed stirrings of the traditional faith at Most Holy Redeemer and ”Dimes Square” continue to develop? Some are wondering:

However, it’s unclear whether (the pastor of Immaculate Conception – SC)will continue traditional Latin Masses at Holy Redeemer…  10)

But I certainly hope and believe the religious and cultural momentum can be sustained. After all, shouldn’t an essential characteristic of tradition be its independence from the personalities of those who preserve and celebrate it?  In the recent past, moreover, the St. Hugh of Cluny Society has also repeatedly sponsored traditional masses at Immaculate Conception parish (and at Most Precious Blood as well). 11)  As in the past, the St. Hugh of Cluny Society is ready to offer whatever help we can give. 

(Above and below) the interior of Most Holy Redeemer church one recent afternoon. (Photo 8/22/2024). Surrounding the church are still, for the time being at least, the buildings of the former Redemptorist center.

1. Bevilacqua, Leonardo, “Rebels with a religious cause: Meet New York’s avant-garde conservatives,” The Christian Science Monitor ( 6/24/2024) (accessed 8/27/2024). I have to confess I had no idea The Christian Science Monitor was still in existence – if nowadays primarily online.
2. Id.
3. Id. 
4. Id.
5. Quoted in Lorenzer, Alfred, Das Konzil der Buchhalter at 180 (Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main, 1981). Lorenzer’s work is a vehement attack on the liturgy and culture of the Second Vatican Council from a non-religious perspective. See my review “The Council of the Bookkeepers”(1/26/2017)
6.  The Society of St. Hugh Of Cluny,   Vespers at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, New York (1/13/2013); Solemn Mass of St Nicholas at Most Holy Redeemer Church,  (12/6/2019);  Epiphany Solemn Mass at Most Holy Redeemer Church (1/7/2020).
7.  The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny,  Byrd Fest,  (9/17/2023)
8.  Joy, Stacie, “Purple reign: Marking Holy Week at Most Holy Redeemer, ” East Village Grieve (3/24/2024) (accessed 8/29/2024) (with links to earlier posts describing and illustrating the restoration process)
9.  Joy, Stacie, “Father Seán is leaving the East Village,” East Village Grieve(6/17/2024) (accesssed 8/29/2024)
10. Reinholz, Mary, “Rev. Sean Connolly’s transfer from Most Holy Redeemer leaves ‘a void,’” The Village Sun (8/5/2024) ( This piece, while enthusiastic, contains a number of factual errors) (accessed 8/29/2024)
11. E.g., The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny,  “High Mass at the new Chapel of Immaculate Conception parish,”  (2/1/2015)

I recently heard that erstwhile Catholic writer Michael Warren Davis has joined the Orthodox Church. Now over the years I have had to take issue with articles by Davis that touched on Catholic traditionalism. I disputed Davis’s self-identification as a reactionary, even a “trad.”   For in these writings Davis took aim at Catholics of the past and present ( Triumph magazine, Joe Sobran, ordinary traditionalists in the pews) while displaying great understanding for secular and ecclesiastical  establishments (National Review, Archbishop Gregory,  Pope Francis).  1)

I also had a mixed reaction to Davis’s very latest article, a review of a book on the Jesuits.   Davis there takes some clever shots at the Jesuit order and the current papal regime. Yet he leads off with a serious misinterpretation of Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and his review features several startling errors (the latter,  of course, not necessarily Davis’s fault). A more substantial problem for the reader is the difficulty of separating Davis’s own views from those of the author of the book being reviewed. 2)

On YouTube Davis is now claiming he came to Catholicism from “theistic Luciferian Satanism.” And after Latin Rite Catholicism. he seems to have joined briefly the Melkite Catholic community before finally turning to Orthodoxy. Obviously, Davis is a man who unfortunately has experienced significant vicissitudes in his spiritual life. I hope he can find a degree of peace in Orthodoxy. On YouTube he does read a statement which makes a presentation of Orthodoxy more positive than those of some other Orthodox converts from Catholicism. 3)

Of course, Orthodoxy is not without its own issues. Certain representatives of major Orthodox churches in the United States, for example,  want to import into Orthodoxy features of Vatican II Catholicism and even of modern secular society. Outside the United States,  political issues wrack the Orthodoxy world(e.g., the ongoing ecclesiastical conflict in Ukraine).  Davis, however, seems to be well aware of those problems.4)

Is the conversion of Davis not another example of the crackup of conservative Catholicism? For despite his “trad” pretensions,  Davis really represented the conservative tendency within Catholicism: advocating aspects of traditional Catholic morality, faith and liturgy while simultaneously showing reverence for the hierarchy and the papacy. Under the current pope,  this balancing act became increasingly unsustainable. As the old song goes: ”Something’s got to give.”   

Undoubtedly,  many more Catholics are considering the step Michael Warren Davis has now taken.   The “fault” for this, however,  resides squarely with the pope, the Catholic hierarchy and the clergy. It is their outrageous and scandalous conduct that motivates some faithful to seek in Orthodoxy respect for Christian tradition, a reverent and beautiful liturgy and, above all, a focus on the spiritual, on the union of the individual and the community with God.  The Eastern Orthodox Church, which Davis has joined,  is not necessarily the answer  – much more should be said on this subject, pro and con. Orthodoxy will always remain an attraction for a minority. Yet,  at some point, on some issue and in some way we all may be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth. And it is the leadership of Roman Catholic Church which has created such a situation  – making distinctly possible for everyone a previously unimaginable choice.

1. See, in sthughofcluny.org, , “Sobranistas without Sobran” (2/21/18); Sediziose Voci (6/14/21): Papal without a Pope: Recent Manifestations of Conservative Catholicism (10/21/22).
2. Davis, Michael Warren, “Jesuit Plots” at 55 The American Conservative (July/August 2024).
3. Barrel Aged Faith,  “Satanist to Orthodox Christian” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnYUkfgSmk (accessed 7/12/2024);“Why this Catholic Writer became Orthodox” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jdGZH1HRQ (accessed 7/12/2024). For a book by another convert to the Eastern Church see “Orthodoxy?” at sthughofcluny.org (2/28/23)
4. Davis, Michael Warren, “The CIA’s Man in Constantinople” (The American Conservative, 4/23/24).

Unresolved Tensions in Papal-Episcopal Relations: Essays Occasioned by the Deposition of Bishop Joseph Strickland

Peter A. Kwasniewski, Editor

(Os Justi Studies in Catholic Tradition 13)

Os Justi Press, Lincoln, 2024 

Nowadays books defending Catholic tradition in all its aspects are appearing almost as frequently as publications celebrating Pope Francis and the Catholic progressives. It’s an amazing feat, given the disparity in resources. For the massive Vatican publicity apparatus,  mainstream Catholic institutions and sympathetic secular media are the pillars of the pro-papal, pro-progressive media onslaught. Traditionalists, in contrast, have to rely on small independent publishing houses. We owe much of the new traditionalist publishing wave to Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, both as author and editor. He is of course the editor of Unresolved Tensions. 

Despite its somewhat awkward title, Unresolved Tensions gives us a needed theological and legal framework for understanding the deposition last year of Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler. It resembles Dr. Kwasniewski’s previous anthology Ultramontanism and Tradition – mainly collecting and preserving writings that previously appeared online. Unresolved Tensions, however, focuses on just one aspect of the governance of the Church.  You probably will not be surprised to learn that most of the contributors to Unresolved Tensions do not agree with the pope’s arbitrary, unfettered authority to remove bishops without cause. But this collection is also open to other opinions.

At the heart of the book is an exchange between Jose Ureta and Dr. John Lamont on the nature of episcopal jurisdiction (as opposed to membership in the episcopal order). Is the bishop’s jurisdiction intrinsic to (or inherent in) his consecration as bishop or is it follow from papal delegation?  If the bishop’s jurisdiction is inseparable from his membership in the episcopal order, it follows that the pope does not have unlimited authority to deprive the bishop of it. 

Mr. Ureta restates the case for unlimited papal authority over episcopal jurisdiction, an opinion which dates back well before the consolidation of the Ultramontane regime in the 19^th century. Yet, he also wants to absolve this position from any responsibility for the abuses we see at the present day.  In my opinion, John Lamont gives a more coherent and precise account of the debate between the “moderate” (restricted) and “strong” (unlimited) positions on the scope of papal power over episcopal jurisdiction. Lamont argues that the moderate position – even if in the minority in recent times – is not only supportable but is best suited for the universal nature of the Church.  Lamont’s position also has the merit of according better with historical reality. 

Joseph Shaw,  in his remarkable foreword to Unresolved Tensions, describes the pathetic situation of a member of today’s Catholic hierarchy. Regardless of the theories of Vatican II which supposedly restored episcopal rights, the bishop today finds himself totally controlled by the pope, media pressure and his fellow bishops. His scope for independent action is drastically circumscribed. So that,  when a pope arrives, like Francis, who is both unafraid of exercising absolute papal authority, and works in closest alliance with the secular media, episcopal resistance is understandably feeble to nonexistent.

Philip Campbell’s insightful essay asks in what sense can the pope be said to stand above canon law? He points out that papal exemption from the coercive power of canon law does not at all mean that the pope can violate canon law at will.  Those who argue otherwise are undermining the foundations of law. This also accords, I would add, with secular historical precedent. Some of the most authoritarian rulers have been the greatest creators of law: the later Roman Emperors climaxing with Justinian, Pope Innocent III,  the long succession of English monarchs in the Middle Ages, and of course, Napoleon. Under all these undoubtedly absolute sovereigns, the rule of law made rapid progress. 

Unresolved Tensions includes many other riches. Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Bishop Athanasius Schneider eloquently defend Bishop Strickland. The introductory essay on the scope and limits of papal authority by a “Friar of the Order of Preachers,” provides a comprehensive theological foundation for the rest of the book. Fr. Gerald E Murray describes the rules of canon law as they apply to Strickland’s  case. He argues that the deposition of Bishop Strickland violated all canon law requirements  of due process. Stefano Fontana writes of the radically new historical situation that Francis has created with his action against Strickland and appointment to the Vatican of Victor Manuel Fernandez. Finally, in an appendix Dr. Kwasniewski adds several essays of his own that have already been published in other anthologies as well as key texts cited by Ureta and Lamont. 

I doubt that Unresolved Tensions will have any immediate influence on the conduct of the “institutional” Church.  After all, only a minority of the contributors to this book currently hold official positions in either the clergy or academia of the Catholic Church. Bishop Strickland did accept his dismissal. Most bishops will also accept – if at times only silently – anything the pope orders. 

I fear that those holding teaching positions in Catholic universities and seminaries will also ignore this book, regardless of its virtues. Progressives have adopted a utilitarian, positivistic approach to Francis’s uncontrolled exercises of papal authority – if one of his actions furthers their agenda they will approve,  regardless of any previous advocacy of “collegiality” or “synodality.”  Those outside the progressive realm will probably try to ignore these issues, and continue to recite authorities without any attempt to relate the texts to these events.  But as Stefano Fontana eloquently states, in the current situation, conscientious objection will have to be active instead of passive. (This has already started after Fiducia Supplicans.) But Unresolved Tensions stands as a helpful resource, reminding us of rules of theology, law and morality which the Vatican routinely violates. And it will, hopefully, serve as a road map in a future recovery.

Os Justi Press (this and other publications).

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend services several times at the Church of Saint-Eugène, Paris. This is a diocesan parish. Here the Traditional Mass is celebrated and a splendid musical culture is cultivated led by several noteworthy musicians. The Traditional Sunday Mass (the main Mass of the day) was thronged by an overflowing congregation of all ages – a rarity in France! The music, although in a style somewhat unfamilar to me, was of course most impressive. The Novus Ordo is also celebrated but in a manner extremely traditional. Even the parish bulletin grappled fearlessly with major issues of the day.

It was here that the late Nicholas Krasno – a long-standing member of this Society – sang in the schola. Indeed, it was the opportunity, after Summorum Pontificum, to attend and sing in such a church that inspired him to join the Roman Catholic Church. For it was after Summorum Pontificum that a Catholic could, at least in some places, regularly experience the fullness of the traditional liturgy in ceremony and music.

And perhaps for Nicholas Krasno there were additional factors that explained his attachment to this church. For does not Saint-Eugène in several respects resemble Krasno’s former beloved Anglican parish of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City? Both are 19th century recreations of the style of the high French Gothic. Both used innovative construction methods, the earlier Saint-Eugène was built around an iron framework, while Saint Mary the Virgin was the first steel-framed church.

(St. Mary the Virgin) is in fact the earliest ecclesiastical use of constructional steel – a technique that had been first tried for office buildings in Chicago only 4 years previous. 1)

Both churches feature beautiful windows and decoration. In both the musical culture was fostered:

The musical program of St. Mary’s expressed an unabashed preference for works of the great musicians of the Roman Church: favorite composers included Beethoven,Haydn and Weber, and most of the French romantic school – Gounod, Franck. Faure and Guilmant. 2)

And both were despised by modernist taste – only to experience a reassessment in more recent years.

1. Krasno, Nicholas, A Guide to the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, New York City at 17( 2nd edition revised, New York, 1999). The architects, Napoleon and Pierre Le Brun, were Roman Catholic. For Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile#History.

2. Krasno, op. cit. at 63- 65. Of course, in the Roman Catholic Church these works later fell victim (in the US) to the strictures of Pius X.

Meier, Michael, Der Papst der Enttäuschungen: Warum Franziskus kein Reformer ist (The Pope of Disapointments: Why Francis is no Reformer)

Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2024

What does the progressive establishment think of Francis? You would think their evaluation should be entirely favorable. After all, under the Woke Pope (Newsweek) there’s virtual identity now between the positions of the extreme left (those previously called by some “dissidents”), and that of the ecclesiastical establishment. However, that is not necessarily the case.  The Pope of Disappointments sums up the Francis papacy from the German perspective. The author, Michael Meier, is Swiss, but the Swiss and Austrian Catholic churches function as a kind of subgroup of the German Church. For many years Meier was religion editor for the Zürich Tages-Anzeiger, a left-leaning paper. (Of course, just as in the Catholic Church, previously middle-of-the-road and even conservative German media by now have been largely absorbed into the dominant progressive culture).

It is admittedly difficult for me to acclimatize myself to the Catholic progressive world view.  First, the norms of “modern” Western society are an absolute value for the German progressives. Second, their progressive faith is encapsulated in a set of specific demands, reiterated endlessly for decades now: liberty for contraception and divorce, married clergy, women clergy, full acceptance of the LGBTQ movement within the Church, and a relaxed attitude towards abortion. These demands – or “reforms” – are presented as self-evident axioms – they require no defense or explanation. Meier describes progressives as Reformkatholiken – an ideologically loaded concept from the 19^th century, Third, the focus of these reformers is relentlessly secular and political. Reforming the role of women in Church, for example, is defined as their obtaining ever more power in the institution. Finally, the entire doctrinal structure of the Church is assumed to be just a set of administrative rules, susceptible to immediate and summary change. 1)

Now what is Meier’s verdict on Francis? As the title of the book indicates,  he has not fulfilled the expectations of the Germans. Yes, Francis has opened a limited scope for divorce and the LGBTQ presence; he has advanced ecumenical relations with the non-European religions, especially Islam. But much of the liberal agenda remains unrealized. Why is this? The author attributes it to Francis’s lack of firm ideological grounding. Meier characterizes Francis a pastor, not as a principled leader or intellectual. His alleged real focus is “evangelization.”  Francis displays “mercy,” he does not change doctrine. As Meier puts it, “the two most important characteristics of the Roman Church – celibacy and the exclusion of women from ordination  – are not negotiable.” And synodality is really a meaningless concept. 

Beyond the failure of Francis to explicitly realize the “reform” agenda, the author has other specific and pointed criticisms of his papacy. Regarding sexual abuse, the author, like the progressive German establishment,  doesn’t cut the pope and the Church any slack. He is relentlessly critical of Francis’s management of this issue. Meier is also not at all pleased with the failure of Francis to assume a belligerent status with Ukraine against Russia. He further finds it dubious that Francis associates himself with other religious leaders of a more autocratic mind, such as the patriarch of Moscow or the Islamic authorities – while not immediately granting intercommunion with the Protestant churches,  It may surprise the reader to find out that, in making some of these criticisms, Meier cites authorities who view the world from a perspective entirely different from his own – like Sandro Magister. Meier does mention (citing Mosebach and Spaemann!) the authoritarian leadership of Francis: the Pope’s actions are characterized by turns and twists, by surprising initiatives and then sudden reversals.

But what is a traditionalist to make of this?

First, I think Meier s totally mistaken regarding the personal character and the method of government of Francis. Meier seems to have fallen victim to the myths created by the Vatican media machine and its affiliated secular reporters, even though he specifically criticizes their depictions of Francis! And Meier is not alone in this vision of Francis as a simple, John XXIII-like pastor. Does not Yves Chiron in his History of the Traditionalists, also describe the pope as “above all a pastor” ? Thomas Sternberg (a former  high official of the German Catholic Church) says the same in his 2019 debate with Martin Mosebach, gushing over the pope embracing disabled people in wheelchairs.

Yet this depiction is the very opposite of the truth. A cursory review of the last eleven years reveals that Francis is a man consumed by a relentless drive for control and by a radical commitment to ideology. The fact that Francis was unable to achieve at a German institution the scholastic attainments of German intellectuals, does not at all mean that he is not an ideologue. His system of thought may be crude, but it is simple, short, and can be relentlessly repeated: we must go forward, not back, cannot be rigid, doctrine evolves, the Church must welcome everyone as he is, dialogue is essential, the unity of the Church “under Peter” must be preserved. These are ideological positions –  an endlessly repeated litany that Francis hammers home on every occasion.

The author is unfair to treat Francis just as a failed implementer of the progressive vision. He has, after all, given them hitherto unimaginable forms of recognition of divorce and same-sex unions as well as a vastly expanded scope of ecumenism. Yes, Francis has not officially authorized intercommunion with Protestants, but recently he has given unprecedented, influential access within the Church to the Anglicans.  At this very moment he’s obviously working on introducing married clergy and female clergy. 

Meier is distressed by a whole series of Vatican reproofs and criticisms of the German synodal path meted out during the Francis pontificate – but haven’t developments like Fiducia Supplicans shown that these admonitions were merely tactical?  I think our author is projecting onto the entire Church a state of quasi-totalitarian control and alignment with the secular power that outside of Germany does not (yet) exist. Only in Germany and adjacent areas could the controlling powers of the Church simply decree the “reforms” that the author wants. 

Elsewhere in the Church,  Francis must contend with the fact that many Catholics believe that certain positions that have been accepted previously are articles of faith. It takes a while to bring these Catholics around to discarding that which they had only a few years ago held to be certain and holy. This explains the torturous preparation of Francis before he makes each of his moves: the synod on the family, the Amazonian synod,  the Churchwide synodal path, the questionnaires regarding the status of traditionalism in the Church. These things may seem to an objective observer transparently dishonest, which is true, but Francis judges them necessary first steps in implementing progressive reform.  Admittedly there have been reverses,  some things have been blocked or stalled, such as – so far – the introduction of married clergy and a female clergy of sorts. 

The author makes much of the confusion under the pope, and the endless discussions he has initiated, which do not immediately lead to a conclusion. But Meier does not understand that this is a technique of introducing change. By opening up to discussion so many things that recently were considered fixed and immutable, Francis softens up the Church establishment for the acceptance of change. The creation by Francis of a state of confusion does not show lack of sympathy with progressive innovations. It is a way to achieve them without triggering massive schism.

Throughout this book we read an endless series of official statements, and  commentary of German theologians on them. Outside of those holding office in the German Catholic administrative or educational establishment, the Catholic laity do not figure in this book at all. There is no mention of the deterioration in the practice of the faith among them in the last 10 years. Meier talks of the exclusion of the laity from the governance of the Church but it’s obvious what he means by “laity” are the lay bureaucrats and associates of the Church. 

I found particularly offensive  a remark, not of the author, but of Massimo Faggioli, who writes:

“It’s clear that Francis is the first truly global pope, a non-Western pope, who has freed Catholicism from the idea of a moralistic, bourgeois middle- class Catholicism, which still defined what Catholicism is.” 2)

The message from the Catholic progressives is that if you do all the Church instructs you to do,  if you sacrifice to carry on a Catholic family life in this challenging world as best you can,  you will be denounced by your priests as a conformist, a Pharisee, and a hypocrite. The contempt of the Conciliar Church establishment for the ordinary laity has rarely been so blatantly displayed. 

For Meier, liturgical questions are not even worth discussing.  He grotesquely (and incorrectly) summarizes Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum as merely reintroducing anti-Semitic language in the Church. Benedict himself is caricatured as a lover of golden vestments,  a remote  authoritarian figure, and indifferent or hostile to ecumenism. 

There are many other things Meier treats only superficially or not at all. He talks of the failure of the Amazonian synod to achieve its policy objectives but does not mention the role of Cardinal Sarah and Pope Benedict.  Regarding Ukraine, does Meier really expect the pope to bless uncritically the positions of Zelensky?  For Meier to talk (citing Hubert Wolf) of pacifism not being part of the Church tradition seems audacious, to say the least, after decades of pacifist propaganda from Meier’s end of the ecclesiastical spectrum. Meier mentions Cardinal Tagle as a papal contender and a “personal favorite” of Francis  – although this gentleman had already been sidelined for unexplained reasons. 

The Pope of Disappointments witnesses to the dissatisfaction of the progressive establishment in the German-speaking world with the incomplete reform of the Church under Francis. The author predicts that things are unlikely to change, because those cardinals and bishops from the periphery that Francis has advanced are, in fact, not at all aligned with the progressive churches on many, perhaps even most issues. Indeed, the author concludes by writing that the Catholic Church may be irreformable (by that he means incapable of completely imposing progressive “reforms”). What Meier considers the deadweight of tradition will block the liberal dream from ever coming to fruition. His conclusions are quite a contrast to the relentless publicity in favor of Francis and of the church establishment that one reads every day in the Vatican and English-language Catholic media and the complicit secular media as well.

I myself had earlier described the situation of the Catholic Church after the Council  – and still, after more than ten years of Francis – as one of deadlock. In the Council the Church had institutionalized within its own bureaucratic structures a progressive movement that aims at the complete repudiation of the prior teaching of the Catholic Church on liturgy, morality, and theology. But the force of tradition, the natural reluctance of any institution to commit suicide and the residual faith of some of the hierarchy have prevented the immediate and total implementation of the progressive program. I agree with Meier that this conflict, analyzed in purely secular terms,  is most likely to continue indefinitely. 

1. A distinguishing feature of the German Church is its reliance for leadership upon professors and theologians, often associated with secular teaching institutions. Quoted throughout his book, it is they, not bishops or celebrity priests, who are the main authorities for Meier. The German church establishment further disposes of significant media assets; the author refers constantly to katholisch.de, the website of the Catholic Church in Germany (and sometimes to kath.ch, its Swiss equivalent). Much of what he writes would already be familiar to followers of these sites. 
2. Admittedly a translation of a (presumed) translation.