Reclaiming our Birthright

Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass

by Peter Kwasniewski

Angelico Press, Brooklyn, NY, 2020

It’s amazing for a traditionalist “old-timer”  – which I guess I now am – to experience the breadth and maturity of American Traditionalism today. The best evidence of that, in addition to the ever growing number of Traditional Masses, parishes, monasteries, and internet apostolates of all kinds, is the extraordinary new literature on the old rite. Earlier this year the English translation of Fiedrowicz’s authoritative The Traditional Mass appeared. Now Peter Kwasniewski gives us Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright. It is an open, unabashed and unashamed  apology ( in the early Christian sense) for the Traditional Roman Catholic liturgical life.

The first noteworthy thing about Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright is that we have this book in the first place. With the conspicuous exception of Martin Mosebach’s landmark 2002 Heresy of Formlessness  – and perhaps  Fr. Claude Barthes’s more specialized 2011 La messe : Une Forêt de Symboles  – I do not recall previously encountering such books on the liturgy itself from the Traditionalist perspective.  Moreover, I am not sure such works were published even before the Vatican Council. For the pre-conciliar works I have seen tended to be either picture books or descriptive manuals – sometimes with an apologetic (in the contemporary sense!) flavor. The vision that the Traditional Mass  – as it then existed – was the central point of  Christian life and could be even a “selling point” for the Church to evangelize its own flock and the rest of the world seemed to have been obscured. 

Now Kwasniewski eloquently and passionately advocates the celebration of the Traditional Mass. He concentrates more on the advantages of the old rite, not the deficiencies of the new.  Furthermore, Kwasniewski does not shrink from the conclusion that the old rite is intrinsically  superior to its successor; that it should be once again the norm for all Roman Catholics. What is implicit in Mosebach’s and Fiedrowicz’s works is here boldly proclaimed:

From this vantage we can see, more clearly than ever. the vital spiritual, psychological and sociological need in our time for the usus antiquior. The reintroduction of the traditional Mass is not merely a matter of superior aesthetics, rather it concerns all of the crises we face us a society, as a race, as a planet.

In many ways Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright  complements Fiedrowicz’s work. The latter is primarily a description of the Mass and a historical account of its formation, while Kwasniewski systematically presents the arguments why we should frequent and love this Mass – and how to defend it from its enemies. It is remarkable that Kwasniewski draws overwhelmingly on the insights and experience of the last few years under the reign of Pope Francis; indeed, much of the book reflects articles of the author and others from just 2018 to 2020! Could there be any better evidence of the vitality of today’s Traditionalism? Most of this material appeared first on the internet, once again demonstrating the decisive role it plays in the Traditionalist movement.

The solid grounding of this book in experience of the current liturgical practice of the old rite is everywhere evident, such as where Kwasniewski  points out that young children can be better behaved at a lengthy Solemn High Mass than at less elaborate liturgies, because there are so many more things to see and hear. This observation exactly agrees with my own experience in the now distant pre-Vatican II days. Back then he usual Sunday mass I had to attend was a low Mass organized for the pupils of the parochial school. The music was limited to four English hymns. How dazzled I was by the parish Solemn Mass the few times I had the good fortune to be taken to it by my parents.

Kwasniewski reminds us of the continuing  hostility of large parts of the Catholic clergy and laity to the Traditional Mass. Much of Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright is therefore devoted to discussing and refuting the arguments against the Traditional mass. Kwasniewski, in my view correctly, attributes this opposition less to the strength of rationally formulated arguments but to the perception that the celebration of the Traditional Mass is a repudiation of the “Vatican II event”  to which, voluntarily or not, the members of the Church Establishment have irrevocably committed themselves. One more reversal of their liturgcial principles would be an incalculable mental blow. 

As an illustration, Kwasniewski presents a kind of  dialogue with a representative “Conservative Catholic”, Msgr. M. Francis Mannion. (who elsewhere has described the Traditional Mass movement as “idolatry”!) Msgr. Mannion is of the view that the Traditionalist movement will “fade away” if  young people can’t “understand the language” (even if they are doing exactly the opposite of that right now).

Let me digress a bit.  Msgr. Mannion cites in support of this assertion a “study” by Professor George Demacopoulos of Fordham University (naturally!) that supposedly concluded that Greek Orthodox parishes in the United States are losing members (especially the young)because of the use of Byzantine or liturgical Greek, instead of modern Greek or English. How similar to what was being touted in the Roman Catholic Church circa 1963! But, on closer examination, the support for Msgr. Mannion from the Orthodox quarter is not all that strong.  At least in his online post on this topic, Prof. Demacopoulos qualifies his view on the subject: the use of Byzantine Greek is just one contributing factor in the alleged attrition of the younger Greek Orthodox population in America, and in fact a number of other factors are more important.  I believe that significant Orthodox jurisdictions such as the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy and the parent Orthodox Church of Greece have emphatically rejected changing the liturgical language,  explicitly condemning the abandonment of Church Slavonic/Byzantine Greek, among other liturgical innovations. My conclusion is that those hostile to Catholic Traditionalism are grasping at straws to find reasons to support a position based not on facts or theology but upon ideological conviction reinforced by the fear of the consequences of being proven wrong.

One of the best parts of this book is Kwasniewski’s discussion of the view, explicit in the views of Msgr. Mannion, that direct communication of understandable texts is the most effective mode of liturgy. Rather, the transparency of the new mass, the absence of challenging symbolism, tends to decrease, rather than increase, participation by the congregation(much in the way we mentally “turn off” repetitive political harangues on television.) The Traditional Mass, in contrast.  affords many different ways to “actively participate” in the liturgy. I also liked Kwasniewski’s opinionated (the author’s word), argumentative and at times humorous glossary of liturgical terms appended to this book.

I can personally testify to the discomfort aroused among the ranks of the so-called conservative clergy and their lay hangers-on by  Peter Kwasniewski’s fearless and eloquent championship of the Traditional Mass. For he is just as convincing in person as on the written page! If you, however, are seeking a great one-volume exposition of the value and even the necessity of the Traditional Mass, you have found it with this book.