Cardinal Gregory explains…

I feel the need to comment on the extraordinary remarks of Cardinal Wilton Gregory on the traditional Mass at Catholic University (CUA). For those who do not know, the Washington diocese (and that of Arlington) had had one of the most active traditionalist scenes in the country, with celebrations of this Mass in certain churches going back for decades. Gregory then imposed some of the harshest restrictions anywhere in the country under Traditionis Custodes. 

A student representative asked Gregory about the Traditional Mass – in the context of a “diversity” conference no less! – since the most common question he gets is why no Traditional Mass can be celebrated at Catholic University, Cardinal Gregory’s response was, in essence,  because the Pope and he ordered it to establish one uniform rite. No further explanation is given – nor is there the slightest welcoming or sympathy extended to those who wish to attend this Mass. But I felt the Cardinal’s response was more remarkable for two further comments of his.

First, the Cardinal observed that:

Tradition dies a slow death, sometimes a bloody death.

In other words, the Cardinal makes very clear with this startlingly violent language that he and the pope are engaged in a war. And that their objective is the annihilation of the prior Tradition of the Catholic Church.  What Pope Benedict called the “hermeneutic of rupture” could not be more forcefully stated.

Second, the cardinal added this spontaneous remark:

I also want to add something. In many of the places where it grew, the Tridentine rite, it grew because priests promoted it, and not because— In other words, if you had a guy that came into the parish and said, ‘well, I like this rite, I’m going to do it,’ and he gathered people together, and now all of a sudden he created the need in places where there wasn’t a need there. So, I think that the Holy Father is right to say: deal with the priests.

I recalled that the late Archbishop Rembert Weakland used almost identical language in his memoirs. ( I unfortunately do not have that book readily at hand).  Archbishop Weakland in that book claimed that there “was always a priest” behind any of the lay protests and petitions against the many deviations (not just liturgical!) that took place under his rule. But what do Weakland and Gregory mean by these remarks?

I interpret them as an attempt to disparage, to deny legitimacy to the desires and initiative of the laity. Gregory is, in effect, saying to the students at CUA that you don’t know what you are talking about, that these wishes for the Traditional Mass you express have been implanted in your minds by some (obviously malevolent) priest. It is supremely clerical! For both Rembert Weakland and Wilton Gregory are prime American examples of servile ecclesiastics who ascended to prominence by navigating the clerical,  bureaucratic structures of the Church. This is their entire world. They cannot imagine the laity making any contribution of their own to the Church (other than money). 

Strange: those, like Pope Francis, who relentlessly denounce clericalism, are in fact its most extreme practitioners! It is the traditionalists who exemplify lay initiative and lay involvement. Why, as early as the mid-1960’s, to the wonderment of the secular media, it was a group pf laymen who organized the first American Una Voce chapter in defense of the Latin Mass. And today, almost 60 years later,  it is students of CUA who are asking uncomfortable questions regarding the persecution of the adherents of that same Mass. 

The remarks and a link to a video of the interview can be found here:

Cardinal Gregory: “Tradition dies a slow death, sometimes a bloody death”