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Entry: Theological Cannon Fodder Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/theological_cannon_fodder#18227 Post contents: The complete, indeed total, disconnect with history, particularly Catholic history, displayed by some of the responders to the main article is just simply incredible to me. And heart-breaking. To read these remarks is to see why the Church is in such dire trouble. I wonder if some of these benighted folks have ever heard the term "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." One particularly - forgive me - ignorant responder laments over the days when he was young and the ancient Mass was said sloppily by some priest, a fact that apparently has scandalized him beyond repair. Aside from the fact that he didn't mention being horrified by some priestly idiots today saying their masses dressed in clown suits this responder seems to have forgotten some very fundamental points about what happens at Mass - despite the inadequacy of the priest saying it. Has this person never heard of Transubstantiation? The quality (or lack thereof) of the priest acting in persona Christi has nothing to do with confecting the Sacrament, assuming that the priest has the proper matter, form and intention. I hope this person will not accuse me of being a "rad-trad" if I say that anyone who can prefer the utter banality and ugliness of what passes for mass today to an ancient liturgy which has nourished the Church for twenty centuries and produced its greatest Saints is someone who, if nothing else, hasn't an artistic bone in his entire body. To those who point out, somewhat amusingly, that the Church has had many problems in the past when the ancient liturgy was the norm I would suggest that they should have spent more time awake during Catholic history class. But of course in fairness to them they were probably never taught the amazing history of the Church in their grade and high schools. I certainly wasn't. I embarked on the road of joyous discovery of Catholicism with writers like D.B. Wyndham-Lewis, Archbishop Goodier, Hilaire Belloc, William Thomas Walsh, Dom Gueranger, Chesterton, James Walsh, et al. Another responder accused those who attend the ancient liturgy today of being "haters of protestants and Jews." This calumny is not really worthy of comment but I will allow myself one observation. Without the benefit of any concrete examples provided by the accuser I will merely say that any normal Catholic worth his salt wants, as an act of charity, to see protestants, Jews, Mohammedans, etc. converted to the Faith so that they may save their immortal souls. If that translates into "hatred" in the mind of the responder then I respectfully suggest he has serious problems. Will the restoration of the ancient liturgy save the world? I don't know. It certainly wont hurt. And I am equally certain that the new liturgy will not save the world, and in fact will end up in the trash-bin of history where it so justly belongs. Sent at: 2009 01 08