Monday, August 27, 2007

Black out has ended

My copy of Catholic Answers arrived and it has an article on the 1962 Missal, with a large color photo of a priest saying Mass ad orientem. It suddenly occurred to me: I haven't seen such a photo in a mainstream Catholic mag in ages. So this has inspired some reckless thought, which I now offer:

Isn't that strange that there would be such a historical blackout on our history, such that magazines would sense a taboo against publishing images such as this? I suppose you could say, oh, there was no taboo; it was just the practice. Actually, I don't think so. Most all Catholic publications adopted this practice. So too with Catholic publishers of books. All priests had to be facing the people; here was proof that you accepted the reform and that you had no sympathy for those bad traditionalists who regretted the losses.

In this way, and in a strange way, largely inadvertently, the prohibition on the free celebration of the extraordinary form tended to close off our history, to erect a huge wall at the year 1970. Now suddenly, it's as if the Pope has invited the whole Catholic world to observe the beautiful world of our past, in living color. And so, for example, even the NPM has published an article on the music of the old Mass, says Cantate Deo.

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