Monday, October 01, 2007

Has NLM Lost its way?

Here is one blogger who thinks that NLM has lost its way since the Motu Proprio. The critique is that the bloggers here have come to despair about the prospects of reforming the Ordinary Form and have put their hopes entirely on the proliferation of EF Masses. For this reason, this blog now has less relevance than it once had for the overwhelming majority of Catholics.

I don't really think this critique is right. There has been more EF coverage here but that's mainly because the EF was suppressed for years and is now the new thing. What's news is news. For my part, I work entirely within the OF structure, and it is what drives my own commentary and contributions -- and I'm very much aware that the OF is what the vast majority of Catholics experience week to week. This is a choice I have made mainly because I find the challenge intellectually stimulating and I do sense some "call" to do what I am doing. An EF environment for me would lead me to a sense of complacency, a fact which I readily recognize as a failing of sorts, and even a sense of guilt: why abandon the majority of Catholics who need to hear and experience at least something that resembles the Catholicism of our heritage? Nonetheless, each of us has a different role to play in this great drama.

Still, the critique is an interesting one.

[Response to this above.]

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