Last Pre-release Post on the Universal Indult

Dan from the Shrine of the Holy Whapping delivers a very thoughtful piece called "Motu Proprio as Ressourcement". I love this paragraph:

The "Tridentine" Mass confronts us, then, with tradition - tradition in need of revitalization in many ways, but a great tradition nonetheless. It confronts us also in a tradition in which we are not defined by being particular sorts of Catholics but by being Catholic, and invites us to learn how to do this again without grinding our ideological axe. It invites us to return to the moment when it began to be violently abolished rather than gently modified, and to bury the pain and fear that have resulted on all sides since then, rather than to take it out on others. To forgive absolutely and free of charge, despite temptations to hold grudges and to speak bitter words. Such actions would only confirm and deepen the notion that tradition is equal to traditionalism, something that comes off as negative and ideological, unwelcoming and with an axe to grind.

I think he understands the mind of Pope Benedict more than people on either of the "sides" and effectively shows that the Holy Father is not taking sides but merely giving a part of the Church's tradition back to the Church.


I come to the Latin Mass as someone who doesn't "feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition" in the words of JP2's Motu Proprio. But I have always liked the contribution it makes to the Church's "liturgical portfolio", and I've always thought that it's wrong to treat it as a museum piece from another era.