Turned Around

Peter Kwasniewski answers objections to the Traditional Latin Mass

Turned Around: Replying to Common Objections Against the Traditional Latin Mass by Peter A. Kwasniewski (buy on Amazon here — affiliate link)

I once joked that Peter Kwasniewski will not be happy until we all die of the bubonic plague (the subject was his cranky opinion — undoubtedly backed up by sound research and impeccable liturgical/historical review — that pews be removed from all Catholic churches, something I thought and still do think would be uncomfortable).

But to be fair to me, a high school friend of mine once actually told me she hoped that I would have seven children and die of the bubonic plague (she was annoyed by my enamoration with the Middle Ages, which we were studying at the time).

Well, I did end up with seven children!

So far, Peter, who is, perhaps until he reads the beginning of this review, my friend, has not seen his wish come true as regards pews. I confess I’m too old to regard it as a desideratum myself, but — I am sure he is right.

That’s because he’s always right about these things.

But there’s another problem with him.

His writings are hard to keep up with. He’s incredibly prolific. He’s like the P.G. Wodehouse or Picasso or Bob Dylan of the Traditional Latin Mass publication world. No sooner do you think, “Ah, this book nails it” (see Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass or The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Traditional Latin Liturgy after Seventy Years of Exile, just for instance), than another book takes its place.

Turned Around, though, is the book to give to your friend who keeps on coming up with those perennial, gotcha issues with the Traditional Latin Mass. “It just seems remote; I don’t feel I’m really participating; I don’t understand all the Latin,” and so on.

Perhaps you yourself are in this camp. Perhaps you have found a lovely parish that celebrates in reverent fashion the Mass of Paul VI (the Novus Ordo). Perhaps the music is generally quite good and the pastor is truly caring for souls. Perhaps you, though you may regard with some trepidation the summer holidays when you must venture away from your special place, feel that things are traditional enough where you are.

Well, I encourage you to read this book. I especially recommend two chapters that I consider go to the heart of why tradition is non-negotiable and innovation (even if the latter pays homage to the former) is unacceptable: Chapter 4: Why we Follow Inherited Rituals and Strict Rubrics and Chapter 8: Why It Is Better Not to Understand Everything Immediately.

While it is satisfying to take objections one by one, and the particulars are sensitively handled in Turned Around, I believe that there are a few underlying assumptions made by the Novus Ordo defenders that have to be faced in order to do so.

These more foundational topics are the ones at which Kwasniewski excels. While he’s sympathetic to the desire to work with the Mass as it’s currently given to us, he has a healthy intransigence about it and an infinite amount of patience in explaining his position.

He doesn’t fall into the error of assuring the reader that opaque things can be understood with the right missal and enough study.

Instead, he challenges the notion that God and the worship of God could be understood. He expresses the truth that accepting the state of not understanding is a reasonable response to being in the presence of the Ineffable: “Indeed, a good case can be made that it is the logical, analytical, word-oriented aural learner who most of all needs the traditional Roman Rite, in order to be liberated from excessive attachment to rational analysis and thrown into a wonder-bearing milieu that eludes immediate resolution.”

Since it’s not as if he isn’t, as I say, a person with hundreds of thousands of words under his belt explaining All the Things, this reminder goes to the heart, shaking us by the shoulders to demand that we reflect on what we are really seeking. An understandable God, readings in common (and necessarily debased in the sense of reduced) language, a priest cajoling us along at every simplified step will not, as he makes us admit, ultimately satisfy us.

I also commend his Epilogue to you as helpful in offering context for the case for Tradition rather than a quixotic, always unrequited search for the Reform of the [Vatican II] Reform, the tenets of which (insofar as they can be ascertained, since they are somewhat shapeless), the book has confronted:

Moreover, let’s be honest with ourselves: if this reform were thoroughly executed, leaving no stone unturned, would it not amount to a herculean effort to rebuild an intact system that already exists in the Tridentine liturgical books? After all that laborious tinkeritis, the final result will still not possess the internal coherence and continuity of the authentic Roman Rite, stretching back into the mists of the third century, with its roots in the first origins of the Church of Rome, hallowed by the blood of Sts. Peter and Paul. The perfections we are after… are already in our God-given patrimony of liturgical rites.

I say unrequited because I am old enough to have experienced, over and over again, in many parishes, the anguish of having won, not a wholesale reform (that simply never happens) but a hard-fought gain here and a sacrament wrestled in its intended form there, only to have it snatched away by a new pastor, a new music director, a new bishop, or the person who did the fighting moving away or being kicked out.

With the advent of Pope Francis, my eyes were opened regarding the possibility of the Reform of the Reform, so tantalizingly dangled before us (to be sure, vanishingly far down the road) by Pope Benedict. Pope Francis’ every gesture and decree assure us that the pursuit will now be undertaken without even tacit ecclesiastical support —we are quite on our own, and that won’t work, because the clergy, for the most part, are not interested. Sure, we are told of seminarians who seem pretty conservative. But as someone who already raised her children within that paradigm, I can attest that time is short. Do you want to bet your children’s faith on it happening soon enough?

With the help of Peter Kwasniewski’s charitable, persuasive argumentation, I have come to see the necessity of returning to Tradition. If you want the highlights — if you want to be able to give someone else the quick survey of the most important points or discover them yourself — I highly recommend Turned Around.

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