Traditionis Splendor

I intend this blog to be a humble offering, a place in which I can offer my thoughts and opinions--always charitably, I pray--on matters ecclesial and theological. I hope that my words may foremost glorify God through whose Word everything is given, and in Whom we live and move and have our being. And I pray that these discourses may serve to edify others in the faith and truth of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

What you might find here are varied and sundry theological excursuses, posted irregularly (though we must hope not infrequently), and having a decidedly traditional bent. I hope to offer a reasonable and faithful response to certain disagreeable liturgical and theological innovations--modernist subjectivisms that depart from the inherited regula fidei, the Canon of the Faith.

Who am I? I self-identify as an Anglo-Tridentine, a term certainly not original to me, yet accurate to describe my own theological proclivities. A while back I attempted to tease out exactly what this term, racked as it is with a certain ambiguity, means in my applying it to myself. This is what I arrived at:

"When referring to myself as Anglo-Tridentine, I signify my theological accession to the devotional and liturgical praxis embodied in, and epitomized by, the Tridentine Mass, which I also use as a metonymical symbol for the rich devotional framework extant prior to the Second Vatican Council. While I have certain misgivings with aspects of Roman Catholic polity related to solemn Papal and Magisterial infallibility, as well as with matters of reproductive choice and sacerdotal inclusivity, I deeply affirm the onto-theological structure and paradigm of the Tridentine liturgical and devotional hermeneutic."

For me, this designation resides primarily in that "devotional framework," a certain metaphysic of prayer that is innately incarnational and organic. For me, the popular devotional edifice that existed prior to the Second Vatican Council was the result of a slow burgeoning, a pious ferment that had slowly grown for well over a millennium.

This is not, of course, to suggest that I have avoided, like so many traditionalist types, heavily romanticizing the "glory days" of the Tridentine Mass. I realize fully the stagnation and the vapidity that at times plagued the pre-conciliar era of the Church. However, I also recognize the damage that has resulted from the reckless and heavy-handed suppression of many beautiful and lively devotional practices and expressions.

But you will not find here a great deal of mawkish lamenting over the irenic days of Pope St. Pius X. Nor will you find an uncritical acceptance of much of what passes as liturgical and sacramental theology in the modern Church. I hope to take that hermeneutic of tradition and apply it to the Church of today, not simply to take un-constructive swipes at the follies of modern theology but to show that there is still a deep relevance and need for tradition to balance some of the excesses of modernity.

And I hope you will join me.

St. Paul, pray for us.
St. Matthew, pray for us.
St. Irenaeus, pray for us.