• Liturgical conservatives Vs. Doctrinal conservatives
    By The Contemplative Bard
    December 21, 2024

    I don't understand why the present leadership in the Vatican and many so called "progressive" Christian traditions hate those who love or at least enjoy participating in the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) or the Tridentine style of worship. There are Holy Masses done in languages other than English but why the animosity solely towards the TLM? To the point of cancelling them from small Churches that offer them (which is usually only 1 out of the hundred of churches in a big city, and they usually do it early Sunday mornings)? Why not just leave the faithful alone if they love romancing with a dead language?

    Of course, the form is slightly different (such as the use of Ad orientem position of the priest facing the altar in the East, instead of the congregation) but the major parts of the liturgy are basically the same (Liturgy of the Word and that of the Eucharist), except for the use of a dead language - Latin. I don't see why attending it will make a faithful less Catholic than those who are attending the Novus Ordo or the ordinary form in the vernacular.

    Is it really all about the use of Latin or is it about Western civilization's great ideological divide that overflowed into the religious domain?

    People are scared of tradition - it conjures the horrors of history - slavery, inquisition, residential schools, concentration camps, homophobia, lack of women suffrage, etc.. Many progressive Christians that I know of assume that just because a person enjoys a "non-modern" method of worship that is based on an ancient Christian tradition, it follows that every thing else about that person is non-modern, including all her view world-view: doctrines, politics/ideology, social, economic, and even an imagined aversion to science! (And yet many "modern" people practice "yoga" or "mindfulness meditation" which are based on thousand-years old Eastern spiritual tradition but nobody is complaining!)

    But is this founded on truth?

    Absolutely not! This is a glitch in the thinking process. A form of intellectual laziness, that is, resorting to mental short-cuts instead of digging deep into the nature of an idea. This is also called the logical fallacy of absolutism or faulty generalization. This is dangerous and oftentimes, this kind of thinking leads to racism and sexism. Just because one member of a group behaves badly, then we conclude that everyone else in that group behaves similarly. This is being pushed by materialist-empiricist ideologues in the tri-media despite the obvious inconsistency of their position. They expect people to be absolutists, that is if they follow a leftist or rightist ideology, they are required to swallow the entire narrative being espoused by that ideology, whether they make sense or not. In my example, the empiricist-materialist ideology is obsessed with equality so they view all people from a group as the same, in spite of the fact that this is the very same mentality that leads to racism, SESism, and sexism.

    It is impossible to think that higher ranking clergies do this out of ignorance or out of an illogical thinking process. Most of them have multiple Ph.D.s and D.D.s and so the rigorous academic discipline would naturally flush out any logical weaklings. Vatican II encourages Novus Ordo but never banned the TLM. So why is the persecution happening? What remains is a big possibility that many propagate this on purpose due to a religious-based ideological bias. Or worse, could there be an agenda that we are not aware of?

    Liturgical conservatism

    As an example, many of us in the Christocentric Meditation group are liturgical conservatives, but never as doctrinal conservatives. We enjoy the TLM, but we also like the Ordinary forms of liturgical worship (but we are annoyed why others are persecuted for their choice). We uphold some traditional doctrines, but would replace some outdated doctrines with universal ones that can be found in comparative spiritual traditions. It is not a package deal. Imagine if we are doctrinal conservatives too, we end up as "heretics" under traditional doctrinal definitions, and shoot ourselves in the feet in the process. We also suspect that in the TLM scene, many faithfuls just love the beauty of the TLM, but are not necessarily "rigid" doctrinal traditionalist who hate anything modern or progressive.

    We believe that worship rituals and rites have metaphysical and supernatural components. They were created by the Lord Christ, further developed by His most senior initiates and disciples who had access and had visions of multiple realities or dimensions. So all the words used are mantras that generate power. The geomantic position of the priest/ritualist, hand gestures (mudras), colours of vestments, scents used, implements required, songs or sonic, and every part of the ritual were designed to produce a certain outcome - that is the invocation and evocation of the Christ so He can transform the bread & wine into His own body and blood. So all the parts form a unified formula. Changing or modernizing certain parts will water down the inherent power of the Rite. Will Novus ordo still work? Of course, it still has the Christ presence, but using the Tridentine Rite, if unaltered, will be more solid and beneficial to the faithful.

    In short, liturgical conservatives avoid those liturgical rites that were altered or developed after the dawn of the materialist-empiricist mindset during the industrial revolution of the 19th century. After this period, liturgies were treated as mere sociological symbols; metaphysics and the supernatural were removed from worship. The breaking of bread is a mere remembrance and a unifying symbol for the proletarian class.

    Doctrinal conservatism

    Just like the TLM lovers, Christocentric Meditation, due to its origin in the ancient contemplative tradition and focus on the 1st Great commandment, it is often confounded with doctrinal and ideological conservatives due to the modern obsession with social justice that is made synonymous with the 2nd Great commandment. This perception on us is far from the truth. We believe that it was designated as the 1st Great commandment for a reason: that is genuinely loving our neighbours is impossible unless there is an authentic inner experience and transformation. It is an inside-out approach. Once a person experiences and realizes the Divinity within, then the unconditional love of G-d will naturally flow out to the world. Not through political ideology or any lip service.





    We believe that there are many aspects of the traditional Christian doctrine that need updating. Foremost is the belief that there is no truth nor salvation outside the Catholic Church or Christianity in general. This notion had horrible consequences in the past that caused millions of lives to perish under the inquisition and in recent history - the forced conversion in the residential school system. This has to change. We believe that Divine revelation was also given to other spiritual traditions. By studying and comparing them, we can arrive at a wider perspective of life and its purpose. We can also use the spiritual technologies of other traditions and incorporate them to ours to make it more potent to achieve the goals of Christian discipleship.

    However, the rigid and uncompromising belief in the sacredness of life of traditional Church doctrine is something we deeply revere and we consider as one of the non-negotiable aspects of faith. Being Pro-Life is not enough. There are instances when Christians are pro-life but they believe in wars to achieve foreign policy goals, or to demean the quality of life by reducing badly needed social safety nets in these VUCA times due to the influence of conservative political ideology. On the other hand, due to the influence of progressive political ideologies, it is also ironic that Christians who profess social justice are cherry-picking the Social Teachings of the Church by closing their eyes to the rights of the unborn human beings inside the mother's womb and the promotion of assisted euthanasia for our elders who have have ceased to have economic utility to us and is deciding to end their life due to neglect in our communities.





    In our belief, a consistent life ethic is needed. By choosing life and loving our neighbours, every actions should be consistent in affirming life in all aspects of human endeavors toward the Christian discipleship goal of becoming Christ-like. Theosis. Homo Deus.

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