Liturgical Dystopia: Grillo's War

Pope Francis Embraces Shadow Pope Grillo | AI prompt by Gilbert

Much psychological violence is being committed against faithful Catholics who value the older Latin Mass. Rome's actions to suppress diocesan celebrations of the Usus Antiquior have provoked dismay among observers from a variety of liturgical backgrounds.

dystopia - an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

"imaginary bad place," 1952, from dys- "bad, abnormal" + ending abstracted from utopia. Earlier in medical use, "displacement of an organ" (by 1844), with second element from Greek topos "place". | OED

There are ambassadors of a dystopian vision, mercenaries, prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Andrea Grillo, lay theologian, acts like one such foot soldier. Too dramatic? Let's listen to Professor Grillo speak and then decide.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

A recent interview has been lighting up the internet.

1. Messainlatino [translation by D. Montagna]: Why, as it appears at least to us, does it seem that at all costs there is no desire to give free space in the Catholic Church to traditionalists who are faithful to Rome (like so many other lay movements), and that they are only regarded as faithful to be re-educated?

Professor Grillo: The first question contains numerous inaccuracies that undermine the very meaning of the question. I will try to illustrate them one by one. Those you call “traditionalists faithful to Rome” are actually people who, for various reasons, are at odds with Rome, and not in a relationship of fidelity. ("You're unfaithful because your faithfulness does not fit the relativistic definition of faithful.") The point of contention does not simply concern a “ritual form” but a way of understanding relations inside and outside the Church. It all begins with the misunderstanding generated (in good faith, but through a completely wrong judgement) by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, which had introduced a “ritual parallelism” (between the Novus Ordo and Vetus Ordo) (Not a parallelism but a symmetry and a synergy.) that has neither a systematic nor practical foundation: it is not theologically sound and generates greater divisions than those that were present previously. (How so?) The idea of “fidelity to Rome” must be challenged: to be faithful to Rome, one must acquire a “ritual language” according to what Rome has communally established (Yes and no. First off - all Catholics are called to keep the commandments of Jesus. Faithfulness is defined not by mere partisanship as Grillo's red herring suggests. Secondly, the ritual language that developed in the wake of the Council - in the Latin Rite - was at best a slang version of the ritual language of the Council Fathers. The modest reforms sought by the Council Fathers were - by all reasonable and first-hand accounts - compromised, to put it charitably, by mediocre and/or bad actors. The artificial language to which Professor Grillo refers developed in a vacuum, a vacuum that Grillo himself is now amplifying. The ritual language which has developed in the wake of Council is very much a novel one that is grafted to an antiquarian or archaelogistic understanding of what the Mass should be, a contrived idiom that has been borrowed more from anarchists and modernist heterodoxies than from the authentic theological-ritual historical lexicon of the Catholic Church. It is right to identify the importance of the lex orandi. Equally important is to acknowledge the lex credendi, for without the "law of belief" one could not begin to pray or worship in a manner that is rightly configured.) One is not faithful if one has one foot in two shoes (... or two feet in one mouth, Prof. Grillo?). Having demonstrated this contradiction, the merit of Traditionis Custodes is that it re-establishes the one “lex orandi” in force for the entire Catholic Church. (Professor Grillo's comments lack a necessary respect for the relationship between prayer and belief. Prayer and belief are integral to each other. Furthermore, though Grillo is speaking within the context of Latin Christianity, he should exercise greater care by his choice of words. One might ask, does Grillo consider the implications of his narrowing of the lex orandi in the midst of Christ's Church that also houses Byzantines, Syromalankars, etc?) If someone tells me he is faithful at the same time to the Novus Ordo and Vetus Ordo, I reply that he has not understood the meaning of tradition, within which there is a legitimate and insuperable progress that is irreversible. (The preceding passage contributes to a false dichotomy, and works much like the criticism of "traditionalists" who question the legitimacy of the NOM. Grillo has worked himself into a corner by painting his theological floor with a verbal gymnastic. Libertine arguments are often deviously plastic. Grillo's assertions rely on the corruption of language and misapplication of concepts in an attempt to undermine perfectly reasonable established positions. The revisionist praxis common among liberals and progressives stems from a disordered habit of mind, a mind stuck in a 1970s backpack filled with I-know-better-than-you-because-I've-embraced-the-oh-so-feel-good-zeitgeist which is a potpourri of contradictory assumptions about history. Intended or not, Grillo has exposed his own betrothal to a hermeneutic of rupture, commonly held by progressivists, by his insisting that 'the new' trashes 'the old' because a vaguely defined sense of progress is a criterion for judgement and a vehicle (test) that justifies a rejection of the Vetus Ordo (or any other ordo, for that matter). While Benedict XVI laid the groundwork for a robust conversation between the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo, Grillo has chosen to ignore the vast development in thought and practice born of Summorum Pontificum. SP certainly merits much more respect than offered by Grillo's kurt and misleading dismissal.)

With regards to the hidden inspiration buried beneath a few decades of liturgical preoccupations and salvage attempts, let's visit for a moment a useful contribution from Phillip Campbell at Unam Sanctam Catholicam (July 31, 2013). In an article titled "What is Archaeologism?", Mr. Campbell cites Pius XII to expose the fad (or fascination) which was developing in Pius' day and which, like a virus, has kept insinuating itself back into liturgical conversations ostensibly aimed at facilitating renewal and the engagement of the laity.

https://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/2022/09/28/what-is-archaeologism/

In his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei, Venerable Pius XII warned against what he termed an “exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism” in the reform of the Sacred Liturgy. This preference for “antiquarianism” has subsequently become known as archaeologism, and from the 1930s till today has been one of the most prevalent schools of thought in discussions about Catholic identity.

The Church is without question a living organism, and as an organism, in respect of the sacred liturgy also, she grows, matures, develops, adapts and accommodates herself to temporal needs and circumstances, provided only that the integrity of her doctrine be safeguarded. This notwithstanding, the temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics, deserve severe reproof. | Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 59

One way to effect an agenda is to claim historical precedent and overstate its importance or relevance, as the head of the post-Council Consilium did when pushing an ideological attack on the Mass under the guise of an antiquarian agenda of reform. Rather than the authentic renewal guided by an authentic understanding of the Church's liturgical tradition(s) that was called for by the Council Fathers, the Latin Church was given something of a surgically wounded entity that continues to suffer from abuse. The Novus Ordo can be celebrated with great dignity, but it suffers from unwarranted impositions precisely because the holes or alterations left in it or on it by the Concilium have made the Mass prone to severe exploitation.

By repeating the mistakes of the past, e.g., by leveraging one part of the orandi-credendi equation while tilting away from the other, Grillo blinds himself to a degree that he cannot see the lessons to be learned from prior failures and warnings, nor can he see the successful (classicist) renewals such as those that emerged through the work of the great saints of the Counter Reformation. Professor Grillo perhaps unwittingly hoists over the Church the banner of a neo-Protestant understanding of progress. He wouldn't be the first to have done so (... and he won't be the last). He hints at a final victory that is unlikely to occur given that people are awakening to the mess into which confused-Catholics have dragged the rest of us, and are voting with their feet. Many are leaving the Church entirely, some are migrating eastward, and some are blessed enough to find communities where the Novus Ordo Missae is celebrated with dignity and beauty.

If fairness, it is important to acknowledge that many traditional liturgies are not under threat. Eastern rites are trucking along just fine. The communities of the FSSP and IKCSP, for example, seem respected enough, as are the Anglicanorum Coetibus communities of the Personal Ordinariate.

Pope Benedict XVI, apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum | What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too”. 

Classicism, i.e., a diving into the received witness to the action of the Holy Spirit in history, which offers a necessary lexicon of approaches that enable the savouring of "what earlier generations held as sacred, (and that) remains sacred and great", and a vital compass - that enables theologians, artists, architects and scientists to navigate trends, discard philosophical pornography, and to avoid the negative consequences of radioactive ideologies - is not understandable to minds that are hooked on reductionist and relativistic methodologies.

Tradition-minded diocesan Catholics, it seems, are little more that collateral damage in a formerly covert war on truth, goodness and beauty. Professor Grillo's definition of Tradition is more that of the kind rooted in the relativistic theory roundly and reasonably denounced by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Saint John Paul II. Proponents of Liberation Theology hated Pope Saint John Paul II. Relativists, unable to keep up with a brilliant theologian Pope, hate Benedict XVI.

Confident of his analysis, Professor Grillo compounds his contorted logic by skewing the debate toward an understanding of Tradition sanitized of the witness of saints and seers faithful to what has been believed “everywhere, always, and by all” (ubique, semper, et ab omnibus). Which is to say, that witness helps to preserve an integral understanding of the components of Tradition, of the traditional.

As another of Grillo's critics has rightly said,

Grillo’s favorite tool and proof of his—if not inability, then certainly his unwillingness—to meet even the most modest demands of a scientist is, in addition to his denial of reality, his tendency to simply assign a different meaning to terms than the one in which they are meant and used here by his interviewee. He never speaks of “tradition” in the sense of an attachment to the past or the preservation of continuity—for him, this is despicable “traditionalism.”

If we hope to undo the bias of theologians who are bent on bending the conversation toward non-Catholic priorities, we would do well to listen to Saint John Henry Newman. Newman exemplifies the harmony of scriptural study, dogmatic theology and liturgical spirituality. 

Few can approach the competence of Newman in theological matters. The renewal anticipated by Newman was embraced by the Second Vatican Council but - with the exception of Wojtyla and Ratzinger leading a hermeneutic of continuity - discarded by Bugnini and his intellectual offspring. Most fall short of the spiritual breadth, historical depth and intellectual clarity and cohesion of Newman. For a tangible expression of the possibilities of an agenda born of a Newmanian outlook, one need only look to the example of the Personal Ordinariates established by Pope Benedict XVI and ratified by Pope Francis. Therein those communities is found the Latin Patrimony with an English flavour, loved and alive.

A doctor of the Church soars with an orthodox faith illuminating reason.

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves. – Fides et Ratio, Pope Saint John Paul II.

Annuntiate sanctum Ioannem Henricum Newman doctorem ecclesiae catholicae!

In the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, in which is embodied a theological, liturgical and spiritual culture, what is "traditional", i.e., patrimonial and proper to identity, is celebrated. Grillo would be hard pressed to dismiss such a timely and elegant example of not only living Tradition but also its important companion - a realized ecumenism hoped for by the Council Fathers. The Ordinariates offer a vocabulary and ritual language that affirms the fullness of the Catholic Faith in a dialect that allows people to attain a necessary awe that propels believers along a trajectory that Pope Benedict XVI, for one, foresaw as the way forward. The Ordinariates are another vital chapter in the authentic progress of the Church.

Fruit Cake

Il Capitano's depth charges are part of a crushing and unnecessary suppression inaugurated under the watch of the current pontiff.

Mustering a rather crass diction lacking relevance, Professor Grillo misses the essential art born of Tradition, what he blithely refers to as "a phenomenon of customs and forms of life." To paraphrase Saint Matthew 7:15-20: "Ye shall know them by their fruits, the phenomenon of customs and forms of life." His answer that follows replicates the dissonance of ideologies that continue to trap good minds in the quicksand of academic pride and do-it-yourself religion.

3. Messainlatino [Montagna translation]: In your view, how is it that, especially in the Anglophone and Francophone regions, there is a considerable increase in the number of faithful, seminarians, conversions, financial offerings, and large families in traditionalist areas (while there is a clear and serious qualitative-quantitative crisis in Novus Ordo parishes, at least in the western world)?

When confronted with an obvious statistic by the interviewer, Professor Grillo responded with little empathy or interest in addressing the rotten fruit, i.e., the elephantine crisis in the room. His answer is that of an "egghead" (Charlier) indifferent to the casualties that an ideology of rupture has created.

Professor Grillo: We are dealing here with a distorted vision. Especially in the western world, the faith is facing a crisis that began more than a century ago and has accelerated dramatically in the last 50 years. But the crisis is not responded to by restoring the “honor society” way of life. It isn’t “cappe magne” or “dead languages” that strengthen the faith. These only reinforce bonds of identity, forms of fundamentalism, and intransigentism that are no longer those of 100 years ago, but that have taken on unprecedented forms where a “Catholic” identity—which in terms of its Catholicism is little more than an idealized label—is espoused with the height of post-modern life. This is not an ecclesial or spiritual phenomenon; it is a phenomenon of customs and forms of life that has little to do with the authentic tradition of the Catholic Church.

"These only reinforce bonds of identity, forms of fundamentalism, and intransigentism that are no longer those of 100 years ago, but that have taken on unprecedented forms where a “Catholic” identity—which in terms of its Catholicism is little more than an idealized label—is espoused with the height of post-modern life." Really? So why is it, then, that the freshest Catholic Biblical theological scholarship, the most invigorating orthodox spirituality, most mission-minded and most-creative activity (in the visual arts, in music and architecture) is evident in communities and among members of institutes that are faithful to the Apostolic Tradition, i.e., those whom Professor Grillo might label as "unfaithful"?

Grillo's lens seems to be that of a sniper who takes aim at people reduced to a caricature, practically dehumanized and made disposable by a sinister intellectualism more concerned with propping up an agenda that, for the past fifty years or so, has led to a hemorrhaging of religious, priests and lay faithful. He indirectly disposes of the humanity of his opponents and tries to set up a straw man at which he can stab with near adolescent protests. Can Professor Grillo honestly think that his poisoned word salad, the epitome of condescension, will convince anyone to adopt his approach or agenda?

Besides his apparent caustic dismissiveness, Professor Grillo is in complete denial of the facts, and like so many progressivist intellectuals, he is captured by an inability to acknowledge that he and his ilk are the cause of so much suffering and alienation. Grillo's church - like Bugnini's church - is a sterile barn bereft of nuance and lacking the influence of the wondrous treasures that the Holy Ghost has inspired over the centuries.

Professor Grillo, it seems, is a man of his generation, a generation guided by a cadre of academics who mutate language and salt the earth with poisonous ideologies that rob people of art, deep piety and innocence. The words of a title of an essay at NLM (Kwasniewski) captures the caricature of Tradition that Grillo asserts:

Grillo’s (definition of) Tradition resembles too much the Progress of the Marxian-Pragmatist rhetoric of yore.

Professor Grillo's attitude is saturated with a virus that continues to violate the health of souls and hinder the mission of the Church. The anachronistic thinking condemned by Pius XII has been repeatedly repackaged to make it appear palatable. The latest repackaging by Professor Grillo and others relies heavily on people's short memories and complacency in order for its sophistry to be accepted.

The liturgical wars will continue as long as the most beautiful gift of the Mass, like Jesus Who "inhabits" the Sacred Liturgy, is subjected to repeated crucifixion. In the Mass, we are present to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The Mass transcends time. The Mass is the one and same sacrifice of Calvary, a re-presentation of the Calvary Sacrifice, not a re-crucifixion of Jesus. Indeed, it is also, as progressives frequently rightly remind others - a sacrificial meal. Sadly, however, too many Catholics treat the Mass like a trip to a fast food joint.

Meanwhile, the sun is setting on a pontificate that, while not entirely useless, is attempting to rally less tenable ideas by locating its sycophantic allies close to the Church's centres of policy and action. Retirement for those entities will not be an easy experience. Rest assured, retirement is coming, whether dictated by age or by another pontiff enacting replacement.

Further Reading

• https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/06/andrea-grillo-astonishing-interview-by.html
• https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/06/before-egghead-fell-off-high-wall-and.html#more
• https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/06/exclusive-dom-alcuin-reids-response-to.html
• https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2024/06/grillos-tradition-resembles-too-much.html
• https://assets.lifesitenews.com/news/heterodox-theologian-allegedly-behind-latin-mass-restrictions-calls-traditional-catholics-a-sect/
• https://creamcitycatholic.com/2015/11/23/bugnini-within/?v=7516fd43adaa