[Catholic Caucus] “Cursed Cultus or Worthy Worship: The Choice that Faces Us” — Dr. Kwasniewski's Presentation in Arlington, VA
Sophia Institute Press held a booklaunch for Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s The Catholic Mass, in Arlington, VA on Tuesday, October 18, 2022. Diane Montagna was the moderator. Bishop Schneider delivered a talk on the centrality of Christ in the Mass. (When this talk becomes available, I will share it.)
As part of the event, I gave a 30-minute presentation entitled “Cursed Cultus or Worthy Worship: The Choice that Faces Us.” This is now available on YouTube:
Excerpt:
“Tradition is not the lazy repetition of the past on the part of a present generation lacking in creativity or adaptability; it is not a nostalgic hankering after something we no longer have but wish we did. It is, rather, the attitude of humble receptivity that welcomes, cherishes, and rejoices in the treasury of the Church as the family of God and the people of God, on pilgrimage through time, carrying in their arms and hearts all the riches bestowed upon them. It is only the rootless, individualistic, self-sufficient, self-centered, arrogant modern man who cares nothing for his family heritage…
“In truth, We receive what the Greek tradition calls ‘the divine liturgy’ from God through the Church—not the Church of a single day or a single moment, much less the churchmen intoxicated with the Zeitgeist, but the Church throughout history—and we hand it down faithfully….
“For fifteen centuries, the Church did exactly this: striving to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and striving also, by the guardrails of custom, canon law, and rubrics, to avoid doing the work of the Lord negligently—and she did this, for fifteen hundred years, without papal intervention… So far from being a vindication of any supposed freedom to dispose of liturgy as he pleased, this great pope [Pius V] rather vindicated the prior unassailable dignity of immemorial tradition—what the Council of Trent called ‘the received and approved rites.’...
“When Pope Benedict XVI famously stated: ‘What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place’—he wasn’t asking us to be obedient to his or anyone’s whimsical dictate or condescending pastoral provision; he was asking us to recognize and remain faithful to a true principle, one that has always been true and will always be true. If it is not true, then we have no reason to trust the Church of yesterday, today, or tomorrow. If, on the contrary, we trust the Church, then we must embrace her tradition. It’s as simple as that.”