Recently Massimo “Beans” Faggioli has attempted to stir up a pingle and, with it, attention for himself, by denigrating our Catholic Tradition – nay, rather – by denigrating the people who desire our Catholic Tradition.
His latest clickbait shtick, which may be more about his frustration, anger, and desire for traffic, involves judgmental and hurtful statements on Twitter about a whole group of people. For example:
The kids may be Old Rite, but their desperate quest for liturgical beauty might bring back some really ugly stuff.
— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) October 2, 2017
And there’s this:
Promoters of the “Old Rite” interpret Summorum Pontificum in a way that is undoubtedly “rupturist”, unfaithful to B16’s stated intention
— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) October 2, 2017
That’s just crazy talk, and it’s intentionally hurtful. It is so patently contrary to the truth that it must be bubbling up from a place of anxiety and frustration. He may not be thinking straight when he tweets that stuff.
Who, again, is creating the rupture? Who is causing division?
In response, Peter Kwasniewski has already issued – in July 2017 – instruction for Beans at NLM. Peter brough up a point which others have also made: when it comes to “liturgy” (read = Mass), libs sink into the deadly trap of “neoscholastic reductionism”. In a beanpod, if the bare bones minimum is present for valid consecration of the Eucharist, then everything else in the rite is fair game for change or adaptation according to the whims of those present. Peter, however, shows that to preserve our rites without rupture, we need to maintain precisely those things which Beans rejects. Beans is the rupturist, not traditional Catholics.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
It is useful to review something that Tracey Rowland wrote in 2008 in Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (US HERE – UK HERE).
The Lercaro—Bugnini inspired liturgical experiments of the last three decades have been based on an overemphasis on baroque sacramental theology and eighteenth-century philosophy, and an obsession with pedagogy. This in turn can be boiled down to a cocktail of scholasticism [NB] (the reduction of sacramental theology to considerations of matter and form) [Thus, Beans!], the Kantian obsession with pedagogical rationalism (the predominance of ethical values over strictly religious ones) [Thus, Beans!], moralism (a notion of Mass attendance as duty parade), [Thus, Beans!] and a Jansenist attitude to beauty (it is irrelevant: the only thing that matters is that the words are doctrinally sound and in the vernacular). [Thus, Beans!] In other words, one has a cocktail of theological and philosophical ingredients which Ratzinger has spent his entire ecclesial life trying to throw out of the pantry. [And that is a major component of his vision and action in implementing Summorum Pontificum.] Anyone wanting to escape the culture of modernity with its lowest-common-denominator mass culture will find it difficult to do so at many contemporary Catholic liturgies based on the Lercaro—Bugnini [- Beans] principles. As Catherine Pickstock has argued, ‘a genuine liturgical reform would either have to overthrow our anti-ritual modernity, or, that being impossible, devise [or perhaps, develop] a liturgy that refused to be enculturated in our modern habits of thought and speech’. [I think that we already have that, and it is what Beans pits against continuity.]
In any event, dear readers, I don’t think it is all that profitable to give Beans to much attention. He is angry and, I suspect, sincerely afraid of what Summorum Pontificum is producing. It must be awful for him. This latest path of attack is more than likely his way of both maintaining attention and traffic in Twitter and expressing his frustration. Hence, his bitter attacks on the people who want tradition, as he did in his hurtful remarks after the article in the NYT. Stop and say a Memorare for him.
The moderation queue is ON.
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.