Category: Tradition

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And I mean it.

I still am pretty worked up over this post from Katharine Birbalsingh — Britain’s strictest Head Mistress. I wrote a post yesterday but I am still mad about it because she is so irritatingly wrong. Her basic premise is that people used to be better because they taught their kids traditional values. My point was that maybe traditional values also supported a Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic society. So really how good were these traditional values? They certainly didn’t stop people from being mean-spirited to the people they didn’t like.

After thinking about it more, I am inclined to say that Birbalsingh should fold it four ways and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Pardon my untraditional approach here. She uncritically praises the past while dumping on, to me, the much better world of today. How can she praise traditional values when they so clearly failed so many people. The pregnant teenager sent to a horrible workhouse where her baby was stolen. The gay people forced out of their jobs because they were caught in a police raid. The People of Color who were denied entry into jobs and education because they were the wrong color.

The past wasn’t so sunny as she makes out and a lot of it was due to strict enforcement of these traditional values. I ask her would she rather live in the modern world in which Racism, Sexism and Homophobia is seen as wrong or in a traditional society where they are tolerated and supported? I would hope that she would embrace the progress we made and work to make this new foundation a better arrangement. Nothing is perfect.

But until then fie on traditional values.

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Harrison Butker recently kicked up a shit storm over the role of women in modern society. If he and his wife want to live that way, I am OK. I am also OK with him telling people that is what he believes. So I didn’t pay much attention to the whole falderal because it seemed like just another controversy de jour. People getting upset because someone wanted to upset people so he found a way to upset them.

But then I stumbled upon an article from conservative columnist Peachy Keenan where I discovered Butker liked the Latin (Traditional) Mass. Now that is interesting and amazing. I have given up on the Catholic Church long ago and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would prefer the old Latin Mass. I had a few years of Latin Mass in my pre-Vatican II childhood. I even had to train as an alter boy with the old Latin Mass. My opinion was it was a pain in the ass.

Apparently, I am wrong. It is a thing that has caught on with modern Catholics. I checked up on the mystery of the Latin Mass here and here. I could have gone on as Google directed to me to numerous links on the topic but, after reading the two above, I can say I still have no idea why anyone would like the old Latin Mass. It is a lot of gobbledygook about the mystery of the Eucharist, reverence and tradition.

Even after 12 years of Catholic education, Communion is a mystery to me. Why I have to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ is beyond me. It sounds cannibalistic and I avoided this sacrament as much as humanly possible. So, I missed the transcendent experience of Communion at a Latin Mass. So I will give the Latin Mass lovers this one because Communion stumps me in Latin or in English.

Then, how is the modern mass irreverent? Standing when receiving communion as opposed to kneeling when receiving communion is one explanation. God would rather us be on our knees than on our feet. People dress too casually for the modern mass which has nothing to do with the Latin Mass. The Latin Mass doesn’t have a dress code. It is their own personal prejudice of what reverence is because God has advised them about the importance of kneeling before him in a three-piece suit.

Finally, there is tradition which is the worst possible reason to use the Latin Mass. The lovers of the Latin Mass say that practicing the mass in this way connects them to the vast majority of saints who worshipped God in exactly the same way. So you can only connect to God by living the way the saints did? The Saints wouldn’t recognize the present mass. So I guess there should be no electricity or central heating in churches. People should skip baths, not brush their teeth, and wear the same clothes they worked the fields in in order to connect with saints of yesteryear. Why go half-assed in your connection with the saints when you can go in for the total traditional experience? Most of what we do is not traditional and for good reason, the past was horrible for most people. Tradition for tradition’s sake is bullshit.

Furthermore, modern people are not peasants. Almost everyone can read, write and a good portion can even think for themselves. The Church has to appeal to a much broader and more educated group of people than in the past. An appeal to tradition is all very nice but unlikely to capture the imagination of all the people searching for God. People usually abandon tradition when it no longer works, so Butker and his ilk can continue to go to the Latin Mass if they want. Vade in pace which is go in peace for you non-Latin speaking hell bound heathens.

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The recent coronation of Charles III got me thinking about tradition. Charles became king because, somewhere in the distant past, one of his relatives climbed to the top of the greasy pole. Now, because of his family’s good fortune, he gets to become king. It has nothing to do with his talent or ability to do the job. Tradition made him king because members of his family have set on the throne and he is the oldest in his family. Tradition, for some reason, must be honored.

Even though tradition has very little bearing any longer on the monarch’s actual role in the modern UK. Traditionally, the king once held great power. It was so important that the coronation was a religious ceremony performed in a church. The king’s role came from God Almighty and not the people he ruled. This is no longer true. The King has very limited power. The government is installed through a democratic process in which the monarch can’t even participate. As for the religious aspect of the coronation, it is doubtful that in a country where over 50% of the population never attends church services that any British citizen actually believes that God has invested the new king with any power what so ever.

To summarize then, a church that has a very tenuous allegiance of UK population installs a king who has no real power in a modern democratic country because of tradition. Charles comes to church one day to have an archbishop plop a crown on his head and walks aways with billions of pounds and real estate and little else.

It connects the British people to their past. Really? Whose past? Certainly not the average UK citizen. The past for most citizens had little to do with the petty squabbles of the nobility. The history of the monarchs is all very fun and interesting but meaningless to the actual history of the British people. Indeed, the tradition that might be remembered with more relevance is the constant battles of the average citizen wresting power away from a resistant nobility.

But, tradition, it is important to keep up with the old traditions. Why? What would happen if the monarch disappeared over night? Would the lives of the average British person change much? Look I don’t actually care about Charles being King. If the British people want a king, let them have one. What bothers me is this slavish devotion to meaningless tradition. Why call a person a king when he really isn’t a King? Why say he is blessed by God when a great number of people don’t actually believe it anymore. Because of tradition?

Perhaps a better example of this is the continued celebration of Christmas and Easter for people who have long ago abandoned traditional Christianity. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas trees and presents and chocolate treats as much as the next person but the connection to Christianity has been severed. A lot of people, including myself, continue to celebrate these holidays because well it is traditional. Is that really a good reason to do something you no longer believe in?

When all you got is tradition, it is time to rethink what you are doing.