By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
That Catholic fountain of wisdom Gilbert Chesterton once famously wrote that tradition is “the democracy of the dead.” In the Church, however, tradition is more: the democracy of the saints who are now fully alive in Christ.
The saints have handed down not only the Scriptures and Tradition, which are the divinely appointed carriers of our saving revelation, but also many other beautiful customs which enable us to live out the saving Word of God and the grace conferred through the Church in little and big ways in daily life. Our sacramentals also include the garb which makes our vocations recognizable.
A recent attack from the top on venerable Catholic customs resulted in a reminder: One ought to tread lightly when tempted to ridicule clerical wear that is anything more decorous than the plastic tab-collar shirts so widely favored by modernists.
In his Friday, December 9 homily Pope Francis repeated a story passed to him by a curial monsignor as an example of a “worldliness” and “rigidity” that he says is “disastrous” for priests.
“About rigidity and worldliness, it was some time ago that an elderly monsignor of the Curia came to me, who works, a normal man, a good man, in love with Jesus — and he told me that he had gone to buy a couple of shirts at Euroclero [the clerical clothing store] and saw a young fellow — he thinks he had not more than 25 years, or a young priest or about to become a priest — before the mirror, with a cape, large, wide, velvet, with a silver chain. He then took the Saturno [wide-brimmed clerical headgear], he put it on and looked himself over. A rigid and worldly one. And that priest — he is wise, that monsignor, very wise — was able to overcome the pain, with a line of healthy humor and added: ‘And it is said that the Church does not allow women priests!’ Thus, does the work that the priest does when he becomes a functionary end in the ridiculous, always.”
With this attack on a young priest or seminarian in the context of a Casa Santa Marta daily homily, Pope Francis energizes and blesses an ugly element in our contemporary Catholic life. If added to his earlier comments describing his incomprehension about young Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass, this only fans the flames of a highly placed campaign against the only elements in Catholic life today that promise an ecclesial springtime.
Catholics who love our traditions also in things merely customary also love the necessary things, such as the Church’s teaching on the sinfulness of contraception. They will continue to bear and to raise the large families that build up the Body of Christ and make the saints God desires for the Kingdom. Would that some of our modernist ecclesiastics might have more of the humility conducive to respecting their elders who have handed down these beautiful customs, as do our traditional youth who will form the families of the future and who will be filling our pews with new souls.
Pope Francis could save himself the public relations damage of numerous ecclesiastical train wrecks if he were to exercise more respect for even those Church traditions which he personally may not favor. Progressive caprice sometimes looks more like free-floating anger when one turns again and again to train one’s line of homiletic fire against more and more of those customs that were thrown wholesale upon the ash heap of history in the iconoclastic 1960s.
Capricious and scattershot attacks against anything deemed not absolutely necessary for validity and liceity is an example of an anti-Catholic iconoclasm never called for in the documents of Vatican II but so often associated with them.
The false notion that wearing garb signifying rank amounts to lording it over others in violation of the Lord’s teaching fails in the face of evidence that one serves less if others are not aware of one’s call to serve. It turns out that one is able to better serve when people know that one is a servant. Publicly recognizable garb has long signified the vocation to service in the Church as even the Pope knows in his telltale white cassock and zucchetto.
Here is the “democracy of the dead” in action as it unfolds in the Church, from a saint known in particular for his gentleness in making corrections. Read this account of St. Francis de Sales after encountering a Franciscan iconoclast of the 17th century:
“St. Francis of Sales, the bishop of Geneva, while on a journey during Lent, went to a church that was attached to the monastery of Capuchin friars. He arrived at sermon time; the preacher had taken ostentation in dress as his sermon’s theme and was inveighing vehemently against prelates and ecclesiastical dignitaries who, instead of setting an example of humility, wore splendid garments.
“When the sermon ended, the bishop went into the sacristy and summoned the preacher. Once they were alone, St. Francis said, ‘Reverend Father, your discourse was edifying. It may also be true that we who are in authority in the Church are guilty of sins from which the inmates of the cloister are exempt. Nevertheless, I consider it highly unwise to say such things as you did on this subject from the pulpit to the common people.
“ ‘Moreover, I wish to call your attention that for many reasons it is a matter of necessity that the princes of the Church should keep up an appearance befitting their rank. Besides, one never knows what may be hidden beneath a silken robe.’
“St. Francis unbuttoned the upper part of his purple cassock, and let the monk see that he wore a ragged hair shirt next to his skin.
“ ‘I show you this,’ St. Francis added, ‘so that you may learn that humility is quite compatible with the rich dress of one’s office. From henceforth, see that you are less harsh in your judgments and more prudent in your speech.’
“If the dignitaries of the Church were wretchedly dressed, they would lose the respect due to themselves and to their office. Therefore it is not only permissible, but obligatory upon them, to dress in accordance with the official rank they hold” (source: Fr. Francis Spirago’s Anecdotes and Examples Illustrating the Catholic Catechism [New York: Benziger Brothers, 1904], pp. 187-188).
The Pope went on in that homily to endearingly recommend the example of priests who “know how to play with children” as the sign of a good priest. With the beautiful customs of Christmas surrounding us — so brilliantly handed down with the purpose of inculcating the faith in our youth — I would heartily agree.
Merry Christmas and thank you for reading all year! Praised be the newborn Jesus Christ, now and forever. @MCITLFrAphorism
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(Join me on pilgrimage to Fatima in October 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the apparitions. Visit proximotravel.com for more info. To find our tour itinerary and sign up use the search function and type in “Father Kevin M” and then refine your search by typing in the state of Maryland.)
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