IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT
We are constantly encouraged in the modern world to view change as desirable and necessary. In very many ways change is one or both of these things. In business and industry the outmoded and inefficient are quickly and ruthlessly consigned to the economic graveyard for failing to observe this maxim. Whilst in science, technology and medicine advances constantly improve our lives. Few of us would or could do without washing machines, refrigerators, telephones or computers. Such inventions make our lives easier and give us more time for God, our families, and ourselves. In the twenty first century diseases which at one time were sources of fear are now easily cured.The impulse to embrace change seems twofold. First change is necessary when something has ceased working properly and repair is no longer practical. Second change takes place when a new development, advance or discovery renders what is current obsolete or inefficient. This analysis of course ignores what is merely fashionable or a question of taste: the former being supremely transient, the latter entirely subjective.
Change therefore can be seen as only truly necessary when a better alternative becomes available or when whatever we are using no longer works. A doctor for example would not administer drugs that no longer worked, and would eagerly embrace new more effective methods of treatment.
When one looks at the changes that have taken place in the Church's liturgy over the last thirty-five years, one can only wonder at the motivations that have driven them. To replace a liturgy that was a proven success and that had succoured generations of Catholics for hundreds of years as a profound source of grace and truth is difficult to comprehend. Why replace liturgy that was not outmoded or ineffective? Why abandon what was successful and embark on a prolonged and uncertain experiment?
It would seem that the Church has been seduced into thinking that change was necessary almost for change's sake, and perhaps worse still that such change should be based on the considerations of the moment, the fashion, the prevailing mood.
The outcome of the changes are painfully evident, with 2,000 Catholics lapsing in England and Wales each week, a collapse in vocations, a Catholic youth almost totally ignorant of their faith.
If doctors were administering drugs that were slowly killing their patients we would be demanding they face criminal proceedings. If a board of directors oversaw the ever more speedy disintegration of a company, they would not survive the annual general meeting. In the case of the Church however the responsibilities of the "management" are far more onerous. One can only wonder at the complacency and stubborn refusal of the hierarchy to acknowledge that there is a very serious problem afflicting the Church. Perhaps they forget that one day they will have to give an account of their stewardship. The first in a series of changes that needs to be made is a recognition of the plight we are in, then perhaps change may be more worthwhile.
Mark Johnson. Editor.
[Taken from the Latin Mass Society's August 2001 Newsletter.]