The Catholic Church as a Bellwether for the Health of Western Civilization

Who watches over Western Civilization?

Back in the 20s, Charles Coulombe writes, the German General, the British House of Lords, the Academie Francaise and the Holy See were thought enough to prevent the takeover of Europe by Communism.    Today, only the Holy See remains an influential institution at a time when threats to Western Civilization come from Islam and the forces of secularism that threaten the expression of national identities.

He asks Could the Latin Mass Save Western Civilization?, an outstanding essay.

The truth is that the Catholic Church is a bellwether for the health of Western Civilization in general—a sort of canary chanting in the coal mine of culture.
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When, in 1971, news came out that the traditional Latin Mass was to be scrapped, a primarily non-Catholic group of English artists and writers protested to Paul VI.
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Fifty-six of the most prominent and celebrated English writers, artists, and musicians of the time signed it --- among them Vladimir Ashkenazy and Yehudi Menuhin (pace Mr. Foxman), Graham Greene, Robert Graves and Cecil Day-Lewis (onetime poet laureate and father of Daniel), Iris Murdoch, and, in the end most importantly, Agatha Christie. The importance of the last signatory lay in the fact that the then-Pontiff was a devotee of her mysteries, and so granted her request. The resulting permission for the Old Mass to be continued in England to some degree has therefore been dubbed the “Agatha Christie Indult.”

What these illustrious folk understood, better than many theologians, was that the health of the Catholic Church was and is integral to the health of the West. If our civilization is to withstand its current slate of internal and external foes—throughout Europe and the Diaspora—it must regain its hold on the things that first enkindled its spirit. Restoration of liturgical sanity and unity within the Catholic Church will inevitably have a beneficial “trickle-down” effect far beyond the Church’s borders. Those who prize the health of the West must welcome Benedict XVI’s action, regardless of their own creed.

Keep your eyes on Rome.

via The Brussels Journal

On July 7, Pope Benedict XVI issued a Moto Propio saying in essence that both the Latin form of the Mass, the one blessed by Pope John XXIII using the 1962 Roman Missal and the New Mass of the Roman Missal of Pope Paul VI following the Second Vatican Council (novus ordo) are equally valid, the former "extraordinary" and the latter "ordinary" and can be used at just about any time.    The Latin Mass was never forbidden or even changed, but following the Second Vatican Council, it could only be offered  under special dispensation of the bishop, a requirement no longer.