Dr. Moynihan believes that Pope Benedict XVI will offer the Traditional Latin Mass during the "year of faith". I think he couldn't be more wrong. There's simply no indication that the pope has any attention of offering the Old Mass, and I think Moynihan hints at it in his own piece.
Of particular note, I would like to point out Dr. Moynihan's comments regarding the perception of many people that the Traditional Latin Mass is a "standard" of the "ancien regime", which can be understood as the pre-French Revolution, Frankish Catholicism, exemplified by the late Baroque/Rococo period and sentimentalism. I appreciate his thoughts, but Dr. Moynihan really shows his age in this regard. While it is true that Leftists have turned a love for the Traditional Latin Mass and traditional Catholicism into a kind of caricature, the same is not true for traditionalists. The vast majority of traditionalists are either too young to remember the remnants of those who longed for the ancien regime, or are too old to be that foolish. Traditionalists aren't the reactionaries we are so often painted as being; we simply have a zealous love for traditional Catholicism, an ardent love for the entirety of the Catholic faith. Our zeal for the faith is often misconstrued or willfully misrepresented for manipulative purposes as reactionary. We can be sure the only people who regard the Traditional Latin Mass as a "standard" of the ancien regime are those entrenched on the Left.
Many on the Left paint an unflattering picture of traditionalism as merely simplistic, pietistic, unsophisticated and pedestrian, and in doing so often lump a good many saints and brilliant Catholic thinkers from the time of Napoleon all the way through to the advent of the 20th Century Liturgical Movement, into this unfair caricature. Of course, this includes Dom Prosper Guéranger whose work has had to endure no little unfair criticism, if not outright ridicule, from the movers of the 20th Century Liturgical Movement. Rehabilitating the liturgical thinking of Guéranger for Catholics today depends in large measure on freeing his work from the Leftist caricature of the ancien regime he is accused of resurrecting. He needs to be revealed for the brilliantly logical and spiritually insightful man that he was, whose work, far from attempting to prop up a sentimentalism that is now identified with the ancien regime, encapsulated the whole of liturgical history and spirituality, from the Church Fathers all the way down to the Tridentine Reformation.
On a different note, I think this paragraph is very revealing of how Dr. Moynihan's thinking diverges from the vast majority of traditionalists:
And in saying all this, I am not saying there were no aspects of the “way of praying” in the old liturgy which may have been dangerous, in some way, to true Christian maturity. It may be true that, in some ways, as some refromers have argued, the old liturgy tended to foster a type of piety which was simplistic, a “pie in the sky” faith detached from the “here and now” of Christ’s call to act on urgent matters of charity and social justice. In this view, some aspects of the celebration of the old Mass, the incense, the robes, the mystery, casued people so much to focus on “heaven” that they forgot “earth.” I acknowledge that this may have been, and may be, true, and a concern for liturgical reformers who are truly committed to building the Kingdom, here and in time to come.
The problem is, of course, is that if "Christian maturity" means taking our eyes off heaven, then the traditionalist will opt to be childlike. We choose immaturity, along with a simple faith over any Utopian project in this world, doomed for ultimate failure due to the corruption of sin. Justice flows from heavenly justice. How can one be just if one does not focus on where justice comes? The justice of the worldly man is no justice at all!
That Moynihan gives any credit to the notion that we ought, for the sake of "Christian maturity", to shift our focus from heaven, our homeland, to this world is really rather incredible. That Moynihan would give any credence to the thought that it is somehow dangerous to have faith like that of a child seems rather incredible. What does our Blessed Lord have to say?
"Amen, I say to you: Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a child, shall not enter into it." (Luke 18:17).
It's pretty obvious that on this score, as on all others, the reformers aren't quite on the same page as Jesus. That much should be obvious to Dr. Moynihan.
The liberal condescension toward traditional forms of piety, so-called "simplistic faith," and Tradition as a sine qua non is utterly sickening to this young Catholic convert and traditionalist. They reveal their true colors in this attitude, for they like to suggest that Our Blessed Lord, meek and mild, cannot be associated with exquisite vestments and ornate churches, and they heap scorn on those who simply believe what the Church teaches, whether they understand it all or not; yet they forget that Our Lord extolled childlike faith and told us that we must become as children if we are to achieve Heaven. Far from the truth it is that traditionalists are "holier than thou," it is liberals who exemplify this false "holier than thou" and "smarter than thou" evil disdain for the supernatural virtue of faith.
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