Source of Christian Unity

christian, catholic, Jesus, sign of peace

“That they may all be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17: 21). This is the prayer of Christ at the Last Supper. It was His desire that his followers (not just his disciples of the 1st century but all of his followers anywhere and everywhere at any time) should be one so that the world would know that the Father sent Him. Clearly today that is not the case with thousands of different Christian denominations throughout the world. Even within the Catholic church, there is division among what can be described (more or less accurately) as reform-minded and traditional views on a host of issues.

Two relatively recent events that have highlighted these divisions in the Church, and which caused much controversy and debate, were the publication of Pope Francis’s encyclical Amoris Laetitia which handled the topic of communion for divorced and remarried couples, and the Pope’s revision of the Catechism in 2018 declaring the death penalty “inadmissible” in all cases. Now, the question I want to attempt to answer here is, what is the source of unity for us as Christians?

The Latin Mass?

There are many within the Church who claim that the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) can serve as a source of unity today and is a much-needed antidote to division. One of the biggest proponents of the TLM in the Catholic blogosphere, and, perhaps, in general, is Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (Fr. Z). In a recent post on his blog Fr. Z argues, as he has many times, that the TLM is a great source of unity and the Church should practice it more widely if She would like to heal divisions and bring about one accord among the faithful.

In the same post Fr. Z also likens the Novus Ordo Mass (I shall henceforth refer to as the Contemporary Mass) to being in “chains.” He also compares any restrictions that the pope or any bishop might place on access or availability to the TLM to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Fr. Z goes on to say that those who would restrict access to the TLM are proponents of disunity. His advice for the advocates of the TLM is to be joyful in the face of these divisive restrictions and the supporters of such measures.

In the same post Fr. Z quotes Cardinal Zen who is the retired bishop of Hong Kong. In a recent post on his own website, Cardinal Zen argues that the TLM should be made accessible to those who wish to attend it. He does make clear, however, that he has worked for liturgical reform both as a priest and as a bishop. He also makes a point of saying that those he knows who attend the TLM in Hong Kong do not “question the legitimacy of the renewed Mass.”

Subtle Division

Now, likening the Contemporary Mass to being in chains doesn’t exactly sound like someone who is fully on board with its legitimacy, nor does it sound like someone who is particularly joyful. It is also deeply outrageous and offensive to compare Catholics who can’t attend the TLM to slaves who were owned, beaten, robbed of all freedom and dignity, and forced back into servitude even when they managed to escape to a free state. Such a comparison is not only grossly disrespectful to all of those who suffered under the system of slavery; it is actually incredibly divisive.

The divisions that actual slavery caused in our own society (and many others) and the effects that continue to be felt are evidence of a necessary rift that exists between the free and the enslaved. Comparing the Contemporary Mass to servitude, or at best second-class citizenship, can easily cause (and likely has caused) a similar rift within the Church itself between those who are “free” and attend the TLM and those in “chains” who attend the Contemporary Mass.

Another implication is that the Contemporary Mass itself isn’t really as valuable or genuine as the TLM. It’s sort of a knock-off Mass of lesser value. And if the Contemporary Mass is no better than servitude, how could it possibly be as valuable as the TLM? Would anyone say that the condition of servitude is of equal value and legitimacy to the state of being free to live as you see fit? So far from unifying the Church, this dynamic seems to have set up two inherently unequal classes of people with very little to nothing in common.

Troubling Counterexamples

In fairness, not all proponents of the TLM characterize the Contemporary Mass in this way. However, Fr. Z has a large audience and reach (at least in traditional Catholic circles) so it is important to engage with and confront faulty reasoning that has the potential to be at least relatively widespread. Also in fairness, I myself highly value the TLM and attended a TLM exclusively for about six months during my undergraduate years. Currently, I attend the TLM several times a year and the overwhelming majority of the time I attend the Contemporary Mass at my local parish.

The issue I have with the idea that the TLM can serve as the source of unity for the Church today over and above the Contemporary Mass is not just the flaws in Fr. Z’s position above, but with too many historical examples of obvious disunity and corruption within the Church at a time when the TLM was widespread:

  • There is a famous example of the abuse of indulgences which played a major role in the Protestant Reformation.
  • Pope Benedict IX became pope because his father bribed Cardinals
  • As pontiff during the reformation, Pope Leo X famously said, “Let us enjoy the Papacy since God has given it to us” and was notorious for his overindulgence in a myriad of pleasures
  • Pope Stephen VI conducted a “cadaver synod” in which he exhumed the corpse of his predecessor and put it on trial for trumped-up charges and then tossed it into the Tiber River
  • Sexual abuse scandals which occurred in the 20th century before the Second Vatican Council caused many Catholics to lose their faith and significantly damaged the Church’s ability to evangelize

There is an abundance of further examples I could give, but this illustrates the point. I am in no way saying that the TLM leads to corruption or division. I am saying that whatever its benefits (and there are many) the TLM alone is clearly not going to lead to some sort of golden era of unity and moral virtue. It serves no purpose to denigrate a perfectly legitimate form of the Mass all the while proposing a solution for the division that hasn’t a chance of success.

The Way, Truth, and Life

So, what can we do to get at least a little closer to that unity for which Christ prayed? Well, to achieve that unity, we need to be close to Christ. After all, Christ is the Way, Truth, and the Life. How do we get close to Christ? We need to love Him. How do we love Him? We need to keep His commandments. His commandments were to love one another and to teach all nations. He did not command that the Mass be in Latin, He commanded that we do good to the least of His people and to talk about Him to anyone who would listen.

Unity then comes through loving and teaching and these two things require study and practice. The Mass is a powerful tool for teaching, but it is only an hour to an hour and a half once a week. Whether the mass is TLM or Contemporary, that alone will not teach us everything we need to know in order to teach and to love others. We need to volunteer our time, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and get involved in our communities to serve the least among us.

Think back to what unified the early Church. Was it not their zeal to serve God in all of his children that bonded them together? Was it not their undying love for Christ and His sacrifice and their willingness to bring that sacrifice to the poor, the widowed, the sick, etc. that set their hearts ablaze? Certainly, their Eucharistic gatherings were important to their life as Christians, but it did not end there.

So too, we must actively engage in all of the different aspects of our Christian vocation. We must study our faith, come together as a community to praise God, and then love our neighbor through service. That is our recipe for unity. Or as Christ put it, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

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3 thoughts on “Source of Christian Unity”

  1. Pingback: VVEDNESDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  2. Mass in the vernacular and Communion in the hand were thought to have been significant enough to have figured in the Protestant revolt five hundred years ago. What was decided at Trent was surrendered at Vatican II for the sake of unity. Can we yet say that unity cannot be achieved by an enforced agreement? Form follows function, and what was abandoned at Vatican II was not simply the form of the Mass but its function as sacrifice. Hiding the understanding of Mass as sacrifice, not necessarily embodied in the vernacular but adding upon it a table rather than altar, facing the fans rather than ad orientum, standing rather than kneeling, folksy tunes rather than devout hymns, iconoclasm rather than sacred imagery we were all supposed to understand we were “building the kingdom” rather than making sacrifice. If it is fair to say that the sexual abuse came in under the Tridentine, can we now say that birth control, abortion, rampant divorce, ignorance of the Eucharist, empty pews, vanishing belief has come in under the Novus Ordo? It is this to which Father Z is reacting, and although I agree with some of your points, I do not wish to be unified with much of this.

  3. an ordinary papist

    Now, the question I want to attempt to answer here is, what is the source of unity for us as Christians?

    Wrong question. What is the source of unity for ALL faiths

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