"Why not rally round the old Mass and office? Thomas Day explains why they don’t."
Why don't they?
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Seriously, because 1) the persecuted Irish couldn't do high churchmanship (big services with lots of ceremonial and music in nice buildings - the Anglicans stole their buildings and they were hiding out having Mass in houses and on rocks in the countryside, and school in the hedges and barns) and brought that minimalist, unliturgical, devotional (Rosary, novenas, and hymns not chant) approach to church to America and Britain, 2) Jansenism, a heresy that saw beautiful things like art and music (and incidentally sex, hence all the bad jokes about Irish Catholic guilt) as suspect, 3) Irish hatred of things they saw as English (when in Ireland they saw a Gothic church and heard an organ playing and a choir singing it was a church of the hated English or at least a state-favoured Protestant church), which means high churchmanship and the kind of English in the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer (so they went reverse-snobbish in the 1960s and chose ICEL ugly, inaccurate English instead), 4) Modernism, or being heretical, anti-Catholic RCs, and 5) the cinema, radio and television killed off Sunday-night religion (public recitation of the office in church) just about everywhere - 75 years ago Sunday Vespers was not only the norm in RC parishes but required (as indeed on the books it still was in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia until only a few years ago).
There. Two books and at least one article in Cliffs Notes form. 
Or everything I needed to know about English-speaking mainstream RCs.
re: RC's and Politics
I accept the idea that politicians who are fundamentally pro-abortion should be disqualified from receiveing my vote.
But I gotta tell ya...I was played. Which is why I love your catchphrase for these type of things "don't get played."
If the religious flavor of the evangelical south became overnight the unitarian flavor of Massachusetts, the Republican party (at least the neo-con version) would be pro-choice instantly and calling for a one-child policy within 2 years.
I see there's a blog called Catholics for Ron Paul.
I saw that too: FT's version of Christian witness in politics is opposition to abortion, exactly as 815's version is pushing for gay marriages. Somewhere along the line one has to recognize that one has a much larger resposibility to society, and that indeed in those other issues (especially war and finance) a legislator has much more influence (and for that matter, a much greater responsibility for the truly downtrodden).
Charley wrote:
FT's version of Christian witness in politics is opposition to abortion, exactly as 815's version is pushing for gay marriages.
I say:
A punto, signore!
Don't forget the leading position of the Irish (as English-speaking Northern Europeans) in the movement for Catholic assimilation into American life. Some of the leading proponents of Catholic assimilation were second and third generation Irish clergy.
Given what they put up with from American Know-Nothings, the impulse is not surprising, but still problematic.
I think your criticism of Abp. Naumann is misguided. In the first place, he is simply stating Catholic teaching when he ranks life issues ahead of military engagement in terms of importance. Abortion and euthanasia are intrinsic evils; war is not. In addition, how do you know that this is not addressed to Catholics who might be so in favor of war that they look past a candidate's views on abortion? It could be that His Grace is addressing Catholics who might be supporters of Giuliani and reminding them that it is his support for abortion that matters and not his stance on the war.
Second, why would he call for rallying "round the old Mass and office" in a political essay? You yourself have said that you would vote for Ron Paul if he were a partnered homosexual atheist, so why should Abp. Naumann call for rallying around the Mass and Office in a political article? You've already established that a politician's religious views don't matter. Maybe you just couldn't resist the dig at a German-American bishop? You also say you'll follow Bishop Carroll, who was certainly no defender of the traditional Mass and Office (he was, at one point, an enthusiast for Mass in the vernacular). So criticizing Abp. Naumann for not sounding the rallying cry for the old Mass and Office strikes me as silly.
Dano: As Slavs (more), Italians and Hungarians found out about a hundred years ago.
dcs: The aside about the Mass and office was simply commenting upon the use of abortion as a substitute for RC identity not necessarily about politics.
You also say you'll follow Bishop Carroll, who was certainly no defender of the traditional Mass and Office (he was, at one point, an enthusiast for Mass in the vernacular).
Don't tell me you've bought into 'Traditionalism is all about Latin, Latin, LATIN! Ooga booga!'
Clever rhetoric but it doesn't really address the substance of what I wrote. I'm disappointed.
I'm afraid we shall never agree. Like with Episcopal friends of the blog on other issues. That's life sometimes.
My guess is, inspired by the Book of Common Prayer and not afflicted with Anglophobia, Abp Carroll wanted to translate the services and would have been happy with the Knott Missal and Anglican Breviary, fitting in by using the best of the country's English heritage, not rewrite them entirely like AmChurch.
The observation about Abp Naumann's ethnicity was only that, nothing to do with politics.
Thinking again of the Germans, to be fair the Italians were as unliturgical in their piety as the Irish and perhaps less attached to the institutional church (the Irish, though unliturgical, were and still are 'institutional'); Mass-and-office Western Catholicism - the legitimate liturgical movement trying to teach people to sing and love the Mass as handed down and to pray the office - was promoted by Germans (including American Mid-Western bishops - like Mundelein and Stritch? - before Vatican II ruined everything), Poles (my father confessor is Polish and got the benefit of that as a kid) and the French.
dcs, the question is never war issues, but this war. The very difference in character which creates the asymmetry in the first place renders this type of judgement illegitimate. Surely Catholic teaching is not so shallow as to suggest that we should ignore the situation of our involvement in the Middle East, no matter how misguided and bloody and tortured it gets, and concentrate solely on abortion and contraception.
Like I pointed out above, Abp. Naumann could be making the case for voting for the anti-war candidate.
Possibly. And the Episcopal centre-left when they preach 'unity above all, so schism is the worst evil' believe the English 'Reformation' was a mistake.
I think one can interpret His Grace's words in that way since his essay appeared long before the GOP primary. While he does include some weasel words about the "lesser of two evils," I don't see any references to electability in his article (some hardcore Catholic conservatives might endorse uniting behind Giuliani because he is the most "electable"). Plus, these paragraphs cannot be interpreted as saying "just shut up and vote GOP":
"The Catholic community needs to find its voice on the abortion issue. This is not about supporting a particular party. There are heroic members of both parties who defend the sanctity of human life. Unfortunately, at this moment, one party has adopted a position that faithful Catholics and others that share their view about abortion are not to be permitted roles of leadership within the party.
"Our ultimate goal cannot be to capture just one political party and keep them in power. Our goal must be to build such a broad consensus that neither the Democratic nor the Republican party will tolerate someone who advocates legal abortion to represent them, just as today neither party allows an anti-Semite or racist to speak for their party."
So are you fine with legal gay marriage because of a libertarian/separation of church and state approach? (I.e., the state doesn't have to make a crime everything your faith believes is a sin--as long as it doesn't harm others, as in your opposition to legalized abortion.) I have sort of thought this was your position on the marriage issue, and this sort of makes me think so more, but I'm not sure exactly if it is, and, if so, why.
Welcome, Mother Laura! Essentially yes. Civil gay marriage wouldn't be the libertarian ideal, which is to get the state out of the marriage business, leaving it to the religions and/or the couple themselves, and wouldn't go against anybody's conscience, but is acceptable. The state already licenses things that to traditional Catholics aren't sacramental marriages so what's one more?
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