The Liturgy, the Family, & the Crisis of Modernity


"These essays are marked not only by clarity of style and breadth of knowledge, but also by something even more welcome: fresh thinking." Fr Thomas Crean

"What is Christian Tradition? Dr. Joseph Shaw's book brilliantly shows what it means to answer this question with all seriousness. Discussing all the major issues - Traditional Mass, the family, clericalism etc. - the author rightly points out that behind them lies the greatest and fiercest debate of our times: the crisis of modernity." Dr Robert Lazu Kmita.

"The paladins of Modernity are today rushing forward to realize the consequences of its passion for dealing with life and its problems on the basis of single explanations blind to the full richness of human experience and its historical context. With this book, Joseph Shaw provides Traditionalist Catholics with an antidote to such madness when dealing with our own deepest concerns, showing how the problems of the liturgy, the family, and the crises brought about by Modernity's Original Sins must be tackled as a unit, and with respect for historical mistakes. It is a recipe for dealing with our woes through escaping from all 'single cause' reductionism." Dr John Rao

"A curious, unexpected result of the problems thrown up in and by this pontificate has been the prominence of lay theological writers and thinkers and commentators rather than by clerical experts and employees of official establishments. Historians might wonder why: is it connected with the atmosphere of fear generated by the Bergoglian regime? But whatever the root causes, we have every reason to be grateful for it; and to read this present collection of essays from Dr Joseph Shaw, chairman of the vibrant British branch of the Latin Mass Society. I commend it very enthusiastically." Fr John Hunwicke

"In this collection of fascinating essays, Shaw applies a sharp mind—one that has been formed by a serious engagement with Christian culture and the Western heritage—to the topic of liturgy and its transformative power for the human person. In doing so, he carefully brings to the fore how right worship ordered to the glory of God, and not to the communal therapy of man, has touched every aspect our civilisation, beginning with the family. The rug is swept from under the feet of all the clichéd accusations that traditional Catholics are ‘rigid,’ antiquated, and inward-looking, with Shaw addressing such slanders not superficially but with the philosophical depth for which he is known. He reveals that the Church is stuck in a cycle of self-repudiation, a meaning-crisis, evermore suffocated by poisonous clericalism. The overall result is a remarkable apologia of our liturgical and wider religious heritage, and a devastating critique of the ideologically-driven and ill-fated liturgical experiments which the mainstream institutional Church has conducted over the past half-century, a liturgical endowment that the hierarchy should have approached with reverence and trepidation. With his characteristic wit and lucidity, Shaw doesn’t propose that we turn back the clock, but reveals a path ahead out of the current crisis through a mature dialectic with those modern ecclesiastical developments that allow for a recovery of the tradition that belongs to all Catholics by a claim of right." Dr Sebastian Morello

"For after all these years, it is rare to find something as fresh, as thought-provoking, as original as the exploration of the crisis in these pages—one that marries acute, up-to-the-minute observation of unfolding secular trends with a striking inquest into the deep, underlying reasons for these trends (or rather tragedies)." Roger Buck


Published in January 2023.

From the back cover:
The decline of the Catholic Church in the developed world has been accelerated in the last decade by a devastating series of scandals involving sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. But just as clerical abuse fits in to a wider story about the abuse of power in the modern “sexual marketplace,” so the decline of Catholic church-going and religious belief finds its context in a wider collapse of cultural institutions and shared beliefs: the crisis of modernity. This is no source of comfort for Catholics, since in recent decades the Church has provided neither shelter from secular trends nor a compelling analysis of the crisis.

In these essays, Dr Joseph Shaw examines what the Church has in common with the wider world as it passes through this crisis as well as the perennial wisdom of her tradition that shows us how to escape it. Part 1 examines the place of the ancient Catholic liturgy in modernity, defending it as something supremely suited to engage our deepest instincts towards the worship of God. Part 2 turns to the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council and addresses a series of lines of attack on those Catholics attached to the traditional Latin Mass—notably the attempt to link them to clerical abuse. Part 3 addresses one of the most contested issues of our times, sexuality and gender roles, and asks what the Church can still say about them.

Dr Shaw approaches these explosive topics with seriousness and honesty, leaving behind the point-scoring of social media and partisan journalism while not shying away from unpopular teachings and uncomfortable conclusions.

Contents page:

 
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . 1



Part I: Liturgy

1. Discovering and Rediscovering the Traditional Mass . . . . . 7

2. What Is the Liturgy For? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . .  . . . 19

3. Understanding the History of the Liturgy . . . . . . . . .  . . . . .34

4. Understanding Liturgical Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

5. Traditions and the Narcissism of Consumer Capitalism .. . . 86

6. Tradition, Liberation, and Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . 92


Part II: Crisis

7. What Vatican II Did to the Church . . . . . . . . .. .  . . . . . . . . . .101

8. Liturgy and Orthodoxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . 119

9. The Traditional Latin Mass and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

10. Why Do They Call You “Rigid”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . 158

11. Clericalism and the Culture of Clerical Abuse . ..  . . . . . . . . 173

12. Sex Education and the Ethics of Consent . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . .198


Part III: Family

13. Understanding the Feminisation of Christianity  .. . . . . . . . . 215

14. The Male Priesthood and Patriarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

15. Headship and Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   . . . . . .250

16. Feminism, Patriarchy, and Regretting the Sexual Revolution . 267

17. The Family and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  273

18. The Family and the Defence of the Faith . . . . . . . . .. .  . . . . 277

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . ..283

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . 285

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