I thought I would briefly return to the theme of so-called Sarum patrimony and culture and the discussion on What role should Sarum play in the Ordinariate liturgy?. Another interesting comment appeared:

Sarum is already arguably permitted to Roman Rite priests, including Ordinariate priests, having never been abrogated, having survived the Tridentine reforms in the underground ecclesia Anglicana post 1558, and having been used to the present day, albeit on an infrequent basis, by both Anglican and Roman Catholic priests and bishops. But apart from that, this is really an issue of whether or not the default text for ressourcement should be the EF or OF Roman uses instead of the Sarum. Since the principal context out of which the BCP tradition arose was that of Sarum rite, our ressourcement, wherever the various BCPs and Anglican Missals are lacking for the purpose of ressourcement, for the sake of internal consistency and ritual coherence, should be primarily to Sarum, and only then to the EF or OF. I personally have experienced Sarum Masses in Canterbury communion parishes in just the last two years. Thus, even if one ignores our ritual culture’s ancient roots in Sarum, it cannot be said to have no part in our patrimony. Furthermore, there should be no doubt that the first 1500 years of the ecclesia anglicana are fully a part of Anglican patrimony, (witness the desire of the Oxford Movement to claim it and more fully restore it as their own heritage), just as much as they are part of the recusant patrimony.

We have often seen arguments about whether it is truly a custom in the Church and therefore enjoying a position of taking precedence over canon law and legislation. That is something Roman Catholics love! Also they love saying to others – You like it? You can’t have it! I have sometimes argued from that point of view, very similar for the arguments for the pre-Novus Ordo liturgy by Count Neri Capponi, Michael Davies and others. It increasingly seems academic to me.

A more unfavourable point of view is considering what is done in parishes. As a European, I see the Church as having been a part of the fabric of society throughout all classes and both in cities and in the countryside. That is no longer so in countries like France. In sociological terms, Catholicism in France has become like that in England and the USA, an artificially established “mission”. It occurs to me that it is not the rite that determines the cultural “patrimony” but the fact that the Church itself is obsolete and no longer a living tradition for most people.

This fact strikes at the mark of the Church’s catholicity or universality. It is no longer intended for all but to an ever-shrinking elite.

This blog and others like it are definitely “fogeys’ corners”, and we are discussing something that is as obscure to most people as nautical terms or the technicalities of brain surgery! From such a point of view, we are all obsolete, and all liturgical rites belong to another world from the one we are living in.

We are now looking at the survival of Christianity after its having been expunged from secular culture. That is our agony, in which “extraordinary forms” and “ordinary forms” have no more relevance than Sarum, the Celtic rite or the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

It is therefore no longer a question of cultural relevance for all, because for most people Christianity is no more of interest than anything else. If Christianity is to survive, it will be in “micro societies” of one kind or another: monasteries, families, continuing Anglican and Roman Catholic communities and the like. There, particular liturgical rites might be an interesting subject of conversation and matter to the persons concerned.

I think it is also illusory to seek to graft the culture of one Church into another. Anglicans who cannot in conscience continue in their communities of origin and are not inclined to “survive” in one of the “micro societies” on offer, then it would seem logical to convert to another church and forget one’s baggage. The Ordinariates are also “micro societies”, though with the “respectability” of being recognised by the Pope.

Attempts at imposing liturgical uniformity on any community is divisive. “Untouched” traditional rites have the advantage of being “politically neutral”. Once one starts fiddling with the liturgy, as happened under Pius V in 1570 and right up to modern times, issuing new rites and making them “normative”, one will never be satisfied. It is like beginning to make modifications to your car to make it go faster or be more fuel-efficient. It will never be right, and the car as it left the factory might have been better than the “improvement”. The onus is on the makers of new or “recomposed” liturgies to justify their relevance to their flocks. Sarum has the advantage of having been a traditional rite, one of many, which was nurtured in a Christian society.

As I answered one of Deborah’s readers, what they do in the Roman Catholic Church is of no concern to me. I simply don’t care if they dilly-dally and make people wait for fifty, a hundred or two hundred years for their “Christmas presents”, just to make them accept that the only thing that matters is obedience to authority. I see a graver danger: it is all going down and Christianity will survive the downfall of what we have the habit of calling the “Church”. It is toppling under the weight of its own bureaucracy.

If we are in survival mode, then not very much matters any more. We just use what we have and try to carry on.