A Superb Article On Newman and the Liturgical Problem, by John Byron Kuhner

I strongly recommend that our readers go over to Rorate Caeli and read a column by Mr John Byron Kuhner called “The Church’s Newman Problem”, which Rorate had reproduced with permission from Inside the Vatican: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-churchs-newman-problem-article-by.html. He compares the post-Conciliar liturgical reform to the Via Media which St John Henry Newman as an Anglican sought and failed to find in the Church Fathers, and then rightly points out that just as Newman came to the conclusion that “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant”, “to be deep in the history of the reform is to lose much of one’s affection for the New Mass.” The recent apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi constitutes a refusal to engage with what Benedict XVI and so very many others correctly understood to be the problem of the post-Conciliar reform qua unprecedentedly violent rupture, which is the rejection, and not the fulfillment, of the will of Vatican II. We join Mr Kuhner in saying: “Sancte Joannes Henrice, ora pro nobis!”

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

I have known John since 1995, when we both attended the Summer Latin Experience of the late Fr Reginald Foster, one of the greatest and most dedicated Latinists and Latin teachers in living memory. Among his various projects, he has written a biography of Fr Foster, which is in preparation for publication, and will certainly prove to be one of the most interesting Catholic biographies of our times. His other writings on a variety of subjects are available on his Medium page and personal blog.