Dear Friend of the Saint Gregory Society,
The Society of Saint Hugh of Cluny, recently founded in Greenwich in
response to the Motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum,” is sponsoring a
visit to the United States of the highly acclaimed German author
Martin Mosebach, one of the most eminent and outspoken supporters of
the traditional Latin Mass in the world today. He will give
presentations in New Haven, New Canaan, and New York City on
successive evenings starting Friday September 7th. Our friends at the
SSHC have kindly asked us to help host the New Haven event. This will
take place at 7:30pm in the hall underneath St. Mary’s Church
(Hillhouse Avenue). Mr. Mosebach will read from his book “The Heresy
of Formlessness” and respond to questions and comments from the
audience. He will be introduced by the noted Catholic liturgical
scholar Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, recently appointed to the Pontifical
Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church in the Vatican.
All are encouraged to attend. A free will offering will be taken up
afterward to defray expenses.
If you have not yet heard about Mr. Mosebach or his important book,
then it is hoped that the following historical and biographical notes
will suffice to stimulate your curiosity. For now, please mark the
date in your calendar and start spreading the word! Further details
will be forthcoming in the brief reminders to be published over the
next few weeks in this email bulletin.
PLEASE NOTE THE UNUSUAL TIME AND PLACE FOR THIS EVENT.
—
Those of you who are old enough may remember the so-called “Agatha
Christie Indult” of 1971, which preserved the traditional Mass in a
few corners of England and Wales up to the present day. The stimulus
that led Pope Paul VI to grant this concession to Cardinal Heenan was
a petition signed by a number of distinguished British writers,
artists, and scholars of widely divergent political and religious
backgrounds, who pleaded in unison for the survival of a form of Mass
they deemed an immovable fixture of “universal culture” akin to all
the great Christian basilicas and cathedrals. Among the signatories
were such famous names as the writers Agatha Christie, Graham Greene,
and Iris Murdoch (yes, it’s true!), and the musicians Vladimir
Ashkenazy, Yehudi Menuhin, and Joan Sutherland. A similar but
ultimately fruitless petition in 1966 was signed by W. H. Auden, Jorge
Luis Borges, and Evelyn Waugh, among others. We all know what happened
next, and it is easy to imagine how the sweeping triumph of the new
liturgy and the virtual banishment of “what earlier generations held
as sacred” must have dispirited these “secular champions” of the
excellence of the traditional Mass. In any event, not long after the
publication of the Missal of Pope Paul VI, it seemed as if these
authoritative voices of world culture had fallen silent. For the
better part of forty years, those attached to the venerable liturgical
traditions of our faith have persevered without the support of such
friends. God willing, this time is now behind us.
Martin Mosebach is a German and an accomplished author, and thus a
legitimate inheritor of the mantle of the aforementioned European
cultural authorities. Born in Frankfurt in 1951, he ceased the
practice of his faith in his youth, took up the study of law, and
eventually left this field to devote himself to literature. He has
published novels, stories, and collections of poems, and written film
scripts, opera libretti, and theater and radio plays. Somewhere along
the way, in his twenties, he started to return to the Church. What
prompted this was his rediscovery of the traditional Mass. Mr.
Mosebach has won basically every major literary prize in his native
land, culminating in his reception of this year’s Georg Buechner
prize, a kind of “local Nobel” in the Germanphone world recognizing
lifetime achievement in the field of literature. The judges for this
award commended him for “combining stylistic splendour with original
storytelling that demonstrates a humorous awareness of history.”
Recently, Mr. Mosebach put out a nonfiction book that has been
translated and published in this country by Ignatius Press, under the
title “The Heresy of Formlessness.” Already in its seventh reprinting
in Germany, this book is a collection of essays on the Roman Catholic
Mass and its reform after the Second Vatican Council. It deals with
the relationship of the Church’s liturgy to faith, culture, and art,
and does so with the perceptiveness and imagination of a true artist,
and from the perspective of a faithful layman rather than that of a
theologian or technical specialist. As such, it should appeal to many
Catholics, as well as to a broad spectrum of people who are interested
in the role of religion in contemporary culture. While some of the
essays make critical points, the criticism remains always at the level
of respectful, reasoned argument. What comes through clearly is Mr.
Mosebach’s deep love for the Church and her worship, a love which,
moreover, is grounded in his wide knowledge of the Catholic tradition.
Some commentators have gone so far as to say that “The Heresy of
Formlessness” is one of the best defenses of the traditional Mass ever
written. With the recent Motu proprio in mind, it is hoped that these
reflections can help guide us all as we strive to deepen our
understanding of the principle enunciated by Pope Benedict in his
letter to the bishops: “what earlier generations held as sacred,
remains sacred and great for us too.”
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The Saint Gregory Society
P. O. Box 891
New Haven, CT 06504
Telephone: (203) 624-2751
On the web: http://www.saint-gregory.org/
