Traditional Catholicism nostalgia

The Tridentine Mass

There is a movement within the Catholic Church that really believes that the reforms of Vatican II were inspired by Satan himself. They miss the Latin mass and the old liturgy. They miss the Golden Age of Catholicism in America, the two post war decades.

How can I forget the TV eyes of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen?

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

I myself recall the Sunday masses at St. Paul's Church in the 1950s and early 60s. Pop always arrived about 10 minutes late to 11 o'clock mass- with at least five of his nine kids. There was standing room only back then at the late Sunday morning mass.

Any sensitive kid quickly absorbed the whole mesmerizing mystique of Roman Catholicism by the time of his First Communion. All those Baltimore Catechism images of  Hell Fire,and Purgatory, and Christ on the Cross; and  Christ Resurrected, and guardian angels, Holy water, the Last Judgment; Our Lady of Fatima, Pray the Rosary; Holy God We Praise Thy Name; Lazarus raised from the dead; the Pope blessing the multitudes of the faithful in St. Peter's Square; the dreaded confessional on Saturday; "Bless me father for I have sinned", Extreme Unction, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; Tuna fish sandwiches on Friday; Happy Easter baskets; Catholic school uniforms; St.Jude medals and St. Christopher medals; Holy candles glowing in a dark room before statue of St. Anthony in a glass dome; plastic, greenish-yellow glow in the dark Jesus statuettes. Finding a rosary in Pop's suit jacket, a solace for the father of nine. Father Halloran visiting and blessing our California Ave. house. Pop reading "The Cardinal" and a biography of Padre Pio. Grandma taking my brother Ricky and I to early summer morning mass at Holy Ghost Church on Federal Hill. Grandma at night reading her Italian Missal on the second floor of 62 Gesler St. And little pamphlets on the kitchen table: "Give to the Missions" on the cover.

Richard Cardinal Cushing at
JFK's Funeral in 1963

The pure sensuousness of the spiritual and
the mystical. The Catholic funeral mass of JFK in late November 1963. The melancholy, Boston Irish voice of his friend, Richard Cardinal Cushing.

One day in 1968 on the cover of Time Magazine: "IS GOD DEAD? " Nothing can bring back the pre-Vatican II Church. From a purely psychological point of view I think it was an error to end the beautiful Latin liturgy. The language of the Roman Empire was the tie that binded Catholics together for centuries. I still study Latin, now and then browsing  St. Augustine's "City of God." That God intoxicated saint! Only an Age of Faith could have produced an Augustine or a Thomas Aquinas.

Today the only way for me to get the FEELING of old time Catholicism is listening to unchanged Gregorian Chant or the solemn high masses of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. I don't ask anymore how TRUE is a mere FEELING, or unconscious longing for the Eternal and the Absolute. A hint of cosmic GOODNESS.

I do believe very much in modern science. But is that all there is? Is that ALL there is? I'll get the song on You Tube. Sung just right by Peggy Lee.

       

          

Post in last edition of Providence Phoenix on " Buddy Unbroken "

I recall that I had one letter published in the Providence Phoenix not long after my beloved Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci was sent to federal prison. I did not think "Buddy" should have been found GUILTY at all.

In this October 1998 file photo, Mayor Vincent
"Buddy" Cianci Jr., poses: (Matt York/AP)

According to the ruling, he was guilty in general of corruption, but not guilty of any crime in particular. A pernicious law that could get any rebel sent to prison who infuriates the local ruling class. An old dialectical law: the truth is always concrete. Only God should pass judgment on a "corrupt soul."

In the letter I expressed hope that Cianci would not be broken by prison. Today I caught a glimpse of him on "Meet the Press," Buddy Unbroken !

Buddy Cianci on "Meet the Press" 2014

Letter in Providence Phoenix on "Buddy" Cianci ( 2003)

Letter published April 17-24, 2003:  I am not a fan or defender of the now imprisoned ex-mayor of Providence, Vincent "Buddy" Cianci. But I did not want him to languish in prison.

What happens to any man's soul in prison is always of great human interest. I'll bet many readers might enjoy a monthly LETTER FROM BUDDY. What does he think about late at night, all alone in very un-regal surroundings. What does he read?

I do miss his color and flamboyance. But how quickly prison can break a man. "Know thyself" advises the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. What has Buddy discovered in prison about the real Buddy? Any spiritual growth here? A penny for your thoughts, Buddy.

EDITORS NOTE under "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", Phillipe & Jorge  .... "Double No Soul on Ice."
"Your superior correspondents received this missive from letter -to-the editor maven Ronald Ruggieri, a regular in the letters sections in a variety of periodicals hereabouts."

Your job can shape your politics

It is easy enough to see how a person's job -especially a profession- can shape social class loyalties. We completely take the division of labor for granted and seldom think how it also shapes consciousness in general.

Is a young priest or minister free to re-think the existence of God after he is ordained ? Can a young banker suddenly begin to think in very unorthodox ways about the nature of money ? Can a young American military officer salute the flag every day and suddenly start questioning U.S. imperialism ? Can a young public school teacher suddenly start thinking that public education is mostly brainwashing ? Can an apprentice mortician suddenly start thinking of the funeral industry as a grotesque racket ? Can a young medical doctor opening an office suddenly start thinking more freely about non-profit medicine ?  Not so stupid was the rebellious 60s slogan: "Don't trust anyone over 30".

As if somehow normal "maturity" must preclude any bold idealism and thinking. I recall the young psychiatrist, Robert Lindner, formulating the 11th Commandment of American society in the 1950s (and today still): "Thou Shalt Conform". Lindner's book "Rebel Without A Cause" was the source of the famous movie starring James Dean. Almost all of us get stuck in ruts and this warps our thinking. The only way out for many of us is booze and drugs-and perhaps wife-beating on Superbowl Sunday.

I made it my business to read just one chapter of "Rough Justice" by David Heilbroner: "An Unsentimental Education". It describes his early days as a young prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. A grim experience with crude social realities  often changes young Ivy League lawyers. Many of them start to think like the cops on the street. The world of crime and punishment is hostile to all academic theory:

 "Scott said he was already worried about becoming too hardened by the job ". This lawyer friend of the author was shocked by another colleague who was " practically a Marxist... before he came here ", talking about private property as a form of theft ( "which didn't go over too well with some of our professors.") In court this young Lenin ( who was also a lawyer ) showed how much he had changed. He was just brutal with a pathetic low-life shoplifter : "Your Honor, the People recommend thirty days in jail "

I suspect that Young Lenin quickly associated EVIL with all those accused of a crime in the august halls of justice.  Evil were all the scumbags the cops and the prosecutors had to deal with everyday. Divine all the prosecutors and the Just Judges.  Divine also were those oh-so -respectable ruling class clients. No, MONEY doesn't smell like the creeps in the jail cell.

In a like manner many once idealistic social workers begin to loathe the pathetic " losers " who walk into their dreary buildings that mock human dignity. They too begin to identify not with the oppressed " losers " but with all the successful people, especially the visibly wealthy.

But life is tricky. I worked for a year in a very blue collar job with a guy who imagined he was being groomed for management.He had a nagging wife always calling him at the office and a sickly young daughter ( no doubt a driving force for his ambition ). He was elated about taking a seminar in "firing people" -of all things!  The seminar taught him not to get soft-hearted about firing employees. Show you have the RIGHT STUFF and escort the bums right out the company door. I explained to him that I was just not ambitious enough for his job, lacking the RIGHT STUFF. Well, it turned out that this stressed out married man had a serious cocaine habit. He was caught and busted in a downtown Providence hotel room ( he had borrowed one hundred dollars from me just before payday ). Poor guy - HE was immediately fired from his promising job. I wonder if he finally began to identify with our society's "losers."

 If you want to think freely about life, you must live very much like old Socrates in ancient Athens. They say he cared nothing for material things. "Know thyself", he insisted. Who can find their true selves in the insane work place ? Every capitalistic place of employment should have this sign on the front door : "Let all who enter here abandon all hope." (From Dante's "Inferno" )