Our good friend and unmissable liturgical scholar, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, has produced yet another masterwork on the subject of the Classical Roman Rite. Entitled Turned Around (TAN Books, 2024), the subtitle reads: Replying to Common Objections Against the Traditional Latin Mass.
Despite our disordered times, God has given us a light. The author, Dr. Peter K, is a beacon of hope and the light is the Traditional Latin Mass. This is a work of outstanding achievement that adds to Peter's already formidable corpus of works on the subject of sacred liturgy and the Roman Rite.
In this latest work he seeks with clarity and a spirit of politeness to respond to common objections (criticisms and corresponding feelings of contempt) against the perennial Roman Rite, aka the Traditional Latin Mass.
Since its recent publication, this insightful book has been given much critical praise from various camps as many people are indeed learning, unlearning, or re-learning the truth, breaking barriers and bringing many countless people to a new understanding and appreciation of the Classical Rite.
Although we live in a time of decided liturgical renaissance and restoration of the sacred, we also live in an age of unprecedented liturgical abuse that continues to foment confusion and disobedience. Most readers are familiar with common objections to the Traditional Rite. With clarity and in everyday language, the author catalogues them in a succinct order and responds in undaunted clarity of language.
The book also gives people the chance to hear from a true theologian who has dedicated years of study to these important and oft ignored themes in question. The bibliography alone highlights the vast storehouse of thought and debate. As the author points out, learning about the Traditional Mass involves a "treasury" that is vast and intricate and takes time and even a lifetime to digest. I have no doubt the benefits will be made clear by all who read the book.
Below is a sample of the contents, highlighting the author's creative "why" title of each chapter with its corresponding colloquial objections.
1. Why We Worship Facing East
"The priest has his back to me. I can't engage with him."
2. Why the Priest Is Separated from the People
"At Mass, the priest is doing everything and I'm just watching him."
3. Why the Traditional Mass in Kingly and Courtly
"It's all fancy, like a royal court. It doesn't fit with a democratic society like ours."
4. Why We Follow Inherited Rituals and Strict Rubrics
"Everything's scripted and regimented - no room for spontaneity or adaption."
5. Why We Repeat Ourselves in Traditional Worship
"There's so much repetition. Do we have to say things three times or more?"
6. Why We Use a One-Year Lectionary of Readings
"We read a lot more of the Bible in the Novus Ordo, so it's clearly better."
7. Why We Pray in Latin
"The Mass is in a foreign language. I can't follow it."
8. Why It Is Better Not to Understand Everything Immediately
"The new Mass is clear, easy, accessible. The old Mass is obscure and demanding."
9. Why We Kneel for Communion and Receive on the Tongue
"No posture is better or worse than another if your heart is in the right place."
10. The Mass Is the Faith and the Faith Is the Mass
"Why are you people always going on about 'the TLM this' and 'the TLM that'?"
As a side note, one of the interesting things I have personally noticed about the Latin Mass movement is how many converts are involved. Many have found a refuge in the TLM, after years in non-Catholic or anti-Catholic ecclesial communities. For many, no explanation is necessary. They grasp with faith the traditions of the Church. For others, a more nuanced explanation is helpful -- often these others are fellow Catholics or members of the baby boomer generation of that infamous summer of revolution: 1968.
With some objections to the Traditional Latin Mass, there is a kernel of truth, but not the whole truth. The author points out with clarity and some humor the why and what the Church really intends to teach on these subjects. To the objection that "the priest has his back to me. I can't engage with him," the author replies: "Yes, he does, and no, you can't - that's exactly how it should be, and here's why."
The book offers many other insights. One section I found particularly interesting is entitled "Non-Verbal Communication" (p. 195). The insights here sound to me particularly fascinating, indicating the importance of small and non-verbal details in worship.
Below is short sample from the first paragraph, giving keen insight into a faint detail of worship that is not always considered: non-verbal communication and its value. Indeed, changing the posture of prayer in the 1960s had catastrophic consequences on the Catholic psyche of the West, proven with generational effects.
The author writes thus:
"The traditional Roman liturgy - and this is true of any of Christianity's organically-developed apostolic rites - recognizes a truth on which psychologists never tire of discoursing: human beings primarily communicate non-verbally. As a matter of fact, we are never not communicating something, even if we are not talking or have no intention of conveying a meaning. Orderliness and deferentially speak volumes, just as carelessness and casualness do. A liturgy, like any human ceremony, is constancy communicating through every word, stance, gesture, position, action, and silence. The old liturgy, by harnessing and regulating these things in a harmonious way to bring out their full interactive meaning, is more communicative; in that sense, it proffers more to access, and in more ways. The reformed liturgy, by eliminating traditional non-verbal language and then leaving so much to chance and idiosyncrasy, thins the content and its delivery, while mingling it with extraneous and contradictory matter."
Lastly, the book is peppered with interesting quotes from other fonts of wisdom and insight, as well as true life testimonials and stories with antidotes. One wonders if things would have been different if the liturgical reformers (and outright revolutionaries) could have read this book in about the year 1962. We must not be afraid to assert boldly that it is good and fitting and optimal to heed the traditions of the Church, especially when it involves the sensitive question of how people pray.
I thank the author for his scholarly leadership and I heartily recommend readers to purchase a copy at their convenience from your trusted Catholic book publisher, TAN Books.
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