The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
(WB Yeats, "The Second Coming")
I have a daily regimen of Catholic commentary and news sources. Many of the authors refer to the Church as a segmented entity. Descriptions commonly refer to "right," 'left," and a sort of hallowed "middle ground" to which all truth and right practices gravitate.
Recently, I even read a statement which implied that there is no truth outside of the middle ground, that "right" and "left" represent a false distinction and should more correctly be considered as degrees of rejection of the true Faith.
A brief survey comparing the Catholic Church before and after the Second Vatican Council reveals a sea change, in general, but most significantly, a change that profoundly affected all of Catholic life because it was the "summit of Catholic life": A change in the way Catholics prayed after the promulgation of the "New Order," the "Novus Ordo," the Mass of Pope Paul VI.
Never in the history of the Church was there such clear evidence of a rejection by so many of so much of what had been handed down from generation to generation. Never in the history of the Church had the liturgy undergone such dramatic and confusing changes, all for the sake of "...proclaiming the noble destiny of man and championing the Godlike seed which has been sown in him...." (Gaudium et spes, 1965) through the rally cries of ecumenism and actual participation.
What I am going to consider, though, is the concept of "middle ground," because it is that which carries the "false distinction."
A half-century of introducing experimentation, innovation, and novelty into the lifeblood of the Church —the liturgy— has resulted in a Catholic population buying into sophistry: that which most Catholics do is orthodox because that's what most Catholics do.
Here again, the problem with the liturgy must be acknowledged. Over the last half-century, what most Catholics do when it comes to praying the Mass is to engage in a creation-by-committee that, at its heart, was constructed to carry out the pastoral constitution of Vatican II: Proclaim the noble destiny of Man by focusing on Man.
This approach, or orientation, is diametrically opposed to the description offered by Jesus and offered in the text of the Mass, itself: Proclaim His death and resurrection, and that He will come again, the focus being on God.
So, where is the "middle ground" between "proclaiming the nobility of Man" and proclaiming (through commemoration) the death, resurrection, and the assurance that Christ will come again?
How can the "centre...hold" between a theocentric path revealed, initially by Our Lord and by the Holy Spirit through time, on the one hand, and a human-centric course ordered to constant adaptation to cultural and generational trends, on the other? The answer is "...the centre cannot hold" when the "...falcon cannot hear the falconer."
Catholics are not called to live on and defend some indeterminable, ever changing middle ground based on popular opinion or mistaken understanding of authentic organic development. In fact, such a place is more fittingly referred to as a "no man's land...an indeterminate or undefined place or state," or, historically, "a dumping ground between two fiefdoms."*
While there will always be contention among theologians as part of the organic development of Tradition and liturgy, in any given moment of history "the Summit of Catholic life" can not exist as a kind of "dumping ground" and to defend such a place is the vanity of idealogues. Instead, we are called to seek and defend the high ground according to our state in life and the talents given us.
The Holy Spirit, through time and generations of saints and faithful Catholics, has shown us the high ground, defended always, everywhere, and by all.
*definitions for 'no man's land' from wikipedia and Google
