"I enter church to encounter God, and I leave it a theater critic."

Ok, now I'm envious. I'm struggling with a small snippet of Kant's moral philosophy in English translation, and these people are reading German originals. Don't tell me I have to add German to my list of courses necessary to be an educated person...

"I enter church to encounter God, and I leave it a theater critic.": "

Gerald Augustinus of 'The Cafeteria Is Closed,' has been reading Martin Mosebach's
The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy (Ignatius, 2006). He writes:

Reading Martin Mosebach's phenomenal book, Heresy of Formlessness, is no easy task. His language (I am reading the German original) is of the utmost quality, his imagery beautiful, his sentiment convincing. He makes the point I've been trying to make, only a thousand times more aptly. His arguments for the classic Roman rite are inaccessible to the bureaucratic of spirit. Whoever approaches liturgy with the logic of a laundry detergent ad ('Now with 30% more Scripture !') or the mindset of a Club Med animateur will never be open to the beauty of the rite before we all became Protestants, so to speak. (It is eerie to see how Protestant 'reformators' demands were fulfilled one by one in the 20th century, from Hus to Luther)

No true poet would ever choose Bugnini's product, just as no true musician would choose Haugen over Palestrina. Martin Mosebach is a poet, a novelist of the highest rank, the winner of the Georg Buechner Prize, the most important one for a novelist. His style is viewed as the non plus ultra by all the grand newspapers in the German tongue, be it the NZZ or Die Zeit.

The book Heresy of Formlessness is an unusual book for a novelist, of course. But what better than beautiful language to defend a beautiful rite.

I've never read anything like it. The title may sound a bit stern, but it's actually a labor of love. Of love and sadness. Together with Mosebach one mourns what was lost when the Church decided to do what before only Protestants had done - storm and smash the altars, smash the icons. Death by committee. Liturgy by accountant. Like letting a USCCB sub-committee compose a love letter to one's wife. Arrogance beyond imagination, to, like Mao, forsake what had been nurtured over the centuries and replace it with a potted plant. As Christopher Hitchens wrote, 'the Roman Catholic Church has never recovered from abandoning the mystifying Latin Rite'. Don't get me wrong, the 'ordinary' mass is valid, but it's like expressing one's love with the quality of a Shakespeare sonnet versus a Hallmark card

Read the entire post. Mosebach's opinions are indeed strong, but one doesn't need to agree with all of them to appreciate many or all of his points. Fr. Joseph Fessio, in his foreword to the book, wrote:

When I first read Martin Mosebach's book in German, I was extremely impressed and profoundly moved by his understanding and articulation of what has gone wrong with the postconciliar liturgical reform. After decades of the Church's establishment and even some official Church documents singing the praises of the wonderful benefits of the Novus Ordo as celebrated, here is someone who puts into words and images the malaise that is still felt by many, and most particularly by those who cherish the richness and beauty of the Church's liturgical, musical, and artistic past.

We do not concur with every particular judgment Martin Mosebach makes or every conclusion he comes to. But we believe he has eloquently expressed a genuine and profound problem at the heart of the Church's life. We hope that this book will contribute to the new 'liturgical movement' that Cardinal Ratzinger called for in his own liturgical magna carta, The Spirit of the Liturgy.

• Read an excerpt from The Heresy of Formlessness: 'Does Christianity Need A Liturgy?'

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(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)