New Defenders of the Old Mass

While the Roman Church undergoes its agonies of self-reappraisal, it is left largely to outsiders to point to the effect of this ecclesiastical revolution on the general cultural fabric of the West. Shrill theological controversies among the devout have hitherto obscured the fact that, in the secular sphere, something once taken for granted as a central point of reference in all the arts will disappear before the end of the year; but now a group of quite untheological people have tumbled to what is going on.

From Britain a variegated selection of leaders of the intelligentsia, including such figures as Kenneth Clark, Robert Graves, F. R. Leavis, Yehudi Menuhin, William Plomer and the Poet Laureate, have joined with a few committed Roman Catholics to send a plea to the Pope that he should rescue from oblivion what they call the “Roman Catholic Mass.”

DB

About the Author

Douglas Brown

Featured Tags

While the Roman Church undergoes its agonies of self-reappraisal, it is left largely to outsiders to point to the effect of this ecclesiastical revolution on the general cultural fabric of the West. Shrill theological controversies among the devout have hitherto obscured the fact that, in the secular sphere, something once taken for granted as a central point of reference in all the arts will disappear before the end of the year; but now a group of quite untheological people have tumbled to what is going on.

From Britain a variegated selection of leaders of the intelligentsia, including such figures as Kenneth Clark, Robert Graves, F. R. Leavis, Yehudi Menuhin, William Plomer and the Poet Laureate, have joined with a few committed Roman Catholics to send a plea to the Pope that he should rescue from oblivion what they call the “Roman Catholic Mass.”