The Explorers Club
№ CCLVIII - Lionel Crabb (1909-1956?), frogman extraordinaire, & the Crabb Affair.







Urbi et Orbi
Adjusting to the new Roman Missal, Third Edition is a curious experience. I support the new translations, meant to make the English more accurately reflect the Mass's original Latin—& thus the Mass's original intent—, viewing them as a tacit acknowledgement of what we all intuit, viz. that the Vatican II reforms went too far. The wrinkle is that the changes are to the parts of the Mass that every Catholic knows by rote, & overcoming decades of memorization is difficult. A complicating factor is that the last two Sundays' Masses have each involved a baptism, which takes the place of the Nicene Creed, depriving us of two more chances to practice the revised wording of the Creed. The most frequent change is the following common exchange:

Old version:
Priest: "The Lord be with you."
Parish: "And also with you."

New version:
Priest: "Th Lord be with you."
Parish: "And with your spirit."

My mother notes that "and with your spirit" seems to her much closer to the Latin of her youth, "et cum spiritu tuo," which is awesome, but that doesn't make the changeover any easier. It took the congregation three tries to get it right today at the end of Mass. Father Steve said, "The Lord be with you," & most of us—but not your humble narrator—replied, "And also with you." He paused & didn't correct us, but gave us a kindly look & said, "The Lord be with you." This time, a far larger number said, "And with your spirit," but a great many again said, "And also with you." Here Father Steve reminded us of the new wording & said again, "The Lord be with you." This time, "And with your spirit" rang out in the unanimity that is such a hallmark of the Mass. This is going to take some time to get right.

I can only imagine what it was like switching from the Latin to the vernacular in the mid-'60s after the Second Vatican Council. I would never have turned my back on the Holy See like those heretical bastards in the "Traditionalist Catholic" movement, but I would not have reacted well to the change. There would have been many dark mutterings under my breath, but I would have fallen in line in time; after all, who am I to oppose Holy Mother Church? (Hey, "Traditionalists," rejecting the ecclesiastical authority of His Holiness the Bishop of Rome is rather the operational definition of Protestant, so kindly stop calling yourselves "Catholic," because you aren't anything of the sort. Christians most assuredly, members of the catholic Church Militant, but not Catholics.)

The entirety of the latest issue of Faith magazine, published by the Diocese of Lansing, is devoted to the new Roman Missal; I hope to make the time to read what's been put on offer.

Atlanticism
The third… fourth… fifth… nth time's the charm! This time the governments of Europe will take the "decisive & effective" action needed finally to solve the rolling, roiling European debt crisis: euro-a-go-go-link. There is concern in Euroskeptic circles that this crisis will be seized upon as an opportunity to once again expand the E.U.'s transnational powers at the expense of the powers of the twenty-seven constituent E.U. member nation-states. I regard this concern as well-founded, while still disagreeing with the skeptics' premise of inveterate opposition to European integration. Liberal democracy is fun because finding & maintaining the proper balance is a constant struggle! Tyranny is easier, but vastly more unpleasant. But I digress. Let us hope the prime ministers & presidents & chancellors, & ministers of finance & Presidents of the E.U.'s byzantine institutions & chancellors of the exchequer, are able this time to restore confidence to the timorous markets, lest fear spread like wildfire & drag us into a repeat, small-scale or otherwise, of the Panic of '08. Cross your fingers & keep smiling.

Elsewhere in Europe (Switzerland being one of only two nations in Western, Central, & Northern Europe not to belong to the European Union, Norway being the other), the single-issue Swiss People's Party's (S.V.P.) share of the vote has fallen: Swiss-link. The S.V.P. remains the largest single party in the Parliament, & should retain both its seats on Switzerland's weird, consensus-driven Federal Council, but it's taken a step back after recent successes in referenda. While I wholeheartedly agree that the consent of the body politic* is the only legitimate basis for any polity, the Swiss ban on minaret construction—an appalling violation of what should be the universally inalienable right to freedom of worship—is a sobering illustration of the need to constrain the in-the-moment will of the mob within carefully considered constitutional limits. (I freely admit that my bias toward written, codified constitutions is influenced by my patriotism & reverence for the U.S. Constitution, but I maintain that this in no way discredits my arguments.) The S.V.P. is not evil, & it has every right to argue for radical change to Switzerland's immigration laws, but it would do well to be more conciliatory in its rhetoric & less single-minded in its program. Now, how do we go about getting the distasteful minaret-construction ban repealed?

*I attempt to avoid the words "the people," since so many tiny slices of the populace attempt to justify themselves as speaking for "the people." In my estimation, "body politic" encompasses all the people whilst sidestepping the minefield of "the people."