"conservatism is liberalism in slow motion"

My title is actually a quote from a Peter Kwasniewski article entitled: Why Conservatism Is Part of the Problem, Not Part of the Solution.

In less words than I have been able to muster to date to the project, the Professor discredits conservatism (a stance generally accepted in polite Catholic society in the United States and elsewhere) as no more than a weak-kneed form of liberalism. I recommend the article highly. It might do for you what a too slow process has done for me over the past fifteen years.

One of my back-burner thoughts these days has been just how do you win people for the tradition. If I had to fault Kwasniewski on anything it would be for the perhaps unintended insinuation that anybody is conservative by choice. It's not that he says it in so many words. The reality is quite different among most Catholics who hold desperately to the status quo for lack of imaginable options. Most folks, including priests and bishops, do not know where to turn, and "back to the future" hardly seems reasonable or realistic to them. The old wine is better, if you will, no interest in the new wine of the tradition.

Two years ago, a fine young man, a friend, asked me why a colleague of his packed his family up every Sunday from Bern to go to Fribourg (20 minutes by train) to assist at Mass in the Basilica according to the Vetus Ordo. Odd ball that I am, I responded, perhaps because the man doesn't want any surprises for himself and his family on Sunday morning. To this my friend responded with comprehension, given the indignities he himself had to suffer as an adult man here on many occasions at the one Novus Ordo Mass in the center of Bern. His comprehension registered as no more than resignation however, as if there was nothing to be done in the matter. Venturing out on new horizons toward the tradition somehow does not seem properly Catholic; it's kind of radical, if you will. What to do?

Good people tell me they are grateful for my support of the tradition and my readiness to celebrate the Vetus Ordo in public. I wish I could do more. Beauty and order are their own best defense and a positive argument in favor of liturgical restoration. The point is, however, that liturgical restoration must be seen as the cornerstone of an edifice including lots more building blocks. As we see from the present crisis in the Church (sex abuse, abuse of office, and on and on), what is needed is a return to virtuous living and a genuinely penitential lifestyle, nourished also and always by personal prayer.

The blind beggar Bartimaeus, when he discovered Jesus was calling him, threw aside his mantle, jumped up and ran in the direction of the voice of the Master. Would that I, would that we would do the same, allowing the Lord then to initiate the dialogue leading to sight!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI