Parsing an Editorial

Or at least a sentence from one.

Courtesy of The Suppository (The Tablet which is a pain in the backside):

"It is already present in some seminaries, where a proportion of young men studying for the priesthood seem particularly attracted to a backwards-looking style of Catholicism that was familiar in the novels of Evelyn Waugh."

Now, if this means anything, it means that Catholicsm in the novels of Evelyn Waugh is backwards-looking. The Catholicsm described in Waugh's novels is, given that they were all written before Vatican II, Tridentine. If, therefore, they are backwards-looking, they look to the period before Trent, perhaps as far back as the time of the Fathers.

Perhaps this is what Waugh was describing when he wrote:

"The Mystical Body doesn't strike attitudes and stand on its dignity. It accepts suffering and injustice. It is ready to forgive at the first sign of compunction."

Not described here are the Tridentine certainties of Bishops who feel that their Headship of a Local Church gives them an absolute dictatorship, but rather the paternal love of a solicitous father.

Do we think that the anonymous editorialist was thinking about that when she wrote it? (Can the word "thinking" be used about the supremely silly act of name-calling?) Probably not. She was probably thinking vaguely about the TV adaptation of Brideshead.

Is a proportion of young men studying for the priesthood particularly attracted to a backwards-looking style of Catholicism that was familiar in the novels of Evelyn Waugh? I have no idea, but I have my hopes.