THE LATINIZATION OF WEST ROXBURY:
True, Michael
THE LATINIZATION OF WEST ROXBURY MICHAEL TRUE The way it was It was a scene right' out of Brian Moore's Catholics: in the Boston suburbs (on the Dedham-West Rox- "Latin. The...
...Roger and society in order to do what needs to be done, to deMary was the restoration of the communion rail, in centralize, and to assert some control over their liturtime for Easter Sunday celebrations...
...I wouldn't be surprised if Polanski came by this inAt a time when few people even recognize the need sight-an insight, in part, into the attitudes of middlefor liturgical experiment, for an authentic people-center- class cops-when he had to suffer through the investigaed celebration...
...But Chinanificant influence for change, we are left with few alter- town isn't it...
...After about ten rounds of Everywhere J. J. turns he finds duplicity, conspiracy and this Evelyn finally tries to have it both ways, which is evil that you just never would have thought white peo- essentially what Polanski has been trying to do too...
...interest that many Catholics felt for the New Mass when As a person who would like to see liturgical experiit first appeared (the guitars, bongos, an occasional ments flourish in a direction away from Father Keane's dialogue homily) during a time of trial-and-error in the approach, in an atmosphere of live-and-let-live, I may early 1960s...
...A sign in the community room, where coffee marble...
...My sister," Evelyn replies...
...Roger and Mary may ;seem inadequate, for any number of reasons, he Chapel and the existence of similar conservative com- will undoubtedly thrive for awhile, like the Pentecostals, munities throughout the United States suggest a move- in the midst of a dying institution...
...At the same time, of course, such congregations reAs a cradle Catholic, brought up in similar one-room ject new, quasi-progressive movements within the Church frame churches in Southwest Oklahoma, I must admit -an attitude that is, from a political point of view, less that the spirit and the actual physical structure were a attractive than the libertarian spirit they manifest in welcome relief from the standard urban New England other ways...
...Out of ignorance or laziness, the Amertion of the Tridentine rite, and two young priests re- ican hierarchy, with few exceptions, neither offers nor turn to Detroit from there this summer to strengthen encourages creative alternatives to the present situation...
...Per Order Father John Keane...
...Except in one regard, of having an affair with...
...gical life that one can find...
...My daughter," Evelyn tries now, changing her either...
...When Chinatown isn't quite a shaggy dog story, though, bethe real Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) turns up after J. J. cause it does have a punch line...
...J. J. explains that scene where J. J. tries to get the truth out of this ethos several times during the movie, but he never Evelyn, the entire film is a bunch of contradictory imcatches on that these same rules in force at the bottom pressions alternated with outbursts of sex and violence...
...In Father Keane's church, there are remfare: those fancy, ersatz cathedrals, furnished in upper nants of a military mentality in his central role as shepmiddle-class living room (two-tone ivory walls, aqua- herd to the flock and an air of the Chancery in his own marine, wall-to-wall carpet, and high gloss imitation decrees...
...Neither the Chancery nor sistence on facing the altar instead of the people, he the offices of the Pilot, the diocesan newspaper, were reads the Gospel...
...town...
...J. J. delivers the has done the job, J. J. happens to be in the middle of punches and Evelyn delivers the lines...
...They left their regular parishes day and daily, at 5 p.m., during last Lent...
...Also, there will be no Political ghost of Evelyn Waugh or Flannery O'Connor in the Discussions Downstairs...
...THE LATINIZATION OF WEST ROXBURY MICHAEL TRUE The way it was It was a scene right' out of Brian Moore's Catholics: in the Boston suburbs (on the Dedham-West Rox"Latin...
...Father Keane himself flies to Albany, to a particular group...
...These small congregations "de-church" One of the big events at the Chapel of SS...
...In spite of ton would be happy to see Father Keane (shades of his use of Latin, altar cards, and bells, and of his inFather Feeney) disappear...
...and at a time when the centers for leader- tion of his own wife's murder right there in J. J.'s home ship in liturgy (St...
...Thus far, the Chancery seems willing to let him continue-unlike another Boston experimentalMy point in emphasizing the specific details is to sug- ist at the other end of the spectrum: Sister Gloria Fitzgest the pastoral significance of the Father Keanes and gerald was forced to resign as co-chaplain at Boston their congregations-in them one finds, I think, some University's Newman House because she conducted a 26 Jluy 1974: 404 "service of Christian community" ("News and Views,," Chinamen, are usually left to their own devices...
...within a paralyzed Church, with clergy and laity almost equally illiterate liturgically, he appears alive and well, II by comparison...
...tack...
...Commonweal: 405...
...and people...
...private decorated in chinoiserie...
...Still unconvinced, J. J. slaps her around some Polanski's idea is that all of Los Angeles is a China- more, so she goes back to "My sister," and this starts town...
...Since only half the equation gets into the natives...
...A and theological questions, including the Cardinal-Arch- further letter to U.S...
...The chapel itself stayed away from Mass for several years," he said...
...tine Mass, in spite of considerable opposition and cri- In many of the matters related to his special ministicism from fellow clergy, "as long as there is one per- try, Father Keane's position appears to be well-grounded...
...Epistle, and prayers for special inespecially anxious to help me locate him, for example...
...Roger and Mary is small, white, regular attendance at the two Masses on Sunday numand recently refurbished-the painting and restoration bers over two hundred and on weekdays during Lent of a former Mennonite church done by members of about thirty-a sizable congregation in these days of the congregation...
...of society also apply at the top...
...And half of the gical practices...
...is partial to many of the older devotions, especially he receives calls asking for information about the Tri- Benediction, and-according to a sign at the front of dentine Mass every day, and each week new people the chapel-to the rosary, to novenas honoring St...
...J. J. knows because he used to work The whole movie is an attempt both to hint that Polanfor the D. A.'s office in Chinatown, where the practice ski is still a serious, original stylist and to make a comwas to look the other way and leave the Chinese to mercial hit no matter how derivative and trendy...
...exotic touch is straight out of Hawks' film, where the There's also a Doppelganger of sorts, Evelyn, who one murder scene to which Marlowe so often returns is day hires J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson), an L.A...
...As in Hawks' film, so here, we go all The plot of Roman Polanski's Chinatown is a bit like the way to the end trying to figure out whether the dame that old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on first...
...eye specializing in divorces, to nail her husband...
...Who is that girl, J. J. demands to course...
...is on the up and up, and the plot we encounter along ("Who's on first...
...pew behind...
...at Lowell Tech, will study for the priesthood next year Commonweal: 403 at the International Seminary of Pius X, in Valais, suggestions about how and why some Catholics have Switzerland...
...The The Chapel of SS...
...The scene ocan ethnic shaggy-dog story, about how the Chinese make curs when J. J. discovers Evelyn trying to skip town love, and this episodic, punch-line-less joke is a preview with the girl he originally exposed her husband for of the coming attraction...
...One member MICHAEL TRUE is an associate professor of English at Assump- of his congregation, a graduate student in chemistry tion College in Worcester, Mass...
...the network of American Clergy devoted to the Old Although Father Keane's solution to the problem of Mass...
...tivities of Holy Thursday...
...tentions and the Souls in Purgatory in English...
...He counts, for example, on the support of the Apostolic The congregation's need for a building of their own Delegate and of other Church authorities in Europe who are sympathetic to the older forms...
...the whole cycle over again...
...Frances Cabrini parish, Minneapolis...
...Whatever the case, the formulation Polanski the large Midwestern university Newman Centers...
...is named for the Blessed Virgin Mary and for an EngA former Marine and ex-professional football player, lishman, Blessed Roger Dickenson, who suffered martyrFather Keane sees his ministry as a response to a dom in 1591 when he refused to abandon the Roman specific need, and he will continue to say the Triden- Catholic rite in favor of the Anglican form...
...As you may have noticed already, unlike the know...
...Commonweal, April 26...
...It has all the appeal, in other words, of an not like the implications of his authoritarian role as experiment that is slightly suspect, the aura one heard commander-in-chief, as potentate...
...ments against him...
...ple capable of...
...Working worship in obscure and simple places...
...In returning to the Tridentine form, Father Keane There is little question that the Archdiocese of Bos- regards himself, nonetheless, as a moderate...
...Chinatown is just an inscrutable metaphor here...
...Father six reels later he does fish out of that pond a piece of John Keane is a man, in Karl Shapiro's words, whose glass which solves the murder he's spent the whole film "bearing is a school of thought,/But he is not funny and investigating...
...Many of them are "people who have Francis and the Miraculous Medal...
...All that of them...
...Since I had read almost talk about "sin and hell" or to fight for the preservanone of the newspaper and magazine accounts about tion of devotions that they regard as central to Catholichim beforehand, nor heard the many radio and tele- ism...
...When the rich dame who has hired him tries to buy 3. J. off the THE SCREEN case just as Vivian tried to buy off Marlowe, J. J. won't be bought because, like Marlowe, he's upset about being made a chump...
...The greatest threat to liturgical life in the Catho- movie, and we never see how the other half lives, lic Church is not a variety of experiments, but an absence Chinatown is just a pretty, kinky period film...
...Like wallow in their crime and corruption...
...That's right: Who's on first, What's the way is, very much in The Big Sleep's style, imposon second," etc...
...dissatisfaction among Catholics about the New Mass It is clear also that the success of SS...
...But as a response to about in cathechism classes that early Christians felt a frozen liturgy in English and a generally impersonal hiding away in the catacombs or meeting secretly for pastoral life, it does offer a human alternative...
...The communion bell . . . altar boys saying the bury line) was prompted by the general popularity of Latin responses . . . The old way...
...son who wishes to hear it...
...wants to make between the dregs of society and the John's University, Collegeville) no longer exercise sig- cream might have inspired a good movie...
...Rhode Island, and as far north as New Hampshire...
...but he But almost everyone else knows about Father Keane...
...Michael the Archangel...
...for personal and theological reasons in order to join I had called Father Keane in order to arrange to Father Keane, a man, they say, who is not afraid to speak with him before Mass...
...Their environment are not likely to have seen recently...
...But J. J. doesn't joke, this movie is not about Chinatown...
...Translation: Tridentine Mass, si...
...They look, generally, to the past as a Methodist Church) that, decades ago, broke away from more "religious" time, and are opposed to the "secular" the Big Church Downtown in order to regain a spirit practices since Vatican II (the removal of statues, of simplicity and a closer relationship between minister votive lights, and similar regalia and paraphernalia...
...In a peculiar and radical sense, they congregation stayed after the Mass which I attended openly challenge the impersonal top-down Chancery to make preparations for the elaborate, traditional fes- management...
...And after the Last the Latin Mass and by people's response from throughGospel: three Hail Marys, Hail Holy Queen, and the out the metropolitan area, as far south as Providence, prayer to St...
...The Tridentine rite, decreed in 1570, is out, exearnest efforts to effect a reconciliation with this brother cept in extraordinary circumstances, and "must be used priest and to refrain from any hasty and unkind judg- in such a way as not to be harmful to pastoral unity...
...He regards that seminary as a kind of left the Church and why, for various reasons, they contraining ground for clergy committed to the preserva- tinue to do so...
...He was ican bishops, who, in 1971, issued a mandate for the patient, explicit and candid about most of the historical adoption of the form now used in most parishes...
...And besides, I could make the Latin responses, and donuts are shared after Mass, reads: "As of SunAd Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam, without thing- day, April 7, 1974, No more Political Literature will ing...
...For the reasons I have indi- J. J. smiles at the man's mispronunciation of grass, but cated, that movement should be taken seriously...
...The skeleton in Chinatown's closet, or rather the skeleton on whose bare bones Polanski and scriptwriter Robert Towne have hung Chinatown's sagging flesh, is THE SMALL SLEEP Hawks' The Big Sleep...
...Cesar Chavez and The Old Mass has something of the fascination and Betty Friedan, no...
...The film is a 1930s melange of double- sible to follow...
...Like Father Keane, the people regard the "corrupvision programs devoted to his ministry, we dealt with tion" of the Mass as primarily the work of the Amerbasic and, for him, much-discussed matters...
...J. J. is Marlowe, Evelyn is Vivian Stearnwood, and Noah Cross (John Huston) is a malevolent version of Vivian's eccentric father...
...John J. Keane, a priest of the Boston archdiocese, has The members of the congregation whom I spoke with said Mass in Latin, according to the rite prescribed by expressed general dissatisfaction with the "new" Mass, the Council of Trent (hence Tridentine) every Sun- in English or in Latin...
...bishops on May 19, 1973, singled bishop's statement in the diocesan newspaper, asking out the Missal of Pope Paul VI as the only approved the faithful, "both clergy and laity, to assist me in my text...
...He speaks to a real audience, and N.Y., each week to say a Tridentine Mass for a group he is more than willing to commit himself generously there, and his congregation stays in touch with groups in time, energy and imagination to keep a community such as the Society for the Preservation of the Mass, of people together: to perform the corporal and spiritual in nearby Somerville, Mass., and others in Connecticut, works of mercy in a way that people in a large urban Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York City...
...His basic theological position is that the New Mass plays group is not unlike those small, evangelical congregadown any references to Jesus as God and to the Blessed tions (the Second Baptist Church, the Pleasant Street Virgin Mary...
...Even using a Chinese motif to add an talk, double-crosses, double dealing and double trouble...
...ment within the Catholic Church that has theological As he has clearly pointed out, Father Keane ministers implications...
...One expected to turn around and see the happy be allowed on the tables...
...Rich WASPs, like poor COLIN L. WESTERBECK, JR...
...join the group...
...the Chinese subculture contributes is the double talk, In the drab Catholic landscape, a commitment to a as when Evelyn's Chinese gardener observes that the revival of the old forms may be the surest sign of litur- water in her husband's backyard pond is "bad for glass...
...not unimportant...
...Here, since October 11, 1973, Father declining membership and fewer weekly communicants...
...But then that believe that and starts slapping her around to get at the Abbott and Costello routine isn't really about baseball truth...
Vol. 100 • July 1974 • No. 17
