Both are wrong. . .

I came across a quote that could very well fit the Missouri Synod.  It is about the Roman Catholic Church and the liturgical changes post-Vatican II but it could just as well as been about the Missouri Synod and their Lutheran views of the liturgical movement and its impact upon us.  Some claim the [Roman] Catholic Church effectively ended in 1962. Others act like the [Roman] Catholic Church didn’t begin until 1962. There it is in a nutshell.  The impact of the liturgical movement in both churches has been either blamed or credited with more than its share of the reason why you think things are worse or better than they were.  It is a convenient straw man for both communions.

It is possible for the Novus Ordo to be celebrated in a reverent manner that both honors its predecessor and accomplishes some of the goals and purpose for a liturgical renewal envisioned by the canons of Vatican II.  That happens all the time and many parishes and priests should receive the credit for doing just that week after week.  It was not simply the change to the mass that caused Rome's problems and that may not have been even a primary factor.  Instead, the liturgical abberations that have plagued Rome are inventions neither contemplated nor called for by the framers of Vatican II.  Furthermore, you cannot simply blame the language or reverence of the mass for the decline in mass attendance, the decline in priestly ordinations, and the gulf between what Rome teaches and Roman Catholics in the pews believe.  A pretty big component here has got to be the cultural and familial changes in American society and ultimately the failure of catechesis.  That does not mean to let off the hook the leadership failures in Rome that have climaxed in the confusion surrounding Pope Benedict's resignation and Pope Francis' exercise of the office.

Many in Missouri seem to feel the same way about The Lutheran Hymnal as Roman traditionals feel about the Latin Mass and equate the decline of Missouri with liturgical experimentation and change in the same way.  It is a convenient target but hardly the real reason behind our own failings as a church body.  We also suffered with the decline of the family (in size alone!) and the growing gulf between what we say we believe and what the folks in the pews actually believe.  It is also a crisis of catechesis and of leadership (here thinking the debacle in Missouri which happened long before the actual explosion of a seminary).  We did not have our hands on the tiller as we should and Missouri woke up one morning to find out we did not know what our seminaries were teaching but we at least knew it was a change from what had been taught.  We need a bit of honesty here.

Not to mention the fact that the liturgical movement for Missouri has brought great blessings.  One of the most important is the restoration of a more intentionally sacramental piety and practice.  We have the Eucharist more often now than ever in our history!  We see baptisms on Sunday morning more than we ever did in the past.  We talk more about private confession than we ever did in the decades and centuries prior to the liturgical movement.  If you want to blame the liturgical movement for the problems, at least you must begrudgingly admit those blessings.  Christianity lost its way in a maze of issues led by a lack of catechesis and it was this that allowed both liturgical aberration and accommodation to the culture at the expense of the integrity of the faith.  Rome could have kept the Vetus Ordo and Missouri her page 15 and all that went wrong would have still gone wrong.  It was our fault and not simply the fault of our rites.  While it is certainly true that we are our rites, we are not only our rites.