Roma locuta est

It was A. Pope- as in Alexander Pope- who once said: "It is with small souled people as it is with narrow necked bottles: the less that is in them, the more noise it makes coming out." I thought of this all this last week after the Pope altered the Extraordinary Form of Good Friday prayer for the Jews. In blog after blog- too many to list or link to here- and in combox after combox I have read one after another of people sounding off on how much they hate this prayer. The radtrads are upset because it was changed, the left because it wasn't changed enough. People are outraged, dismayed, they are venting their opinions and in some cases trying to get together a consensus to lobby for a change- as it their opinions matter.

They don't. As Catholics we are called to be faithful, not opinionated. We follow the Church's lead in faith and hope.

As bloggers we sometimes forget that and we sometimes go too far. I have been dismayed in recent weeks at the growing arrogance of many bloggers who push their form of Catholicism, at the expense of everything else. Many disagree with the Church freely and often. Voicing our opinions and having people write that they agree with us is a heady experience, and it can lead us to believe in our own intelligence, our own rightness, even our own infallibility. It's an illusion. People agreeing with us is a sign that people agree with us, nothing more.

In the matter at hand- there is an old formula that I quoted in the title: Roma locuta est: causa finita est. Rome has spoken: the case is closed. It is part of the Mass now. It is not our duty to agree or disagree with that. It is our duty to pray as our Church directs us.