Critiques of the "Brick by Brick" Mentality

Brick by brick. Remember that? "Brick by brick" was quite the thing during the previous pontificate. I remember one popular priest-blogger was extremely fond of the saying and kind of popularized it among traditional minded Catholics. I must confess, I haven't heard so much about "brick by brick" lately, though...

How shall we define the "brick by brick" mentality? "Brick by brick" is an interpretive paradigm used to ostensibly find positive trends in the bleak world of post-Conciliar NuChurch. It is not a particular set of principles so much as a way of looking at things, a kind of hermeneutical schema for making sense of current events in such a way that is favorable to Catholic Tradition. Essentially, though we see the forces of chaos and dissolution raging everywhere about us, we can discern a certain thread of continuity in the actions of the hierarchy and the sovereign pontiffs which should give traditionalists consolation. Yes, brick by brick acknowledges that we are in dire straits, but there is grounds for good hope because the fallen building is being slowly restored. "Bricks" are being put back into place - in the form of a decent episcopal appointment here, a promising statement friendly to tradition there; a quality snippet from a homily or document on this side, a few photos of cardinal so-and-so wearing traditional vestments on that side. These charming little nuggets are strewn out on the table and assembled to form a coherent trajectory of action that is supposed to exemplify some hidden "strategy" of the Pope and Magisterium to restore the Church to sanity. Granted, we never really hear what this strategy consists of in its entirety, but we are to confidently assume that the Princes of the Church have her best interest at heart and ever so slowly, brick by brick, the edifice is being raised up. Therefore, we can be fundamentally optimistic about the way things are going; we are certainly not there, but we are at least on the way.

This, as far as I can tell, is the crux of the "brick by brick" approach to the modern Church. It is not a terrible position to take; in fact, many priests and laity I respect tremendously see things this way. It is good to have a healthy optimism, and inasmuch as is possible, we should think well before thinking ill. Even so, optimism does not mean we shut our eyes to evident problems, and while "brick by brick" is not a not series of propositions as much as a frame of thought, as mentioned above, certain default assumptions do flow from it. I have reflected on "brick by brick" for seven years now, and it is precisely the assumptions it takes for granted that I have come to question.

Therefore, I present my five critiques of the "brick by brick" mentality.

I. MISPLACED GRADUALISM. In the first place, "brick by brick" tends to incorrectly assume that we can licitly move from evil to good along a gradualist spectrum. There are many things wrong with the Church. Duh. Some of them are just a matter of lesser goods being preferred to superior goods, like when a priest uses Eucharistic Prayer 2 instead of the Roman Canon. Many problems, however, are a matter of positive evils and abuses being preferred over any good whatsoever. In this category would be theologians clamoring for recognition of same-sex unions, bishops giving a pass to Pro-Abort politicians, lay people standing up around the altar at the consecration or lay-homilies, retreat centers promoting New Age practices with the blessing of the local bishop and so on - you know, all the abuses the existence of which probably turned most of you reading this into Traditionalists.

Now, brick by brick would not deny these things are problematic; it would, however, insist that we should be patient with these sorts of problems because this is a complicated matter and change comes slowly. The important thing is that we are moving in the right trajectory. I mean, look! The pope mentioned the devil twice in his homily. That's good news, right? And here's some beautiful photographs of an FSSP Mass is Portsmouth. Isn't that gorgeous? And lo! There is Bishop So-and-So using the Benedictine altar arrangement. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we don't want to spoil the whole thing by coming off too whiny. We should be thankful we are on the right path and give these other things time.

So, aside from the question of whether "time" will heal these wrongs (see Section II below), this approach seems to forget that while it is licit to move from a lesser good to a higher good on a gradualist spectrum, it is never licit to propose a gradualist time frame for moving from evils to goods. Evils need to stop immediately. If we truly believe in the evil of many of these abuses, anything less than an immediate cessation is unacceptable. I would rather have the New Age retreat house shut down and forego the Benedictine altar arrangement; I would rather the Pro-Abort politician be denied communion or excommunicated and forego seeing pictures of the beautiful FSSP Mass; I would gladly never read or hear another homily from the pope if we could get the progressive theologians dealt with. That would be the right way to handle this. Unfortunately, we just get token gestures while the real abuses go unchecked year after year, decade after decade.

II. TIME EQUIVALENT TO PROGRESS. Next, I cannot help but thinking that perhaps "brick by brick" assumes a modernist conception of time as equivalent with progress? That if we just allow enough time to pass, things will automatically get better? After all, the problem was not created overnight and it will not be recitifed overnight. One brick at a time, here a little, there a little. But never fear! There is a grand plan, and ultimately the Church is in the process of restoration. Just. Need. More. Time. 

But is it true that time will make true reform more feasible? I don't think that's the case. Reform is brought about by persons, persons who are connected with the Tradition of the Church. Every day that goes by without authentic reform, the gap between the present and the authentic Traditional praxis of the Church grows wider and wider. Right now the gap is about 45 years; how much demand for reform will there be when that gap is 60, 80, or 120 years? In the Anglican revolution, there was a powerful movement to return to Catholicism in the years immediately after Henry's innovations; the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 and the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 are two prime examples. But how much a demand was there to return to Catholicism in 1605? In 1689? What about in 1715? By this time, Catholicism was but a distant and despised memory and everybody had gotten used to Anglicanism. If reform does not happen soon, the Church's Tradition will be a distant historical memory. Sure, groups like the FSSP, The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest and the SSPX will keep Tradition alive - as well as the multitude of parishes that celebrate the Traditional Mass - but as more and more time elapses between the present and the era when the Tradition was universally accepted, it will have less and less relevance to new generations, just as Catholicism had very little relevance to an Englishman living around 1715.

Was there a better chance of reunion with the Protestants in 1525 or today after five centuries has elapsed?

I know us trads like to console ourselves by thinking time is on our side; the same priest who popularized brick by brick was also fond of saying that in time the "biological solution" would solve the problem of our older, liberal bishops. But is putting more time between ourselves and the pre-Conciliar era really an ultimate boon for our side? I mean, really? I'm not so sure it is. Therefore, I call into question whether or not time is on our side in this struggle.

III. TAKE IT SLOW? Brick by brick pretty much assumes that we have to take the reform slowly in order to do it right. If we don't, we could confuse people, offend people, and the whole thing could backfire on us, and that is  bad, mkay?

But who says? When did we all agree to that premise? I would simply ask, "Where was the moderation and careful approach when the original reforms were instituted after the Council?" Did the liberal reformers care about offending people or confusing the faithful when they ripped out the High Altars, removed the sacred images and relegated the Tabernacles of the world to closets? It was that quick; Friday the High Altar was there, and Monday it was gone. The 24th Sunday after Pentecost of 1970 Mass was said in the Missal of 1962; First Sunday of Advent seven days later and everyone's on the Novus Ordo. Bam. Done.

It can be objected that the quick implementation of these reforms is what caused so much mischief to begin with. Well, that's a cop-out because it dodges the question of the nature of the reforms altogether, placing blame instead on their pace. But what we all tend to forget is that the progressive reforms of the post-Conciliar era - for all the chaos they caused - were ultimately successful. The progressives wanted a horizontalized liturgy, and they got it. They wanted a democratized Church, and they got it. They wanted an end to papal centralization, and they got it. They wanted inculturation, and they got it. They got everything they wanted because they knew what they were after and were bold enough to reach out and take it.

If reforms can be brought about that quick in an errant cause, there is no reason it cannot be brought back that quickly in a righteous one. I understand that is is always easier to break down than to build up, but still...if the Magisterium were in earnest about fixing anything, it should not take forty-five years to undo the damage of ten.

Would there be disorders? Could such a swift restoration 'backfire'? Sure it could. And ultimately, there is no thoroughgoing "top-down" solution to our difficulties (see here). Yet we'd be foolish to disregard the restoration of Tradition because of fear of a hypothetical 'backfire' after Tradition is already restored. If we have to have problems either way, I'll take problems with Tradition than problems without it.

IV. DISREGARDS CONTRARY TRENDS. Suppose the tenuous connections between the positive nuggets strewn out on the table the way a person assembles a jig-saw puzzle are not completely arbitrary; suppose the brick by brickers are correct in their identification of a thread of positive movement in the modern Church. Even if this were true, the thread of positive movement is so thin, so small, and so inconsiderable compared to the massive contrary movement towards apostasy and liberalism that it is intellectually dishonest to make any claims about the trajectory of the Church as a whole based on it.

If you want to know which way traffic is moving, you judge this by the direction most cars are driving. You certainly do not look at the one or two cars here and there that are driving off the main road against the flow and make a judgment based on them. That would be not only foolish, but inaccurate. You judge direction by the trajectory of the majority. Similarly, you cannot latch on to positive developments within the tiny traditionalist community and use them to make sweeping generalizations about the Church whilst ignoring massive trends to the contrary.

V. THE TERRIFYING CRUX OF THE MATTER. Finally, what in my opinion is the strongest criticism of the brick by brick mentality is that it assumes that the Supreme Pontiffs have some 'grand plan' to restore the Church. It necessitates that we believe in some sort of supreme insight the popes have into the current crisis, some lofty vision of how to solve our current problems that we mere mortals are not privy to. Remember Benedict XVI's "Marshall Plan" for restoring the Church? Remember how we were supposed to find coherence in the gibberish of our current Holy Father by "reading Francis through Benedict"?

This is really the terrifying crux of the matter - my dear friends, believe me, there is no plan. There never was a plan. John Paul II did not have a plan. Benedict XVI did not have a plan. Francis sure as hell does not have a plan.

Did JP2 and BXVI occasionally do wonderful things? Of course. Does Francis occasionally say something orthodox? I admit it seems to have happened. But to the extent that John Paul or Benedict or even Paul VI made some truly good moves, it was absolutely not because they had some sort of "master plan" of how to fix the crisis; rather, the opposite was in fact true. Have you ever noticed that the good things about JPII and BXVI were always erratic and mixed in with many negatives as well? In the past I have called John Paul II a "mixed bag"; all the post-Vatican II popes have been mixed bags. This is because John Paul II and Benedict were sincerely conflicted men, torn between a strong, pious pre-Conciliar tradition they cherished nostalgically, but also committed intellectually to the post-Vatican II reforms.

After the Council, when the Church was in free-fall, neither pontiff really knew what to do. They had no plan to solve the crisis they both helped create. Neither seemed to be able to reconcile their pre-Conciliar formation with their post-Conciliar experience. At the best, they seemed to have believed in some sort of vague synthesis of the traditional thesis with the progressive antithesis. Thus occasionally they did something friendly to tradition while other times working to undo it; occasionally they threw traditional Catholics a bone and other times tossed a bone to liberals; sometimes they displayed great care for Catholic Tradition while other times their disregard for it was appalling and devastating to faithful Catholics. I don't think they ever knew how it was going to work out. John Paul II knew that the liturgy of the Eucharist had to be celebrated with reverence, but he had also committed himself to a particular form of evangelism which required things like the scandalous World Youth Day masses, the animist masses in Togo, etc. Benedict XVI, author of Dominus Iesus, certainly understood the salvific uniqueness of Jesus Christ, yet he also remained committed to a program of interreligious dialogue that brought about Assisi III and gave implicit recognition to Assisi I and II, again scandalizing the faithful.

While the conservatives bent over backwards trying to explain how all these actions were coherently orthodox and the sedevecantists coherently heretical, the fact of the matter is that there was no coherence to these actions at all. The reason Catholics disagree so vehemently about reconciling these contradictory actions is because the pontiffs themselves did not know how to reconcile them. At most they seemed to have shared a vague optimism that tradition and novelty existing side by side would somehow reconcile themselves over time. Remember the "mutual enrichment" of the two forms of the Roman rite? The brick by brickers latched on to the part about the Traditional Latin Mass enriching the Novus Ordo, but recall, the enrichment Benedict envisioned was mutual; it was meant to run the other way, too...

We are discussing brick by brick. Laying brick upon brick presupposes you are working towards constructing a final structure - that you have some sort of blueprint or plan or telos for your actions. My friends, Benedict XVI had no plan. John Paul II had no plan. There is no blue print and there never has been a blue print. The previous two popes acted erratically because their sentiments were erratic. They served two masters and had no idea how to satisfactorily reconcile their conflicting loyalties. Ironically, this is one sense in which Francis is refreshing: having never been formed in the Old Rite, Francis is purely a pope of the post-Conciliar period. Whatever you think about Francis, what you see is what you get. He displays none of the wrestling between novelty and tradition displayed by Benedict and John Paul. Francis is not hampered in his actions by a nostalgia for a period that never meant anything to him.

VI. CONCLUSION. Please do not misunderstand this as an attack on anyone who has held to or promoted the brick by brick mentality. As I said above, I have nothing against brick by brickers. I love brick by brickers. Some of my best friends are brick by brickers. I read the blogs of brick by brickers. But I have come to see that this paradigm is intellectually dishonest and ultimately insufficient for making sense of what's going on in the Church, especially in light of the current pontificate.