On Small Laws

“When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom, you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”

G.K. Chesterton said, “When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom, you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.” And so we have the continuing melodrama in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Here’s the situation: Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte, in his zeal to implement Traditionis Custodes, has practically banished the TLM from his diocese. On December 17, he went further—forbidding the use of altar rails, kneelers, and prie-dieux in the reception of Communion. I suppose one must be grateful he didn’t prescribe the cut of the priest’s chasuble and require the parishioners to be searched for pre-1965 missals. In any event, about one-quarter of the priests of that diocese have now sent a dubia to the Vatican asking whether the bishop has the authority to do such a thing.

I shall leave it to the canon lawyers to sort out the legalities. It seems to point to a Catholic version of Bleak House with priests, bishops, and the Vatican wasting their time and our money with their small laws. And it is a quibble over small laws which has resulted from the breaking of big laws. The big laws were Tradition, which were smashed with the revisions to the Mass after Vatican II. This did not give freedom, nor did it—despite how many view the liturgical loopiness that ensued—give anarchy.

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