Liturgy and Nostalgia

Nathanial Peters has a good blog post at First Things.

But why should it be consider nostalgia at all when young people prefer the older form of the Mass? As the Archbishop points out, they didn't experience it "back in the day". So why think that is the cause of their desire for it now?

To the broader question, why this (non-nostalgic) desire for the old rite. The preference comes because they have experienced it. It's celebrated all over the United States, in Europe, and increasingly in other places. Almost anyone who wants to can now find celebrations in the larger cities of the.

With respect to the Archbishop, I know my liturgical formation isn't finished. And if his exposure to the old Mass ceased at age 23, I bet his wasn't finished then either. If there had been a real option for him to retain the old Mass even his opinions might have been formed differently.

Finally this quote shows that he's seriously out of touch:

It’s true that many times there were exaggerations, which happened for the most part in a time when we could say there was disorder in the church.

If the Archbishop visits Mr. Gillibrand's website he'll see that the disorder hasn't ceased everywhere. I've seen this kind of "celebration" myself in the U.S.