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“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

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Views from the Choir Loft

The Use and Abuse of the “Via Media”

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · October 23, 2014

0319_Kwasni-93-LG HE ANCIENTS LIKED TO SAY: “Nothing in excess.” Make sure you find a balanced perspective. Give a little, take a little. Don’t go overboard. Life is full of compromises. Whatever you do, avoid the extremes. When it comes to our opinions and modes of behavior, thoughtful people prefer to see themselves as exponents and practitioners of the via media, the middle way.

The problem is, this often becomes a substitute for real thinking, for the hard work of clinging to the truth even when it is so unpopular or unrecognized that it looks extreme. There are times when the middle way is the wrong way. There are times when the middle way is the broad path that leads to destruction.

Let me offer some examples of how easily the via media logic can be abused. “Believers are too credulous, atheists are too assertive in the opposite direction, so the via media is agnosticism.” “Sedevacantists go to one extreme in their rejection of the reigning pope, while most traditional Catholics are too flaccid in their acceptance of him; the via media is the SSPX.” One could play this game for a long time, and always come out sitting pretty.

To show that this is a real intellectual problem, consider the via media that Blessed John Henry Newman actually believed and defended for many years: “Roman Catholicism is at the excess of superstition and corruption, Protestantism is at the extreme of cutting away tradition, Anglicanism is the happy mean in the middle.”

THEN NEWMAN DISCOVERED, when studying the council of Chalcedon, that historically there were three parties—two extremes and a middle; but, in fact, the one extreme was where the Pope and the orthodox faith stood, the other extreme was pure Arianism, and the middle was a clever attempt at a compromise. The Holy Spirit did not choose the via media in this case; He led the Church to choose what looked like the extreme to everyone at the time.

And, perhaps I should add, the Church “on the ground” was a terrible mess on all sides for a long time. You couldn’t simply look to what your bishop was saying, because many of the bishops had fallen into heresy. (One might think that with authoritative catechisms from papal giants St. Pius V, St. Pius X, and St. John Paul II, bishops and cardinals today would know, teach, and defend the faith handed down to us, but sadly, this no longer seems to be part of the job qualification.)

I once saw the claim, in a bulletin from England, that there is a via media between progressivism/liberalism and traditionalism. Interesting. What kind of a mean is it, I wonder? No doubt we can have too much of the wrong kind of progress, or too heavy a dose of that liberalism condemned by Leo XIII and other pontiffs, but can we have too much tradition? Can we receive, embrace, live, love, and pass on the Sacred Tradition of the Church too much?

The same bulletin went on to claim there is a mean between “liturgical silliness or corruption” and “liturgical snobbery.” We know, perhaps, what they mean by the latter, but the way it’s phrased just supports my point: it’s so easy to caricature your opponents so that you end up comfortably as the via media. Maybe we should concentrate less on who the extremes are (for we might be tempted to judgmentalism), and concentrate more on the truths we should adhere to with all our mind, the goods we should aspire to with all our heart, the beauty we should long for with all our soul, the holiness we should pursue with all our strength. In this way, we will be the right kind of extremists.

Please visit THIS PAGE to learn more about Dr. Kwasniewski’s Sacred Choral Works and the audio CDs that contain recordings of the pieces.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

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For the Upcoming Choir Season!

Last week, I posted an SATB choral setting of the SANCTUS in a ‘contemporary’ style. You might want to consider this piece for two reasons: (1) It’s extremely brief; (2) Free rehearsal videos are available for each individual part. The piece is by Father Lhoumeau.

—Jeff Ostrowski
PDF Download • “Sunday Vespers” (22 pages)

When an organist accompanies Vespers, there is no time to think. It’s one thing after another: Bam – Bam – Bam. And that’s what makes Vespers difficult to accompany; there’s hardly even time to check the key signature for each piece! Therefore, although it’s far from perfect, I’m releasing this 22-page booklet:

PDF Download • SUNDAY VESPERS ACCOMPANIMENT

As time goes on, I will explain why I believe this booklet is important, my hopes for it, and why I selected the official edition, directly from the Vesperale Romanum. In spite of its imperfections, creating this (draft) booklet required much more effort than I had anticipated.

—Jeff Ostrowski
11 July 2022 • FEEDBACK

Someone who heard the CCW plainsong recordings with NOH accompaniment says: “For years I have travelled the continents and crossed the oceans of Gregorian chant in search of a composition and interpretation as sublime as this. The text and the melody are interwoven in a game of mirrors with the interpreters, the singer and the instrumentalist, so as to confer delicacy on the jubilation. The organ is soft, humble. This is what we hear from the singer. These artists have come together to produce beauty. In 1903, Pope Pius X, by motu proprio, restored Gregorian chant in the Latin Church. In his words: Sacred music must possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and notably the sanctity and delicacy of form, whence another characteristic spontaneously results, universality. I stress: the holiness and delicacy of forms result in universality, time and place. That is to say, sometimes the beauty of human hands gently caresses the face of the Eternal.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

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— Cardinal Sarah (14 August 2021)

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