Catherine Pickstock, Joseph Ratzinger, and Walker Percy each approach the liturgy from very different angles—philosophical theology, doctrinal theology, and literary-existential reflection—but they converge on a shared intuition: liturgy is not just a human construct or symbolic performance; it is a participatory encounter with reality at its deepest level.
Catherine Pickstock (especially in After Writing) offers the most philosophically radical account. She argues that modernity’s emphasis on fixed meaning, clear reference, and “presence” actually distorts language and reality. For her, premodern liturgical language—especially the Latin Mass—embodies a kind of non-finalizable meaning. The liturgy resists closure; it is rhythmic, repetitive, and always pointing beyond itself. This “open-ended” quality reflects participation in divine truth, which can never be fully captured. So liturgy, for Pickstock, is not just worship—it is the site where language itself is healed and reoriented toward God.
By contrast, Joseph Ratzinger (notably in The Spirit of the Liturgy) is less postmodern and more patristic and Augustinian. He insists that liturgy is fundamentally received, not invented. Its form develops organically within the Church and is oriented toward God, not the community’s self-expression. He is particularly concerned with recovering a sense of transcendence—what he sometimes calls “cosmic liturgy,” where worship unites heaven and earth. Ratzinger critiques overly anthropocentric liturgical reforms, arguing that when liturgy becomes about us, it loses its essence as participation in Christ’s self-offering.
Walker Percy brings a different lens. Though not a systematic liturgical theologian, his essays (like “The Delta Factor”) and fiction explore the crisis of meaning in modernity. Percy is fascinated by signs, symbols, and the breakdown of genuine communication. From his semiotic perspective, liturgy can be seen as a restored symbolic order—a place where signs actually do something, where they connect us to reality rather than alienate us from it. In a world of degraded language and empty signs, liturgy becomes one of the few remaining spaces where meaning is embodied and transformative.
Where they converge:
- All three resist the reduction of liturgy to mere expression or didactic tool.
- They see it as participatory—something that forms us by drawing us into a reality we don’t control.
- Each, in their own way, critiques modernity’s flattening of meaning and transcendence.
Where they differ:
- Pickstock leans into post-structuralist philosophy, emphasizing indeterminacy and linguistic excess.
- Ratzinger stresses continuity, order, and theological clarity grounded in tradition.
- Percy approaches indirectly, diagnosing modern alienation and pointing to liturgy as a kind of semiotic cure.
If you’re trying to synthesize them, one way to put it:
- Pickstock explains why liturgy must exceed our conceptual grasp,
- Ratzinger explains what liturgy is in the life of the Church,
- Percy helps explain why modern people desperately need it.
If you want, I can map specific passages (e.g., Pickstock on repetition, Ratzinger on orientation, Percy on symbols) to show where they explicitly line up or clash.
Great—let’s put them in closer dialogue by lining up a few specific themes and showing how Catherine Pickstock, Joseph Ratzinger, and Walker Percy each treat them.
1. Repetition vs. “Saying Something New”
Pickstock (After Writing)
She defends liturgical repetition as ontologically necessary. Repetition isn’t redundancy—it prevents closure. Every return to the same words (e.g., the Canon of the Mass) deepens participation rather than exhausting meaning. For her, modern demands for novelty flatten language into mere information transfer.
Ratzinger (Spirit of the Liturgy)
He also defends repetition, but for a different reason: continuity with tradition and formation of the soul. Repetition shapes memory and aligns the worshipper with the Church across time. It’s less about linguistic indeterminacy and more about fidelity and formation.
Percy (essays on language and semiotics)
Percy would say repetition is what rescues signs from trivialization. In modernity, repeated words become clichés—but in liturgy, repetition restores depth. Why? Because the context is charged with intention and communal recognition. The same words don’t decay; they intensify.
Tension:
- Pickstock: repetition = resistance to final meaning
- Ratzinger: repetition = stability of meaning
- Percy: repetition = recovery of meaningful sign-use
2. Language: Does It Point or Participate?
Pickstock
Language in liturgy doesn’t just refer to God—it participates in divine reality. She’s explicitly anti-representational: liturgical speech is a kind of event.
Ratzinger
He agrees, but grounds it sacramentally: liturgical words are effective because they are tied to Christ’s action and the Church’s tradition. The Eucharistic prayer doesn’t just describe—it makes present.
Percy
From a semiotic angle, Percy distinguishes between signals (mere data) and symbols (which open up a world). Liturgy is where symbols function properly again—they don’t just point; they transform the participant’s relation to reality.
Convergence:
All three reject the idea that liturgy is just informational or expressive language.
3. Human Creativity vs. Received Form
Pickstock
She’s surprisingly critical of modern liturgical improvisation. Why? Because when we try to control language completely, we lose its participatory depth. True liturgy must precede us.
Ratzinger
Even more explicit: liturgy is not something we make. His famous line is that liturgy “grows organically” and cannot be fabricated. When it becomes a product of planning committees, it collapses into self-expression.
Percy
Percy would frame this as a crisis of modern “sovereign selfhood.” When humans think they generate meaning entirely, symbols break down. Liturgy works precisely because it’s received, not invented.
Strong agreement here.
All three are deeply suspicious of liturgy as a human project.
4. Transcendence vs. Immanence
Pickstock
Transcendence appears as excess—meaning that always escapes full grasp. The liturgy destabilizes any attempt to domesticate God.
Ratzinger
Transcendence is central: liturgy must be oriented toward God, not toward the congregation. His emphasis on “orientation” (even physically, like facing east) reflects this.
Percy
He diagnoses modernity as trapped in immanence—everything reduced to functional, measurable terms. Liturgy reintroduces transcendence by restoring a symbolic horizon that exceeds utility.
5. The Crisis of Modernity
Pickstock
Modern philosophy (especially post-Cartesian) fractures language and being. Liturgy is a counter-practice that preserves participatory metaphysics.
Ratzinger
Modernity forgets God and turns worship into self-celebration. Liturgical reform goes wrong when it mirrors this anthropocentrism.
Percy
Modern people are alienated, surrounded by signs that no longer connect them to reality. This leads to boredom, despair, and dislocation. Liturgy is one of the few places where signs still “work.”
A Sharp Way to See Their Differences
If you compress their positions:
- Pickstock: Liturgy saves language from philosophical collapse.
- Ratzinger: Liturgy saves worship from becoming self-centered.
- Percy: Liturgy saves human beings from semiotic alienation.
Where They Might Actually Disagree
This is where it gets interesting:
-
Pickstock vs. Ratzinger
Pickstock’s embrace of indeterminacy can seem at odds with Ratzinger’s emphasis on doctrinal clarity and stable meaning. He would likely worry that too much “openness” risks relativizing truth. -
Percy vs. Pickstock
Percy still assumes that symbols ultimately communicate something real, even if mysteriously. Pickstock pushes harder toward the idea that meaning is never fully present at all. -
Percy vs. Ratzinger
Less tension here—but Percy is less concerned with ecclesial authority and more with existential experience.
If you want to go even deeper, we could zoom in on one concrete element—like the Eucharistic Prayer, silence, or ritual gesture—and track how each of them would interpret that exact moment.
Perfect—Gregorian chant is where their differences become really vivid, because it sits right at the intersection of language, music, embodiment, and transcendence.
1. What is Gregorian chant doing?
Before comparing them: Gregorian chant is not just music added onto the liturgy—it is liturgical speech heightened. It stretches language, slows it down, and removes it from ordinary communicative use.
That’s exactly why all three thinkers would find it so significant.
2. Catherine Pickstock: Chant as the Undoing of Modern Language
For Catherine Pickstock, chant exemplifies what she thinks all true liturgical language does.
- Chant disrupts linear, informational speech.
- The melody prevents words from being reduced to clear, discrete units of meaning.
- Time becomes non-utilitarian—you can’t rush chant without destroying it.
In her terms, chant resists “final signification.” The meaning is never fully present or exhausted.
So instead of:
“Here is a message about God”
chant becomes:
“Here is participation in divine reality that cannot be fully said.”
The drawn-out vowels, melismas, and repetition create what she would call a kind of linguistic excess—language spilling beyond its ability to contain truth.
👉 For Pickstock, Gregorian chant is almost the ideal form of language because it refuses to collapse into modern efficiency.
3. Joseph Ratzinger: Chant as the Voice of the Church, Not the Individual
Joseph Ratzinger takes a more theological and ecclesial approach.
He consistently elevates Gregorian chant as:
- The normative music of the Roman Rite
- A form that expresses the primacy of the Word
- Music that grows organically from the liturgy rather than being imposed on it
For him, chant has a few key qualities:
a. It’s non-performative
It doesn’t feel like a concert. There’s no spotlight on the individual singer.
b. It’s cosmic
Ratzinger often connects chant to the idea of “cosmic liturgy”—creation itself praising God. Chant feels less like self-expression and more like entering something already underway.
c. It disciplines emotion
Unlike modern worship music that tries to generate feelings, chant orders emotion toward contemplation.
So while Pickstock emphasizes linguistic openness, Ratzinger emphasizes obedience, form, and orientation toward God.
👉 For him, chant works because it removes ego and lets the liturgy speak.
4. Walker Percy: Chant as the Restoration of the Symbol
Walker Percy gives you a totally different entry point.
Percy is obsessed with how modern people are surrounded by dead signs—language that no longer connects us to reality.
Gregorian chant, in his framework, would be fascinating because:
a. It slows down sign-use
You can’t treat chant like a quick signal (like a text message). It demands attention and participation.
b. It reunites word and body
Breath, tone, rhythm—chant is embodied language. That matters for Percy, because modern semiotics often becomes disembodied and abstract.
c. It creates a “naming event”
Percy thinks real language happens when something is recognized and shared. Chant does this communally—it’s not just said; it’s enacted together.
👉 In a world of empty slogans and mass media noise, chant would strike Percy as one of the few places where symbols still actually connect you to what they signify.
5. Where They Converge on Chant
All three would strongly agree that Gregorian chant:
- Is not entertainment
- Cannot be reduced to personal expression
- Works precisely because it is received, traditional, and structured
- Changes the mode of perception—you don’t just hear it; you’re formed by it
6. Where the Tension Shows Most Clearly
Here’s the sharpest contrast:
- Pickstock: Chant destabilizes meaning (in a good way)
- Ratzinger: Chant stabilizes and transmits meaning
- Percy: Chant restores meaning
Same object—three different diagnoses of what’s gone wrong in modernity.
A Concrete Moment: A Melisma on “Alleluia”
Take a long melismatic “Alleluia”:
-
Pickstock:
The extended melody shows that praise exceeds propositional language. Meaning is overflowing. -
Ratzinger:
The word “Alleluia” becomes contemplation. The music lifts it beyond speech into worship aligned with heaven. -
Percy:
The word stops being a dead religious cliché and becomes a living symbol again—something experienced, not just recognized.
Bottom Line
Gregorian chant is almost like a test case:
- If you think modern language is too rigid → you get Pickstock
- If you think modern worship is too self-centered → you get Ratzinger
- If you think modern life has emptied meaning altogether → you get Percy
And chant answers all three critiques at once—but in different ways depending on what you think the problem is.
