A NEEDLESS ALEXANDRINE: One of the many reasons I recommended that post from Helen about aesthetics and conservatism is that she not only describes but demonstrates how traditions can be performed well or poorly. There is a standard, which is outside of the tradition itself narrowly construed but might be understood as “the spirit of the tradition,” which neither disrupts or disavows the tradition nor performs it by rote.

You can make the analogy to Vatican II yourself, I’m sure!