We’ve heard the story before. A new pastor comes in. He dismantles ministries that have been around for a long time, he gets rid of troublesome members of the parish council, and decides to renovate the church in keeping with his vision of liturgical art and architecture. Meanwhile, some members of the parish are outraged by the changes to their community and the priest’s new ideas which don’t fit in with their own view of how to practice the Catholic faith and so they form a new opposition organization and advise fellow parishioners to give their donations to other causes.
Except this time the story has a twist:
The controversy has split the church into two camps, members say. On one side are parishioners, many of whom built the simple church, who support the “modern” worship practiced by Catholics since the Latin Mass was abandoned in the 1960s. On the other are those who favor a return to traditional liturgy.
In other words, the new pastor wants to return the church to a traditional art and environment and to get away from more “liberal” ways while the parishioners who are happy with their “modern” liturgy and church are in revolt. That’s much different from what we usually see in these cases, and it would be a happy switch if we saw more of this kind of change.
