A new bishop shows up in the diocese and the celebration of the Mass improves. So why is that a sign of a problem?
Dale Price is on to something here. He went to Mass in a neighboring diocese, one in which he has consistently seen terrible liturgical abuses, but now there’s a new bishop and the celebration of the Mass has improved. But Dale points out that this indicates a deeper problem.
There’s something deeply, fundamentally wrong here. No, no—I’m not griping about the fact positive changes have been made. But here’s the bottom line: no bishop should have that much impact on the form and substance of Catholic worship. That’s where the concept of collegiality goes flying off the rails and starts to barrel roll.
If he does have that much power, then in a very real sense you are less a Catholic than one of the faithful of the Church of (Arch)Bishop X. Worship changes (or does not change) on his fiat alone. Wait until he gets promoted, retires or passes away, and everything can change. Talk about a quite-literally man-centered religion….
That, I submit, is manifestly screwed and out of whack with any recognizable Christian tradition. Yes, the Orthodox have collegiality, but they don’t pretend the bishop has any special mastery over the form and substance of the Divine Liturgy. For them, it’s hands off, your excellency. Time to start listening to the wisdom of the East again. And start removing the episcopal “escape hatches” from the liturgy—it sounds good on paper, but in practice… [emphasis in original]
He’s right on the money. The Catholic faithful should not have to depend on the managerial and leadership skills of a particular bishop nor have to guess at his orthodoxy. Neither should they have to put up with priests and pastors whose personal adherence to the liturgical law depends on whether the bishop is cracking down on them.
If there’s one thing the Tridentine Mass has going for it is that because it’s in Latin most priests wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to go fiddling with it to their liking and creating liturgical abuses with it at the same time. Maybe an all-Latin Novus Ordo could have the same effect.
Does the laity have any responsibility? The people whose parish has been brought back into the fold need to ‘stand guard’ and ensure that the parish is kept in the fold.
The Catholic faithful should not have to depend on the managerial and leadership skills of a particular bishop
Who could possibly have set up such a system? Did He not know that liturgical imperfections could occur as a result? What was He thinking? (sarcasm)
Liturgical abuses are committed by bad priests. A bad bishop will fail to discipline them. When a good bishop comes and disciplines one or two bad priests, the others will hear about it and immediately refrain from committing liturgical abuses in public, because they fear earthly punishment from the bishop. When there is a bad bishop, it is easier to tell who the good priests are. When there is a good bishop, liturgical laws are followed uniformly in public, and bad practices are left to fester only in private settings like confessionals. Isn’t the Lord great?
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dom@bettnet.com
https://www.bettnet.com
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2005-10-19 19:11:03
2005-10-19 23:11:03
There is a reason we have universal liturgical rubrics in the Latin rite. These rules have the force of law, but everyone from the local bishop up to the Vatican has become so lax that when a bad priest commits liturgical abuse and a bad bishop lets him … nobody in Rome does anything about it.
Thanks, Dom, for admitting that Rome has a responsibility! Who appoints these bishops afterall.
Here in Ohio liturgy at the cathedral in Columbus follows recent directives from Rome on kneeling in the pew during communion. But in Cleveland Bishop Pilla is dedicated to convincing the laity that they must stand during communion whether they want to kneel or not.
This thread points up precisely why the talk about collegiality makes me shudder.
Or maybe, this is a sign that this diocese has finally done its pennance and is being blessed again.
From assisting at FSSP Masses for over ten years and other indult Masses for eight years prior to that, the only thing that I have found that differentiates one Mass from an other is with the sung Mass. Some Celebrants have a better voice than do others.
The uniformity with in the Old Mass is extremely peaceful to me.
In my younger days, going to the NO involved listening to sermons that were nuanced with heterodoxy; I was always wondering what litugical abuse would be next. Quite honestly, I became tired of church shopping.
After one heterodox sermon one Sunday, I cornered the priest and asked him if there was such a place as Hell. Running away from me, I persisted with the question. He never gave me an answer. Finally, he turned to me and said, “go find a priest that will give you the answer that you want to hear!”
If a bishop goes his own way on the liturgy, there’s no collegiality in that. Collegiality isn’t about making each individual bishop a monarch: it’s about consulting with the collegium, right?
Does the laity have any responsibility?
As a result of the way the Council was implemented, the laity in the Roman Rite no longer have a sound, instinctive sense of what the liturgy should be. This is not the case in the Eastern Rites.
Consequently, the liturgy is dependent on the whims of the clergy and the degree to which the bishop and priests under him think and act with the mind of the Church.
The cure will be a long time coming.
I attend a church now that frequently gets a lot of tourists (in Manhattan). The range of “stand up – sit down – kneel” behavior is frankly bizarre. It points to drastic differences taking place, things that should not be happening.
It was never like this prior to the Council. You could go into any Catholic church in the world and know what was taking place on the altar without being able to understand the language of the culture. When we said “One, holy, Catholic and apostolic” back then it had real meaning. Now we just say it and hope for the best.
Thanks for the notice, Dom.
Seamole:
And if the bishop actively fosters deviations from the liturgy and refuses to follow the GIRM for 24 years (as was the case in the diocese I am talking about), what are the consequences?
I’ll answer it for you: There aren’t any. That’s the problem.
RC: No, collegiality is in play because of the lack of accountability on the part of the bishop to a higher temporal authority. If your bishop so permits, the rubrics are fungible. There is no remedy, apart from a change at the top.
My point is not to want a frozen liturgy, per se (though I like going to an indult church not worrying about gamesmanship). I simply want bishops who regard themselves as the stewards of the liturgy, not their innovation-inflicting masters. Because that’s all you can hope for.
Dale,
How long to you give the Vatican to work on abuses?
In 1980, Pope John Paul 2 published INAESTIMABILE DONUM, through the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments and Divine Worship. With in this document, even though the Holy Father pretty much said that the New Mass was a (rousing success), my words. He lamented the many liturgical abuses which were materializing themselves with in the NO.
Now we have more pages of instruction for the NO with in 25 years than there ever were for the Celebration of the Traditional Rite.
You spoke of “firing bishops and how that would lead to schism.” A few bishops have been “asked to retire under the past two Vicars of Christ but only five have been excommunicated….that for disobedience. All five were Traditionalists. The rules of the game don’t apply to all sides.
Since I remember how it was prior to the Council, I can claim that what we have now is a 180 from what we had then, and I hope sound credible.
So the question is why? Who has something to gain by fudging the rubrics, and what is it that they are gaining? Because there has to be a reason for this confusion. It didn’t just materialize all by itself in parish after parish, without some common denominator. If we find the common denominator and expose it, we will go a long way toward straightening up the mess. And frankly, I don’t see Rome doing it, and I sure don’t see the bishops doing it.
If I were going to propose a common denominator, it would be ecumenism/interreligious dialogue. It would be unity in diversity which is ushering in all manner of novelties.
We don’t have to mix and match theology and rituals in order to have peace in the world. What we have to do is to recognize that all men were created by God who loves them, and as such we have no business doing any of them harm in His name. Arguments over posture during communion, and befeathered liturgical dancers at Mass add nothing to the peace process.
Carrie & Brian,
You both do not contest the point, but deafly (not deftly) use the opportunity of someone having responded to you to spew propaganda.
Brian,
You provide the examples which prove the point. All five went into schism, and the schism continues.
Carrie,
Since I remember how it was prior to the Council, I can claim that what we have now is a 180 from what we had then, and I hope sound credible.
Sounding credible and speaking (or seeking) the truth are different things. You have indicated where your hope lies.
Satan has tried to sound credible since the start.
Seamole,
The question was, how long do you give the Vatican to correct something like litugical abuses? Any corporate shmuk can say “we are working on the problem and I will get back to you later.” The fact is, we have been told by the Vatican for the past 25 years, that they have been working on the problem. Well guess what, it isn’t nearly fixed yet. It is not unreasonable to expect better progress with real results.
My point with the SSPX was that the same standards are not applied to heterodox liberal bihsops and priests as were applied to the SSPX bishops.
If you are saying that if Rome clamps down too hard on these librals they will go into schism, my answer would be that the purity of the faith should be of more importance. These guys are in defacto schism if not a few in defacto heresy. Benedict16 did mention at one point that the Church might have to become smaller.
Brian,
Am I in the position to “give” the Vatican time? Are you?
They’ve been working on the liturgical abuse problem for 25 years, and it’s getting better. They’ve improved the quality of episcopal appointments, they’ve established a facility for laity to contact the Vatican about liturgical abuse, they’ve published detailed regulations forbidding all sorts of misinterpretations of the GIRM, they’ve forbidden the national conferences from using liturgies that have not first been approved by the Vatican, they’ve created the Vox Clara Commission which has been very hard on ICEL, they’ve established the Ecclesia Dei indult, and so on and so forth.
But you want more, faster. Naturally. What solution do you propose? Ah, you propose all of a sudden just firing bishops who have been lax in disciplining priests for liturgical abuse. OK, fine. Has this ever been done before? No. So you would be introducing a novelty into the Church. That’s allowable, in matters of discipline, but let’s be clear about what you are doing. You’re trying to improve upon some troublesome practices of the Tridentine Church, not to restore the “Post-VII Church” to some mythical prior glory. In fact, you would be doing what VII tried to do, a bit of agiornamento (or is it ressourcement?) for the global age.
My point with the SSPX was that the same standards are not applied to heterodox liberal bihsops and priests as were applied to the SSPX bishops.
The same standards have been applied across the board. No “heterodox liberal” bishops have been allowed to get away with consecrating new bishops without a papal mandatum, like Lefebvre et al tried to do, a schismatic act (in the Vatican’s words) which incurred the automatic excommunication we are still suffering from.
Seamole,
Neither I nor you are in any position to give the Vatican time. What I am saying is that their performance in this area stinks with failure. Obviously, you feel differently.
Your are correct. No heterodox liberal bishops have been excommunicated for illicit episcopal consecrations. Obiviously, illicit consecrations are out of bounds. However, distorting the nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of the Eucharist, of Scripture and of the priesthood, are out of play for heavy dealings from the Vatican.
As you say, so far only illicit espicopal consecrations receive the heavy hammer from the Vatican. Being schismatic, that is, denying the authority of the Pope, is a far greater offense to the Church than distorting the dogmas and liturgy of the Holy Faith. While all the while, denying the authority of the Pope….defacto that is.
Things are not getting better. If you wish to tell yourself that they are, so be it. If they were, this would not be a topic.
You speak of Rome forbidding this or that, however, you know as well as I do, the abuses continue and no one is held accountable.
If things are getting better, just walk into most any Novus Ordo First Communion class and ask the children what their First Communion is going to be about. My bet will be that the children will speak of “eating the bread and drinking the wine” before they speak of receiving “Jesus Christ in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.”
Dale Price:
As you well know, no priest is bound in conscience to obey a bishopII is NOT proof that they were all holy servants of the Lord.
Seamole:
Yes, bishops were fired before V2, and even after—Paul VI removed an Italian archbishop, if memory serves (the reference is at home).
But I’m not calling for the axe: the episcopal escape hatches in GIRM could be closed, or, better yet, the bishop permitting the experimentation could receive a gentle public rebuke.
You say things are getting better on the liturgical front: true. But the $64 question is “why?”
Answer: Because of the turnover of bishops.
Which is precisely why you shouldn’t be sanguine about things getting better: because, under the current system, your diocese is perpetually a retirement or heartbeat away from a drastic change of direction.
Seamole,
The real difference in how the progressivists and the traditionalists have been treated has to do with matters of juridicality. The progressivists have done as much as the traditionalists (actually more!) but kept their maneuvers in the de facto form, seeking instead to erode rather than defy. Either way, the result is injurious to the Church. Indeed, we have been far more injured by the defacto attempts to erode the church than any direct actions of the SSPX and so on.
The objection heard so often really deals with this. Why is it that the defacto shenanigans of the far left are allowed, when they cause so very much obvious damage? That’s the real complaint.
Do you seriously dream that attempts to force collegiality to the point where the local bishop has all the power are harmless? And then, even more, that attempts to hamstring the local bishops, once they have all the power, by chaining them to a national organization, the USCCB, are harmless? I think not.
And yet, all that is a very common progressivist demand, even expectation. How is that set of demands any different from LeFebre’s attempt to control change by cutting loose and then controlling the bishops in his organization?
The only difference is that one is dejure and one defacto. Think about it.
BTW, about mass abuses and Latin. I think it would be easier to abuse latin and get away with it nowdays. I seriously do.
We all know that in order to guarantee we get the mass that we have a right to, we have to be vigilant. It’s that simple—there are no longer any panaceas. It’s harder to be vigilant in Latin.