No one will get left behind

29 comments

• If singing is praying twice, I guess dancing is the “orans” position twice.  Still, I suppose maybe God considers these people’s efforts substandard and not worthy of His attention.  Boy, this Catholic thing has so many unwritten rules!  Somebody better tell everybody that litanies are pretty damn close to a meditative form before we find inner peace and praise of the Lord in part through the repetetive nature of the worship.  One Senior at the school says, “It gives me an opportunity to express my faith in a different way than I am normally able to do.  It is the reverence, just the feeling you have when you are up there-it’s incomparable.”  The Principal says, “I firmly believe that we bless life by dancing, and with each gesture of praise our prayer is deepened.”  The dance director, Marina Benedict, says that dance has been “…a huge part of my relationship with God—it makes me closer to God and the whole community.  It’s a universal communication.  For me I don’t think there is a more beautiful way to glorify the beauty of life than in dance—and with gratitude and celebration.”  I hope to God that at the final judgement I don’t have to stand before Him and defend my attempt to convince my fellow Christians that someones sincere ways to worship Him are “dreck”.  I might find myself saying to the Lord what Fr. Benedict Groeschel says he’ll be saying to Him at that time, “Meeeercy!”  The Lord knows I’ll need it more than the good Father.

• The following is taken from “Dance in the Liturgy” a document of the Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship:

  However, the same criterion and judgment cannot be applied in the western culture.

  Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses: such dancing, in general, is not pure.

  For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.

  Neither can acceptance be had of the proposal to introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet[2] because there would be presentation here also of a spectacle at which one would assist, while in the liturgy one of the norms from which one cannot prescind is that of participation.

• The sad aside to this is that two Popes have permitted this individual to remain a Cardinal of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and that one Roman Pontif appointed him to this position. 

  Would any orthodox Catholic care to offer any “excuses” to their children why this individual still remains a “Prince of the Church”.

  A lot of explaining to do!

• Let me get this straight, now.  Two Popes: John Paul II, and Benedict XVI have seen fit to let this man remain a Cardinal.  One Pope made him a Cardinal.  I guess that would be JP II.  John Paul II – as in John Paul the Great?  As in John Paul II who is on the “fast track” to sainthood?  Two Popes – as in the Vicar of Christ on Earth?  Two Popes – as in the men to whom were given the keys to the kingdom of heaven?  I submit: Why would any “orthodox” Catholic need to make “excuses” to his children about any decision made by the Vicar of Christ on Earth?  Too, is it just two Popes who have permitted this man to remain a Cardinal, or is it the Holy Spirit acting through two Popes who is permitting the Cardinal to remain in office?  For sure I don’t have an inside track on the communications between the Holy Father and his Boss.  I do know, tho, that I’d have no problem telling my kids that God’s ways are not man’s ways.

• Thank goodness for the LA Diocese Religious Conference, it exposes a red light on the theological cockraoches. A few years ago, a certain Fr. Fragomeni speculated about his multiple past lives.

  This is the same Father Fragomeni, a theologian, who was behind the CCD program used at my old parish and at a local Catholic school I inquired on. Reference http://www.blestarewe.com

  A few choice quotes from Father at the 2001 Conference can be read here. http://www.dotm.org/spring2001.htm .

  His CCD program will not be exposed to my children, thank you very much. I made this decision after speaking to a neighborhood boy about to make his First Communion. Quote from the boy, “I’m going to go up and receive a piece of bread.”

• Liturgical dance (sic) is one of the most fatuous and banal forms of narcissism present in so-called progressive parishes and dioceses.  It is neither dance nor liturgical, but a painfully bad exercise in awkward body movements that belong only in a physical education class.  Priests and bishops who permit this execrable crap need both spiritual and professional help.

  I have witnessed one scene on a Good Friday where a young teen male from 8th grade was at the altar only in his underwear posing as Jesus while several girls danced and pranced around him as the mocking crowd.  And this was a Passionist parish.  It happened during an ecumenical Way of the Cross, and I was utterly embarrassed before much more liberal denomination members who, themselves, were stunned by this horrid abuse of liturgy.

  When the dancers simply are procession, they are ungraceful young women and girls who are encouraged in their elephantine exercises by adult forces that might profit from a bit of exorcism or a solid mental health examination.

  And those who make excuses for Cardinal Mahoney’s allowance of heterodoxy and tastelessness might already be Unitarians without even knowing it.

• That PJP2 wasn’t a good administrator is a huge understatement.  One got the impression at times that he wasn’t paying any attention at all to administration—and that for years at a time.  It was a nightmare.
  There comes a time when no amount of poetic philosophy and profundity can make up for plainly bad leadership and we’ve been there.  In his defense, I think his experiences with communism made him leery of believing evil of churchmen, but that’s hardly an excuse for what went on here.  The corruption is still neck deep.  It’s going to take years to clean this dreck out because it’s got such a deep grip now.

  Pope Benedict has shown himself to be a much better administrator already.

• What an awful lot of Catholics seem to be completely ignorant of is that there are two gospels housed within the Catholic Church in America.  One is the Gospel that Christians have preached since Christ walked the earth.  The other is the Gnostic Gospel which the Church has condemned repeatedly throughout the past 2000 years of history.

  Liturgical dance, past lives, individual interpretation of the faith, and many more heresies all belong to the Gnostic Gospel. 

  Gnostics claim to be Christian.  They have always claimed to be Christian.  They use Christian terminology but grant it a variety of meanings which are heretical. 

  Until Catholics come to understand the difference between Gnostic Christianity and Catholic Christianity, there will continue to be the kinds of disagreements that we see here since we have both of these at work in American Catholicism.

• Yes, the duality of it all becomes more transparent all the time.  One wonders when the split will occur.

• “Stand Up For Love” isn’t fit for the Liturgy, obviously, because it’s not a Liturgical song, but I think it’s a very good song to perform OUTSIDE the Liturgy. Why do they have to perform during Mass? Leave it for the entertainment afterwards.

  The song has a very nice pro-life message:

  And how can I pretend that I don’t know
  What’s going on?
  When every second
  And every minute
  Another soul is gone

  …

  Then we all stand together this one time
  Then no one will get left behind
  And stand up for life
  Stand up

• Liturgical dance, past lives, individual interpretation of the faith, and many more heresies all belong to the Gnostic Gospel.

  ……. there will continue to be the kinds of disagreements that we see here since we have both of these at work in American Catholicism.

  Carrie –

  Brilliant analysis…heretofore this should be called the Carrie Hypothesis … it certainly explains a lot.

• Thank you, Carrie, Kim and Richard, et al, for some great comments on the nonsense in Mahoneyland.

  It reminds me of the Preparation for Catholic Mass by St. Ambrose, which begins:

  “Lord, Jesus Christ, I approach your banquet table in fear and trembling, for I am a sinner, and dare not rely on my own worth but only on your goodness and mercy. I am defiled by many sins in body and soul, and by my unguarded thoughts and words. Gracious God of majesty and awe, I seek your protection, I look for your healing, poor troubled sinner that I am, I appeal to you, the fountain of all mercy. I cannot bear your judgment, but I trust in your salvation. Lord, I show my wounds to you and uncover my shame before you. I know my sins are many and great, and they fill me with fear, but I hope in your mercies, for they cannot be numbered.”

  I don’t think that Saint Ambrose had liturgical dance in the background when he prostrated his mind, heart and soul with this prayer.

• There are people who claim that dance expresses their faith and brings them close to God. If we take this at face value, then “liturgical” dancing may be a legitimate expression of devotional piety. Devotional piety is personal, subjective, emotional, completely optional and has no place in the public liturgy of the Church.  Unfortunately, the same thing can be said of much contemporary music sung at the Mass.  People no longer understand the distinction between devotions and liturgy and that’s why they don’t understand why dance is out of place at the Mass.

  The pastor should give people who want to dance before God a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon in the rec center and put a brief notice in the bulletin.

• Brian G,

  Disclaimer:  As a 1970’s Catholic, I am still learning (and unlearning!) about the Sacred Liturgy.  I am far, FAR from being an expert!

  I hear you, Brian G.  I can see how it would seem that the detractors of LD are making a big deal about form over substance.

  Allow me, just for a moment, to make an absurd argument.  I hope you’ll see why in a moment…

  For arguments sake, let’s say you don’t think it would be proper to have people performing sex acts during mass.  What would you think if I were to justify this “form of worship” with the following comments:

  “It gives me an opportunity to express my faith in a different way than I am normally able to do.  It is the reverence, just the feeling you have when you are up there-it’s incomparable.”

  “I firmly believe that we bless life by *having sex”, and with each gesture….our prayer is deepened.”

  “*sex is*…a huge part of my relationship with God—it makes me closer to God and the whole community.  It’s a universal communication.  For me I don’t think there is a more beautiful way to glorify the beauty of life…—and with gratitude and celebration.”

  Would this be acceptable to you, if the “liturgists” were “sincere”?  You certainly couldn’t condemn the acts on the basis of “rules”, because your criteria for legitimate worship is that it be “sincere”, not that it follow certain norms.

  Yes, it is an absurd argument, and I don’t mean to equate liturgical dancing with public displays of sex.  I simply want you to consider that your arguments themselves can, in fact, be used to justify anything.

  Given that, maybe you can “reverse engineer” your argument.  Instead of assuming LD is a legitimate form of worship during Mass and that people that oppose it are officious rule-nazis, learn more about the mass and ask yourself, WHAT IS a legitimate form of worship.

  Read B16’s writings on Sacred Liturgy (God Is Near Us, Spirit of the Liturgy), and ask yourself if personal performance has a place at the Sacrifice.  If you do, I think you’ll see that good hearted, sincere people involved in LD are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In a park, or around a campfire, maybe it isn’t an issue.

  I actually feel bad for the LDs, because I also think that they are sincere.  They have just been sold a bill of goods that puts them in a controversial position.

  One last thought:  You’ve heard the phrase “Good fences make good neighbors”?  I would suggest that good rules (rubrics) have a similar beneficial affect.  If we were ONE in worship, we wouldn’t have to debate these kinds of things.  Instead, maybe we’d all be dancing together after mass! : )

  Rules are good things.

• Decoder, You’re right. It is an absurd argument.  And, please, you do mean to equate liturgical dancing with public display’s of sex – else you wouldn’t have even mentioned it.  It’s like one pol telling another at a debate that he doesn’t believe the vicious rumors that his worthy opponent is a child molester.  The Church respects certain aspects of liturgical dance where it is part of a cultural tradition.  I don’t know of any Catholic liturgies where sex is part of the celebration, tho.  Rules are good things, too.  Sometimes.  I especially liked the High School discussions about the territoriality of certain rules.  For example if you intentionally skipped Mass on Holy Day of Obligation X you could go to hell if you died without confessing it.  On the other hand, if you were lucky enough to have a friend who lived in, say, Quebec where it was not a Holy Day, you could spend the day at your friend’s and you were home free.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not looking forward to watching someone dance during Mass.  As to being ONE in worship: which ONE are we all going to follow?  Let’s see our choices: we have the Novus Ordo, Melkite, Maronite, Anglican Rite Catholic, all the orthodox churches with all their various and marvelous liturgies, and, oh yes, the Tridentine Mass.  I’ll go to Mass tomorrow and even though it’s the NO Mass, I’m going to think it’s beautiful.  I’m going to worship my God, I’m going to consider myself fortunate to have been chosen by the Lord to actually receive Him truly present in the Eucharist.  I am going to adore Him for the short time that He is physically present in me and, as long as it’s a valid Mass, I am not going to waste worship time trying to make sure the priest has dotted all his I’s and crossed all his t’s.  I will, however, make sure that “for us MEN and for our salvation” comes out particularly clearly.  We all have our pet peeves, after all.:^)

• By the way, all.  Can someone e-mail me and tell me how to make nice neat paragraphs and such like some of you do.  Just can’t figure it out.  Thanx, and God’s love to all.

• Yes, it is an absurd argument, and I don’t mean to equate liturgical dancing with public displays of sex.  I simply want you to consider that your arguments themselves can, in fact, be used to justify anything.

  Actually no, it’s not absurd.  The Gnostic Christians practice sacred sex.  Sacred sex is sometimes called Tantra and is a form of Yoga.  Yoga has already made inroads into Roman Catholicism.

  In 2004 in my diocese a priest was caught growing marijuana in the rectory bedroom.  He had a live-in “friend” and there were accusations of sexual abuse.  He also taught Yoga in the parish hall.

  Today he runs Sacred Ground Yoga in the Akron area and no longer refers to himself as a priest.

  You can read about him here.  Scroll down to the first comment and read about a belly dancer crediting Fr. Arko.

• Brian G, to make a paragraph in the comments box, all I have to do is hit the “enter” key twice.

• DaVinci Decoder Ring,

  Not an absurd argument at all.  Great post.

• Brian G.

  If my kids were younger, I’d use your response as a basis for a game.  Find all the places Brian G. ironically answers his own questions.

  Here’s just one:

  In your example of high school kids trying to find ways to avoid going to Mass on a Holy Day, you seem to think that the problem is the RULES.  I’d suggest that it is the idiots trying to find loopholes that are the “problem”, and their immaturity and lack of understanding that makes an issue of it at all?  NOT the rules. 

  So, now apply this “idiots looking for loopholes” template to your original post.  Who is the problem?  The rule-nazis, or the idiots?

  And if you are unclear, I’ve already suggested some reading.

  I count at least four other examples of answering your own question in your second post.

  (Hint:  The 22 Cathoic rites all have rubrics.  Think about what it is that makes the 22 ONE.  I mean, why isn’t a priest allowed to make number 23?  And how WOULD he try it?)

• Decoder,
      Really, now, name calling and condescention are beneath you.  And you were doing so well.
      By the way, I must have misunderstood you – exactly what did you mean by ‘If we were ONE in worship…”?

• The talk about rules brings to mind some of our contemporary hymns, one of which includes the line “Lord I love your commands.” 

  It’s easy to object to rules.  Sometimes they are inconvenient and sometimes we just can’t find a way to reconcile them with our circumstances.  Neither of these situations are a reason to change or eliminate the rules.

  The Gnostic Christians believe you don’t look to doctrine, which is really the rules; but instead they believe that you seek and find God through yourself and your own experiences.  Mysticism is the heart of Gnostic Christianity. 

  Without rules to guide your mystical experience, you have no way to know what spirit you have contacted.  Passages in Scripture indicate very clearly that there is a spirit opposed to God who finds ways to communicate with man.  Consider the snake in Genesis and Christ’s temptation in the desert, if you doubt that.  Rules or doctrine are the life preserver of a mystic.  They keep us on the straight and narrow path to heaven instead of veering off on the wide road to perdition. 

  Rules are not made to make our life miserable.  They are the gift from God that helps us to avoid the temptation offered by the Evil One.

• Amen, Carrie.

  Brian G. – I’ll try one more time.

  Just think about what you are saying.  You have demonstrated the same logic that is manifest in the CONFLICT between liturgical sticklers, and liturgical innovators.  It would take too long to point out and explain each example.  I gave you two examples and you haven’t addressed either one, so I’m exhausted.

  But since you’ve asked a legimate question, I’ll try to answer it.  That’s only fair, since I complained that you didn’t answer mine.

  As far as the 22 different rites are concerned, or being ONE within the NO Liturgy, I will create an analogy:

  If the government says the speed limit on surface streets is 25 mph, and that we must stop on red lights, that’s fine.  If the government says that we can travel 50 mph on surface streets and stop on YELLOW lights, that is also fine.  This would be a corollary to the different approved rites in the Church.  In both cases, SEPERATE cases, the traffic plans work.  No one will crash, and everyone will get safely to their destination.

  When people start to go 20, 40 and 70 mph on surface streets, and stop and go on any color light they choose, collisions start to happen.  Lots of people get injured, some leave the city because it is too much of a hassle to navigate the chaos.  This is the corollary to some of the “novelties” in NO masses “performed” willy-nilly around the world.

  The reason people get fixated on Liturgical orthodoxy, is that they have seen the affects of the “lawlessness” over the last forty years.  It isn’t so much a fixation on the “rules”, as it is a rejection of the “rule breaker’s novelties”.

  That is why the 22 rites are ONE.  They are all part of the same “traffic plan”.  Seperate, but coordinated so that everyone safely arrives at their destination. 

  The reason a “priest isn’t allowed to create rite #23” is that the Church knows that it can cause great danger.  And how WOULD a Priest TRY to create the 23rd rite?  There are THOUSANDS of examples, and they happen every Sunday around this country.

  How, then, can we be ONE in the chaos of the NO Mass?  Stop improvising.  Stop thinking that it’s every “driver” for himself.  The rules pull us into “communion” and allow us to arrive safely together.

  So, when people object to LD during Mass, they are pointing to the “rules”, not because they are brainless, officious tattle-tales, ready to “tell teacher” if someone is “being bad”, but because they know the consequences of ignoring the novelties.  People get hurt. 

  No one is questioning the sincerity of the high school kids wanting to perform during Mass.  They are upset at the abysmal Catechesis that would lead these young people to think this was a good thing.

  This has been my whole point; it isn’t the rule MAKERS that create conflict.  And it isn’t MERELY the sincerity of someone’s worship that determines it’s cost or benefit.  (as I pointed out in my first email) 

  I’ve said all of this three times.  I am not nearly qualified to explain all of this.  PB16 has done so a thousand times better than I could ever hope to.  And this site is full of people that are MUCH better qualified than I to explain it.

  God Bless.

• Decoder,
      I knew all that.  Is there no set of rules for the NO Mass?  Isn’t that what the GIRM is?  I don’t think the chaos is with the NO Mass itself.  The chaos is in its implementation.  You know, even if we switched back to the old Mass, that wouldn’t necesssarily stop the abuses.  According to Fr. Benedict, they were butchering the old Mass in the end, too! 

      I was priviledged to have been an altar boy when the Tridentine Mass was the norm.  I miss the Latin and the pageantry and the sense of sanctity.  I’m sure you’ve been to Tridentine Masses, but are you old enough to have participated in some of the Holy Week services of the time?  To see a church with all of the statues covered in purple and all the decorations removed brings the purpose of Lent into crisp focus.

      Let me clarify my original intentions.  I merely meant to defend the honor of those kids who worked so hard doing what they thought was right.  I believe calling their efforts dreck, mumbo jumbo, and self centered navel gazing is questioning their sincerity.  I agree, and never doubted, that it was their teachers who were responsible, but the point could have and should have been made in a more Christian manner.

  God bless you, too.

• To be accurate, I called the song they’re dancing to “dreck”. I referred to liturgical dance itself as mumbo jumbo and navel gazing.

  I don’t doubt these kids are sincere, but sincerity doesn’t substitute for doing what’s right. There are lots of very sincere people who do what they think is right and yet what they do is very wrong.

  My point was made in a Christian manner. You just chose to interpret it in the most prejudicial way possible.

• So, when people object to LD during Mass, they are pointing to the “rules”, not because they are brainless, officious tattle-tales, ready to “tell teacher” if someone is “being bad”, but because they know the consequences of ignoring the novelties.  People get hurt. 

  Good explanation, DaVinci.  That’s exactly the case for most of us who object to all the novelties.  We recognize them for what they are—nonsense that distracts us from the purpose at hand.

• Not to mention that dancing around the cross where Christ suffers and dies is personally repugnant to some of us!  But then, to understand my repugnance, you would have to remember that the Mass is a Holy Sacrifice, and most of the dancing Catholics don’t do that.

• Oh, let’s be honest.  It is dreck.  Average is none to smart but anyone who can figure out how to put their pants on frontwards should know that getting into tights and waving the fanny at the tabernacle is seriously wacked.  Come on.

  Even if these people can’t, for some hair-brained reason, figure this out, they’d ought to know by the looks on peoples’ faces when they disrobe in church….

  Even in the age of reality TV, I refuse to believe anyone could be this stupid.

• Then again, it doesn’t bother some people to get immersion baptised in yards of cloth which clings and drips on the floor and basically looks like heck in mixed company.  Barefeet and all.  I have to laugh when the priest gets in, clothes and all.  I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny, but it is.  I hope those kiddie pools are chlorinated but I doubt they are. 

  And we get an intermission while they go get dressed and use a hairdryer.  Who ever heard of intermission in Mass????  This is, until only a few years ago.

  So maybe this is worse than I thought and average doesn’t think this is wacked???