Altar in the center of the church?

[AWall]

Hi. We had RCIA last night and the presentation left me with a couple of questions. The speaker gave a lecture on church history, which included some of the councils, including the 1st Lateran council. (He spoke about the Templars and how the pope made them his own army and gave himself the right to start Crusades and how he was BAD!) Of course he talked about Vatican II and how wonderful all the changes have been and now they are trying to have all the new churches put the altar in the center of the room and have people all around it in a circle which will make it easier for the 100% participation by all the people, called for by the council. Is this true? The only thing I’ve been able to find is that the altar was to be pulled away from the wall allowing the priest to face the people. He taught that the “circle” was the way they did it in the first 3 centuries. I can’t seem to find that anywhere yet.

He also said that Catholics are encouraged (yes, he used that word) to go to other churches. He did say that the Eucharist is the most important part of the Catholic faith (although no one has mentioned the word transubstantiation yet) so you should get to church to take it, but you’re also encouraged to go to other churches if you want. He didn’t even tell the class that as a Catholic you are not to take communion in other churches… Somehow I don’t think it’s true that Catholics are encouraged to attend other services, but I want to make sure.

There of course were some more gems, but I’d really appreciate help with these things.

Thanks!

Andrea

 

[sententia]

Um… wow.
Most of that is entirely not true- well, very very skewed. I’ll ‘bump’ this, but need to run to class atm, I’m sure someone will get you all the details

 

[Kevirish01]

This is all nonsense Andrea.

Ask for the specific citations from the council documents for what he says on church renovations (or any other Magisterial document for that matter).

Encouraged to go to other churches?

Again, ask **where **does the Magisterium encourage this? Which document?

(See the CCC paragraph 1400 on participating in other Christian traditions).

Run, run, run from this program as fast as you can if you are the one going through this.

Peace,
kev

 

[Catholic2003]

AWall:

Of course he talked about Vatican II and how wonderful all the changes have been and now they are trying to have all the new churches put the altar in the center of the room and have people all around it in a circle which will make it easier for the 100% participation by all the people, called for by the council. Is this true?

Vatican II called for full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy by all the faithful. In terms of achieving this goal, the council dealt more with general approaches than with specific details. As regards the altar, it said:

Sacrosanctum Concilium 128. Along with the revision of the liturgical books, as laid down in Art. 25, there is to be an early revision of the canons and ecclesiastical statutes which govern the provision of material things involved in sacred worship. These laws refer especially to the worthy and well planned construction of sacred buildings, the shape and construction of altars, the nobility, placing, and safety of the eucharistic tabernacle, the dignity and suitability of the baptistery, the proper ordering of sacred images, embellishments, and vestments. Laws which seem less suited to the reformed liturgy are to be brought into harmony with it, or else abolished; and any which are helpful are to be retained if already in use, or introduced where they are lacking.

 

[Catholic2003]

AWall:

Somehow I don’t think it’s true that Catholics are encouraged to attend other services, but I want to make sure.

From the Directory on Ecumenism:

1. Given the importance of the role of the laity in the Church and in society, laity with ecumenical responsibilities should be encouraged to develop contacts and exchanges with other Churches and ecclesial Communities, in accordance with the norms of this Directory.

1. Christians may be encouraged to share in spiritual activities and resources, i.e., to share that spiritual heritage they have in common in a manner and to a degree appropriate to their present divided state.

1. Where appropriate, Catholics should be encouraged, in accordance with the Church’s norms, to join in prayer with Christians of other Churches and ecclesial Communities. Such prayers in common are certainly a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity, and they are a genuine expression of the ties which still bind Catholics to these other Christians. Shared prayer is in itself a way to spiritual reconciliation.

1. In liturgical celebrations taking place in other Churches and ecclesial Communities, Catholics are encouraged to take part in the psalms, responses, hymns and common actions of the Church in which they are guests. If invited by their hosts, they may read a lesson or preach.

 

[AWall]

Thank you for the references Catholic2003. I will read through them.

Andrea

 

[palmas85]

There was an article in the paper last week, I think on Wednesday, concerning the uncovering of what was thought to be the oldest Christian Churchas yet uncovered, dating back to the 300’s if I remember correctly. As they referred to it the “table” was in the center of the Church and the only ornamentation present was a tile mosaic of two fish. Anyone else see this article and have any more information on it?

 

[netmilsmom]

Catholic2003:

From the Directory on Ecumenism:

1. Given the importance of the role of the laity in the Church and in society, laity with ecumenical responsibilities should be encouraged to develop contacts and exchanges with other Churches and ecclesial Communities, in accordance with the norms of this Directory.
2. Christians may be encouraged to share in spiritual activities and resources, i.e., to share that spiritual heritage they have in common in a manner and to a degree appropriate to their present divided state.
3. Where appropriate, Catholics should be encouraged, in accordance with the Church’s norms, to join in prayer with Christians of other Churches and ecclesial Communities. Such prayers in common are certainly a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity, and they are a genuine expression of the ties which still bind Catholics to these other Christians. Shared prayer is in itself a way to spiritual reconciliation.
4. In liturgical celebrations taking place in other Churches and ecclesial Communities, Catholics are encouraged to take part in the psalms, responses, hymns and common actions of the Church in which they are guests. If invited by their hosts, they may read a lesson or preach.

I would say that the sentance in red is very important. I would have to see this all in context. The pink is saying to me, not your average Catholic.
Thank you for providing the link.

However, I think NONE of this should be covered in RCIA. I think this is very confusing to Protestants who are being told they may not receive communion here are being told that once they go through the process, go ahead and go to your old church. Not good. My husband is dying to get to something comparing being Catholic to his Protestant upbringing in his RCIA class. Better we do that.

 

[Orionthehunter]

AWall:

Hi. We had RCIA last night and the presentation left me with a couple of questions. The speaker gave a lecture on church history, which included some of the councils, including the 1st Lateran council. (He spoke about the Templars and how the pope made them his own army and gave himself the right to start Crusades and how he was BAD!) Of course he talked about Vatican II and how wonderful all the changes have been and now they are trying to have all the new churches put the altar in the center of the room and have people all around it in a circle which will make it easier for the 100% participation by all the people, called for by the council. Is this true? The only thing I’ve been able to find is that the altar was to be pulled away from the wall allowing the priest to face the people. He taught that the “circle” was the way they did it in the first 3 centuries. I can’t seem to find that anywhere yet.

He also said that Catholics are encouraged (yes, he used that word) to go to other churches. He did say that the Eucharist is the most important part of the Catholic faith (although no one has mentioned the word transubstantiation yet) so you should get to church to take it, but you’re also encouraged to go to other churches if you want. He didn’t even tell the class that as a Catholic you are not to take communion in other churches… Somehow I don’t think it’s true that Catholics are encouraged to attend other services, but I want to make sure.

There of course were some more gems, but I’d really appreciate help with these things.

Thanks!

Andrea

One of the great values of our God-given ability to reason is that we are able to see hogwash. I would summarize as many of these things you heard, spend time trying to square them up with facts (those of us on CAF might be able to help you), research the theology statements (go to other churches etc.) yourself using the Catechism or other non-complex sources, and then prepare a “report” on the class. Take the report to your Priest. If you don’t get an adequate explanation, add your conversation w/ your Pastor to the report and send it to your Bishop.

Then, I’d go find another RCIA class. While RCIA may include a Church History lesson or one on ecumenicism, it is imperative that it be accurate. Discussion of “circle” church design is irrelevant to an RCIA class. This was hogwash.

 

[Catholic2003]

AWall:

Thank you for the references Catholic2003. I will read through them.

You’re very welcome. Good luck in your journey through RCIA!

 

[AWall]

Orionthehunter:

One of the great values of our God-given ability to reason is that we are able to see hogwash. I would summarize as many of these things you heard, spend time trying to square them up with facts (those of us on CAF might be able to help you), research the theology statements (go to other churches etc.) yourself using the Catechism or other non-complex sources, and then prepare a “report” on the class. Take the report to your Priest. If you don’t get an adequate explanation, add your conversation w/ your Pastor to the report and send it to your Bishop.

Then, I’d go find another RCIA class. While RCIA may include a Church History lesson or one on ecumenicism, it is imperative that it be accurate. Discussion of “circle” church design is irrelevant to an RCIA class. This was hogwash.

I think actually we will talk to the priest to at least to have things clarified a bit more. Maybe the gentleman was just not being clear about things, but there were other things he was teaching which I felt were not only inappropriate, but confusing as well. For instance: The pagans had an Easter, Catholics had an Easter moment so at Nicea they put them together and using the moon, set a date. All very pagan he said. Then he mentioned that there are churches in Jamaica that have voodoo symbols in them and where people do voodoo rituals, which is cool b/c catholic means universal. I think I understand what he was trying to get at… but it was confusing. The only other RCIA program in our area is quite a drive and that church has links to Bhuddist meditation practices on it’s website, so I’d be concerned about what we’d be taught there too.

We just plan to read even more than we already have and keep double-checking everything they teach!

Andrea

 

[buffalo]

Catholic2003:

Vatican II called for full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy by all the faithful. In terms of achieving this goal, the council dealt more with general approaches than with specific details. As regards the altar, it said:

Read what full and conscius participation means and be sure to read the part where JPII wieghs in.

The Mass of Vatican II

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, was one of two documents issued on the same day, December 4, 1963, the first two documents issued by the Second Vatican Council. The other document, Inter Mirifica, is on social communication. Sacrosanctum Concilium is one of the most important documents of the Council, one that has been the least understood and, I believe, has wrought the most havoc — not by having been fulfilled — but by having been ignored or misinterpreted. Now there should be no argument about the central intent of the Council concerning the liturgy. The Council actually spells out its intent, in paragraph 14 of Sacrosanctum Concilium: “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations, which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.” The key words here are “full, conscious, and active participation.” The Latin for “active participation” is actuosa participatio.

I did a little research into previous uses of that expression in papal and other ecclesial documents. The first papal usage was in 1903 by Pope St. Pius X, whose motto was “Omnia Instaurare in Christo” (To restore all things in Christ). He considered himself a pope of renewal. He was elected in August of 1903 and in November, he issued one of the first documents of his pontificate, a motu proprio called Tra Le Solicitudini, that is, “Among the Concerns.” This was a document on the renewal of sacred music. In it, the Holy Father states, “In order that the faithful may more actively participate in the sacred liturgy, let them be once again made to sing Gregorian Chant as a congregation.”

That’s what the term “active participation” meant when it was first used in a papal document. But it had been used ten years earlier in another document, issued by Pius X before he was pope. He was the patriarch of Venice, and the document — as it turns out — was actually written by a Jesuit, with the wonderful name of Angelo dei Santi (“angel of the saints”). Sounds like a fictitious name.

In any case, the first use of actuosa participatio, i.e., active participation, referred explicitly and exclusively to the restoration of the congregational singing of Gregorian Chant. In 1928, Pope Pius XI reiterated the point in his Apostolic Letter, Divini Cultus. Nineteen years after that, in the Magna Carta of liturgical reform, Mediator Dei, issued by Pius XII, the same term was used with the same meaning. So until the Second Vatican Council, the term “active participation” referred exclusively to the singing of Gregorian Chant by the people.

more…

 

[buffalo]

palmas85:

There was an article in the paper last week, I think on Wednesday, concerning the uncovering of what was thought to be the oldest Christian Churchas yet uncovered, dating back to the 300’s if I remember correctly. As they referred to it the “table” was in the center of the Church and the only ornamentation present was a tile mosaic of two fish. Anyone else see this article and have any more information on it?

Back then it was custom that at table all faced the same direction.

 

[buffalo]

THE SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY

As time has its sacred symbolism, so does space - the place of worship and its appropriate ordering and disposition. Ratzinger again draws attention to the way in which Catholic churches manifest the succession between Old and New Covenants: the central altar as the place of sacrifice, inherits and replaces the role of the Temple, while the lectern, pulpit or ambo for the proclamation of God’s Word to the assembled people follows naturally from the disposition of the synagogue, with its ‘Shrine of the Torah’ honouring the inspired Scriptures. In this context the author gives us a fascinating excursion into the origin of worshipping ad orientem - towards the East. While synagogue worship was oriented toward Jerusalem, the place of the Temple, Christians now look toward Christ, whose future coming in glory is aptly symbolized by the brilliance of the rising sun. As is well known, Cardinal Ratzinger has been among those favoring a return to the traditional position of the priest at Mass, in which both he and the people are turned together towards Christ. Here (p. 68) he tells us that:

In the early Church, prayer towards the east was regarded as an apostolic tradition. We cannot date exactly when this turn to the east, the diverting of the gaze from the Temple, took place, but it is certain that it goes back to the earliest times and was always regarded as an essential characteristic of Christian liturgy (and indeed of private prayer).

These are strong words. Can something believed to be an “apostolic tradition”, and indeed, an “essential characteristic” of Christian liturgy, be so readily discarded as it has been since the 1960s? The position versus populum, now almost universal in celebrations according to the post-conciliar Roman Missal, was in fact unheard-of for fifteen centuries after Christ, and had its origin in the heretical Eucharistic theology of the Protestant Reformers. Ratzinger dedicates an entire chapter (“The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer”) to this question, pointing out that Vatican Council II never even suggested this novel change of position, and exposing the principal arguments in favor of it as being historically unfounded. “The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself” (p. 80)

This ‘self-centredness’ of the community is in turn linked to the new emphasis on the Mass as a ‘meal’. The liturgical innovators have assured us that the altar “had to be positioned in such a way that priest and people looked at each other and formed together the circle of the celebrating community. This alone - so it was said - was compatible with the meaning of the Christian liturgy, with the requirement of active participation” (p. 77). But even this concept of how a ‘meal’ would have been celebrated in biblical and patristic times - ‘gathered round the table of the Lord’, as a popular post-conciliar ditty puts it - is woefully anachronistic! Ratzinger quotes (p. 78) the noted French scholar Fr. Louis Bouyer, whose research has shown that:

In no meal of the early Christian era, did the president of the banqueting assembly ever face the other participants. They were all sitting, or reclining, on the convex side of a C-shaped table, or of a table having approximately the shape of a horseshoe. The other side was always left empty for the service. Nowhere in Christian antiquity, could have arisen the idea of having to ‘face the people’ to preside at a meal. The communal character of a meal was emphasised just by the opposite disposition: the fact that all the participants were on the same side of the table.

 

[mercygate]

AWall – What blather. I can hardly wait until YOU are the one teaching in RCIA. Yuck! I sure hope you can find yourself a place with somebody knowledgeable conducting the program. “Easter moment!” Puh-leeeze!

Take it to da pastor. If he’s in line with this inanity, RUN!

 

[AWall]

buffalo-thank you for your links. I will read through those sites.

Andrea

 

[buffalo]

Liturgy Questions

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

So St. Thomas in Camus was bit far, huh? Hang in there. Go see the priest. If he doesn’t do much, go see the bishop.

 

[rwoehmke]

Awall, this teacher sounds like a dabbler. A little reading here a little reading there and an almost total lack of comprehension of what was being read. It sounds like a lot of stuff be found interesting, but which has almost nothing to do with what you need to learn to make an intelligent decision to join the Catholic Church. There is a simple book available from Amazon.com and in many bookstores called Catholicism for Dummies. It is one of that series of yellow books covering all the worlds knowledge in easy to read and understand format. The authors are reliable, the information is basic and reliable. It will teach you all you really need to know to decide to join the Catholic Church. You will probably have to put up with the program that you are enrolled in in order to go through the ritual events along the way from catachumen or candidate to full fledged Catholic. Take everything they tell you with a large grain of salt and check it against the “Yellow Book” or the Cathechism of the Catholic Church which is very good but a little heavy for someone who is new to it all. Check things out here on the forums too as many of these folks are quite knowledgeable and reliable.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

AWall:

Hi. We had RCIA last night and the presentation left me with a couple of questions. The speaker gave a lecture on church history, which included some of the councils, including the 1st Lateran council. (He spoke about the Templars and how the pope made them his own army and gave himself the right to start Crusades and how he was BAD!) Of course he talked about Vatican II and how wonderful all the changes have been and now they are trying to have all the new churches put the altar in the center of the room and have people all around it in a circle which will make it easier for the 100% participation by all the people, called for by the council. Is this true?

Partly - the Council did call for fuller participation in the Liturgy by the faithful, just as you mentioned. And there are documents saying what this involves and might involve. What there is not, in the documents about how the directives of the Council were to be applied, is any mention of worship “in the round” - it is neither forbidden, nor directed: which is where the problems begin.​

The only thing I’ve been able to find is that the altar was to be pulled away from the wall allowing the priest to face the people. He taught that the “circle” was the way they did it in the first 3 centuries. I can’t seem to find that anywhere yet.

Liverpool Cathedral has the altar centrally placed:​

http://www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk/tour/im/fw_highview.jpg

For its history:

liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk/history/history.htm ##

He also said that Catholics are encouraged (yes, he used that word) to go to other churches.

He was correct - [​

DIRECTORY FOR THE APPLICATION OF****PRINCIPLES AND NORMS ON ECUMENISM](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19930325_directory_en.html)

See section 7 - to quote:

IV. Communion in Life and Spiritual Activity Among the Baptized
The communion that exists with other Christians on the basis of the sacramental bond of Baptism, and the norms for sharing in prayer and other spiritual activities, including in particular cases sacramental sharing. ##

He did say that the Eucharist is the most important part of the Catholic faith (although no one has mentioned the word transubstantiation yet)

It’s the “source and summit of the Christian life” - whether it is more important than the Blessed Trinity, is another matter. It is probably the most important for the life of the Catholic Christian in practice: but not for the theological understanding of the Church’s faith. Systematic Theology texts don’t begin with the Eucharist - they begin with God; since the Eucharist makes sense only in the context of the Church’s faith in God. The CCC begins its consideration of the Creed in the same way.​

so you should get to church to take it, but you’re also encouraged to go to other churches if you want. He didn’t even tell the class that as a Catholic you are not to take communion in other churches… Somehow I don’t think it’s true that Catholics are encouraged to attend other services, but I want to make sure.

There of course were some more gems, but I’d really appreciate help with these things.

Thanks!

Andrea