For example, an indulgence can be earned by someone receiving a blessing of a crowd by the Holy a Father, even on TV
In this case, only one of the requirements of receiving the indulgence includes the witnessing of the blessing, be it via media or in person. Therefore, what’s really going on is that the pope is simply saying, “you don’t have to be here physically in person.” For an indulgence, that’s ok.
It might also be argued that our universal daily prayers through the daily mass or LOTH is questionable, unless all the faithful meet in one gigantic assembly at one time.
Although there are communal celebrations of the LotH, the normal way for most to pray the hours is alone. So, praying (alone) while the TV is on, doesn’t really change anything. It’s completely different than watching a Mass on TV!
Many in the church also content the word must be proclaimed, thus heard, therefore following along with paper or electronic text is somehow not proper. Again, context is not considered, because listening may have been a necessity prior to increases in literacy and availability of text, but it may not be today.
The argument I’ve heard made is that one should not exclusively read the readings and ignore the proclamation. Whether a person is literate or not is irrelevant; what’s at stake here is the difference between Scripture as proclaimed in the context of liturgy and Scripture as personally read.
The case could be made that it is a matter the intent and context of rules.
OK… what’s the case that you want to make, then? What’s the ‘intent’ of attending Mass that could allow for non-attendance? What’s the ‘context’ of the rules that fits your assertions?
Looking at canon law, I see a number of places where your assertions would fail to hold:
Canon 898 states, “[t]he Christian faithful are to hold the Most Holy Eucharist in highest honor, taking an active part in the celebration of the most august sacrifice.” How would you contextualize this canon to suggest that a person who simply views a Mass on TV is “taking an active part” in that Mass?
Canon 899 §2 states, “*n the eucharistic gathering the people of God are called together with the bishop or, under his authority, a presbyter presiding and acting in the person of Christ. All the faithful who are present, whether clerics or laity, unite together by participating in their own way according to the diversity of orders and liturgical functions.” How would you contextualize this canon to suggest that by watching TV, a person is truly “called together with the bishop or… a presbyter”? How would you suggest that a TV viewer is “unite[d] together” and is “present” at such a Mass? In the document
The Church and the Internet, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications states, “Although the virtual reality of cyberspace cannot substitute for real interpersonal community, the incarnational reality of the sacraments and the liturgy, or the immediate and direct proclamation of the gospel, it can complement them” and again, “[v]irtual reality is no substitute for … shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet.”
Maybe in the future you may see a priest offering the sacrament of reconciliation over Skype or FaceTime!
That would take quite the modification to canon law!
Canon 964 asserts that “[t]he proper place to hear sacramental confessions is a church or oratory” and that “[c]onfessions are not to be heard outside a confessional without a just cause.” Remember – in 1983, when the current code of canon law was promulgated, we already had technologies that would allow for ‘virtual’ communication, and these weren’t considered valid media for the sacrament of reconciliation!
No, this has already been addressed by the Church, using less recent technology! Note that confession must be made auricularly – that is, spoken by the penitent and heard by the confessor directly! Also, the priest is obliged to keep the seal of the sacrament inviolate; you wouldn’t want to make a bet that your phone conversations and internet communications are completely private, would you?
If the best argument we can present is because we’ve never done any of these things that way before, we may be missing a great opportunity to offer the many blessings of God via use of new venues created by Him!
No, I think that the argument as presented is that these sorts of things have been considered in other contexts and are already not permissible!*
