Liturgical abuse!

[LRThunder]

My parish no longer says the confessional prayer: i confess to Almighty God and to you…

is this a Liturgical abuse? i also miss the bells during the Consecration.

the music is getting more and more modern tune. please pray for our priests.

i heard in EWTN that this year is going to be the year for the priesthood. St Vianney is going to be the Patron Saint for all priests.

i come to the conclusion that since confession has been reduced to almost none, the people are more likely to leave the Church. just by hearing the story of St Vianney. it is a beautiful story.

No, it’s not. In the Penitential Rite, there are three options that may be used. The Confeitor ("I confess to Almighty God…) is just one of those options.

 

[otjm]

Feb. 23, 2009 (CWNews.com) -

A key Vatican official has called for “bold and courageous” decisions to address liturgical abuses that have arisen since the reforms of Vatican II.

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cites a flawed understanding of Vatican II teachings and the influence of secular ideologies are reasons to conclude that-- as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in 1985-- “the true time of Vatican II has not yet come.” Particularly in the realm of the liturgy, Archbishop Ranjith says, “The reform has to go on.”

Archbishop Ranjith, who was called to the Vatican personally by Pope Benedict to serve as a papal ally in the quest to **restore a sense of reverence in the liturgy, **makes his comments in the Foreword to a new book based on the diaries and notes of Cardinal Fernando Antonelli, who was a key figure in the liturgical-reform movement both before and after Vatican II.

The writings of Cardinal Antonelli, Archbishop Ranjith says, help the reader “to understand the complex inner workings of the liturgical reform prior to an immediately following the Council.” The Vatican official concludes that implementation of the Council’s suggested reforms often veered away from the actual intent of the Council fathers. As a result, Archbishop Ranjith concludes, **the liturgy today is not a true realization of the vision put forward in the key liturgical document of Vatican II, **Sacrosanctum Concilium (doc).

Specifically, Archbishop Ranjith writes:

Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of "active participation."

The Sri Lankan prelate argues that it in order to carry out a “reform of the reform,” it is essential to recognize how the liturgical vision of Vatican lI became distorted. He praises the book on Cardinal Antonelli for allowing the reader to gain a better understanding of “which figures or attitudes caused the present situation.” This, the archbishop says, is an inquiry “which, in the name of truth, we cannot abandon.”

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=60291

And it now appears the good prelate is going to be replaced. For what reason is not clear; and given the 2000 years of history of Rome, it may never be clear.

 

[wisdomseeker]

it is also interesting that i just read the bulletin given at Church every sunday in which the bishop in my area says how the faithfull must receive the Communion in the hand. the communion on the hand he says that has been allowed by the pope to the America. he says that all we have to do is a slight bow before receiving.

 

[wisdomseeker]

No, it’s not. In the Penitential Rite, there are three options that may be used. The Confeitor ("I confess to Almighty God…) is just one of those options.

but there is none. after the beginning Prayer it goes straight to Lord have Mercy. there is no Prayer of repentence before Lord have Mercy. is it the norm?

 

[Aramis]

My cousin, Thomas, was a priest. He left the priesthood in the 70’s because he had been steamrollered into ordination, and had not actually been given time to discern.

He was laicized some time after semptember of 1969… I know this because of my baptismal certificate. He was the priest who baptized me. He’s raised two girls in the church since laicization. So reasons for leaving vary. In his case, it was poor formation, and his was trans-conciliar… (starting before and ending after.) Poor formation and going straight from minor seminary to major seminary by expectation, without actually discerning.

 

[bpbasilphx]

I think some bishops won’t be happy until they have reduced the Roman Catholic Mass to a ‘Eucharistisc service’ where the priest is first amongst equals. Or even just have ‘communion services’; no need for troublesome priests.

---

There is already in the USA a book Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest.

---

What do EMCs, altar girls, lay readers, CITH, the vernacular, removal of altar rails and statues add to the Roman Catholic Rite, in terms of reverence, awe or beauty?

They neither add nor detract.

---

the music is getting more and more modern tune. please pray for our priests.

---

**Does your parish have a music director who knows his stuff, or just someone who can strum a few chords?

One of the great problems with Roman parishes in this regard is simply the unwillingness to put out the money for competent choir directors and organists.

It’s an open secret that most professional organists hate to play for Roman Catholic parishes.

This is discussed in Thomas Day’s book WHY CATHOLICS CAN’T SING.**

 

[wisdomseeker]

I think some bishops won’t be happy until they have reduced the Roman Catholic Mass to a ‘Eucharistisc service’ where the priest is first amongst equals. Or even just have ‘communion services’; no need for troublesome priests.

---

There is already in the USA a book Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest.

---

What do EMCs, altar girls, lay readers, CITH, the vernacular, removal of altar rails and statues add to the Roman Catholic Rite, in terms of reverence, awe or beauty?

They neither add nor detract.

---

the music is getting more and more modern tune. please pray for our priests.

---

**Does your parish have a music director who knows his stuff, or just someone who can strum a few chords?

One of the great problems with Roman parishes in this regard is simply the unwillingness to put out the money for competent choir directors and organists.

It’s an open secret that most professional organists hate to play for Roman Catholic parishes.

This is discussed in Thomas Day’s book WHY CATHOLICS CAN’T SING.**

i** assume we have a very poor one. some lady that is more interested and showing her voice rather than singing the real hymns of the Church. **

 

[Layman]

What do EMCs, altar girls, lay readers, CITH, the vernacular, removal of altar rails and statues add to the Roman Catholic Rite, in terms of reverence, awe or beauty?

They neither add nor detract.

---

Then why go to the trouble of making such great changes at all? There’s no call at all for EMCs, CITH, removal of altar rails and statues. Or use of the vernacular.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Then why go to the trouble of making such great changes at all? There’s no call at all for EMCs, CITH, removal of altar rails and statues. Or use of the vernacular.

Since none of these things matter, why make an issue of them?

 

[Layman]

I think they do matter.

Disruptive changes were made by rebellious bishops to the Roman Catholic Rite.

• Churches have been disfigured;
• Pious practices dumped for less reverent ones e.g. CITH;
• The sense of a sacred rite and space been reduced by letting unvested laity into the sanctuary;
• Women now enter the sanctuary bare-headed, and speak, contradicting the Bible;
• A language set aside for worship has been dumped for a language used to order drinks in a bar;
• A universal language has been dropped for the local, leading to a modern Babel in the Roman Catholic Rite;
• Neighbours you might be at odds with reading the epistle (badly) - more distraction;
• The priest and congregation form a closed circle rather than directing the worship towards the East, the tabernacle, the Crucifix and the Host;
• Ancient hymns dumped for modern, saccharin, folky ones;
• Sound catechesis dropped in favour of gliding over the awkward bits of our religion (Hell, sin, death, judgement, chastity, fasting, abstinence)

All done with reference to a Council which promulgated no doctrine and never requested any of this. All done in spite of the wishes of Paul VI. On the basis that because a practice was done in the East and/or 800 years ago and/or by an obscure saint and/or because modernist bishops have a toothing for it, it is suitable to be shoe-horned into the equally ancient Roman Catholic Rite.

I think we have a generation of educated, meddlesome intellectuals in the Roman Catholic Rite, who instead of standing on their theology degrees or certificates in liturgical experimentation, should starve themselves for 40 days in a cave in front of a crucifix and see what insights they get from that. It would do them the power of good and we might be able to go to Mass without suffering the latest misguided effort to drum up interest from the laity.

 

[Cat]

I think they do matter.

Disruptive changes were made by rebellious bishops to the Roman Catholic Rite.

• Churches have been disfigured;
• Pious practices dumped for less reverent ones e.g. CITH;
• The sense of a sacred rite and space been reduced by letting unvested laity into the sanctuary;
• Women now enter the sanctuary bare-headed, and speak, contradicting the Bible;
• A language set aside for worship has been dumped for a language used to order drinks in a bar;
• A universal language has been dropped for the local, leading to a modern Babel in the Roman Catholic Rite;
• Neighbours you might be at odds with reading the epistle (badly) - more distraction;
• The priest and congregation form a closed circle rather than directing the worship towards the East, the tabernacle, the Crucifix and the Host;
• Ancient hymns dumped for modern, saccharin, folky ones;
• Sound catechesis dropped in favour of gliding over the awkward bits of our religion (Hell, sin, death, judgement, chastity, fasting, abstinence)

All done with reference to a Council which promulgated no doctrine and never requested any of this. All done in spite of the wishes of Paul VI. On the basis that because a practice was done in the East and/or 800 years ago and/or by an obscure saint and/or because modernist bishops have a toothing for it, it is suitable to be shoe-horned into the equally ancient Roman Catholic Rite.

I think we have a generation of educated, meddlesome intellectuals in the Roman Catholic Rite, who instead of standing on their theology degrees or certificates in liturgical experimentation, should starve themselves for 40 days in a cave in front of a crucifix and see what insights they get from that. It would do them the power of good and we might be able to go to Mass without suffering the latest misguided effort to drum up interest from the laity.

You have such a negative view of your fellow Catholics! C’mon now! Don’t you see any good, holy, humble people in the Church?

My suggestion to you is that you move away from whatever hellhole you live in and move to a place where you can attend a TLM on a regular basis and shut out the OF world that you hate so much.

I don’t know what such a move would entail, but IMO, it would be worth it. All of the things that you have to face every week in Mass are making you into such a combative, bitter person! You’re not doing yourself or anyone else any good at all to remain where you are. Do you honestly think anything is going to change where you are?

There are so many reverent and just plain “good” people who attend the OF Masses in my city! Come to our city and get involved with the Italian parish and be overwhelmed with people for whom the Gospel of Jesus Christ is lived moment by moment outside the Church doors, even though most the parish practices all the things that you continue to decry (even though Holy Mother Church still allows them and does not condemnt these things).

Or come to our city and get involved with the TLM parish. Don’t even bother to visit other parishes–why go somewhere that makes you so unhappy and angry at Holy Mother Church?

Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you that the majority of Catholics do not hold the same bitter views about EMHCs, Communion in the hand, lay readers, etc. that you do? A good principle of life is that if you are the only one objecting, it is likely that you are wrong and everyone else is right.

Obviously this principle isn’t always true (e.g., those who objected to Adolf Hitler were right). But when the Catholic CHURCH herself teaches and allows the things that you object to, then perhaps you need to take a second look at your opinion and make sure that you are right and the Church really is in the wrong. Whew, that’s quite daring! If you are correct and the Church has been wrong all these decades about these practices, that’s going to cause some major upheaval, IMO. It casts doubt on everything Church teaches about various practices (e.g., celibacy of priests) and will cause many Catholics to walk away in disgust because they’ll feel they can’t trust anything the Church teaches. Is this worth it to you, Layman?

 

[Layman]

I’m not bitter against my fellow Catholics. I love them. They are on the road to sainthood, just by being in our religion. I’m bitter about what’s happened and is happening to the main rite of Roman Catholicism.

I already help out at a local TLM in London. Such a benefit doesn’t exist where I come from in Ireland; it’s the N.O. or nothing.

While a Pope may be free from error when announcing infallible doctrine, his Bishops are not guaranteed to be free from error when making modifications to our rite. Nor are we obliged to accept such modifications without criticism; I understand the Pope and some cardinals are not happy about their implementation either.

My worry is that if I have to move back home, I might have to wait years for a local TLM. Meanwhile I can see the O.F. there being modified before my eyes. Also the lack of vocations there is worrying.

This is a sub-forum about traditional catholicism. My expressing my opinions on these matters here is valid. I’m not too worried about promoting traditional Mass disciplines; they’ve got a long history in our rite. The novelities added to the O.F. do not. And because they may have been indvidually done here and there in other rites, long ago, and in other circumstances does not mean it’s automatically O.K. they should be inserted into our rite.

 

[wisdomseeker]

I think they do matter.

Disruptive changes were made by rebellious bishops to the Roman Catholic Rite.

• Churches have been disfigured;
• Pious practices dumped for less reverent ones e.g. CITH;
• The sense of a sacred rite and space been reduced by letting unvested laity into the sanctuary;
• Women now enter the sanctuary bare-headed, and speak, contradicting the Bible;
• A language set aside for worship has been dumped for a language used to order drinks in a bar;
• A universal language has been dropped for the local, leading to a modern Babel in the Roman Catholic Rite;
• Neighbours you might be at odds with reading the epistle (badly) - more distraction;
• The priest and congregation form a closed circle rather than directing the worship towards the East, the tabernacle, the Crucifix and the Host;
• Ancient hymns dumped for modern, saccharin, folky ones;
• Sound catechesis dropped in favour of gliding over the awkward bits of our religion (Hell, sin, death, judgement, chastity, fasting, abstinence)

All done with reference to a Council which promulgated no doctrine and never requested any of this. All done in spite of the wishes of Paul VI. On the basis that because a practice was done in the East and/or 800 years ago and/or by an obscure saint and/or because modernist bishops have a toothing for it, it is suitable to be shoe-horned into the equally ancient Roman Catholic Rite.

I think we have a generation of educated, meddlesome intellectuals in the Roman Catholic Rite, who instead of standing on their theology degrees or certificates in liturgical experimentation, should starve themselves for 40 days in a cave in front of a crucifix and see what insights they get from that. It would do them the power of good and we might be able to go to Mass without suffering the latest misguided effort to drum up interest from the laity.

not only that, today i also see at the end of Eucharist the women is the one finishing up. she comes to the Altar and picks up the remain host and separate them and puts it in Tabernacle while the priest stands on the side of the Altar. this i never seen before. they are pretty badly dressed too. i dont know where this is going, but it seems to me they are preparing these women for priesthood. i dont know just my opinion.

 

[bpbasilphx]

• Churches have been disfigured;
  • Pious practices dumped for less reverent ones e.g. CITH;
  • The sense of a sacred rite and space been reduced by letting unvested laity into the sanctuary;
  • Women now enter the sanctuary bare-headed, and speak, contradicting the Bible;
  • A language set aside for worship has been dumped for a language used to order drinks in a bar;
  • A universal language has been dropped for the local, leading to a modern Babel in the Roman Catholic Rite;
  • Neighbours you might be at odds with reading the epistle (badly) - more distraction;
  • The priest and congregation form a closed circle rather than directing the worship towards the East, the tabernacle, the Crucifix and the Host;
  • Ancient hymns dumped for modern, saccharin, folky ones;
  • Sound catechesis dropped in favour of gliding over the awkward bits of our religion (Hell, sin, death, judgement, chastity, fasting, abstinence)

---

**1. What is disfigurement to one person is transfiguration to another.

1. Communion in the hand is not intrinsically less pious than communion on the tongue, unless you want to think that the Apostolic Church was less pious than today. Furthermore, practices of piety and devotion have never been fixed.
2. Vestments are basically what everyone wore centuries ago after the ladies of the altar guild got hold of them.
3. Many things that even pious Catholics do can be said to “contradict the Bible.”
4. Latin was originally used by drunks in bars AND brothels. So have all languages, ancient and modern, even Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

Furthermore, Latin was never set aside for worship. Protestant (possibly Arian) Isaac Newton wrote his scientific treatises in that language, as, for that matter were all learned works until relatively recently.

1. Latin was never the univeral language of the Latin rite. (Say that 3 times.) It was celebrated in Slavonic for centuries before Vatican II in dioceses along the Adriatic.

And I’m sure God is a polyglot.

1. Celebration of the Eucharist takes precedence over reservation. Which way the priest faces is a non-issue.

And the place for reservation of the Holy Gifts has varied over the centuries, as well as what it is reserved in. “Sacrament houses” (a large tower-like structure) were common in England and northern Europe to the left of the altar.

You might want to read SHAPE OF THE LITURGY to see how the eastward posture developed.

1. I don’t know about Ireland, but America has been notorious for not being willing to spend money on competent choir directors and organists. There’s no reason why new hymns cannot be composed, and new vernacular translation made of ancient hymns. In fact, this should happen.

Tastes and styles in parish music have changed over the years and are never fixed.

And surely time and the Holy Spirit will weed out whatever is unworthy.

1. Catechesis is not a liturgical issue.

Finally, the Catholic Church is bigger than the Latin Rite, or even what is going on today.**

 

[paperwight]

I think they do matter.

Disruptive changes were made by rebellious bishops to the Roman Catholic Rite.
;
;
*]A *]Neighbours you might be at odds with reading the epistle (badly) - more distraction;

]

I have to say, my jaw dropped on reading this objection in particular.

Granted, bad reading can be a distraction. But objecting on the grounds that it is a neighbour with whom '‘you might be at odds’ ?

Surely it would be better to have made peace already (if only by agreeing to disagree) if the falling-out is so serious? Or if it isn’t serious, than it’s not worth getting distracted over? Just how easily distracted are you?

And anyway, it could just as easily be a priest with whom anyone is at odds. The objection is trivial.

 

[malphono]

bpbasilphx, you must be having a bad day. Normally I agree with you in main, but today I feel compelled to comment on a few things.

1. Vestments are basically what everyone wore centuries ago after the ladies of the altar guild got hold of them.

Only partially true, and you know it as well as I.

1. Latin was originally used by drunks in bars AND brothels. So have all languages, ancient and modern, even Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

That is, of course, true. But at the same time it does not in any way negate the efficacy of liturgical languages.

1. Latin was never the univeral language of the Latin rite. (Say that 3 times.) It was celebrated in Slavonic for centuries before Vatican II in dioceses along the Adriatic.

Yes, but even in Dalmatia staroslavenski was never universally used for the Latin Rite.

1. Celebration of the Eucharist takes precedence over reservation. Which way the priest faces is a non-issue.

Maybe not to you, but it IS an issue (and a big one at that) to this cradle Oriental, albeit not for the same reasons in Layman’s post.

1. I don’t know about Ireland, but America has been notorious for not being willing to spend money on competent choir directors and organists. There’s no reason why new hymns cannot be composed, and new vernacular translation made of ancient hymns. In fact, this should happen.

Tastes and styles in parish music have changed over the years and are never fixed.

And surely time and the Holy Spirit will weed out whatever is unworthy.

All true, but let’s face it: bad contemporary music has become one of the hallmarks of the Latin Rite OF, and not only in the US.

1. Catechesis is not a liturgical issue.

Again, not for the same reasons as in Layman’s post, but it is if one accepts “lex orandi, lex credendi” which we of the East and Orient most certainly do.

Finally, the Catholic Church is bigger than the Latin Rite, or even what is going on today.

Yes but again we have to face the facts: what is commonly called the “Catholic Church” is the Latin Rite. We of the East and Orient are, in practical terms, but a footnote or an afterthought.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Yes but again we have to face the facts: what is commonly called the “Catholic Church” is the Latin Rite. We of the East and Orient are, in practical terms, but a footnote or an afterthought.

---

I refuse to sit in the back of the bus.

 

[Layman]

That might actually be a good thing; being left alone by ‘head office’, so to speak.

Have similar changes occured in:

Orthodox Christianity;
Eastern Catholic rites;

… as have occured in the Roman Catholic rite post Vat. II?

---

 

[bpbasilphx]

That might actually be a good thing; being left alone by ‘head office’, so to speak.

Have similar changes occured in:

Orthodox Christianity;
Eastern Catholic rites;

… as have occured in the Roman Catholic rite post Vat. II?

---

A few minor ones for both Orthodox and Byzantine-rite Catholics (some 18 different sui juris churces): a litany or two omitted or shortened here and there (differs from place to place), certain prayers–especially the Anaphora–formerly said quietly are now recited or even chanted aloud, more frequent celebrations of the Divine Office (Vespers, Matins, the Hours), more emphasis on congregational singing, at least for the unchangeable parts of the services; obviously cantors or choirs are still needed for the propers and complex services such as Holy Week).

There’s been a deliberate effort on the part of various Byzantine Catholic churches to return to their original spiritual traditions, thus making them more closely resemble their Orthodox counterparts:

• suppression of recited Liturgies
• dropping Latin devotions such as Stations of the Cross in favor of the original services such as Presanctified Liturgy and Akathists
• recommending stricter fasting and abstinence practices, even if only the relaxed rules are still of precept.

Needless to say, there have been howls and growls from a small number both Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics about these developments.

Nevertheless, I believe that as liturgical and spiritual practices converge, this will eventually lead to reconciliation.

As a side note, when it began to be customary to recite the Anaphora aloud, Abp. Cyprian of Philadelphia, resident at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, said, “The Anaphora will be read aloud at St. Tikhon’s over my dead body.”

When he died a couple of decades ago, the Metropolitan came to preside at his funeral Liturgy. As was his custom, he read the Anaphora aloud.

And people remembered Abp. Cyprian’s words.

 

[Layman]

As a side note, when it began to be customary to recite the Anaphora aloud, Abp. Cyprian of Philadelphia, resident at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, said, “The Anaphora will be read aloud at St. Tikhon’s over my dead body.”

When he died a couple of decades ago, the Metropolitan came to preside at his funeral Liturgy. As was his custom, he read the Anaphora aloud.

And people remembered Abp. Cyprian’s words.

That shows you have to be careful what you pray for, and your choice of words, I think. But if this custom is now common, it could also be a co-incidence.