As glad as I am that the Maronites are thriving in Sidney, Mr. Voris’ video is fraught with inaccuracies, not to mention his typical doom-and-gloom attitude.
First, the Catholic Church is not comprised of nearly two dozen “Rites.” The Catholic Church is a communion of particular Churches sui iuris. I would’ve hoped that someone with an Ecclesiastical degree, such as Mr. Voris, would be aware of that. The Maronite Church is simply one of those Churches. A Rite refers to the Liturgical usage of a particular Church sui iuris. There is, for example, really no such thing as the “Byzantine Church,” but there are a number of particular Churches sui iuris that utilize the Byzantine Rite (i.e. Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Russian, Melkite, Romanian, Italo-Albanian, etc.). As I like to say, a Rite belongs to a Church, not a Church to a Rite.
Secondly, Mr. Voris falls into the trap that many Roman Catholics fall into, that is, overly romanticizing the East. The Eastern Catholic Churches have their own set of problems, liturgical abuses, clericalisms, etc., etc., etc. Just because they aren’t the same as those of the West doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. The Maronites are certainly no exception. Poor translations, bad music, and poorly celebrated Qurbonos are not uncommon occurrences. The Churches which utilize the Byzantine tradition often struggle from those same problems. We also have the problem of ethnic divisions, which many/most of our bishops have recognized hinder our efforts at evangelizing the people and culture around us.
Instead of citing poorly celebrated Liturgies/Masses/Qurbonos etc. as the main cause of decreased Mass attendance in the West, I think there is a bigger issue; complacency. We in the West have simply become too comfortable. The Roman Church in particular has become too comfortable in its mass numbers and has thus eased up on its efforts at evangelization. This is why John Paul II called for a new evangelization, which means evangelizing the Faithful first. But if you look at countries where the Church is persecuted, the numbers are actually growing. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
