Top health bureaucrat admits to reading a script - how common is this?

[Socrates92]

As I understand it, @FiveLinden’s remark was not belittling the Mass, but rather raising it as an example of appropriate and necessary reading from a script. The implication is that it was similarly necessary for the public health officials to read the official statement rather than paraphrasing or reciting from memory.

I don’t know about belittling, but it’s just an odd comparison. The Mass is a religious ceremony. Presumably, public health press conference isn’t… but maybe it is? I just wasn’t sure what he was trying to get at through the analogy.

 

[Beryllos]

It’s called rhetoric. Socrates would have appreciated it.

 

[FiveLinden]

Stop right there! The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is Christ’s mass. He set down a formula, through His teaching and via the authority He have to His Church, as to the form of the sacrifice. BHe commanded “Do this, as often as you do it, in memory of Me”. Focus on the “do this” as he is commanding the first formula of the mass. It is read so that nothing is missing and the mass is complete and correct.

So your point is? I’m just saying the Mass is said following a script.

 

[Socrates92]

It’s called rhetoric. Socrates would have appreciated it.

Could you elaborate? Rhetoric is a tool used to drive home some kind of point. It doesn’t exist on its own. Otherwise it’s just meaningless rhetoric.
Socrates had a blast ripping apart the meaningless rhetoric of the Sophists. Maybe there is some similarity between a press conference and a religious ritual that I’m missing?