What was the most egregious liturgical abuse you ever witnessed?

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One priest who said mass at a chapel who would flush excess consecrated hosts after mass down the toilet.
One priest I knew concelebrated mass with a Protestant minister. In fact, a photo of his doing this appeared in the “National Catholic Reporter.” Not long after this, he left the priesthood.

Some things that I found particularly annoying, though they were not the worst liturgical abuses I experienced. The priest who saved the greeting of peace until the very end of the mass, after the liturgy of the mass was done, ordering everyone to shake hands then. Some people were also annoyed by the fact that he would give his sermon at the very beginning of mass, coming down before the people to give it before the liturgy of the mass actually began. And the priest who put an image of Martin Luther King in with the saints’ images in the parish church. (Martin Luther King is someone I admire though). And the priest who ordered everyone in the pews to leave their pew and come into the central aisle and to hold hands during the “Lord’s Prayer.”

I am telling these things though I think perhaps no one will read them, being at the end of so many posts.
 
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I’m afraid this was so. They were consecrated hosts.
 
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mdgspencer said:
One priest who said mass at a chapel who would flush excess consecrated hosts after mass down the toilet.
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That’s a case of graviora delicta. I would have physically stopped him (no matter what it took) AND THEN told the bishop and I would have followed through.
 
Duesenberg said:
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Erikaspirit16:
I agree with everything you said. But “getting worked up” is not a voluntary action, it’s a gag reflex. It’s like buying a new car, and then someone comes along and scratches it. It’s not a big scratch, and most people don’t even notice it. But the owner notices it–to the extent that’s all he sees when he looks at the car. It’s not a choice to obsess over the scratch, it an unavoidable reaction. And of course I can finesse the problem by going to a Latin Mass…but it’s about 25 miles away vs. a few blocks to my parish church.
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I agree about the gag reflex. That’s why I keep my eyes closed a great deal at Mass – even when I am serving Mass.

The EF Mass is no panacea. Had you attended one back when the EF was the OF and you had knowledge of the Mass, I’m sure in many cases you would have been disgusted by the number of skipped prayers hyper-velocity, burned-through Masses.

Pope Benedict XVI cleaned-up a lot of details that St. John Paul II did not.

My parish has FAR fewer liturgical abuses and irregularities then it did say in 2000. What’s left is a terribly utilitarian celebration of the Mass. While sad, I will take it over what I once had to swallow each week, anytime!
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I would think that having to keep one’s eyes closed “a great deal at Mass” - to say nothing of while serving - would be a clear sign that one is in the wrong parish. Additionally, a server keeping their eyes closed during Mass strikes me as an abuse - or at least highly irreverent and disrespectful of the priest, who might have a need and doesn’t expect his server to be there with eyes closed.
 
Mattapoisett64 said:
I would think that having to keep one’s eyes closed “a great deal at Mass” - to say nothing of while serving - would be a clear sign that one is in the wrong parish.
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No. It’s remarkable how so many exclaim (and probably correctly depending on the setting) “one needs to focus on the Mass so they won’t be distracted by problems, etc.” and then you post this. SMH.
Mattapoisett64 said:
Additionally, a server keeping their eyes closed during Mass strikes me as an abuse - or at least highly irreverent and disrespectful of the priest, who might have a need and doesn’t expect his server to be there with eyes closed.
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An “abuse”? No. That’s quite ridiculous. There are some very proper times to close one’s eyes – and I don’t mean in a tired, slumped down manner either. During the readings, during the homily, silence after communion, etc. Watch a celebrant sometime. See when many close their eyes – either to block stuff out or to facilitate concentration.
 
That would be an honest-to-goodness abuse. It wouldn’t invalidate the Mass or anything like that, but it would be an abuse.
 
Some priests, at the offertory, used to offer both species at the same time, instead of separately. That stopped.

One priest used to place the chalice on a side table for people to self-communicate.

Some priests used to do a quick lavabo when they washed their hands.

A lot of small “innovations” went away after the “Mass camp”.

Now, for example, the priest does a full ritual hand washing, often with the deacon AND the altar boy.

And there seem to be fewer altar girls.
 
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MonteRCMS said:
Some priests used to do a quick lavabo when they washed their hands.

Now, for example, the priest does a full ritual hand washing, often with the deacon AND the altar boy.
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Say what? Why on earth would the deacon and the altar server do ritual hand washing that has nothing whatsoever to do with their ministry? That belongs to the priest alone and is not an elaborate ritual. It’s an entirely symbolic action, one that requires nothing more than wetting the hands or even fingertips while saying a one sentence prayer then drying the hands.
 
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Please allow me to clarify.

The PRIEST washes HIS hands. The altar server and deacon DO NOT wash their hands. The altar server holds the bowl, the water pitcher and the towel. The deacon “assists” [trains, actually] the altar boy with the handling of the towel, etc., if needed, particularly is the altar boy is a newbie.

In the past, the priest often did merely touch his fingers to the water … and in some cases, skipped the lavabo completely.

Now, the priest makes a rather more lengthy ceremony of the procedure.
 
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Duesenberg said:
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Mattapoisett64:
I would think that having to keep one’s eyes closed “a great deal at Mass” - to say nothing of while serving - would be a clear sign that one is in the wrong parish.
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No. It’s remarkable how so many exclaim (and probably correctly depending on the setting) “one needs to focus on the Mass so they won’t be distracted by problems, etc.” and then you post this. SMH.
Mattapoisett64 said:
Additionally, a server keeping their eyes closed during Mass strikes me as an abuse - or at least highly irreverent and disrespectful of the priest, who might have a need and doesn’t expect his server to be there with eyes closed.
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An “abuse”? No. That’s quite ridiculous. There are some very proper times to close one’s eyes – and I don’t mean in a tired, slumped down manner either. During the readings, during the homily, silence after communion, etc. Watch a celebrant sometime. See when many close their eyes – either to block stuff out or to facilitate concentration.
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I think you’re being disingenuous here. You’re closing your eyes either because of your “gag reflex” (your words), or to “facilitate concentration.” If the parish liturgies that you attend are causing you to “gag,” then I still maintain that you are attending the wrong parish based on your liturgical sensibilities.
 
Mattapoisett64 said:
You’re closing your eyes either because of your “gag reflex” (your words)
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Actually “gag reflex” were MY words; Duesenberg was simply quoting me. And yes, I agree, I’m attending the wrong parish. But when you visit all the parishes within a 50 mile radius, and each is worse than the other, I’m not sure you have much of a choice. As I said earlier, Latin Mass is a good choice that eliminates the problems, and I often go there, but it’s 25 miles away vs. a parish church a few blocks away. I suspect–no evidence, just a suspicion–that priests in the same area pretty much conform to each other’s practices. I would be surprised if a free-wheeling let’s-all-do-our-own thing parish was right next to a traditional parish. I’m sure this situation exists out there, but I would think it would be unusual. It’s like any other job–you tend to conform to your peers.
 
On the question of when extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist should come into the sanctuary and line up behind the priest:

I’ve gone back and forth with Adoremus.org a couple times. As Duesenberg has already pointed out, their opinion is just that, an opinion, and has no official standing. However, since the organization specializes in liturgy, their opinion is worth listening to. And in this case, I have been corresponding with an individual within the organization.

In his opinion, when GIRM162 talks of “These ministers should not approach the altar…” there are two points: first, “these ministers” seems to refer to acolytes, who are NOT ordinary lay people–they have entered the 4th level of minor orders and are always male. And in that context, “altar” means exactly that–the altar, not the sanctuary, because the acolytes would have been seated in the sanctuary during the Mass.

An unexpected twist! I will do some more research and report back…And THIS is perhaps the main reason I participate in this forum: it gives me the opportunity to learn something new!
 
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  1. The priest may be assisted in the distribution of Communion by other priests who happen to be present. If such priests are not present and there is a very large number of communicants, the priest may call upon extraordinary ministers to assist him, i.e., duly instituted acolytes or even other faithful who have been deputed for this purpose.[97] In case of necessity, the priest may depute suitable faithful for this single occasion.[98]
These ministers should not approach the altar before the priest has received Communion, and they are always to receive from the hands of the priest celebrant the vessel containing either species of the Most Holy Eucharist for distribution to the faithful.
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Let’s read 162 again. It specifically refers to lay people other than acolytes as EMHCs. To me, “those ministers” refers to anyone acting as an EMHC. And while in my parish they come to the sanctuary from their pew at this time, in many parishes I’ve visited they are seated in the sanctuary, as are the readers in many cases.

That said, since I don’t work for the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts what I believe doesn’t much matter.
 
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OK, I asked the Office of Divine Worship at the USCCB. I went back and forth with the assoc. director a couple times.

I suspect he (like me) didn’t quite realize how ambiguous GIRM 162 was. In the end, he said “I am not aware of anything produced by the Conference that explicitly addresses your question, so that would leave it first to the bishop, and then to the priest.”

Once again, the issues are: 1) Who exactly are the “ministers” referred to in GIRM !62, and what exactly is meant by “altar” --the literal altar or the sanctuary.

I’m going to see if I can get opinions from the UK, Canada, Australia, etc. Meanwhile, that does explain why I found different parishes and diocese doing different things in my preliminary search.
 
Although this is an old thread, I feel that I have to insert this story… At another church in my diocese, there was not a single precious metal ciboria used. The covered ciboria for the Tabernacle looked like a glass cookie jar, and the uncovered owned seemed to be Pyrex bowls. Utterly aggregious.
 
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Maximilian75 said:
The covered ciboria for the Tabernacle looked like a glass chalice, and the uncovered owned seemed to be Pyrex bowls. Utterly aggregious.
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Over twenty years ago the pastor of my church gave a fairly flippant interview to the local newspaper after the interior of the church had been “painted.” That interview opened the door to a letter to the editor.

That letter written by a Mr. Noam de Plume listed 22 issues with the celebration of the Mass at that parish, including the use of cheap wine glasses and dime store glass cereal bowls to distribute Holy Communion. Copies of the article were sent to the local ordinary.

That single letter ignited massive liturgical reform at my parish and was a factor in the pastor moving on 3-4 months later.
 
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