Why do liturgical abuses and irregulartities exist in 2017?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Duesenberg
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Duesenberg said:
This quote from St. John Paul II really makes me think:

“The liturgy! Everybody speaks about it, writes about it, and discusses the subject. It has been commented on, it has been praised, and it has been criticized.” The music is often poorly chosen and sung. Art and architecture are frequently mundane at the expense of the heavenly. Preaching and presiding can lack dignity. Participation is regularly associated with liturgical ministry. Liturgical language is deemed inaccessible by many. Opinions abound about “what’s wrong.”

It sounds as if he was frustrated, which is of concern to me. It also makes me ponder more.
Click to expand...
Could you cite the source or a complete transcript? You have quoted what appears to be introductory remarks and I get the sense it was rhetorical and he was about to say something quite possibly the opposite.
 
RandomAlias said:
Could you cite the source or a complete transcript? You have quoted what appears to be introductory remarks and I get the sense it was rhetorical and he was about to say something quite possibly the opposite.
Click to expand...
Google it. Just as I originally did.
 
Last edited:
Google gives me only two links, both to Adoremus Society, and both quoting the exact text you quoted with no reference to the full and original text (or video?). I am sure he said more, and St. John Paul II wasn’t one to grumble about “liturgical abuses and irregularities.”
 
Last edited:
What sort of liturgical abuses are we talking about?

Maybe I’m just sheltered, but even at the most “liberal” of parishes of in my area –
the one where the congregation is split in half and facing each other, with a huge screen behind each side for words and lyrics, and the altar in between with Father facing the front door rather than towards the people or away from them – even there, with the music I can’t stand, and the let’s-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbayah attitude, I haven’t seen a single liturgical abuse.

Say the black. Do the red.

And so they do.

Abuses against my preferences? Yup.

Abuses against my sense of beauty and decorum? Absolutely.

But the liturgy is intact, and Jesus Himself deigns to be present. That’s good enough for me.
 
Didn’t this come from the article Deacon Jeff linked in the thread I started called "What is wrong with the liturgy’?

I have to agree with RA, I was surprised to not see a citation for this quote in the Adoremus story and did spend some time trying to find it’s source but also just kept getting the Adoremus link.

Would you care to enlighten us with your sources, please?
 
RandomAlias said:
Google gives me only two links, both to Adoremus Society, and both quoting the exact text you quoted with no reference to the full and original text (or video?). I am sure he said more, and St. John Paul II wasn’t one to grumble about “liturgical abuses and irregularities.”
Click to expand...
Exactly. It’s out of context.
Here’s the title of the Adoremus article this quote was lifted from:
““What’s Wrong with the Liturgy? —I am.””
(paraphrasing GK Chesterton, and quoting Romano Guardini later. These are not exactly modernist revisionists…)
Food for thought for those quick to point fingers.
 
Last edited:
I agree. I understand an abuse as a flagrant, intentional irregularity. There is also, I believe, a grey zone where the liturgy isn’t exactly violated, but there is a lack of taste or what one might call a “lack of concern” that I find bothersome.
 
Wish I could live in your diocese.

I pray every day for my priest. I’m grateful for priests.

I know why (at least I know why he SAYS) he deviates, he does so “in order for the people to have active participation” (though how we have active participation when we never hear or say the Kyrie, Gloria, or Creed, or hear an approved Eucharistic Prayer, Collect, or responsorial psalm, is beyond me). He is very, very popular and everybody loves how we all ‘know better’ and are so wonderful, perfect, and holy that all Saints was even all about US as we are NOW. And the parents love that the kids get to go up and stand around the altar for consecration because ‘the kids get to do things and it’s more interesting’.

It breaks my heart, but apparently that doesn’t mean anything.
 
All of what you say here reminds me of things that happened 25-30 years ago in my diocese.
It didn’t last too long, and in some places, there are a few, let’s say irregularities, but nothing that I would ever call abuse.

If you don’t mind me asking, are you in the US? I am just very surprised to hear that these types of things that are still going on.
 
Yes, I am in the U.S. I had thought this kind of thing had also pretty much disappeared (my previous diocese before I had to move back to take care of family was in Virginia, and beautifully orthodox) but I had lived in this diocese back in the 1980s and 1990s and if anything this particular parish is worse than things were then. Until I experienced it I would not have believed such things possible, especially after the GIRM. Even the advent of a new bishop a while back did not change things here. Even the ones who detest the abuses throw up their hands knowing nothing can or will be done. And there is no ‘6 year term limit’ here (he’s already outstayed that.) In this atmosphere where every question is an ‘accusation’ and anything other than delighted acquiescence is seen as rigid, intolerant bigotry and hatefulness, all one can do is grit one’s teeth, offer it up, and pray. . .and also ‘keep alive’ the fact that yes, these things DO go on still. Pray for us and may God help us. (Preferably with the priest, who is a loving albeit misguided soul, becoming aware of the beauty of obedience and leading us to such.)
 
@stpurl I am so sorry to hear of such things going on in your parish. I experienced this some decades ago, but thankfully have seen nothing of it since my return to the Church.

I will keep your priest in my prayers, along with all other priests. Obedience is a grace that can be attained or lost within any of us.
 
Augustinian said:
Mistakes are made, that’s why pencils have erasers. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that they are perfect in any profession or avocation.
Click to expand...
That attempt at an excuse just doesn’t pass the smell test. Sure Mass celebrants make real mistakes. That in no way explains what many of us have been exposed to however.
 
Duesenberg said:
40.png
Augustinian:
Mistakes are made, that’s why pencils have erasers. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that they are perfect in any profession or avocation.
Click to expand...
That attempt at an excuse just doesn’t pass the smell test. Sure Mass celebrants make real mistakes. That in no way explains what many of us have been exposed to however.
Click to expand...
Indeed!

As I posted above, I have been blessed not to see anything other than honest mistakes (and not many of those) since my return to the Church.

But the things I saw back in the 70s and 80s in CA, and in the early 90s in CO (up until I left the Church) were astonishing to say the least!
  • Teenagers gathered around the altar to dramatize the gospel (Last Supper) rather than Father reading the gospel.
  • Clowns presenting a dramatic reflection in place of the homily.
  • Everyone gathered around the altar for the consecration at daily masses.
  • Liturgical dancer type person (female) using the incense in a bowl to bless the gospel, the altar, etc.
  • Lay people giving the homily.
But as the topic of this thread is about abuses and irregularities in 2017, I’m getting off topic. Sorry.

Thankfully, the Spirit of God has been moving through this diocese like a cleansing wind in the past two decades and I honestly cannot remember seeing any abuses or weird stuff in the masses I’ve attended.

Thanks be to God!
 
Last edited:
stpurl said:
Until I experienced it I would not have believed such things possible, especially after the GIRM. Even the advent of a new bishop a while back did not change things here. Even the ones who detest the abuses throw up their hands knowing nothing can or will be done.
Click to expand...
Did a new pastor add to the abuses at this parish, or did they just continue under a new pastor?

It’s interesting – in just about any aspect of our lives – family, work, gov’t, education, shopping, friends, etc., problems can be worked out. There is recourse. Unless the problem is truly horrible, there really isn’t when it comes to the liturgy. In a lot of settings, one will receive nothing more than lip-service.
 
Yes I have. He was very nice about it too. Respectful, pleasant, obviously having heard objections and simply convinced that he was ‘saving the people’ from the tedium and the shackles of 'rigidity and the ‘old hateful ways’ into a new more merciful, more just, and more ‘open’ way. It’s all about the journey. . .not the arrival. It’s assumed that we’re all (since we’re already Holy) going to ‘be one with God’, but not in some ‘heaven in the sky’, we’re building heaven on earth. And a faintly pitying acceptance that some people just are right now too ‘rigid’ and focused on ‘unimportant things that Jesus doesn’t care about’ but hopefully they’ll come around because God cares about them too.

It’s like trying to walk through a clinging fog. You know that the structures around you are solid, but the fog keeps interfering with your vision. It dampens your senses and can be so dense that you wind up losing your bearings, losing your footing, and keeping you from avoiding the danger that you would see ‘in the light’.
 
stpurl said:
Yes I have. He was very nice about it too. Respectful, pleasant, obviously having heard objections and simply convinced that he was ‘saving the people’ from the tedium and the shackles of 'rigidity and the ‘old hateful ways’ into a new more merciful, more just, and more ‘open’ way. It’s all about the journey. . .not the arrival. It’s assumed that we’re all (since we’re already Holy) going to ‘be one with God’, but not in some ‘heaven in the sky’, we’re building heaven on earth. And a faintly pitying acceptance that some people just are right now too ‘rigid’ and focused on ‘unimportant things that Jesus doesn’t care about’ but hopefully they’ll come around because God cares about them too.
Click to expand...
This sounds very familiar…
 
I realize that today canon lawyers aren’t trained in liturgical matters; I only proposed that the office would be fulfilled by a canon lawyer because that was what was done before Vatican II when said office was a thing.
 
The modernists.

The changes to the Mass, in particular those of the post conciliar years, were in no way manageable. In fact, there is even some talk about simplifying liturgical law
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top