Why is live stream Mass not equivalent to being present in person?

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MarkRome said:
I am just showing that just watching or listening to live streamed Masses doesn’t automatically preclude it fulfilling the obligation.
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If you’re physically in the Church, or otherwise physically in some area designated for attendees of the Mass, you are at Mass for purposes of fulfilling a Mass obligation, regardless of whether you can see or hear or whether there is audio or video. I’ve been to numerous Masses where I could not hear the Mass and/or could not see the Mass for many different reasons, such as Mass was very crowded and I was stuck behind tall people or behind a post in the back, or the speaker system for the church malfunctioned, or I became ill and had to excuse myself out to the vestibule so I wouldn’t faint. In those cases it doesn’t matter if you have a video or audio stream or not. It’s immaterial to the question of “did you attend Mass”. Attendance is determined by your physical presence in the spot where people are gathering for Mass.

So it’s not a matter of the Church saying that a video Mass could count towards your obligation. Your obligation was met by you being physically present, not by your viewing the Mass on a video if it were even available.
 
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The point is, you can’t blanket say that streaming the Mass doesn’t fulfill obligation under any circumstances. Obviously it can and is done. Streaming has to be done at a designated place. Sitting at home listening to the Mass on the radio at 10AM doesn’t fulfill the Sunday obligation but sitting in the parking lot because of a pandemic and listening to your radio does fulfill it.

I know it sounds technical, but our Church is very precise when it comes to what is and isn’t allowed, just look at the recent issue around invalid Baptisms.
 
MarkRome said:
Sitting at home listening to the Mass on the radio at 10AM doesn’t fulfill the Sunday obligation but sitting in the parking lot because of a pandemic and listening to your radio does fulfill it.
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Not always and everywhere. Listening to a live Mass by radio broadcast in the parking lot of the Church the Mass is being said in may do so, if the Bishop and Pastor say so, not otherwise. But if so, it is not simply because of the streaming, it is because of being physically in the parking lot (a designated place). Like the Pope’s Mass mentioned earlier in the thread - being in the designated area counted; whether or not you could see or hear what came out of one of the Jumbotrons didn’t.
 
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Well, you can’t administer the sacraments during online version. So that’s a major difference.
 
whatistrue said:
Listening to a live Mass by radio broadcast in the parking lot of the Church the Mass is being said in may do so, if the Bishop and Pastor say so, not otherwise.
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Yep, as I said earlier, if the Church says so.
 
Is participation in Mass merely presence then? Can one sit in their car during Mass and keep the radio off?
 
Indeed.

Canon Law can’t predict future technologies.

Happy feast day to you!

Deacon Christopher
 
If presence is all that matters if the Bishop or Pastor says the parking lot is a designated location, can someone sit in the car and listen to the football game and that still counts?
 
How many different scenarios are you going to trot out? Attendance at Mass means actual physical presence. Whether or not you are able to see or hear what is going on is not relevant, otherwise deaf and blind people couldn’t participate.

As an aside, where (in the US at least) is the Sunday obligation not dispensed? Which of course makes this notion at this time moot.
 
However canon law doesn’t mention attendance. It says “participate”. "On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” I would challenge your definition of participate as merely physical presence. In fact, I think choosing to listen to the football game in your car instead of the Mass even though you are in attendance would constitute a grave sin. If one is showing up to check a box and that’s it, then there are deeper matters that need tending to.
 
MarkRome said:
However canon law doesn’t mention attendance. It says “participate”.
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Care to explain how one participates without being present? Watching/listening is not the same thing as participating, and one who is deaf and/or blind gets little out of a stream or broadcast but participates fully when physically present.
 
whatistrue said:
Watching/listening is not the same thing as participating
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Amen! The Mass is not a spectator sport. The deaf and blind participate through prayers and acclamations of the Mass just as we all should do.
 
It is an interesting thought experiment (mind you, I don’t expect the Church to take up this question anytime in the next thousand years or so). Broadcast media in the past has been said to not fulfill obligations (but as pointed out above, under certain circumstances can convey a blessing or indulgence). If we are to say the rationale is that the faithful don’t gather in community and the priest can’t know who’s where and “participating” or not (leaving aside that definition), it makes sense why TV, radio, etc “don’t count”.

However, the argument could be made in this era with technologies like Zoom and others that people can know who’s present and who they’re present with, and can act/interact as a community.

I’m not saying I would be in favor of such, but having done multiple retreats and prayer services via Zoom this spring/summer, it has been an interesting and thought provoking exercise. I see everyone’s faces, there’s an opportunity to hear their voices, we sing together and respond to prayers together.

Just…interesting.
 
MarkRome said:
The point is, you can’t blanket say that streaming the Mass doesn’t fulfill obligation under any circumstances. Obviously it can and is done.
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It seems like you missed my entire point about the streaming not being a feature of the Mass at all, much less fulfilling any obligation.
Cor_ad_Cor said:
However, the argument could be made in this era with technologies like Zoom and others that people can know who’s present and who they’re present with, and can act/interact as a community
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This question of interactivity is a more interesting one. From a practical standpoint, once a group gets past a certain size, interactivity is limited, but technology could evolve.

Nevertheless, if you’re on any sort of broadcast media, interactive or not, then you’re still not physically in or near the Real Presence. And when you can’t be there for a good reason, the Church’s preferred way seems to be to exempt or dispense you from the obligation (like if you’re too ill to go) rather than require you to watch or listen to broadcast Mass.
 
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One of the reasons for inability to fulfill obligations via streaming stems from the fact that we are an incarnational Church. We rely on the tangential reality of the Sacraments. One has to be present in order to receive or confer these. While that may not be necessarily the ability to see or hear, physical presence is still required. Virtual presence is non-incarnational.
 
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