Worst liturgical abuses?

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The young priest who concelebrated mass with a Protestant minister did this 35 years ago, and I am sorry I do not have an exact citation, though a picture of this appeared on the front page of the “National Catholic Reporter.” I don’t recall exactly what the bishop did, but it was something. In the 1960s I saw a tidal wave of craziness overtook the Catholic Church, and this was part of it.
canu said:
So his bishop muI st have found out (if not, please send him a gift subscription to the National Catholic Reporter). And what did he do about it? If nothing, please give him a copy of the Code of Canon Law.

Canon 908 Catholic priests are forbidden to concelebrate the Eucharist with priests or ministers of Churches or ecclesial communities which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church.

Can you give the exact reference to the National Catholic Reporter?
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Penitant said:
  1. Priest refused to purify the vessels. He told me he would leave the diocese if the bishop told him he had to.
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Good riddance!
Who purifies the vessels may be a relatively minor matter. Obedience to the Holy See and to the bishop is not.

Paragraph 279 of the *General Instruction of the Roman Missal *directs that the sacred vessels are to be purified by the priest, the deacon or an instituted acolyte.
 
  1. glass and ceramic vessels
  2. EM and Priest taking consecreted hosts by the handful in order to put them in other vessel
  3. Congregation doesn’t kneel at least at the consecration
  4. No usage of the Pentinential Rite weekly
  5. Recitation of the “through Him, with Him, in Him” by the whole congregation
  6. Priest not breaking a piece of the paten and placing it in the wine (which from what I understand might invalidate the whole thing)
  7. EMs at the altar with the priest and consume with the priest at the same time (self-communication)
  8. Priest never rinsing his hands after the Sign of Peace
  9. Priest leaving the sanctuary during the Sign of Peace
  10. Also with the wine I haven’t seen the priest drop a bit of water into it.
I guess you can include communion in the hand too, but that since that is an indult I am not going to mention it. And this goes on every Sunday at the nearby parish, except when there is a visiting priest, then it actually feels like a real Mass, even though some of the visiting priest do some odd things (we had a Paulist priest (he was also an actor/singer) visit and while his homily was actually quite good, he ruined it with this song he sang. I can’t wait till I move back to Texas and I won’t have to deal with snow so I can go to some reverent parishes
 
Sir_Anthony said:
  1. glass and ceramic vessels
  2. EM and Priest taking consecreted hosts by the handful in order to put them in other vessel
  3. Congregation doesn’t kneel at least at the consecration
  4. No usage of the Pentinential Rite weekly
  5. Recitation of the “through Him, with Him, in Him” by the whole congregation
  6. Priest not breaking a piece of the paten and placing it in the wine (which from what I understand might invalidate the whole thing)
  7. EMs at the altar with the priest and consume with the priest at the same time (self-communication)
  8. Priest never rinsing his hands after the Sign of Peace
  9. Priest leaving the sanctuary during the Sign of Peace
  10. Also with the wine I haven’t seen the priest drop a bit of water into it.
I guess you can include communion in the hand too, but that since that is an indult I am not going to mention it. And this goes on every Sunday at the nearby parish, except when there is a visiting priest, then it actually feels like a real Mass, even though some of the visiting priest do some odd things (we had a Paulist priest (he was also an actor/singer) visit and while his homily was actually quite good, he ruined it with this song he sang. I can’t wait till I move back to Texas and I won’t have to deal with snow so I can go to some reverent parishes
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You just described my old parish St. Michael’s Catholic Church.
 
markadm said:
Well… actually reception in the hand where there is no indult is an abuse, as is the use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion when there is no need for them.
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I thought that too, about the extraordinary ministers. We have acolytes (sp?) and as there is usually at least one at every Sunday Mass I’ve ever been to in the diocese, there’s not usually even a need for an EM. What, techinically, justifies need for EM’s?
 
mdgspencer said:
The abuses mentioned here are obnoxious, but there are worse ones than most of those mentioned. Here are some others.

The priest who flushed consecrated hosts left over from the mass down the toilet.

The priest I know who concelebrated mass with a Protestant minister (which appeared on the front page of the "National Catholic Reporter).

The two priests who always recite made-up eucharistic prayers during mass (whether they wrote them themselves, I don’t know).
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Speaking of toilets . . . My mother is adamant that she went to a Mass on vacation in CO where the priest put Mass on hold and left the sanctuary to go to use the restroom. Now, he was apparently very old, so hopefully that would excuse that? The problem was, he had a wireless microphone on and didn’t turn it off (again, forgetfullness?) I wouldn’t necessarily call this abuse, considering the alternative, but it’s definitely something one wouldn’t forget.
 
catherine_m said:
In my parish the Priest brings the children preparing for first Holy Communion up around the altar with him for the Consecration and tells them “now we will bless the bread”. He also announced at the start of Mass one Sunday that all Christians in the different Churches come together on Sunday to do the same thing and that differences were emphasised before but that is not important any more. We are all the same and do the same thing.
During a weekday Mass a couple of days after that Sunday the same Priest in his bidding prayers prayed for “Narrow minded people”. Something I never heard him pray for before. Someone must have complained him!!
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That sounds heretical.
 
A couple of years ago, I was traveling and stopped at a church on a Saturday evening for Mass. The place was packed and they ran out of the Hosts during Holy Communion.

The priest, in a voice that could be heard halfway across the church, told one of the EOMs to go to the tabernacle (which wasn’t near the altar) and “get some more bread”.

It was an awful experience. :mad:
 
Let’s see… Does “abuse” cover saying Monday’s Mass on Sunday night? This happened at the late Mass at the supposedly-Catholic university I attended :mad:

I didn’t go back to that particular mass time to see if that happened on a regular basis…
 
Well, since I just left another thread complaining about liturgical abuses at a church my parents attend, let me detail some of them here:
  1. Priest sitting at the altar while extraordinary ministers distributed Communion (not because of any physical problem - he’s perfectly able to walk down the aisle shaking hands during the Sign of Peace). (Have seen this occur more than once, and at more than one church).
  2. Woman carrying the Gospel Book in front of the procession at the beginning was wearing a mini-skirt, and when she held the book up, you could see all her, uh, assets. :rolleyes: 😉
  3. Priest ad-libbing the words of the Consecration, to highlight their connection to some point he’d just made in his homily.
  4. Lay person doing the Epistle reading giving an impromptu homily of his own, before actually getting to the reading.
  5. One Sunday morning, after Communion, but before the dismissal, while everyone was sitting quietly in their pews, a shabby-looking man crawled up onto the steps of the altar. The priest went over to him, took him by the hand and lifted him up. So far so good. But then the shabby-looking man threw off his coat, and started to do what was obviously a very well-choreographed dance – and the priest joined him!! :eek:
 
justinkolo said:
Let’s see… Does “abuse” cover saying Monday’s Mass on Sunday night? This happened at the late Mass at the supposedly-Catholic university I attended :mad:

I didn’t go back to that particular mass time to see if that happened on a regular basis…
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You said it was on Sunday night - was the following Monday a holy day of some kind? If so, they were probably just doing the Vigil Mass for the holy day. We do that in our Eastern Rite parish all the time; so no, not an abuse.
 
theistgal said:
  1. One Sunday morning, after Communion, but before the dismissal, while everyone was sitting quietly in their pews, a shabby-looking man crawled up onto the steps of the altar. The priest went over to him, took him by the hand and lifted him up. So far so good. But then the shabby-looking man threw off his coat, and started to do what was obviously a very well-choreographed dance – and the priest joined him!! :eek:
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Was there an explanation, or was this just an outbreak of madness?

Do priests ordinarily dance with hobos in your parish?
 
Lujack said:
Was there an explanation, or was this just an outbreak of madness?

Do priests ordinarily dance with hobos in your parish?
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Not at my parish! 😉 #5 was an abuse I witnessed at a parish I’d never attended before - and never will again! :eek:

(And perhaps I didn’t make it as clear as I should have - the dancer wasn’t really a hobo, he was just dressed like one, for the dance. :rolleyes: )
 
theistgal said:
Not at my parish! 😉 #5 was an abuse I witnessed at a parish I’d never attended before - and never will again! :eek:

(And perhaps I didn’t make it as clear as I should have - the dancer wasn’t really a hobo, he was just dressed like one, for the dance. :rolleyes: )
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I see. So it was some sort of bizarre liturgical dance type ceremony. That’s too bad, though. I really would have been happy if some random guy walked up to the altar and immediately began dancing with the priest. Well, not happy, but the mental image makes me laugh hysterically.
 
If this priest actually changed the words of consecation, you should report this to the bishop, since this could rob all the people there of communion, a serious evil.
If he simply added something before and after the words of consecration, this would not be as serious, though.
(But perhaps my remarks were all made on the thread this was posted on before.)

The preceding poster wrote as an example:
3. Priest ad-libbing the words of the Consecration, to highlight their connection to some point he’d just made in his homily.
 
theistgal said:
You said it was on Sunday night - was the following Monday a holy day of some kind? If so, they were probably just doing the Vigil Mass for the holy day. We do that in our Eastern Rite parish all the time; so no, not an abuse.
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No, 2 readings only so no holy day…
 
Wow, and here I thought things were bad in Canada…the worst I’ve seen is a parish where everyone remains standing right through the Consecration on orders, supposedly, from the local bishop. I was told it gives a greater sense of “solidarity” or “community” or some other garbage like that. Do I have to tell you that I wasn’t buying it? :rolleyes:

I’m still a pretty young guy, but even I notice that something just isn’t right these days…I’ve never been to an EF Mass, but I get the distinct feeling that I’m missing out on something. And the orthodox OF Mass on EWTN gives me a sense of nostalgia for something I’ve never experienced, if that makes sense!
 
I heard it commented in one thread that people who prefer the Traditional Mass simply haven’t witnessed a very devout Ordinary Form Mass (or an OF Mass in Latin). To that, I must respond that, given the chance between driving a souped-up Corvette and a Lamborghini, I am going to take the latter. Obviously, this is a trivializing comparison, but you get the picture. 😉

Anyhow, here’s some things I’ve witnessed over the course of my 23 years of existence. By no means have I ever attended “extreme” liberal parishes - these were just things I witnessed as a kid, while at college, on vacation, etc. While these might not all technically be considered “abuse” they all struck me as odd, out of the ordinary or just plain weird:
  1. Glass vessels with a fair degree of frequency. Clay, wood and other substances as well.
  2. Extraordinary ministers grabbing handfuls of consecrated hosts from giant, glass bowls.
  3. Priest disappearing from the sanctuary for 10-15 minutes at a time during Mass.
  4. Speaking in tongues for a “blessing” during Mass. I was terrified, as I had no idea what was going on! Also, a sort of ad-lib “tongue-speaking” 5 minute interval randomly during the Mass at the same church.
  5. Priest pulling out his iPhone during the homily and using it as a conversation piece. Asking people in the congregation to tell him what kind of cell phone they had.
  6. Life-Teen (need I say more?) Those weird “hand-holding circles” they used to do around the altar with all the teens (I think that’s been nixed now)
  7. Priest ad-libbing the consecration (invalidity?)
  8. Priest telling congregation to vote for Bill Clinton during the homily.
  9. Altar girls pulling out cell phones, combing hair in sanctuary, etc.
  10. Extensively casual behavior of EMs. Chatting around the altar, etc.
  11. Failure to kneel during any part of the Canon. This can be pretty common and seems to be a diocesan thing.
 
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