As a seminarian, I distributed Holy Communion at Pope John Paul II's Mass on the Mall in Washington, DC. They gave us wooden salad bowls for us to hold and by the grace of God or "the Church supplies" theory, these hosts were consecrated by the Holy Father as we stood at least two football fields away from him.
I still have that salad bowl! I hope these Eucharistic Minister, ordinary and extraordinary, keep their plastic cups. "Then He took the plastic cup...this is the plastic cup of my blood..." Oh my! If our ancestors even in the mid 1960's would have seen this as a glimpse into the future, reparation would have been demanded. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?
51 comments:
LOL, but I have to hustle down and go to Confession before I receive right? Please, The Church wants to restore Catholic Identity? I'm not sure it knows what it is anymore.
There comes a point, and we are there note, where the liturgical abuse is so rampant that it ceases to be abuse and is simply the norm.
This is the norm for Catholicism. This is what "full communion" means.
This is "Catholic identity."
But, Fr,, why are you surprised? Can you and others not understand that such is the logical and inevitable progression from versus populum, folk masses, receiving standing and in the hand, female altar servers, routine use of EMHC's, and other abuses which we now accept as routine? Why not in plastic cups? Why not freeze the Precious Blood into popsicles in hot climates? Why not toast the bread? Why not a female Priest? Why not a gay Priest? Why not a gay marriage? Why not, why not, why not...it really doesn't matter...God just loves us so much. Halleluja.
Yes, it's quite disgusting.
Are those gals in baseball outfits the EMHC's? LOL!
Take Me Out To Communion (to"Take Me Out to the Ballgame")
Take me out to Communion
Take me out with the crowd
We'll have the best Novus Ordo yet,
They'll toss the Host and we'll catch it, you bet! ,
Oh. take me out to Communion
This I just have to see,
For its one, two, three strikes in One
In the Tri-Ni-Ty!!!! Play ball!!
"They gave us wooden salad bowls for us to hold and by the grace of God or "the Church supplies" theory, these hosts were consecrated by the Holy Father as we stood at least two football fields away from him."
Did you (even then) really believe that consecration at a distance of two football fields actually occurred? Who can know for sure? But I seriously wonder about the lengths to which God goes to accommodate these liturgical outrages.
Father MacDonald,
Please allow me to respectfully question your implied use of the term "extraordinary minister of the Holy Eucharist". Holy Mother Church has made it quite clear that priests alone are Eucharistic ministers, and that there can be no such thing as an "extraordinary Eucharistic minister". Why, then, does this illicit terminology persist?
"This function is to be understood strictly according to the name by which it is known, that is to say, that of extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, and not 'special minister of Holy Communion' nor 'extraordinary minister of the Eucharist' nor 'special minister of the Eucharist', by which names the meaning of this function is unnecessarily and improperly broadened." (Redemptionis Sacramentum, 156)
One wonders what is the limit of the power of consecration? The arm length of the priest? Two arm lengths? A cubit? A furlong? A league?
If it was the intention of the Holy Father to consecrate the bread for distribution at that mass, it was consecrated.
Can he consecrate bread in Bologna from the altar in Arezzo? Not likely.... Because it would not be the intention of the Church.
That's not exactly true though, is it Fr. K? The church has rules about spatial distance for the consecration, doesn't she?
I haven't checked the traditional rubrics on this recently, but at one time it was traditional practice that a host be on the paten or in a ciborium touching the corporal if it was to be consecrated. With which practice, consecration at football field's distance would seem to be a "discontinuity".
At any rate, to me it seems equally presumptuous to blithely assume and confidently assert either that God either does or that He does not do such a thing in any particular context. I'm not sure the Church has a definitive teaching in this regard. Certainly, an individual pope's personal intention on a particular occasion does not constitute such a definitive teaching.
Marc - I don't recall ever hearing any rules for consecration distances. Good Father, you?
I don't know of any teachings on this. I thought it had to be on the altar and the intention of the priest. So if one placed extra hosts to be consecrated even on the altar and my intention was to consecrate only that which was on the corporal, which some priests use as a rule of thumb, but I would expand it to the entire altar, then that extra ciborium would not be consecrated.
I know that at papal Masses at the Vatican hundreds of extra hosts are on an altar-like table to the side or behind of the papal altar and the pope would have his back to it or not even be able to see it.
I think this has to be the exception and then the danger of a deranged pope or bishop or priest consecrating at Mass all the bread that is in the grocery store next to the Church which could be closer than a football field away.
Here is Fr. Z on this point, for what his opinion is worth:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/06/quaeritur-distance-of-a-priests-valid-consecration/
I would've thought for sure there was some guidance on this. But really this wouldn't have been an issue until very recently, so I guess the lack of guidance makes sense.
It seems to me, Father, that many of the comments about your posts disregard your request for " civil comments" that avoid " derogatory language." I am often stunned by the lack of respect that is shown to other persons, to priests, nave to the Pope.
Aww, Anonymous is upset...Folks that whine like this are only trying to get others with whom they do not agree to be quiet.
Gene it isn't a matter about being quiet, it is a matter of respect for persons, be that person the pope, bishop, priest, religious or lay person. What is on the table to discuss are ideas and if one disagrees but is still in the parameters of Church teachings with this, that or the other, put forward a good argument without resorting to rhetoric that denigrates anyone as this is clearly a sin for confession.
Fr., I see nothing in this thread that is either derogatory or disrespectful...unless someone has no sense of humor at all.
I think in the past, we certainly had a tendency to make uncivil comments -- I know I did. For the past several months, I think we've been doing a pretty good job, though. And we actually end up having some pretty decent discussions here.
The commonality amongst all the anonymi (or is it just the same one all the time?) is that they come into the thread, say we are all uncivil, and when asked for evidence, they never post again.
In an effort to disprove this, I'll ask this anonymous to quote precisely what s/he perceives as uncivil.
Marc, I am not the original poster but I do agree with anonymous' assessment. It is too easy to find... It's the awww comment and take me out to the ball game comment. Are we back on the play ground? Is that not demeaning in tone and intent? Just because someone speaks out to remind folks to speak charitably they're trying to silence others? When posts engage in ad hominem attacks it is uncharitable and uncivil. It's also the over generalization that the norm is nothing but abuse anymore. I know of quite a few priests who would be rather upset that they were clumped in to that grouping as well as parishes.
Hazel, It is called satire and humor. Look it up. Are we really that fragile?
I appreciate your willingness to respond. Since you've said that my comment about the norm being abuse is somehow an over generalization, I'll respond to that bit.
I can only ask, "In what way am I wrong?" If the Pope himself participates in the liturgy that includes a widespread abuse like this, isn't it kind of silly to continue to maintain that it is actually an abuse? The chief shepherd approves it, similar things happen every week at the majority of catholic churches throughout the world... That means it is the universal norm.
The Church previously had the idea that local custom had the force of law. That means that something not really in the books could become the liturgical law if it was accepted over time. An example is the use of a crucifix during the procession before Mass. This was an abuse, but it became the "law" in America because it became the custom.
With that in mind, can you tell me how I'm wrong when the Pope himself appears to rubber stamp the abuse? How is it not the norm in that case, which is much stronger than a local aberration?
When poll after poll approximates that 70% of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence, you cannot expect more than this and this perpetuates the disbelief.
A regular chat group in our town regularly has some neo-con Catholic that will moan and whine that any criticism of these Modernists and their sacrileges, that all we do is spew hate rather than the Truth the Church has always taught, everywhere for all to believe. And yes, libs have no sense of humor and love to be dour.
Such are the poisonous fruits of the Judas Council.
Group hug
Ooooo! The "Judas Council." How dark, how menacing - and how utterly un-Catholic.
I grew up in New York, the Priests from my parish lived exactly 7 doors down from me and our interaction with them was daily and very personal. They were mostly Irish and Italian, most cussed like sailors (refraining only from taking the Lord's name), used acerbic wit to cut down many a sinner, and wouldn't back down from a fight if it came to it.
Good Bye good men.
Now we have anonymous posters who wring their hands over bruised feelings, and perceived slights. What you sow is what you reap. We have raised up milquetoast Catholics. Where is the Church Militant? Where are the Warriors? Islam is burying the world through birth rate and butchery, and us Catholics are afraid of some rough language.
Good post, Templar. Reminds me of St. Thomas More in his response to Arch-heretic Martin Luther:
"But meanwhile, for as long as your reverend paternity will be determined to tell these shameless lies, others will be permitted, on behalf of his English majesty, to throw back into your paternity's sh**ty mouth, truly the sh**-pool of all sh**, all the muck and sh** which your damnable rottenness has vomited up, and to empty out all the sewers and privies onto your crown divested of the dignity of the priestly crown, against which no less than against the kingly crown you have determined to play the buffoon.
In your sense of fairness, honest reader, you will forgive me that the utterly filthy words of this scoundrel have forced me to answer such things, for which I should have begged your leave. Now I consider truer than truth that saying: 'He who touches pitch will be wholly defiled by it' (Sirach 13:1). For I am ashamed even of this necessity, that while I clean out the fellow's sh**-filled mouth I see my own fingers covered with sh**."
-- Responsio ad Lutherum
I agree, Anonymous, the Judas Council was utterly un-Catholic...
The Muslim World's Coming European Revolution
By Philip Jenkins
A revolution is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. No, not the one you've been hearing about in the media -- all the protests against dictatorship and oppression, in Egypt and Tunisia, and most violently, in Libya. The revolution I'm referring to certainly affects all those countries, profoundly, but its effects promise to outlast any change of regime, or even any new constitutions. Barely noticed by the West, many Muslim societies are experiencing a demographic transformation that is going to make them look far more European: more stable, more open to women's rights and above all, more secular. That change underlies all the current political upsurges.
In just the last thirty years or so, those very Middle Eastern countries that used to teem with children and adolescents have gone through a startling demographic transformation. Since the mid-1970s, Algeria's fertility rate has collapsed from over 7 to 1.75, Tunisia's from 6 to 2.03, Morocco's from 6.5 to 2.21, Libya's from 7.5 to 2.96. Today, Algeria's rate is roughly equivalent to that of Denmark or Norway; Tunisia's is comparable to France.
If the European precedent is anything to go by, that could well provide a model for religious developments in the Maghreb over the next decade or two. A society so dependent on women in the school and the workplace simply cannot support the kind of intransigent orthodoxies offered by the familiar Islamists. Extremists may not vanish overnight, but they will have to adapt substantially to present their message in a civil society with a powerful taste for democratic values and gender equality.
http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2011/04/04/the_muslim_worlds_coming_european_revolution_106230.html
Moose Limbs? What are Moose Limbs?
You can still find, floating around in cyberspace,video of JPII Monster Masses with people in shorts PUTTING DOWN SANDWICHES AND GOING UP TO RECEIVE! This is happening in front of the Holy Father and HE DID NOT CARE obviously. So why should I?
Poetcomic, Well, let the good times roll, baby!
At the end of the day, the body of Christ was totally dishonored by so called eucharistic ministers, I wonder how many received the host on the tongue and how many in the hand. Praise God for good priests who still uphold the traditions of the magisterium of the church and its teachings.
Thanks be to God for the latin mass....
I thank God that I became Orthodox. The Orthodox Church does not tolerate such novelities. It is tragic what has happened to the Catholic Church,
Distributing Holy Communion from plastic cups at World Youth Day is a clear sign for those who want to see it. The doctrinal and liturgical revolution that has been allowed to flourish since the sixties clearly leads to such grave abuses. It starts with seemingly small insidious things and then flowers to the obviously outrageous. St Thomas says that a small error in principle is a great error in conclusion. Back we must go, to what we know worked - the Tridentine Mass and doctrine unspoilt by pathetic attempts to pander to everyone but Christ. The seriousness of this incident should not be underestimated.
Pope Francis said that he would like a poorer Church. That may well involve more plastic cups and fewer gold ones.
Pope Francis can desire a Church that appears poorer through the eyes of the world, if he wants. Of course, this will accomplish nothing because it is an empty gesture in reality. He also could be of the opinion that plastic cups are a worthy vessel for the Eucharist.
But, in either case, he would be incorrect. And he cannot impose this nonsense on the Church. He is the custodian of tradition, not its arbiter.
Since I'm a member of the Catholic Traditionalist movement, I always attend the Traditional Latin Mass instead of the Novus Ordo. So articles like the one I've just read here tempt me to hope that Novus Ordo Masses are innately invalid because God the Son shouldn't need to condescend far enough to lie in a plastic cup. "Extraordinary ministers" give Holy Communion with their unconsecrated hands. Now they distribute it in unconsecrated plastic cups. Strange, isn't it? During Holy Mass, the priest touches the Host with only his thumbs an his forefingers because they're the only consecrated parts of his hands. But laymen may hold it in their unconsecrated palms or in something that may have held a shot of whisky. Maybe it's time to repeal every novelty that the Church introduced during and after the disaster that was Vatican II.
I think it is this sort of thing and the casualness that is brought to the Ordinary Form that is completely unnecessary but has pushed people into traditional camps. Fortunately there are those in complete union with Rome and those we hope one day will re-establish it and maintain the dignity that is necessary for our worship and respect for God.
Fr. McDonald, your newest post reminds me of a thought that I hesitated to share partly because I wondered it would digress.
Many in the Traditionalist camp, including me, feel a duty to stay there because our movement is about much more than reverence. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I'll write too frankly now. But in my opinion, wonderful as they are, elegant vestments, melodic chant, gorgeous pipe organ music, incense, and other thoroughly Catholic things hide the new rite's innate, severe flaws. I hope I won't insult anyone now when I tell you and my other friends here that for me, it's too, too hard to see the Novus Ordo Missae as fully Catholic. I'm willing to attend the New Mass when it's my only way to fulfill a Mass obligation. But for me, attending that kind of Mass is always an emotionally painful cross. Our Lord is in charge, and I'm loyal to Him and to His Vicar. Still, I long for a day when the Church will replace the new rite with the Mass of St. Pius V.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/reformof.htm
For whatever reason, the Church gave us this revised Mass. It certainly has been disruptive. I'm not sure though that I would say that it is a complete disruption if there was more continuity in style, including vestments and the like, which Pope Benedict tried to do. I think if the OF was celebrated completely ad orientem, including the missal being changed from the Epistle side of the altar to the Gospel and all prayers prayed at the altar ad orientem with the only "novelty" for the Liturgy of the Word as it has been revised and at the ambo, and in Latin with Gregorian Chant and the propers chanted as well, I don't think there would appear to be the vast difference that it appears to have as it is currently celebrated in so many places.
But with that said, I think if the Council Father and those after Vatican II had simply made some minor adaptions to the 1962 missal, such as was the case with the transitional 1965 missal and allowed for the expanded lectionary and Latin as Pope Benedict modeled for the Mass in his papacy, with vernacular also, I think the scenario today would be quite different in terms of continuity of Catholic identity and fewer people having joined other sects or no religion at all.
When my Irish Catholic Uncle used to get angry or flustered, he would swear thusly, "Christ on a pogo stick" or "Christ on a Christmas Tree." We now have a new derogatory oath, "Christ in a Dixie Cup." Thank you, Pope Francis.
Fr. McDonald,
Thank you for your kind reply. I probably would have felt content at a vernacular Mass that used the 1965 Missal, because I've read that missal's ordinary.
But you and I see the new rite from very different perspectives. Style, vestments and symbolism are essential. Although I haven't helped at EWTN's Novus Ordo Masses, they're the most beautiful ad populum ones I've ever watched. Sadly, they would still bring me the emotional pain I mentioned a post ago.
Why did the Church give us the new rite? She did that, in my opinion, mostly to be ecumenical to Protestants and to Christ's other followers who still stay outside Christ's Mystical body the Catholic Church. At least that what Abp. Bugnini's comments suggest to fallible me.
I posted a link to the Ottaviani Intervention partly to explain why I use the word "novelties." In the document's introductory letter, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci wrote about the new rite's original Latin text when they said that rite departed from Trent's theology about the Mass and that they saw that departure as a break with Tradition, a discontinuity, if you will. Some may disagree strongly with those cardinals. But for me, Cardinal Ottaviani's belief carries plenty of weight because during Vatican II, he headed the Holy Office, what the Church renamed to "The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." Maybe I exaggerate unintentionally. The trouble is that I believe the new rite of Mass is revolutionary. Maybe Fr. Dom Prosper Gueranger would agree with me, maybe not. Even if he would disagree strongly, he meant his liturgical movement to increase our devotion to the Traditional Rite of Mass, not to give us something that a committee invented.
Let me close this note with a thoroughly revealing anecdote. Years ago, after my youngest brother began to attend Episcopalian liturgies he described them to our mom. The shocked look on my face probably would have astounded him if I heard him say what he told her, "Mom, they're just like ours." We could interpret his idea from two perspectives. We might exclaim, "Wow! Isn't it great to know how much the Episcopalian liturgy has in common with Paul VI's Catholic rite of Mass?" Or we could lament, "How sad. Our rite has plenty in common with a Protestant one." For me, the lamentation is much more accurate than the exclamation.
Fr. McDonald,
A moderator seems to have decided not to post my reply to your latest comment. So maybe we need to end our conversation. Thank you for your thoughts.
Bill, I good to bed relatively early and get up very early, and I have to manually post comments from emails I receive which I don't check constantly, especially in my sleep.
Thank you, Father. I need to learn patience, and I've taken up more than enough of your valuable time. God bless you.
And then they wonder why people cease going to Mass and finally leave the Church. There is a wicked arrogance at work here. Small wonder that Protestantism began as a virus among the clergy. Although I suspect that they show more respect for their bread and wine than is being shown here for the Host and Precious Blood. I do wonder how much longer the Catholic Church will hold together under such sustained attack by the neo-modernists. It is time to scrap the breeding grounds for such heresies; the national episcopal conferences.
Bill,
Please hang around. You'll find many of us here who share your viewpoint and your concern.
Recently Pater and I had a long debate in which I and others, elaborated on a point similar to yours, viz., that the NO has some disturbingly Protestant elements to it, or at least Protestant tendencies. My argument was essentially that the NO was an attempt to find a lowest common denominator with Protestantism by emphasizing the aspects of liturgy that Protestants would find doctrinally acceptable, downplaying or eliminating those aspects that they would find objectionable, and introducing ambiguities that permit Protestants to read their own theology into the Catholic liturgy even when that theology is counter to Catholicism. If I remember correctly, Pater refused to concede that even a single one of the many things I and others listed was Protestant or tended to the Protestant in any way. (I won't rehash it here; you can look up the thread to see the arguments and to see whether or not my recollections are correct). That alone shows the yawning chasm that exists in the Church today; the "other side" (however you want to define it) either can't or won't see anything of merit in what we have to say. (As between the "can't" and the "won't" I'm not sure which possibility worries me more.)
So if you stay, you'll get some poo-pooing of what you have to say, but you'll also find some kindred spirits.
@Anonymous 5: I agree with you. I'd like Bill to keep posting his thoughts as I found him to be saying what I wanted to say. Saved me the time, and I don't write as well as he!
@Bill: Keep posting your thoughts. Many are right there alongside you. God bless.
Dear Fr. McDonald,
Thanks for your blog.
You may be reassured to know that there are members of the hierarchy who would totally agree with your lamentations about the plastic cups.
I speak of Archbishop Pozzo, titular of Bagnoregio, former Almoner to H. H., and now Secretary at E. D, again: when I dined with him on the occasion of the feast of the Seraphic Doctor, he lamented bitterly of the liturgical outrages in France, Belgium and Switzerland; and said that in many places they never seem to have intended do implement the Council they way it was intended. He added that perhaps no recovery was possible in those countries, to return them to the catholic practice.
However, with other commentators here, I believe that we cannot take rest in lamentations, because Our God is Omnipotent and to whose who ask Him with faith and humility and cooperate with Him with charity and perseverance, all good things are possible.
If priests everywhere celebrated with great faith and devotion, in a generation no one would be attending liturgical outrages anymore, since it is obvious that the latter do not produce vocations.
The real problem I see is a interior culture among too many of the clergy, where club membership requires the sharing of various ideas which are incompatible with a celebrate of devotion and reverence, since such are seen as being characteristics of outsiders of the group. This kind of societal dissonance needs to be corrected by a better sense of catholic fraternity among clergy and religious.
Just, some thoughts...
Roman Observer
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