LET’S READ FRATELLI TUTTI AND THEN TWIST IT TO MAKE IT A DOCUMENT ON PROGRESSIVE 1970’S LITURGICAL THOUGHT AND PRAXIS AND LET’S THEN SEE IF WE GET A DIFFERENT OUTCOME, MORE CATHOLICS, NOT FEWER ATTENDING MASS

 Praytell’s Rita Ferrone has jumped the shark. She uses Pope Francis’ new encyclical  as a liturgical document which Pope Francis in no way whatsoever, no how, wrote to be such a document. But when you are desperate given the miserable failure of the 1970’s approach to liturgy, especially in the pandemic, which is in itself an encyclical on how to celebrate the liturgy, what do you expect, an acknowledgement that the pandemic has created a better Mass than progressive liturgists have since well before Vatican II?

Keep in mind, in the USA and in many other countries, prior to Vatican II and through the 1960’s, about 90% of Catholics attended Mass. Today, we are blessed if 12% attend. Yet, not to worry, the liturgical changes promoted by liturgical progressives have been a great success in uniting Catholics as brothers all. The fact that it is only 12% of Catholics is a minor detail we can ignore. 

Here’s a portion of Rita’s incredible jump over the shark, but you can read the whole incredible thing HERE:.

The question of the one loaf is critical, but there are other aspects of this problem too. What attitudes of individualism do we bring into liturgy? At some level we all know that we are supposed to be in this together, yet it remains all too easy to ignore the social dimension of the liturgical action, and to see other people as irrelevant or even as a distraction.

Here is another liturgical issue relevant to our central symbols: Before the pandemic caused us to suspend Communion under both forms, many people declined to receive from the common cup and some parishes don’t even offer it. When the pandemic is over, we may wish to revisit this practice in light of Francis’s vision of human fraternity. The common cup, after all, is an outstanding sign of social solidarity. What does it say when we abandon or downplay it under normal circumstances (I am not talking about exceptional cases)?

The doctrine of concomitance does not answer every question. Our bedrock liturgical theology claims that Christ’s blood was spilled so that we could become one, restoring the unity of the human family with God and with one another. This is human fraternity writ large. And we are intended to ritualize it in the liturgy: The Precious Blood, which Jesus poured out on the cross, is shared in a common cup. Yet, for many, the response has been: no, it’s not important. Or: what does it matter? It’s a liturgical option, a detail.

My comments: Do you get a sense from Rita that the Mass and the one loaf and the one cup that is shared together is a "mechanism" to form community between the people who share the one loaf and one cup? They really don’t need Jesus’ sacrifice and the sanctifying Grace that He is, to open the gates of heaven to us unto life everlasting, once this temporary pilgrimage in this vale of tears if finally over for us. What is important, is fellowship here and now and the one cup and the one loaf is the mechanism for this fellowship of "horizontalnessism".

Never mind that you really don’t need to be Catholic to attain this sort of horizontal social fellowship that leads to good works. People of all faiths and no faiths can accomplish this in a variety of ways, especially working in a soup kitchen where they not only prepare the food and drink for the poor, but also share it with those who are poor at table. Who needs the Eucharist for this? It can be accomplished at a football tailgating event too. The food and drink are the mechanism to get that horizontal reality going with great enthusiasm and gusto.

Progressive Catholicism is doomed to the failure it has already been and no revival through a faux interpretation of a non-liturgical encyclical will make progressive liturgical theology a success or unite in any way 90% of Catholics as pre-Vatican II liturgical theology did and can again do because it does unite us in Christ, His Sacrifice, His sanctifying Grace and His opening the gates of heaven for us.