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Thursday, June 15, 2023

WOULD THE TRUE SPIRIT OF VATICAN II, NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE THIRD PERSON OF THE MOST BLESSED TRINITY, NOT HAVE BEEN SO OFF-PUTTING IF FREE STANDING ALTARS DID NOT LOOK LIKE THIS?

 


I don’t know the name of this church or where it is located. But I do know that the post-Vatican II altar in this magnificent church is an abomination and quite off-putting. 

I wonder if bishops had demanded that free standing altars be in continuity with the traditional altar and if the liturgy had been allowed in 1966 to be either facing the people or facing ad orientem, if we would not have experienced the liturgies wars that Pope Benedict was able to placate only to have Pope Francis exacerbate once again, with his Traditionis Custodis. 

I am filling in for the vacationing pastor at my former parish of Saint Anne’s in Richmond Hill, GA. All the Masses there are ad orientem. I often wonder if the post Vatican II Mass had been celebrated in this manner if, too, we would not have had the liturgy wars that were placated by Pope Benedict, but revived by Pope Francis. 

What do you think?



2 comments:

rcg said...

I think it would have been very helpful.

ByzRus said...

Agree, it's unattractive in this particular space. It just doesn't go. In the proper setting, it might look better.

Where I've attended Roman mass ad orientem, I have felt the same. Churches would not have been destroyed, ugly ones built and for what? Its not like you can see much that the elevations doesn't already address. I think the people would have been at peace had ad orientem been maintained. It likely would have held the celebration of mass in check as well.