There is a type of “clericalism” where priests or anyone who works for the Church, think they are superior to anyone else and have privileges that no one else has, privileges cultivated, is to be condemned. Priests who think they are in private practice, who take more exotic vacations to distant lands, expecting the laity to pay for it and cultivating the rich to provide it for them, is a sinister type of clericalism.
There is also a type of “anti-clericalism” that misses the mark, creates chaos, and blurs the lines of authority in the Church. This is the type of anti-clericalism that Pope Francis seems to promote and he is now paying the price for it.
He’s brought it to the highest teaching authority of the Church, the Synod of Bishops, where the authority of the laity, called the “consensus of the laity” is placed on an equal footing with the bishops’ teaching, ruling and sanctifying authority.
It creates chaos of course, confusion and competition for power and privilege between the clergy and laity. Usually nuns who want to be priests what it for its power not its service.
But think too, of the Syro-Malabar confusion and catastrophe as it concerns its unified celebration of their Holy Liturgy. One of the priests who dissents from ad orientem is using Pope Francis’ anti-Clericalism against him saying that most priests and laity in that rite and location want Mass facing the people and they should have the same authority in their desire and promoting it as their bishops and the pope.
But, let’s get back to the liturgy and clericalism.
The reason so many aging baby-boomer prelates have a phobia about anything pre-Vatican II, especially its liturgical patrimony, is that all of it appears to support clericalism, both the good and bad aspects of it but they lump all of it into the bad category.
Thus, many in the Church feel that the TLM should be mildly reformed to bring it into continuity with the 1970’s Pauline Mass. This means fostering active/actual participation of the laity with the allowance of more vernacular for their parts, sung or said as well as allowing for lay lectors.
A verncularized 1962 Roman Missal, that allows for vested readers, male or female, altar servers, male or female would strengthen the ties that bind the 1962 Roman Missal with the 2011 version.
That would de-clericalized the 1962 Roman Missal as Vatican II’s principles teach.
I vote for that.
BTW, at Savannah’s weekly TLM, as the priest reads the Scriptures at the altar in Latin (in very low voice) a layman reads these same readings, to include the Gospel, simultaneously in the vernacular in a loud voice.
3 comments:
Father McDonald said..."He’s brought it to the highest teaching authority of the Church, the Synod of Bishops, where the authority of the laity, called the “consensus of the laity” is placed on an equal footing with the bishops’ teaching, ruling and sanctifying authority."
Laymen, as well as the Pope/bishops in communion with the Pope, have equal authority to teach, govern, and sanctify the Church?
Pax.
Mark Thomas
A verncularized 1962 Roman Missal, that allows for vested readers, male or female, altar servers, male or female would strengthen the ties that bind the 1962 Roman Missal with the 2011 version.
How about asking the people who attend the TLM if they are even interested in making any changes? My guess is that most would just ask to be left alone. The mindset of TLM attendees isn't much different from those who attend an Eastern rite: "We do things our way and are perfectly happy with the status quo (unless the status quo is a denial of our heritage!)". Once you start tinkering with an ancient rite, you open Pandora's Box.
Yvonne nails it. Why not just do those things with the NO Mass and let the parishioners attend the Mass they get most benefit from? One thing to consider is that what is allowed in the NO is nearly unrestricted and that is the problem. I do not think that same laxity would benefit the EF.
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