PRAYTELL AT ITS BEST—INANE—THE AUTHOR OF THIS COMMENTARY WRITES OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF HER PEN ON LITURGICAL UNITY

 The authoress of this Praytell commentary gets it right kind of and doesn’t, kind of. 

The commentary’s title is “Shall I Kneel or Shall I Stand?” It is in reaction to how Catholics of a more common sense liturgical bent, that of liturgical flexibility, have reacted to the inane, rigid micromanagement of liturgical practices of priests and laity in a diocese in my Province of Atlanta, the Diocese of Charlotte. 

The authoress of the Praytell commentary rightly states that there are more important things going on in the world and liturgical preferences that are diverse within the liturgical assembly should not consume Catholics when there are wars, famine, polarization and other tragedies.

Thus the authoress blames those who are reacting to the rigid liturgical micromanagement of the Bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte rather than the bishop who has provoked all of the reaction and now worldwide! He’s the blame, not the victims in the pews of the Diocese of Charlotte, which prior to this Bishop’s need to control things, were not an issue at all. There was liturgical peace in the Diocese of Charlotte. the lack of it now, is to be placed at the feet of the Bishop of Charlotte, not the victimized laity of that Diocese.

Have we learned nothing from the on-going abuse scandal in the Church? 

At the end of her incoherent commentary, the authoress makes some sense but not quite, because what she writes is really a horrible judgement about those who have been victimized in a liturgical way by their bishop:

And, just maybe, we should pay attention to more that comes from our bishops’ mouths and pens than words about liturgical aesthetics.  Maybe we should pay attention to mercy.  To charity.  To the poor. 

Implied in the authoress’ observation is that Catholics in the Diocese of Charlotte who feel liturgically victimized by their bishop, aren’t also attentive to mercy, to charity, and to the poor. 

What rubbish! Everyone, for the most part, prior to this current Bishop were not being victimized in a liturgical way by their previous bishop and you know what? There wasn’t liturgical victimization and Catholics in Charlotte in all the various diversity of their liturgies were attentive to mercy, to charity and to the poor. To say otherwise is libelous. 

And once again we get back to my main point: The Bishop of Charlotte has caused all this chaos and liturgical polarization, not the laity! There was liturgical peace within liturgical diversity in the Diocese of Charlotte as there in now in my own Diocese.

But we are all aware of what a bishop can do, good or bad, now or in the future and how the laity can be victimized by the whims and poor theologies and pastoral practices of their bishops.