LET’S TALK ABOUT THE VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF BISHOPS (NOT PRIESTS, ALTHOUGH THAT’S NOT INSIGNIFICANT) AS IT CONCERNS THE BUGNINI MASS’S OPTIONS AND STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE FOR MODERN CHURCHES AND OLDER ONES

There are several bishops issuing guidelines for the building of new churches and the renovations of older ones that will be used exclusively for the Bugnini Ordo of Mass.

Some bishops take no positions and let pastors do as they please—that’s a mistake to say the least!

Other bishops micro manage their pastor’s liturgical decisions even when using options clearly in the Bugnini Roman Missal and General Instruction.

That’s a mistake too.

I recently read where a well-known Cardinal in a famous archdiocese is telling priests to make sure they get permission before they start renovating their churches. That is good.

But then His Eminence goes on to say that altar railings are not to be installed in new churches or restored in older ones that were wreckovated. Fortunately, he did not say to rip out altar railings already existing, thank God for all blessings.

But then His Eminence went on to say that standing for Holy Communion is the norm and that making kneeling equal to that should not and cannot happen. Thus he “canceled”  what Pope Benedict allowed and modeled himself. 

Because Pope Benedict XVI modeled it and the Bugnini Roman Missal does not forbid it, many pastors began to give the option of receiving Holy Communion to their parishioners. In those churches with no alar railing, kneelers are placed at Communion stations. A communicant can stand or kneel at these. No one is forced to stand or to kneel.

Then, altar railings were installed or restored in many churches. I can’t imagine that any pastor would spend the amount of money needed to do such a thing without consulting his pastoral and finance councils and then the bishop or the bishop might be first consulted for permission. 

I did that at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia. With permission of Bishop Kevin Boland, now retired, we renovated the church and removed the altar railing and expanded the sanctuary and acquired a new free standing altar, ambo and celebrant’s chair. He approved it all.

10 years later, Bishop Gregory Hartmayer, now the Archbishop of Atlanta, gave me permission to restore the altar railing. 

He knew that it would be used for the EF Mass celebrated there and he knew that I had provided kneelers for those who desired to kneel for Holy Communion for a few years before the railing’s restoration.

Thus, we had Pope Benedict XVI publicly modeling distributing Holy Communion to kneeling communicants, the proliferation of kneeling for Holy Communion worldwide because of it and it then becoming customary in the Bugnini Mass to kneel for Holy Communion in many parishes.

Then, to cancel all of this, and even a pope, you have bishops, some cardinals, forbidding what a popular pope once allowed and modeled himself.

And this in the Bugnini Mass that is built for multiple options than only a cleric makes and because of flimsy rubrics and bishops who don’t care, enables all kinds of illicit/abusive actions and celebrations, many done by bishops themselves! 

What the H***?

Thus, in the most clericalism kind of way, lay Catholics are subject to the whims of bishops, some who are cardinals, and pastors who make decisions that conflict with the decisions of previous bishops, some who are cardinals, and pastors, some who are monsignors. And they forced one option on lay Catholics when multiple options exist in the Bugnini Mass! 

This kind of incoherence diminishes the authority of those bishops, some who are cardinals and those pastors, some who are monsignors, who cancel previous decisions of previous bishops, some who are cardinals, and pastors, some who are monsignors. 

All of this turns the Church into an ecclesial joke.