At Chicago parish, some annoyed, others OK with new missal

I am annoyed with the annoyed Chicago parish. The new missal is as wonderful as it is beautiful. Some of the grace and eloquence destroyed by Vatican II has been restored. The reform of the reform continues on inexorably. This is just the beginning. Thank God for Benedict the Greater.

Seems not everyone is willing to be pacified and just go along with the changes. To the extent these are trivial, non-inclusive, selfish (I versus We), snobbish and gnostic they will turn people off and make it harder not easier to pray. Most tellingly, it seems the church has far bigger fish to fry than this minor side show. When we have only one ancient and infirm celibate priest left to minister to 10,000 parishioners we will, perhaps, finally hit bottom. A new missal will not resolve the issues.

ANNOYED/RESIGNED, WHY? ......... Heidi, why are Catholics so passive and submissive? The Vatican's fashionista, cardinal Burke, now indicates to us (11/28-CNA)that this new "top down" Mass liturgical translation is just one part of the pope's plan to restore a medieval liturgy. I suppose it makes sense to Burke that a billion Catholics should learn to think and speak medievally than that he and his curial pals should have to forego their obscenely expensive medieval custumes.

If Catholics continue to submit to this type of unnecessary coercion, they may have no one to blame but themselves.

Of course, Latinized English and its use of scholastic metaphysical terminology, e.g., "consubstantial", is just part of the papal strategy to fortify the imperial papal eccesiology so evident generally today in papal actions.

For more discussion of this evident imperial papal strategy, please note the NCR comment and related cross links under the comment heading, "Why New Evangelization?" , accessible by clicking on at:

http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/b16-us-bishops-evangelize

Shouldn't we have liturgical language that relates to the people who are using it, rather than what pleases some old men in an ancient structure (literal and figurative) in another continent? Ms. White said what I have heard bishops, priests and liturgists also say: We could have done better than this.

It is the process that was followed that was most disturbing to me. The history of this whole "mess" is sad to say the least.

The imperial model of Church decays and folds into itself. It welcomes the right wing and disenfranchises the rest of the Church. The strange translations in the New Missal are a sign of the last dying gasps of the old order. The old order are the keepers of the status quo. It is about to fall. The vast majority of Catholics see the falsehoods and hypocrisy and arrogance of many members of the hierarchy and they have lost all respect for those in power who want to return to fantasyland and conditions that existed prior to the Second Vatican Council. The "new" Missal is just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone has every right to be annoyed with the new Holy Communion ritual, but no one outside the domineering Vatican should ever be resigned to it. They should revolt against it. They should revolt against the brazen arrogance of the Vatican, in this day and age, arrogating to itself any right to decide what language others should use to conduct their own rituals. Latin be damned! Literal identity be damned! My sister called me when she got home from church last Sunday and asked, "What the hell does 'consul...' mean." I provided the new right/wrong word for her and explained it. She married right out of high school thee year Vatican II started. She has no recollection of the old Latin "Mass," only that you went to church and sat and jumped up and down when the priest mumbling through Latin that many of them did not understand, moved from place to place, or bells rang. She's happily forgotten all that, as everyone should. Too bad that John Paul II and Benedict decided to throw out Vatican II and harmfully, destructively drag everyone back to Trent mumbling stupid noises. Her pastor even commended the congregation for getting through the new mess without too many goofs. He had the nerve to tell them they did better than the people on Saturday evening and the early Sunday "Mass." The "People of God" should defy the pope and bishops. They should clearly notify them that they will no longer be treated like children, not in language, not in rites, not about who can be ordained, and not even in the nitty-gritty of theology, either. The lay people should manage their own parishes--they pay the bills. They should select their own priest. The parishes together, lay people and priests, should choose the diocesan bishop. There are superb working models that have been working excellently well in Protestantism--in Orthodoxy, and even in the Byzantine rite--for a very long time. It is long past time that the lay people make their consciences, their rights, and their demands known to the clerics of our outrageous clericalism, and that they be respected and turn this top-down church upside down.

I am annoyed by the continued beating of a dead horse by the NCR. PETA needs to be notified ASAP.

gilhow,

As for the laity managing their own parishes, does this mean (a)all the laity , or (b) just the people whose views coincide with yours?

If it is option (a), I am all for it.

I would love to see The People of God REVOLT against this nonsense. I commend Gilhow for the comments in this thread. I agree, the old boys in Rome are trying to drag us back to the land of Trent. I have often wondered if the old boys network in Rome suffers from a pathological disorder, but I think it is really about preserving the princely lifestyles they are use to. They have cooks, housekeepers, drivers and private secretaries. It truly is a spectacle to watch some of them "perform" when they don their red velvet dresses and finery. Do they have any ideas how ridiculous they appear? In the early Catholic communities, lay people elected their bishops and managed their own local communities. This was BEFORE the Holy Roman Empire model of Church.

I have changed the headline (which I did not write) to more accurately reflect that while some at my parish were annoyed, the majority did not even seem aware of any controversy and tried their best to go along with the new missal.

--Heidi Schlumpf

The new mass format does not sing or soar for me. It feels retro.

The music settings feel slapped together.

I know I will _get used to it_.

This is what happens when outcome is more important than process. And the process is what it is. A behind-closed-doors, don't you worry your pretty little ahead about it, outcome.

Words are words. We will get used to them. I liked the NCR editorial about getting along with a faulty interpretation.

We will.

Imperfection is part of the perfection of things.

But oh, the process, the exclusionary, hierarchal decision making. That is much harder to reconcile, get used to, feel integral to. It's a problem. It's what keeps people marginalized.

I think we can do better than that.

I see a bunch of whiny, petulant adolescents who have bought into the current politically-correct group-think against anything even so much as mentioned by the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on earth, charged by Our Lord Himself to protect and pass on the Deposit of the Faith. What disrespect, hubris, cheek, insolence, effrontery, rudeness, impoliteness, presumption, gall, nerve, and my favorite from our Jewish brethren, CHUTZPAH!

Recall Peter's answer to Jesus' question to the twelve, 'Do you also want to leave?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life!'"

"Ginger Carney didn't like "chalice' instead of "cup" in the Eucharistic Prayer ..."
And as we learned from a recent NPR broadcast, neither did INDIANA JONES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=NS4-Q7N1X7Q

Memo to Vox Clara and "New" Liturgical Movement:
CHOOSE WISELY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOajmNKsb5Q

I think even the current conservatives who have doubled down on this missal as the only conservative act they can really get behind from Benedict in years will ultimately admit it is bad English. Sorry Dr. Esolen. It is bad English. It will be spoken by the priests without proper inflection or meaning for years to come. Because its bad English. Very bad. It would fail a Freshman English course in basic writing. Sorry Dr. Esolen, blind adherence to the culture wars ideologies have resulted in an inferior translation.

Outside that, only combox warriors of the right and the left (and this constitutes less than 5% of Mass attendees and often includes the graying liberals and the former Dungeons and Dragons players on the right) really will get excited or incensed either way.

Raymond Burke thinks it will ignite a new reverence. I think he is wrong. I don't think it will do anything. Just like the Latin Mass has had little impact, so shall this. His Eminence would do best by taking on the functional atheism of libertarianism which his stateside buddies are passionately embracing now. That may improve adherence to out faith and fits his job.

For the Order of the Mass, most of the Latin prayers never changed with Vatican II, so the bishops could have (with the exception of the Confiteor) simply used the pre Vatican II English translations and saved all the acrimony and expense of "new" translations. The new English version is unpolished. One notable bad translation is still in place. For the Gloria, the correct translation is "And on earth peace to MEN of good will."