NO, NO, it's far worse than you think! Here are his liturgical plans for the new cathedral!
Fuzzy Ambiguity
Cardinal Mahony wants future citizens of Los Angeles to remember him not only for the monumental new cathedral he has commissioned but also for the updated liturgy he has designed for use there. Yet in contrast to the stark,hard-edged architectural plan for the cathedral, his liturgical proposals seem fuzzy and ambiguous. Beyond a few specifics--altar breads that "appear to the senses as bread;" a ban on normal use of hosts consecrated at previous Masses; much deliberate "eye contact" among members of the assembly and between "presider" and people; assumption of an "orans posture" during the Our Father--it is hard to guess just what the cardinal's "passionate" new liturgy might look like.
The sometimes inflated rhetoric of his letter remains much as it was in the draft version which had leaked into circulation this summer, but some of the particular passages which had provoked vehement criticism have been eliminated.
• Still present in the text is the order for "horizontal inclusive language, at least to the extent encouraged by the US bishops," but the statement that, "God is not male. But our exclusive use of male imagery risks a kind of idolatry" has been deleted.
• Gone is the statement that the "presider" can be thoroughly engaged in the ritual "only when we have left behind all magical notions of liturgy and priesthood."
• Gone too is the bewildering claim that "for centuries before the council, the 'right' of the baptized Catholic was to have an ordained person there to offer (or it was even customary to say, to 'read') the Mass. Vatican II freed us all from this misunderstanding."
• Where the draft explicitly urged worshippers to leave their pews and come up to stand around the altar during the Canon, the final version says vaguely, "the assembly is to be gathered round, if possible right around the altar"--which could merely mean choosing a front row seat.
• There is no mention of kneeling, and frequent mention of standing, but no direct order that all must stand, preferably in the sanctuary.
• Mercifully, there is no reference to liturgical dance, either. Nevertheless, those familiar with the liturgical tastes of chancery planners suspect such ideas form the letter's hidden skeleton. Its emphasis on "true" processions through the assembly at entrance, gospel, communion, and dismissal, will be taken at progressive parishes as demands for the kind of inculturating liturgical dance for which the annual Archdiocesan Religious Education Congress has long been notorious. Even at the Long Beach meeting, opening and closing prayer services featured half a dozen dancers, in pale tights under silky saffron draperies, swaying rhythmically through the assembly.
• Finally, in a bow toward orthodoxy, a footnote declares full compliance with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That footnote is a clearer statement of doctrine than anything in the text itself.
Last winter Cardinal Mahony made a similar doctrinal disclaimer in his diocesan newspaper, the Tidings, and successfully deflected criticism of the archdiocese for consistently inviting heterodox speakers to the annual religious education congress. At the time (February 21, 1997), the National Catholic Reporter praised the cardinal's gesture as a clever ploy and a model for other bishops.
Hard work
In the cardinal's pastoral letter, some of the many references to liturgy as "hard work" come in passages addressing the need to make it clear the Eucharistic prayer is "the central moment of this Lord's Day gathering." He writes, for example: "It should be clear to all by the intense participation of the assembly that this is the central moment of the Sunday Liturgy." Later, he adds: "Great mystery is conveyed in the faces and postures, singing and silence, gesture and word. Everyone is attentive, bodies engaged as much as hearts."
What might this mean in concrete practice? The cardinal is referring to some condition which is left unstated, but is apparently too intense to maintain for longer than four minutes, the time prescribed for the Canon in the the pastoral. "No wonder," says the letter, "that when the great 'Amen' is concluded, one can sense a collective sigh."
Even if chanted, as the letter suggests, a four-minute Canon will almost inevitably be diminished by the uproar of multiple processions "around and through the assembly," a friendly all-around Greeting of Peace, or even a lively 15-minute homily.
"The way to help people see that the Eucharistic Prayer really is the 'central moment of the Sunday Liturgy' would be to use the Roman Canon, very solemnly, with all the saint's names, and have the worshippers on their knees where they belong, and ring the bells at the Consecration, and let it last maybe ten whole minutes," said grey, grandmotherly Barbara Lynch of Ventura, California, who said she came to the meeting to learn what changes may be coming to her parish.
The cardinal's letter continually identifies his directives for liturgical renewal as long-overdue compliance with the edicts of the Second Vatican Council, yet in the pastoral itself, the sole citation from Sacrosanctum Concilium is the reference (14) to "full, conscious, active participation." Before the council, Cardinal Mahony writes, "liturgical practice in the church had in many ways ceased to be a source for such rich formation." He even hints that today's choice is between his new style of worship and no worship at all.
The cardinal does not address the question of why Mass attendance fell so precipitously when liturgical revisionists took power. Certainly one reason it happened was the intellectual arrogance that dismissed all hesitancy as a sign of pathological rigidity and a rejection of the spirit of the Council. The same closed mindset was still in evidence at Long Beach.
"There's an implication that those who question or oppose the cardinal's plan for liturgical revitalization are somehow opposed to Vatican II. There's a climate of fear in the diocese," said "Father Jim Franklin," pastor of a vital, crowded parish in a minority neighborhood. "I thank God for Vatican II. But let's look at what it really said about the liturgy, not someone else's version of it."
You said a mouthful there, NYer -- I read it, but I don't believe it!
Finally, in a bow toward orthodoxy, a footnote declares full compliance with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That footnote is a clearer statement of doctrine than anything in the text itself.
Sounds like those "disclaimers" in restaurants that the establishment does not accept responsibility for unattended belongings.
cardinal does not address the question of why Mass attendance fell so precipitously when liturgical revisionists took power.
In a book by Christopher Derrick (I forget which) is a quote which I still recall: "A liturgist is an affliction sent by God so that in times of no overt persecution, a Catholic need not be denied the privilege of suffering for his faith."
Who the hell does he think he is to be "designing a liturgy"? Has he ever heard of the G.I.R.M.?
Uhhh, lets see, this should read:
CARDINALS AND BISHOPS, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHANCERIES
AND then maybe we can be HEALed
The hierarchy created this mess. they will not, they cannot fix it.
That is up to the laity and the Pope. The rest of the "middle management" with a full notable exceptions just needs to GO!
And the laity is supposed to be obedient to this kind of overlording? I don't think so! It seems that clericalism is alive and well! These liberals have dug in like a Lone Star Tick. They've infiltrated every level of the hierarchy. Its time to push back!
What's wrong with the plain ol' communion wafer we all know and love? The church I was baptized in uses a "more breadlike" host these days and I nearly choked to death on it the first time I took it.