[BlackElk]

At every traditional (Tridentine) Roman Catholic Mass, the priest faces the altar with his back to the congregation or main body of it. It is only the new Mass or Novus Ordo that allows for the celebrity style (Hi, my name is Bob and I'll be your presider today) of priest who seems all too often to imagine that he, not Christ, is the focus of the Mass.

BTW, the late Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say that he would never belong to the Catholic Church either if it was what its critics claimed it was.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

re:"celebrity style"

Exactly. The sermon, all too frequently the catalog of the priest's opinions, is the least important part of the Mass. Where it becomes a talkshow monologue drawn in style directly from American television it becomes demeaning and demented. The Mass is actually not primarily discursive. We are there to worship and commune with God (not the priest's fuzzy personality and opinions).