The following is a real letter written by a parishioner whose family roots in the local church run generations deep. He writes in response to an edict by the local bishop. Names and place names have been taken out-but unfortunately, this beautifully written letter could be apropos in many dioceses around the country.
Dear Bishop,
Our parish bulletin recently has published your order that we may no longer kneel at the “Ecce Agnus Dei…” or upon returning to the pew after receiving communion. It seems that another cherished and permissible custom of the people, of long and continuous practice, has been eliminated.
The publication of the notice included no mention of Cardinal Arinze’s Responsum of June 5, 2003. No supporting documentation, based on the authoritative teachings of the Church, as to why it is a better thing to eliminate the continuous custom of kneeling at these times has been provided. While we are ordered to give up our cherished customs, you and the priests of the Diocese reserve to yourselves the right to pick and choose which liturgical norms of the Church you will follow. Your picture on the front cover of the February Diocesan paper is ample evidence of this.
We must not kneel at our accustomed times, but other Diocesan parishes are permitted to celebrate Mass without kneeling at all. In at least one parish the precious Body and Blood is passed from person to person at Communion and in other parishes the words of consecration are tampered with. You know this, and you also know that nobody is publishing explicit directives to stop these practices.
In our own parish, the use of chalice veils and communion plates is banned. Priests refuse to genuflect at the consecration, others leave the sanctuary for the Kiss of Peace at every Mass, unapproved liturgical texts are continuously used, the people have been told not to make the sign of the cross at the end of the Penitential Rite, the Gloria can be chanted only once a month, and then only on the first Sunday of the month at 11:00 am. Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist appear at every Mass. The sacred vessels are rarely if ever purified by the celebrant. Except for an uprising of the people, the altar bells would have been eliminated some years ago.
The Sacrament of Confirmation has been a real trial for us. Through approving remarks and explicit directions, you and your Office of Divine Worship, in cooperation with Diocesan trained catechists have taught our children that they shouldn’t genuflect before the Real Presence, (bowing is the current fad), rock and roll and rap music, modified liturgical texts, and clapping and whistling are all appropriate to the Sacrament of Confirmation. You refuse to meet with concerned parents to discuss the matter. Even as many of you near the end of your active ministries, you, your Office of Divine Worship, and your priests, have the audacity to place yourselves between our children and their parents. You actively pursue the destruction of the last vestiges of the customs and spirituality that our families have handed from generation to generation for centuries.
Your generation is the generation that taught my generation. You taught us that with the advent of Vatican II, the dark veil of rigid authoritarianism, blind obedience, and silly guilt inducing rules had finally been lifted from the Church. We would all experience a great age of enlightened spirituality and unity based on freedom, diversity and respect for local customs. No more medieval European chains would bind us. No more fish on Friday!
And what of your legacy? You, your priests and administrators leave the scene disrespecting popular piety and family traditions. Diversity is a cover for disobedience. Tolerance does not extend to those of a traditional mind, who only ask some space in the Diocese, in the same way that space has been given to groups of various cultural and gender identities. You and your priests use your status in the Church to induce obedience to silly rules disconnected from tradition and reason. In the end, you leave us with the one thing that your generation claimed to hate most – blind obedience, supported by guilt. Except for blind obedience and the guilt associated with not following your directives, how else can we stand when our hearts and souls tell us to kneel?
In time, a new Bishop will come to our Diocese. If he comes to our parish, he may see everyone standing at the times you have mandated. But there are things he will not see - he will not see that some are standing because they don’t believe there is any Real Presence to kneel before, some are standing physically but kneeling in their hearts and souls, some stand so as not be ostracized as troublemakers, and others are standing for no particular reason other than the fact that everybody else is. The new Bishop will not see something else – he will not see the parishioners who are in the neighboring Diocese for an Indult Mass, or those who tragically have gone to independent chapels or who have simply given up and go no where at all.
The new Bishop will not be able to see these things, but he will see clearly that if the people were acting within the context of organic liturgical development, firmly grounded in the Tradition of the Church, you would not have had to issue edicts to force your personal vision of the liturgy on us in the first place.
Sincerely,
A Catholic
