Friday, October 10, 2014

This is exactly what liturgical change needs. . . NOT!

A more intelligent and pastoral approach to liturgical change would include three things: centers for liturgical research and development, market testing, and enculturation.
Every successful business does research and development on new products. While there are liturgical scholars who do research, they are forbidden to take the next step in developing and trying out new liturgical practices. New liturgical practices require testing to find out what works, but not every priest has the training and skill to do this.
What is needed are centers for liturgical R&D where scholars and artists can collaborate with a willing community in developing new liturgical practices. Seminaries and universities with liturgical scholars are obvious places for this, but some parishes might be willing to be beta sites for new practices, especially if they were allowed to give feedback.
Bishops should be allowed to set up centers for liturgical R&D, operated by creative experts with appropriate supervision and review. Once new liturgical practices are developed and accepted by church officials, they should be market tested in a variety of pastoral settings before being offered to the rest of the church. Only the most arrogant business rolls out a new product everywhere in the world at the same time without market testing it.

Okay.  Who do you think wrote this?  Ready?  A Jesuit!  Of course.  This Jesuit, Fr. Fr. Thomas Reese, is a senior analyst for NCR (National Catholic Reporter - which, judging by its regular content, is on the fringes of Roman Catholicism).  It was part of a piece he wrote laying out his vision for liturgical reform in the Roman Catholic Church -- a retro vision to be sure but retro to the 1970s and some of the worst of liturgical change in the wake of Vatican II.

The good Father has listened well to his Protestant and Evangelical friends and has decided that the best path for liturgical renewal and reform follows the corporate model of developing and introducing products to the marketplace.  Wow.  That is exactly what all churches need, right?  We need to listen to Apple on how to develop, introduce, and sell the iLiturgy 6C and taut the ways you can change the settings for consumer preference so that the iLiturgy is really MYliturgy.  Cause that will rescue the church, at least according to those who fear that the faith needs to be updated about as often as Windows!

Let me leave you with one last paragraph:

The purpose of liturgical reform is not only to translate old Latin texts into good English, but to revise liturgical practices to allow people to celebrate their Christian faith in ways that better fit contemporary culture.

Now, skip over the translation line to the end of that sentence -- to celebrate their Christian faith in ways that better fit the contemporary culture...  I can think of about a hundred or so folks who would nod their heads in agreement with that sentiment but none of them are friends of the liturgy, friends of the faith, or friends of the faithful.  They have an agenda but the renewal of the church is, in their minds, the surrender of the faith to the times and the sacrifice of the faith upon the altar of modernity.  Let me end my little rant with one of my favorite expressions:  The Church that marries the spirit of the age will be a widow in the next generation.  New and different we do not need.  Relevant and modern we do not need.  Faith and faithfulness seem to be in short supply but they are the keys to church renewal and liturgical renewal.  Period.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why call him "the good Father"? I see nothing good in what he has written here.

This is about as completely wrong headed as it is possible to be. It is clear that he fails utterly to understand that God Himself has told us how He will be worshiped. He has totally bought into the idea of the Church as a business, not as the people of God.

When I read NCR, my first thought was National Cash Register. I suppose that shows just how ancient I am.

Fr. D+
Anglican Priest

Janis Williams said...

The really unfortunate thing is there is a group in the LCMS doing pretty much the same thing. Fivetwo is its moniker, started by Lutheran pastor Bill Woolsey. Is it a competing synod being 'born? Time will tell, I suppose.

If you want to hear and read more about "sacramental entrepreneurs', go here:

http://www.fivetwo.com

Janis Williams said...

I just became aware of 5/2 yesterday, thanks to Fighting For The Faith - go there and listen to yesterday's podcast...

Anonymous said...

Good Father is a older and customary expression that is not a descriptor of the relative value or lack thereof. . .

Anonymous said...

Yes, I know the expression "good Father," but I think we need to be careful not to say what we obviously do not mean, even when it is customary to do so.

Fr. D+
Anglican Priest