What do you think was the single most damaging "innovation" of past 60 years?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    'I'm going off to watch a football game now.'

    Can one imagine a football game in which everyone 'participated' silently? Now, that would be some 'innovation'! (Not unlike 'participating' silently at mass.)
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    So, to keep things simple, I will accept a silent EF Low Mass...


    I'm resisting the temptation to ask you for the sake of consistency to call for the abrogation of all litugical innovations of the last 100 years, which would of course necessitate the repeal of the Novus Ordo.


    Isn't it amazing that no one here is really in charge of much of anything. How dare the Church make its own rules and reforms to liturgy without consulting anyone on this forum. The nerve of those guys in Rome! Those inconsiderate heathens!

    Can one imagine a football game in which everyone 'participated' silently?


    Given some of the sermons I endure, silence would be a godly and divinely ordered state.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    'The nerve of those guys in Rome!' (in purple.... actually, lavender.)

    The nerve, indeed! One is reminded of the old English m'lord who was asked if he believed in papal infallibility. Certainly not! gruffed he: why then I would have to give up my own infallibility.
    Thanked by 3CharlesW CHGiffen eft94530
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    Madorganist

    I specifically avoided the use of the term liturgy for the examples you apprehended. That said, solely in terms of the Catholic vs Protestant mentality you propose on this matter, it happens to be a distinction without a dispositive difference. I think the limb your argument on that point is out on is more attenuated in historical reality than you appear to realize.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Responding to the OP ...

    Uh, (German) Cardinals?
    Thanked by 2JulieColl melofluent
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Have said at other times, and will repeat here, paraphrasing Pope Pius XII: we err if we insist on uniform participation of all the faithful.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Football games in England feature plenty of active participation, and they even have hymns.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VuQFZ5cPE

    Thanked by 1bonniebede
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    After further thought,
    Suppressing the Leonine Prayers.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonine_Prayers
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Julie: About the absolutely silent Low Mass: I agree. And will add that there are also those people, clerical and lay, who impose absolute silence on the congregation during High Mass! The only people permitted to sing are the Priest, Deacon, Sub-Deacon, Cantor(s), and Schola.--people who so much as respond "Et cum spiritu tuo", are given nasty looks and, in some cases, verbal reprimands before the sermon.

    This is really a problem of the mistaken idea that the Mass is the priest's private devotion which he says while the people simply shut up and say their novenas until communion time. They don't know the etymology of the term Liturgy.
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn hilluminar
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    Salieri

    "priest's private devotion" - my sense is that the implied desideratum is not so much that as it is a performative legal act that must *only* be fulfilled/completed by the licensed officers, as it were, who have been properly trained for the office.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    nasty looks and... verbal reprimands before the sermon.

    "priest's private devotion"... licensed officers...


    There are some Protestant critiques of Roman Catholicism that are spot on. (Note that I said 'some'.) One of them is the soulless legalism which is the very antithesis of love ('if ye this, that, and the other, and have not love, ye are as sounding brass') and spiritual beauty - not to mention (in the case of the mass) a mature and intelligent understanding of liturgia.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    They don't know the etymology of the term Liturgy.


    On the other hand, there is a certain mythology about that etymology, so I don't recommend basing any arguments on it.

    On the other other hand, I agree with Salieri about the fittingness of congregational responses in the Sung Mass.
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood irishtenor
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,152
    I still maintain that if the nuns & sisters had kept their habits, none of this would have happened.
    Thanked by 1francis
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Of course there are other liturgies (leitourgos) apart from the Mass: Divine Office, Coronation, Presidential Inauguration, Opening of Parliament, etc., which are not simply the private exercises of the priest/king/president/prime minister, etc, but are public acts which of their nature are corporeal and involve, to some extent the entire people, whether a congregation or nation, etc. We don't command/expect the people morally present, if you will, at the Coronation to ignore what's going on until it's time for them to queue up for their souvenirs: why should the Mass be any different?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    They don't know the etymology of the term Liturgy.


    While agree with your prescriptions/opinions/practices, this argument is problematic.

    The Greek work λειτουργία does not mean "work of the people" but something more like "work for the people" or "public service." It referred originally to the act (by an individual) of paying for something --- sponsoring the building of a theatre or battleship, or paying for the temple services. It morphed from there into the temple services themselves, and was used by the Septuagint to describe the (Priestly-class-alone) ministrations inside the Temple in Jerusalem. Hence its application to the Christian Divine Liturgy.

    Liturgy is still liturgy when performed by a priest alone, without the λαός (people) participating, witnessing, or even present.

    Some quick and useful references:
    http://biblehub.com/greek/3009.htm
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy_(ancient_Greece)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgy

    Interestingly, perhaps the most accurate English translation of "λειτουργία" in its original meaning is "service." I'm not sure if the English use of "service" to describe Sunday worship was originally a translation of "λειτουργία," or otherwise derived from it, but I suspect the usages are at least related.

    Also, of interest, is that early Protestant worship services were extremely clerical, with little or no participation of the people. The minister was to preach, and the people were expected to SIT THERE AND TAKE IT. I find the contradictions built into the Reformers' views on worship and ecclesiology to be...contradictory.
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Adam,

    Thank you for your clarification. When I first read in Glory and Praise that Liturgy means "work of the people", I sensed that something was badly amiss. I'm not a Greek scholar, but even I could tell that "work of the people" somehow magically fit with "active participation" (which, see) -- and that "active participation" couldn't possibly be what the Church intended.
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,152
    I still blame the nuns.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    One of them is the soulless legalism which is the very antithesis of love


    That statement is VERY easy to misinterpret. Or, put another way, that particular formulation can easily mislead.

    In a rightly-ordered society, "the law" is presumed to protect ALL members of that society from various harms or ills. Thus, enforcing "the law" is just. One can state that it is "legalistic" to require communicants to be in a state of grace, or to require congregants to keep their social conversations in the narthex. But those laws (or sometimes 'rules') are put in place for the benefit of the individual(s) and of the whole (respectively,) as I think is plain in these examples.

    Most people who advocate 'charity' about "laws and rules" forget the first part of the formulation I gave: that they are in place to protect ALL. They would rather focus on the one or few who break the rules 'for good reason.' These are called "hard cases," and you know the rule about "hard cases." E.G., one may break speeding laws to get one's in-labor wife to the hospital before birth occurs. But those speeders also happen to put at risk OTHERS who may be harmed. So it may be 'soulless' to enforce the law, but it is most certainly "just."

    Let's not forget "justice" while discussing "soulless" law enforcement!!

    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    A considerate and indisputable response, dad29 -
    I think, though, that there is a real moral difference between lawfulness and legalism, especially soulless legalism.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,465
    "6. The abject, deliberate, and proudful failure to learn about vernacular liturgy from certain folk (you know who I mean) who had been at it for five hundred years."

    Hear hear.
    Thanked by 1irishtenor
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    OK, MJO. Please define the term for us.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    There could be a long answer, the which I do not feel like composing at the moment. Briefly, it might be said to be the difference between 'stone her to death' and 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'.


    The story goes, without seriousness of course, that upon uttering these words a rock flew threw the air and struck the victim. Jesus turned and said, "Mother, did you really have to do that?"
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,944
    Yes, I heard that one 35 years ago from a friend who had transferred from CUA.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I think it was closer to 50 years ago when I first heard it.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Charles,

    Some of us hadn't been born 50 years ago.

    [Yes, I'm showing my youth and inexperience.]
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Youth is too good to waste on the young. They don't deserve or appreciate it - usually.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    the difference between 'stone her to death' and 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'.


    You could confine your definition to liturgical discussions, of course. The discussion of executions under Old Law v. New Law shouldn't have to be involved there. And we won't have to engage Thomas Aquinas' allowance of death penalty.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I tend to think that our Lord's very lesson in this incident is of universal import. There are always those who just don't get it... and those who resent it. Nor do I think that even the Angelic Doctor trumps what our Lord spake, nor what seems to be the current mind of the Church.
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    (Philosopher hat on...I'll try to sound not too much like one.)

    One way to make the distinction between justice and legalism is to begin by noticing (and this the Angelic Doctor also spoke) that laws are never fully specific. They cannot be. They would cease to be laws, which by their nature are generalities. They therefore always require interpretation. (Most of the time the interpretation is entirely clear, and even when it is not, there is almost always a correct interpretation, if the law is well formulated. There is not one smidgen of relativism, here.)

    They are therefore also open to abuse. One can interpret the law motivated by a desire to use the law to achieve an aim either beside, or even contrary, to the purpose of the law, or one can interpret the law in a manner that is consistent with that purpose.

    There is no question of sidestepping justice, here. 'Looking the other way' when a law has been transgressed is an injustice, but so is abusing a law to achieve an end beside or contrary to it.

    A related form of legalism is the misguided attempt to make laws that are too specific.

    (I'm certainly not accusing the Church of either form of legalism. Adjudicating that sort of accusation is far above my pay grade.)
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    our Lord's very lesson in this incident is of universal import.


    I tend to think that the Lord's lesson here is that the primacy of 'life' trumps the violation of the marriage vow. I also think that this event and the Lord's words have an allegory--that Israel's unfaithfulness does not condemn her (Israel) to death.

    Nothing TA said contradicts that, by the way, as he did not allow the DP for cases of adultery, either.
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