The ‘Other’ Abuse Crisis

It’s almost like a completely different religion.

If I say “Church abuse crisis”, you will most likely think about child-molesting priests, and the bishops who simply moved them to another parish. That is certainly expected, especially given the numerous headlines filling newspapers since the 1980’s. But beyond these atrocities is a more widespread infection in the Catholic Church — the destruction of the Sacred Liturgy. The Mass, which is supposed to be an intimate encounter with the Lord, has largely turned into an irreverent, banal, ordinary ‘service’ in which the priest and ministers shape it according to their personalities and preferences.

The Church has clearly outlined what is appropriate and inappropriate in the Sacred Liturgy. In many cases, such instructions have largely been ignored. Catholics come to a church looking to worship God as their ancestors have, and what they often find is anything but purposeful worship, even by what Vatican II called for! “Liturgical abuse” is one of those things which a number of Catholics talk about behind closed doors, but it rarely is handled on a parish or diocesan level. There is no way to count the amount of times “liturgical abuse” has occurred throughout history, and it was certainly present before Vatican II, though arguably not as commonplace and institutionalized.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, priests and bishops began to “experiment” with the liturgy. Freed from the chains of Latin, ritual, and tradition, they saw themselves as the great innovators. It was a “new springtime” for the Church, and by stripping the Mass of how it looked for the past 1,500 years, they sought to create a new liturgy for the mythical “modern man”. Beautiful churches? Destroy them. Ornate vestments? Throw them out. Beautiful Gregorian chant? Replace it with pop/folk music.

St. Mark’s Church in Peoria, Illinois, 1970’s. Notice the removal of the high altar, communion rails, sacred artwork.

St. Mark’s Church, Peoria, Illinois, 2019 — now restored to true beauty. Tradition is for the young, folks.

The common anti-Vatican II critiques (those condemning the infamous “clown Mass, Protestants receiving Holy Communion, etc.) have presumably ended, at least to my knowledge. To their credit, Popes John Paul II & Benedict XVI largely cleaned up much of the nonsense going on, at least on a surface level. Through the Congregation for Divine Worship & the Discipline of the Sacraments, they published norms and correctives for many of the liturgical questions following the Second Vatican Council. Just as the clergy sex abuse crisis was largely concentrated during the 1960’s & 70’s, so too was that the era of the worst cases of liturgical abuse recorded. For Catholics attending the Novus Ordo Mass in 2019, things may seem more stable than they were for our parents and grandparents. So, we’re all good now, right? Not quite.

Let’s go back to the clergy sex abuse scandal. Ex-Cardinal McCarrick was ordained in 1958, was first named a bishop in 1977, was named a cardinal in 2001. During those years, he molested minors and vulnerable adults. During those years, he consecrated bishops. During those years (and up until this past July), he had enormous influence on the Church worldwide. His proteges include many prominent priests, bishops, and even cardinals. Put simply, even if McCarrick dies tomorrow, we do not have a guarantee that there will not be another one next week. Even to this day, cardinals are lying to the faces of the faithful about their knowledge and involvement in clergy sex abuse & cover-up. And, while sex abuse allegations are largely seen as “a thing of the past” for American Catholics, the accounts of seminarians in Honduras, nuns in India, and clergy sex abuse in Uganda reveal that sex abuse in the Church exists today, too.

Now, back to the issue of liturgy. You see, just as with the case of McCarrick, claiming that liturgical abuse is “a thing of the past” is incredibly misleading and harmful. It gives the illusion that we are somehow beyond the days of abuse, when in fact, there is nothing in place preventing it from happening again. Look at a few recent examples. In his effort to “decentralize” the Church, Pope Francis has now placed questions of liturgical translations into the hands of bishops’ conferences. In response to this, progressive-wing cardinals, such as Cardinal Blaise Cupich & Reinhard Marx, applauded this gesture by Francis, because it gives them power in crafting the liturgy to their ideals. Francis’ repeated jabs against those youth who love the traditional Latin Mass has given liberal Catholics one last round of ammunition to besiege those simple Catholics who want to attend the Latin Mass in peace. Already, we are hearing of bishops who refuse to ordain more traditional-minded men in vocation-dried lands, such as Germany. Francis’ revision of the Ratio Fundamentalis (the norms which guide seminary formation) now has a startling passage (#42):

“Seminarians will be helped to recognize and correct ‘spiritual worldliness’: obsession with personal appearances, a presumed theological or disciplinary certainty, narcissism and authoritarianism, the attempt to dominate others, a merely external and ostentatious preoccupation with the liturgy…”

What does this even mean? What is a “presumed theological certainty”? Am I wrong for going to bed tonight professing that there is one God in three Persons — aka the Trinity — when I may wake up and find out that — oops — a fourth ‘person’ was added to the Godhead overnight? Certainly, theological certainty is vital when we’re dealing with God’s revelation. Also, what does it mean to have a “preoccupation with the liturgy”? St. Benedict wrote, “Let nothing be preferred to the Work of God” and Vatican II even called the liturgy the “summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; [and] it is the font from which all her power flows.” If anything, we should be preoccupied with the liturgy because it is the most important thing in the world. Then again, Francis himself said that the Vatican II “liturgical reform is irreversible”, and given his presiding at Masses where the liturgy was turned into a silly show, one might wonder what sort of vision Francis has for the Church’s liturgy. That liturgical abuse is a thing of the past is a fact; that it may also be a thing of the future is a distinct possibility.