Thursday, December 30, 2010

Magic Circle Bishop Burns of Swansea Attacks Immemorial Mass of All Ages


...That clericalism risks raising its head today among those who again are looking for identity in status, not service. They want to be treated differently. There are those who set high standards of morality for lay people, while they blatantly violate those same standards themselves. There are those who go to extremes to express the Mass in a particular way, whether it is in the Ordinary Form or Extraordinary Form, in a so-called VAT II rite or Tridentine Rile, through the "People's Mass" or the . "Priest's Mass". Some want to put the priest on a pedestal, whilst the people are consigned to be privileged spectators outside the rails. Flamboyant modes of liturgical vestments and rubrical gestures abound. Women are denied all ministries at Mass: doing the Readings, the serving, the Bidding Prayers, and taking Communion to the Sick. To many in our Church and beyond, this comes across as triumphalism and male domination.


Link to Ignis Ardens site, here.

Entire Address available at Catholic Church Conservation, here.

Image stolen from BBC, here.

2 comments:

W.C. Hoag said...

To many in our Church and beyond, this comes across as triumphalism and male domination.

His Lordship says this like it's a bad thing.

Oliver said...

I actually agree with most of this, but it has to be admitted he is a bit of a weirdo. Apparently if there aren't enough women around Bp. Tom starts to get lonely and insecure! And then there's the whacky bit a about high moral standards for the laity but not for the clergy. What can he mean by that?