We blogged a bit about the Halloween Mass at a parish in Orange County, CA – the liturgy is quickly becoming more notorious than almost anything that ever took place at St. Joan of Arc in MN. There’s a video at YouTube with some highlights, including the pastor’s promised transformation into Barney for the final procession. And a blog at a secular Orange County paper has picked up the tale and mused, as no one really can help musing, about a land where more traditional liturgical observances are discouraged or forbidden, but a woman dressed as a devil (or anime cat, per some commentors…) can distribute the Eucharist.

From the video, the pastor’s introduction to the Lord’s Prayer:

"As goblins and ghouls, we raise one voice: Our Father, who art in heaven…"

What do you say? This sort of thing was far more common 25 years or so ago than it is now, but it obviously still happens – and other ridiculous things happen, because somehow people have got the notion that what’s in the books is no more than a suggestion and a template, and that liturgy is best done when it is fabricated with the local community’s perceived needs and identity at the forefront of planning.

None of which has anything to do with Catholic liturgical tradition.

Nor, we might add, opposed to the "spirit of Vatican II."

Nor, we might add, opposed to the spirit of most Christian worship, Catholic or not, for the past 500 years.

Look. Motu Propio or not, Extreme Synodal Exhortation or not, things are shifting, tides are turning in Catholic liturgy. And as they shift towards a greater rootedness in tradition, whatever form that takes, protests will rise from the land, cautions from bishops and professional liturgists, individually and in packs, skittishness and warnings. There will be lots of different themes, none of them really new, but I’m guessing we’ll hear a bit about unity (as we have already from the French bishops) and probably some throat-clearing words about respecting the diocesan norms and the authority of the bishop, and so on.

Masses like this – and the myriad of other bits of serious nonsense that goes on the US and Europe in the context of the Mass, are, the bishops might want to ponder, seriously undermining of their authority, but not in the way they expect.

In his "Swallows" piece in FT, Jody Bottum spoke of the declining respect for bishops in this country. A great deal of the lack of respect comes from the widespread impression that bishops are all about "Do as I say, not as I do."

• Preaching the strongest sexual moral code in Christendom, yet tolerating miscreants in the ranks of clergy until the law, the lawyers, and the press come knocking.
• Preaching to secular governments about economic justice, yet being notorious for practicing extreme economic injustice in relation to lay employees.

Those are probably the two most frequently-articulated raps. To that, we might well be adding:

• Preaching the importance of obeying diocesan norms on matters great and trivial, preaching the importance of obeying the precept of the Church that requires Catholics to financially support the church, yet blissfully ignoring, and permitting those charged with catechesis and liturgy to blithely ignore anything coming from Rome, from the Catechism to the MIssale Romanum to Ex Corde Ecclesia, all in the name of the needs of the uniqueness of the local community.

One can’t help but wonder about the tension inherent in all of this, the day when Catholics will ask the bishops to really explain how this works: So…the needs of the local community, as you see it, call you to ignore every spiritual practice, theological insight and artistic achievement that emerged out of the Catholic experience before 1970, and anything that comes out of Rome in the present, period, even you know – regulations – but we’re supposed to heed your regulations and expectations of us?

Why?

If this thing called "Church" is whatever I make of it, well, I guess that’s what Church is, from top to bottom.  Let’s see how that all works out for us.

(On that video – I’ll just add that even though you don’t see many of the congregation in that video – precious few of them seem to be in costume. The main costumed participants seem to be some of the lay ministers, including the musicians, cutely attired as angels, and of course the devil distributing Communion. A small sign of hope – that perhaps the idea of dressing up was not as popular with the victims as with the perpetrators. The story’s being followed, as are most things Orange County -related, at Roman Catholic Blog.)