One of the point that comes up in conversations about liturgy is the role of the priest. The assumption is made that because the older rites prohibited laity, except for altar servers, to be in the sanctuary (I think…correct me if I’m wrong), because only the ordained could touch the Host with their hands and receive under both Species that the old rites were inherently more clerical and in fact embodied and perpetuated a certain brand of clericalism with all sorts of implications.
We could talk all day about that (and who knows, maybe we will) but what I’d like to toss out there is something on a far lesser plane that theology. Call it the level of impressions made.
In the not so distant past, I attended a Mass. It was a typical parish Mass. There was a choir in the back, there were Eucharistic ministers, there were lay lectors, there were altar servers. There was laity galore.
But the impression I took away with me – after an hour and a half – was the person of the priest. His voice echoed in my ears, his presence dominated my memory of that time. He introduced the Mass, he explained things, there was an RCIA rite, so he explained that, he preached a 25 minute homily, and at the end of Mass, after the lector ran through 6 announcements, he stood and added two rather lengthy announcements of his own.
I’m not kidding when I say that my reaction, at one point was, If you want to turn around, face the crucifix and whisper for a while, THAT WOULD BE FINE WITH ME. PLEASE. FEEL FREE.
I am under no delusions about the excesses of what could be a rather pathological pre-Vatican II clericalism (being a devotee of J. F. Powers as I am), but I am also not sure that the revisions to the Missal did a darn thing to “fix” it. I am thinking what just might have happened instead is an institutionalization of another sort of clericalism that enshrines the personality of the priest – the personality of the priest – as the guiding, formative framework of the celebration of the Mass.
It’s possible for a priest to allow his own personality to be subsumed into the liturgical rites as they are presently constructed. I’ve seen it done, often. But the opposite temptation is intensely evident in the present structure, and it seems to me to be a temptation that is not necessarily succumbed to out of ego – there is just a space and an expectation there that the priest’s personality is an essential element of the liturgy – if you read articles on this from the 70’s, it’s very clearly stated. Personally, the pressure involved in that seems unimaginable and exhausting to me.
Someone I know regularly says that the two biggest mistakes in the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms were the effective suppression of ad orientem and the phrase “in these or other words” in the Sacramentary.
Defining “clericalism” is important, as well. For some, it means any distinction of roles between laity and clergy. If those different roles bother us, perhaps we need to confront the fact that we do have clergy, the are ordained….why? What are we suggesting the alternative might be?
An effective dissection of this from the ground, from one who knows about it first hand, is in an article that appeared in America a few months ago by a Fr. Michael Kerper, called “My Second First Mass”. The article is only available to subscribers now at the website, but you can get the gist of it at this post at Fr. Philip’s place. It’s well worth a read.