Auxiliary Bishop Responds to Sacrilegious Mass

Auxiliary Bishop Christopher James Coyne (53) von Indianapolis
© Pressefoto

Edit:   This blog entry which we found on the controversial German website kreuz.net, contains an interesting report.  It consists of an Auxiliary Bishop responding to what for many Catholics is the mind numbing reality, banality and carnality of the modern Liturgy.   He did have a discussion with the priest.  At least he's admitting there's a problem, but perhaps he'd be better advised to address some of the root causes of the problem as well.  He also has a real aversion to being angry.  Perhaps Bishops need to start getting angry about these things, lest people start to become convinced that they're not all that concerned about it.

This morning I attended Mass rather than concelebrated [Concelebration is such a drag.]M ass.  Earlier in the week I was unable to find a Saturday morning Mass anywhere in the area so I was pretty much going to have to miss Mass today.  But late last night on the internet I found a church abut a half an hour away that had an 8:00 AM Mass.  This was doubly good for me because I wanted to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation if the priest had time after Mass since it and been a few weeks since my last confession.  But it was a little late to make any arrangement for concelebration. [Ugh.]

I left around 7:15 AM and got there in plenty of time to spend some time preparing for Mass and, hopefully, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. [Might as well say, Penance] When Mass began, the priest, a guy about my age, came out and said, "Hello," [to the empty pews] and then proceeded with the Mass. The only problem was he had forgotten the Sign of the Cross. Well, maybe he was just a little distracted. I think we did the penetential rite but I'm not sure. There was no "Gloria" so I was beginning to think we weren't going to be celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration since it hadn't been mentioned yet but eventually we got there when he "prayed" a spontaneous opening prayer that did mention the Transfiguration.

Things kind of went downhill from there.  I'll spare you the details. I will say I'm pretty sure it was still a valid Mass even though he changed the words [proper form, matter and intention] of the Eucharistic institution - a lot, not just a few.  There is a theological practice of the Church called "Ecclesia supplet" ("the Church provides") where if a priest inadvertently forgets some of the words of the ritual form or changes them, the "Church" recognizes the good faith of those gathered and their right to valid celebration of the sacraments and provides sacramental validity in the case of a human error or priestly malpractice.  [But this was deliberate changing of the words] This is done for the sake of the people of God and not as an excuse for the sloppy or 'creative' celebration of the priest or bishop.  Even though the priest went way over the the line in terms of his 'creativity' this morning, I think the intention of those us who came to Mass was to celebrate the Eucharist as the Church intends and so it was.

Link to blog, here...