This has been a sad but fascinating story for months. What I have yet to see in the reporting is why priests are so intent on offering the liturgy versus populum and why the bishops are so intent on offering it ad orientem. What are their theological reasons for being so intransigent? There has to be more than emotions here.
As a Pillar reader (in a good way), I want to tell you that yYou did more than "try" with this article. It is an excellent summary of the complexity of this situation. There are so many tensions here - Eastern/Western (Roman), the spirit of Vatican II, unity, diversity. If I was to "bet," on an outcome, it would probably be a separation into two Rites. I can't see any other way forward that would maintain unity within the Church. Thank you for keeping us up to date on this.
Thank you so much. I think more and more that the crucial event was the 2017 financial scandal that seemed to destroy trust between the clergy and the Church leadership. The attempt to introduce liturgical changes without repairing the broken trust resulted in pandemonium.
The quality of formation for priests of the Syro-Malabar Church is quite poor, so there probably isn't much a of theological reason to resist the change. Especially since part of the Holy Qurbana is said facing the people and part of it is said ad Deum.
This has been a sad but fascinating story for months. What I have yet to see in the reporting is why priests are so intent on offering the liturgy versus populum and why the bishops are so intent on offering it ad orientem. What are their theological reasons for being so intransigent? There has to be more than emotions here.
That's a very important question. I tried to explore it in more depth here, though there are many further layers to it:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/the-churchs-other-liturgy-war
As a Pillar reader (in a good way), I want to tell you that yYou did more than "try" with this article. It is an excellent summary of the complexity of this situation. There are so many tensions here - Eastern/Western (Roman), the spirit of Vatican II, unity, diversity. If I was to "bet," on an outcome, it would probably be a separation into two Rites. I can't see any other way forward that would maintain unity within the Church. Thank you for keeping us up to date on this.
Thank you so much. I think more and more that the crucial event was the 2017 financial scandal that seemed to destroy trust between the clergy and the Church leadership. The attempt to introduce liturgical changes without repairing the broken trust resulted in pandemonium.
The quality of formation for priests of the Syro-Malabar Church is quite poor, so there probably isn't much a of theological reason to resist the change. Especially since part of the Holy Qurbana is said facing the people and part of it is said ad Deum.
It increasingly appears that the only option is to put an interdict on the archdiocese that is the center of resistance. In other words, suppress it.