I had an email from our diocesan visit coordinator, it had this terrifying sentence in, which I am sure originated not from her but some other source.
The Park [Hyde Park] will open from 2pm and liturgical entertainment will be running through the afternoon - dance acts, videos etc (it promises to be an enjoyable event). The Pope will arrive to conclude the prayer vigil and benediction and the whole event will be finished by 9.00pm. I am told that the Pope will be there for the latter half of the event.
If anything is so contrary to spirit of everything Pope Benedict has said or written about the liturgy it is this very phrase "liturgical entertainment". Again and again and again Pope Benedict has stressed liturgy isn't about us but about God! Outside of the liturgy, "dance acts, videos etc" don't present a problem but for this most liturgical of Popes, this is absurd. After the publication of
"Heart Speaks Unto Heart", it strikes me that the writings of the Pope are a closed book to whoever is actually planning the visit. Depressing, isn't it? Is someone treating the Pope with contempt? I am beginning to think the answer is in the in the affirmative.
29 comments:
Geez, sounds like "Madonna" has been hired, rather than say a rosary in honor of THE Madonna.
...and they tell me you nice people are not in favor of summary execution...
Is there a deliberate attempt here to make Catholics feel unwelcome?
'Liturgical entertainment' indeed - what a terrifying thought. Oh my goodness - why on earth do they think those present will need entertaining?
When I was present at Lourdes in 2008 we all managed to survive well on the Sunday without 'entertainment' from 6 in the morning until the Pope arrived at 10.30 People talked quietly among themselves as we sat and watched the sun rise over the Pyrenees.
We soon got to know our neighbours as we exchanged stories of our journeys to get there. I was next to a young student who had left Toulouse at 4 in the morning and who told me she was planning to make a career working with the disadvantaged. A delightful young lady who helped me up from the ground several times when I needed to stand during the Mass!
The following day was similar - a very early start and all present just talking quietly in numerous different languages and taking in the atmosphere before the Pope's arrival for Mass. NO 'entertainment' whatsoever. We were all present for what for many would be a once in a lifetime occasion and we did NOT NEED entertaining as if it were a pop concert.
I thought the Hyde Park event was described as a prayer
vigil - how on earth will we be able to pray and prepare ourselves
if we are confronted by dancing and videos and NOISE, NOISE and more NOISE? Are we all incapable these days of spending any time in contemplative silence or quiet conversation before such an event?
Hello Father. Do you mean that God doesn't need sometimes to be entertained? ;-)
Seriously, it does seem that this is a statement against the Holy Father and the Church on the whole.
For some reason this is all in the safe hands of a consortium led by CAFOD! There, doesn't that maske you feel better.
I hope someone important in Rome reads your blog and requests that all 'liturgical entertainment' be dropped.
Any names/emails you could give us so we can write urgently to warn them of the oncoming coming liturgical dancing train crash?
...and 'Benediction' doesn't warrant a capital 'B' - says it all. Do these characters know what they're talking about?
It's my humble guess that the Holy Father will be desperate to get back to Rome and probably wishes he'd never agreed to Brown's cheap stunt to increase the Catholic vote north of the border.
Honestly, this smacks of the desecrating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be !
Not summary please, gemoftheocean, let's do it properly: an auto da fe.
Bags I have the matches!
It'll put new meaning into "The Longest Day"
Doesn't this remind you of the jamboree following the Blair victory of 1997? Is there by any chance a connection?
Things can only get better.
Left-footer: How ripping that will be! I'm ashamed I didn't think of that myself. Can't think of a worthier target than a liturgical dance "troupe?"
Laurence;
as Abp Burke - Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, and notable proponent of the Extraordinary Form - was appointed a Member of the Congregation for Divine Worship the other day, I can think of worse people to contact . . . not least because, of course, he speaks English !
It's the idea of dance that most dispirits me.
Either it will be scantily clad teenagers dancing inappropriately to the latest pop songs, or pompous, po-faced, 'spirit of Vatican II' women of a certain age, dancing a new Church.
Not sure which is worse, although I'm definitely leaning towards the latter.
So depressing. I was intending to gate crash Hyde Park, but now I really, really don't want to be there.
How can we show our support for the Holy Father, without being manipulated by people determined to show that their vision of 'being Church' (ugh!) is the one that draws the crowds?
Sounds like an 'in the park' event with a Papal punctuation - a sort of end of the evening cameo. Perhaps they could put on a Medieval morality play like the Pride of Life - part of the Catholic heritage of this country and at least is somewhat in keeping with the 'theme'.
"Liturgical Entertainment"?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Does the advertising of "liturgical entertainment" show a big misunderstanding of the term "liturgy"?
A year after I became Catholic my ex-pastor from the church I had been a part of asked me if I was enjoying the Mass. I said I was and he replied "Well, that's the main thing." Ho hum. Enjoyment didn't even feature on the list of reasons to convert and learn to love the Mass and other liturgy. Liturgy isn't a jolly invention to entertain us.
Moan. You all know that so I won't waffle and moan on further.
Asteroid,
Exactly!
More reason why the Holy Father's "The Spirit of the Liturgy" should be required reading in all Catholic schools, seminaries, parishes and diocesan chanceries!
And there should be tests...!
It's certainly true that "David danced before the Lord with all his might"(2 Samuel 6 v 14) but it was not a regular performance nor was it intended to entertain.
How do these people jusify such cavorting?
Could you please identify the picture Fr Blake it looks like a line-up of prison inmates in the Far East.
Has anyone seen the Telegraph picture the day before yesterday of Pius XII as Ambassador to the democratic Germany of the 1920's leaving the German Foreign Ministry with the soldiers on guard very properly presenting arms? It is a much misused picture and fools the ignorant into supposing that he was complicit with the Nazis,even though the uniforms are normal and non-Nazi, especially under the wholly inaccurate caption of "Hitler's Pope".
It always helps to indentify pictures which can be misused for propaganda purposes.
Independant,
It shows my age!
It is from a BBC TV series about a group of army misfits banded together to form a group of entertainers in the far east.
It was called It Ain't 'Alf Hot.
Thank you Father, but was it not dangerous to show it? The purveyors of "liturgical entertainment" might be tempted to engage the services of the group you show.
My finger has been hovering over the keyboard but I feel too heart sick to say anything, other than how heart sick i feel.
As a 'revert' I can tell you that the Evangelicals do all that other stuff much better and with considerably less "naff" than Catholics.
Without the liturgy, what's the point in being Catholic? I may as well go to a friendly evangelical church. At least there I'd hear a cracking good speaker and perhaps get a fruit smoothie afterwards.
Oh and it's "It ain't half hot MUM"
Which it certainly is right now.
Remember the punkawallah in the opening sequence of that show? I'm in need of one of those tonight.
Independent said: "The purveyors of "liturgical entertainment" might be tempted to engage the services of the group you show."
Or just to show that the Catholic Church has pulled itself into the 21st century it will probably be calling on inju5tice, to let Peter Thatchell see that we can after all be broadminded, just like the Catholic headteachers in Cardinal Heenan School in Liverpool, St Bernards in Rotherham and St John Fisher in Peterborough.
epsilon, please, tell us what those headteachers have been up to.
What is "emerging church"?...t is above all a presentation style - of openness, of scepticism towards the old fusty-dusty forms, of irreverence, of irony, of artiness, of political and environmental engagement...This is where I would place the emphasis, on the need for a new relationship with the festive arts – music, theatre, spectacle. We need a new paradigm of worship in which participatory public performance eclipses the church service. How might it emerge? We need some events that are big and bold enough to put this paradigm shift on the cultural map. For example, what about a large participatory public art event in London at Easter? It could be the centrepiece of a wider festival. For obvious reasons the bishops aren't going to organise this for us.
A New model Christianity
"For obvious reasons the bishops aren't going to organise this for us."
They already have.....Ugh! Papal Visit - "Litugical Entertainment"
I had an email from our diocesan visit coordinator, it had this terrifying sentence in, which I am sure originated not from her but some other source.
The Park [Hyde Park] will open from 2pm and liturgical entertainment will be running through the afternoon - dance acts, videos etc (it promises to be an enjoyable event). The Pope will arrive to conclude the prayer vigil and benediction and the whole event will be finished by 9.00pm. I am told that the Pope will be there for the latter half of the event.
http://how-the-west-was-lost.blogspot.com/2010/07/liturgical-entertainment-theo-hobson.html
Left-Footer, I thought I requested on Fr Blake's thread above on 'invocation' above that he might link to the following on my blog:
Father, would you mind alerting Catholic bloggers to my latest posting as we need to do some serious invocation in relation to our Catholic schools latest secularisation project?
Many thanks
The sort of evangelisation Catholic Voices and other lay Catholics might be more usefully engaged in
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