Liturgy reform

Your editorial, "Liturgy reform: No going back" (NCR, Dec. 28), exemplifies the cliche of whistling past the graveyard. Bravely, you are trying to convince yourself and your readers that all is well in liturgy land, but your fear and trembling are evident.

You know the reform has failed. It has "failed because in the new, revised, improved church, "liturgy is the visible expression of the arrangement of power." What has that expression given us? Banners, balloons, clowns, circuses, guitars and tambourines.

You still dream that the Vatican II reforms will achieve "full, active, conscious participation," but look around. The reform has driven away millions. Only a portion of those who remain take part in the show. These, I guess, are the wielders of power who sit on liturgical committees, lead the songs, read the texts and distribute the hosts.

You are worried that people will remember that the liturgy is not about the human ego, but about God. It is not about the exercise of power, but about adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and petition. You are terrified that they will return to the true Mass.

JAMES F. CSANK

Seven Hills, Ohio

Your editorial on liturgy reform makes some valid points about the relationships at Vatican II and the church's understanding of herself. It is simply incorrect to state that "though the discussion was liturgy, the real subject was ecclesiology," as if somehow liturgy was secondary. First of all, as we learned from the document on the liturgy itself, liturgy is the source and summit of the church's and the Christian life. It is not secondary to anything else, including ecclesiology. Secondly, and perhaps the key to the issues you raise in the editorial, liturgy is organic. Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief) is what liturgical reformers like Virgil Michel taught us. Liturgy properly understood and celebrated naturally inspires the church's mission for justice and peace. The genius of the council was precisely to start with the liturgical reform that had been percolating for a long time. This reform was based on the recovery of the historical tradition of the liturgy. The expectation was that this would naturally

and organically lead to other necessary reforms in the church's life and institutional structures, as well as proper engagement with the world in which the liturgy was being celebrated. The hope was that the people of God would attend to the Word and Sacrament in which they were supposed to be "fully, consciously, and actively" participating.

MICHAEL L. O'NEILL

De Land. Fla.

The new Mass is a contrived, man-centered, as opposed to God-centered, social gathering that does not come near the Tridentine worship of our Lord, nor for that matter any other rite of the church. It is banal and casual with all the insipid, saccharine-sweet music one can stand. Its underlying theology is weak and its emphasis on the attendees rivaling the Triune God is shameful. Since the time of its inception, more Catholics have left the church and religious life, do not believe in the Real Presence and have no concept of mortal sin and the need for confession. Meanwhile, homosexual predators have become legion. Once and for all, for the love of our Lord, stop the defense of the new Mass and its fruits.

THOMAS ROTELLA

Wayne, N.J.

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