I must say I am delighted and amused that a regular reader of Liturgiae Causa comes from Letterkenny in Co. Donegal, on the north-west coast of Ireland. My grandparents live there. If he or she would care to comment and tell me what Liturgy is like there, I'd be grateful. I can't remember the parish church of Letterkenny very well. The last time I was in Ulster was in April of this year, though I went to Mass in Derry with my cousin - a rather traumatising experience - I would that I had gone to the local Church of Ireland church instead!
I think that if this were the end of the 19th century or around 1911 I'd have converted to the Church of England (or Ireland) gladly. I won't now, of course, since that church has deliberately abandoned the Catholic faith she once received from the Saints.
My dear, there are many [former] Anglicans, probably including me, who, were it 1911, would never have converted to RCism! But God forbid you go near the Church of Ireland today (or indeed any day) - for you may find that very worst of liturgical abuses: a woman at the altar.
ReplyDeleteWhere can we go now? A woman at the altar isn't a rare sight in the Roman Church either. And the "traditionalists" are partying like it's 1962, with their 'restored' liturgies and baroque frills.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the Anglicans convrtng to Roman Catholicism must never actually been inside a post-conciliar Roman-rite Catholic church during ''the celebration of the Eucharist'' or during a ''Word and Communion celebration''. In many parish churches, during the Mass, the priest's role is bacically limited to the words of consecration, whilst women read the Epistle, serve at the altar (sometimes it looks like a concelebration) and distribrute HOly Communion (which Tradition does not even allow a lay man to do). During a ''Word and Communion service'', which is the norm in many preist-less parishes, women pastoral workers preside, looking anc acting very much like priests, infact, are even referred to as priestess by some of the less informed. These women are for practical purposes functioning as priestesses with the blessing of Rome and of most Catholic Bishops.
ReplyDelete