Liturgical Disaster

I got this from Eponymous Flower.  What can you say about this, which apparently occurred at something akin to a Quincanera in Brazil?:

Young female holding up consecrated Host during Agnes Dei.  Good grief Fr. Inclusive, get a better mic.  This is not just an abuse.  I would say its sacrilegious.  It is things like this that drive many people to seek out traditional parishes where things like this are never tolerated.

Young female administering BOTH forms of Communion to her father.  Leaving aside the enormous problem of Communion in the hand, has this 15  year old been through the very rigorous [oh it’s so rigorous you have no idea!  Ummm…..] training required to be an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion?  Is this dress considered sufficiently modest to take the very Lord of the Universe into one’s hands and then distribute it to another?

Brazil, like Mexico, used to be one of the most stalwart Catholic nations in the world, but in the last 50 years or so, the Faith has been gutted by modernism, secular humanism, and general leftism to reduce it to a paltry shadow of its former self.  What is left is, quite literally, just the outward form of faith, frequently twisted and abused as we see here.  The very stuff of faith, the real life-changing belief, is all but gone.  That is what a worldly, materialist focus in religion does – it destroys faith.  Faith grows by rejecting the ways of the world, growing in virtue, fighting against our many faults and sins – in essence, focusing on the spiritual aspects of life, the interior life.  A religion focused largely on “solving” worldly problems like hunger or poverty or world peace or whatever misses all of that, and what is left is a false shell of religion.

I was at Mass yesterday again in San Antonio.  I have written of the pervasive problems in that Diocese before – the problems are very, very grave. I will talk about this a great deal on the radio tomorrow night.  But for now, I will only note that of all the intercessory prayers made after the recitation of the Creed, all but one were entirely materialist in nature (including one to help people get out of debt!), and none were about true interior conversion.  And don’t get me started on the sermon, where we learned that “Jesus disappoints us a lot!”

San Antonio is an Archdiocese, like Los Angeles and others, with a very heavy hispanic population and influence.  I have noted that dioceses with this influence tend to be more heterodox or generally problematic.  Much of that stems from the collapse of the Faith in Mexico, after decades of horrific persecution and, of course, the shift in focus after the last council, which the Church in Mexico embraced with gusto.  Catholics who emigrate from Mexico to the US frequently bear the marks of very strong charismatic/protestant influences.  I think this plays a part in the problems in San Antonio.  Again, more tomorrow night.

God willing, that is!