The Pope, the Poor, “Pageantry and Prominence”

In my experience, the poor appreciate the beauty of pageantry more than others. See the Churches built by the sodbusters of 19th century Kansas, such as St Mary's in St Benedict or St Fidelis in Victoria.

From Crisis

By John M. Grondelski, PhD

When the pope warns against “pageantry and prominence,” I want to know how he will also protect against tacky and tawdry because the latter has often been the practical upshot of post-Vatican II liturgical choices. 

Pope Francis sent a message February 28 to participants in a course at Rome’s Anselmianum for bishops’ masters of ceremony. The message was one of those usual ones dispatched for an event of which the Holy See somehow wants to take note, either because it likes the idea or somebody involved had a friend in the Curia.  

According to the message, the nominal reason for the course is to respond to Francis’ “invitation formulated in the Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, continuing to study the liturgy, not only from a theological perspective, but also in the area of celebratory praxis.”

“Celebratory praxis” in the Francis pontificate seems primarily to mean not celebrating the liturgy in ways in which this pope disapproves—for example, in Latin, especially in the usus antiquior. Beyond that, the term is elastic enough to cover justifying rules against what particular people imagine constitute retrenchment on the supposed “vision” of Vatican II, e.g., wanting to kneel to receive Communion and/or to do so at an altar rail.   

Francis’ message, with its focus on “celebratory praxis,” raises two issues: the scope and the style of that “praxis.” This message is ambiguous on both those issues. I’m going to pass over “scope” quickly, not because it’s unimportant but because it’s too important not to treat more exhaustively here.  

The pope says, 

…worship is the work of the whole assembly, the encounter between doctrine and pastoral care…must always be incarnated, inculturated, expressing the faith of the Church. Consequently, the joys and sufferings, the dreams and concerns of the people of God possess a hermeneutical value that we cannot ignore. 

But what that “hermeneutical value” is, how it should be interpreted, and how it is “inculturated” in liturgy are questions that have generated much mischief since Vatican II and would be likely to produce even more under the permissive Francis approach.  

Right now, let’s focus on the style of liturgy, particularly two points: 1.) the bishop’s liturgy as model for the diocese and 2.) a “style that expresses the following of Jesus, avoiding unnecessary pageantry or prominence.”   

The pope thinks that how a bishop celebrates liturgy in his own cathedral ought to be “celebratory models to be imitated.” In one sense, that’s true, since the Eucharist is always offered in union with the local bishop who should, therefore, guard the proper celebration of divine worship in his diocese. So, yes, the bishop should set the standard for proper liturgical implementation in his diocese. Whether in fact that has always been the case, particularly one without double standards in terms of particular liturgical ideologies behind it, is another question.  

My greater concern, however, is the ambiguity in a liturgical “style that expresses the following of Jesus, avoiding unnecessary pageantry or prominence.” How do we/the bishop know liturgical “style” is consistent with “following Jesus”? Is there only one such style? If we are to avoid “unnecessary pageantry,” does that mean there is a “necessary” pageantry, and, again, how do we/the bishop know that?
I am not trying to be facetious. I am trying to avoid the pitfalls that follow from pretty words whose content leaves broad room for definition.  

Take an example from Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It prescribes that the “rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions” (34).  

Well, in the 60 years since that document was issued, undefined “noble simplicity” was taken to mean:

• quasi-obligatory vernacular usage, almost to the point that the Latin tradition of the Roman Catholic Rite was practically extinguished; 
• a vernacular usage that confused linguistic “noble simplicity” with the style and “dynamic equivalence” of “See Dick run! Run! Run! Run!”; 
• a loss of venerable structures of the Roman Rite, including a concerted effort in the 1960s through 1980s to sideline the First Eucharistic Prayer (Roman Canon) with its “useless repetitions” and the substitution of centuries-old Gregorian Chant with seconds-old pop and folk tunes with theologically dubious lyrics; and 
• an architectural and aesthetic style that demoted the transcendent, begrudged dedicating the “best” to the context of divine worship, and imposed a flat utilitarianism that temporized the sense of the sacral by making “worship spaces” multifunctional.

None of the preceding four bullets are, arguably, what the Council Fathers who voted for Sacrosanctum Concilium expected or imposed, but it was imposed in their name.  Some of our liturgical heritage managed to survive suppression efforts; for example, 1960s liturgists were certain that the Roman Canon today would be a dead letter, yet it is increasingly the option of Sunday choice at many parishes today. And while the pope opines about not ignoring what is going on in the parish, I do not hear—at least in some quarters—an honest questioning whether maybe Catholics wanting to resume reception of Communion in a kneeling posture has a “hermeneutical value” not to be “ignored.”  

So, when the pope warns against “pageantry and prominence,” I want to know how he will also protect against tacky and tawdry because the latter has often been the practical upshot of liturgical choices made ostensibly in the name of a “poor Church of the poor,” usually by the comfortably situated, not-poor liturgy and “worship” planners.  

The really poor, like Magdalene, did not resent generosity for the things of God. The most cursory familiarity with ethnic Catholicism in the United States knows the soaring, elevated nobility of the “Polish cathedral” style of church construction, examples of which used to abound (before episcopal “renewal” of the local church) in places like Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, …and Perth Amboy. Poor immigrants contributing nickels and dimes to build those edifices did so because they wanted that rich style to mark sacramentally the places they worshipped.  

Even where full-blown “cathedral style” was beyond an immigrant poor’s possibilities, most of their churches combined some elements of Gothic or Romanesque style and noble elements (marble, crystal) with the more pedestrian practical (church on the main floor, school space below and above) to ensure that what was rendered unto God was due God at a level befitting the holy.  

So, before the next generation of liturgists uses warnings against “pageantry and prominence” as an excuse for ecclesiastical vandalism, let’s demand defining ahead of time what that means.