Refutation of Dr. Brant Pitre on Active Participation

"Active participation" does not mean the clericalisation of the laity!

From Peter Kwasniewski

In this video, I share Gregory DiPippo’s masterful critique of the numerous and serious historical errors found in Dr. Brant Pitre’s presentation on active participation. At key points I display images that support DiPippo's argumentation (with both the text and the images originally from a series published at New Liturgical Movement website between December 18, 2024 and January 30, 2025). The critique is fairly lengthy because of the number and magnitude of the errors in question, but this is a blessing in disguise: since these errors are more or less baked into every defense of the Novus Ordo that has ever been given, DiPippo’s work functions as a general refutation of foundational claims of the 20th-century liturgical reform. It will therefore benefit listeners in general, regardless of whether or not they have listened to or have any intention of listening to Dr. Pitre’s lectures on liturgy. At the end, I reflect on disturbing questions of intellectual honesty and moral integrity raised by the failure of such scholars as Brant Pitre, Mary Healy, John Cavadini, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, James Likoudis, and Kenneth Whitehead to revise their arguments even when they are shown to be false. I suggest that we are dealing here with the phenomenon of ideology.