Messing with the Mass: The problem of priestly narcissism today

PAUL VITZ & DANIEL C. VITZ

It has been frequently noted that the mass since Vatican II has fallen victim to various kinds of irregularities.

Since Vatican II the Mass has fallen victim to various kinds of irregularities. This issue has been much discussed from various perspectives, but in this article we will examine a previously neglected aspect of the situation — namely, the psychological reasons why priests have introduced these changes. We will not deal with theological explanations for why the Mass has been subject to liturgical experimentation, nor will we discuss liturgical rationales for such innovations. Instead, we will focus on the psychology of the priest and those assisting at the liturgy — that is, on the psychological motives as distinct from theological and liturgical reasoning.

We propose that the primary motivation behind many of these changes derives from underlying narcissistic motives — that is, extreme self love — found in many people in contemporary culture. This is especially the case with the relatively small changes introduced in an idiosyncratic way into the Mass. We first summarize and describe the nature of this narcissism, then apply it to the situation found among priests.

American Narcissism

Beginning in the 1970’s, a number of major social critics noted and criticized this country’s increasingly narcissistic — that is, self-preoccupied — character. Tom Wolfe’s article “The Me Decade” opened this critique, and many others followed it. Perhaps the most extensive treatment was Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism. The first book-length critique of American’s narcissism was written by one of the present authors (PCV), Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (1977, 1994). Vitz explicitly addressed the basic anti-Christian (though not the anti-Catholic) significance of contemporary cultural narcissism. Robert Bellah and colleagues’ Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life in 1985 continued such critiques. We briefly summarize here key points made by these authors to allow their insights to be applied to the psychology of many American priests.

Lasch emphasized the decline of the “sense of historical time.” (p. 1) Narcissism as a mental framework is easier for individuals and societies when they are no longer connected to the past. It is the past that provides a framework for judging contemporary behavior as good or bad, as appropriate or inappropriate, as traditional or novel. The historical past, with its heroes and its lessons, is a person’s link to family and cultural traditions; it provides norms of behavior and moral strictures. Lasch makes it clear that as the past has faded from American consciousness, the capacity for narcissistic self-indulgence has grown substantially.

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