“The Tridentine Mass remains the best antidote against the all too common tendency to succumb to the cult of personality, and that, I would argue, is why for some it must abolished once and for all.”
Of McCarrick, Jesuits, and Summorum Pontificum
It was a Saturday afternoon in summer. It was bright and sunny. It was a “Saturday vigil” Mass for some green Sunday or other. I was twelve.
The celebrant was the diocesan bishop, Theodore McCarrick. He was doing a parish visit.
My memories of that Saturday at church were vivid even before “Uncle Ted” became a justly vilified ecclesiastical pariah. My memories of that Mass were vivid because it was one of several similar occasions on which I came to appreciate what exactly often troubled me about the celebration of the post-conciliar, reformed liturgical rites, even as a child.
It was the cult of personality. It was the fact that liturgies were akin to talk shows, with a prominent, overly amplified host. And it was his show, from start to finish. For all the emphasis on “full, conscious, and active participation” in the liturgy, it was his show.
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