THE CATHOLIC LOOK
- Patrick Collins

The 'priest problem' in liturgy is more than authentic. The clergy are part of a larger problem of Catholic culture which Day describes as 'triumph of bad taste.' If you sit, as priests do, 'on the throne' (Day's description of the priest's position in the assembly), one has a unique, bird's eye view of this Catholic culture in the Sunday assembly. This overview discloses what I call 'The Catholic Look'. Seeing the assembly's visages might make one think that the limitations of liturgical renewal are principally the assembly's problem.

Many of the people look dull and dazed of eye. Their body language reflects that of children corralled into dutiful behaviour. The passive resistance to participation is palpable. For example, when I move through the Sunday assembly for the sprinkling with blessed water and offer a gentle smile, attempting a friendly interaction with individuals in the assembly (not, I hope, 'a Mr. Nice Guy, please love me' look), I am often met with solid and sometimes hostile glances, that is, if anyone risks looking into my eyes at all. Many simply stare blankly into space.

'The Catholic Look' is one of 'I challenge you to make me want to be here!' One would not readily say: 'See how these Christians love one another.' Rather one might remark: 'These Roman Catholics look afraid of or disinterested in one another.' The experience of awe and hospitality which are meant to be present are not in great evidence. In fact, feeling and care, as well as mystery, are what appear to be missing in the assembly's ritual.

What could have conditioned this inner attitude and exterior expression of 'The Catholic Look' during our liturgies? What cumulative forces over the generations have sculpted, indeed chiseled, those faces? Surely there is no one cause. The problem is multifaceted. One aspect of the difficulty is the relationship between what one experiences in worship and in the ways in which the clergy live and move and have their being with their communities, both apart from and within ritual.

Clericalism Part of the Problem
Could it be that 'The Catholic Look' has been brought about, in no small measure, by centuries of cultural control of Catholic life by certain types of male celibate clerics? Could it be that their patriarchal bearing in liturgy has cautioned believers not to actively celebrate but to passively observe? Could it be that some of those whom Catholics call 'Father' cause people to worship more like children in the presence of a father to be feared than as adults rejoicing in the Spirit that makes all one? 'The Catholic Look' resembles duty being done under coercion, rather than ecstasy in the presence of mystery and joyful sharing of faith with sisters and brothers in the Lord.

Today celibacy unfairly catches the blame for almost all of the church's woes. Surely celibacy is not the primary cause of limping liturgies. Yet consider this hypothesis as a piece of dilemma: Isn't it possible that celibate clerics whose personal lives may not be significantly touched by deep interpersonal intimacy are unlikely to facilitate warm, joyous, faith-filled celebrations of God's love, which come in and through other feasts of human love? Celibacy lived in obedience to law, rather than as a personal charism and free choice, can kill the inner energy which enlivens faith celebrations.

Passionless priests presiding over generations of Catholics can have the cumulative effect of creating robot-like ritual behaviour and liturgical recipe-reading in assemblies. Such stilted ritualistic behaviour over against the people rather than human ritual interaction with the people, may have drained some of the warm humanity from Roman Catholic assemblies. 'The Catholic Look' tends to be a sad look, a passive visage, mirroring perhaps the sadness in the faces of the clerically conditioned priests whose patriarchal presiding can put people in the position of perpetual children.

These rather severe descriptions of 'The Catholic Look' reflect not only what I have too often observed during Roman Catholic liturgies; they follow as well from what I have observed by way of contrast at worship services in several other Christian communities. When I participated in Anglican or Lutheran or Presbyterian liturgies recently, I was aware of a quite different "feel" , a remarkable different "look" , not that these faith communities do not have their own branch of dysfunction and clericalism.

In those other assemblies, almost everyone picked up the book to sing. Music mattered. The assembly counted. Most actually gave voice to the texts and tunes before their eyes. In the assembly there was a reverent friendliness, a sense of free expression and an atmosphere of hospitality between members of the assembly and the leaders of worship. There seemed to be a sense among the people that the liturgy belonged to them, not just to the priest/pastor and other ministers "up-front." Most looked like they loved doing what they were doing and usually participated with apparent understanding and gusto. To put it in Roman Catholic terms, they looked, felt and sounded like the embodiment and enactment of "full, active and conscious participation" in worship.

Some may counter that these assemblies have had more years of experience with sung participation. It is more their tradition than ours. They are used to it. Give us time and our people will catch on. Undoubtedly, the lack of our tradition of congregational singing is part of our problem. But another part of the difficulty lies with those clerics whose impersonal, non-effective manner of presiding (sometimes never singing themselves) has set the tone for what is called communal action, but which in reality is experienced principally as the activity of those "upfront" folks.

This is not to suggest that such clergy necessarily lack faith or prayerfulness. Many of the priests are, thank God, men of heroic faith, and lead lives profoundly grounded in prayer. Rather, it is easy to say that interiority may not be sufficiently embodied to energize communal celebrations of faith.

Will Today's neo-Clericalism perpetuate the Problem?
The inherited problem of clericalism is just one piece of a much larger problem. An older, authoritarian Roman Catholic ecclesiology and leadership style is resurfacing. This can create a style of communal interrelating within Church life which discourages and even prevents people from feeling like worship really belongs to them.

In the past decade, the Vatican II collegial sense of the church as a circle of the baptized, with each his or her own unique role and ministry, has shifted backwards. There is retrenchment from the top. Officialdom seems to be trying to shove the inclusive circle back into the shape of a pyramid with clerics at the top and the praying, paying and obeying faithful at the bottom, weighed down by what is enthroned above.

Regardless of what Vatican II says about the entire baptized, priestly people of God sharing responsibility for the life of the church, 'The Catholic Look' of many assemblies tends to belie that conciliar vision for too many of our people. Such detachment does not reflect community ownership of what goes on, either within the worshipping assembly or perhaps even in the rest of the community's life together. The assembly often looks like a group still cowed by the clergy. Twenty five years of attempting to change that have only made a small dent in the firm armour of 'The Catholic Look'

Today a good number of 'new' clerics seems committed to putting the armour back in place, to restoring the reign of clericalism over the people of God. Among these neo-conservatives there appears to be a fear of sharing 'their power' with the laity in general and, in particular, with women religious. Little wonder since clerical training traditionally leads men not to trust or to be comfortable with lay persons, especially members of the opposite sex. One bishop said recently that he could not imagine sharing his inmost thoughts with a woman spiritual director.

Some conservative seminaries and some in hierarchical leadership today emphasize to these men the messages of yesteryear about the 'specialness' of priestly power, their difference from others, their position of authority. There is concern not to share this superior priestly power with persons in the other ministries, lest their special role as priests be undermined. They fear that this specialness will be lost if they become too close to the faithful. (Are not priests also 'the faithful'?) Isn't this strong concern for being 'special' precisely what characterizes the problem called narcissism, a pathology which psychologists tell us frequently plagues celibate clerics? This driving concern for clerical authority is part of what continues to create 'The Catholic Look'

More and more Catholics, however, are moving beyond this. Since Vatican II they are coming to realize what Eugene Kennedy says: 'Healthy religious development demand increasing autonomy, a reshaping and reintegration of one's religious understandings and commitments, so that they are no longer held with the innocent dependent confidence of a child but with the scarred independence of hard-bought wisdom.'

Priest as Part of the Solution
If priests are part of the problem, they are also part of the solution. To move beyond the Catholic Look', we need liturgical leadership which is learning to eschew clericalism. Priesthood, yes! Clericalism, no! Let me contrast the two with admitted stereotypes.

Clerics are aloof and apart in their life-style. In groups of the laity they usually move and stand alone. They are authoritarian, pompous, arrogant, and at times impudent and insolent. What often appears missing in their lives is the joy and pain of loving and being loved. They are like automatons speaking in clerical clichés. Consequently, love's flipside, power, can become their overwhelming obsession and their way of identifying themselves as persons of esteem. It is this embodiment of clerical power presiding over liturgies and controlling pastoral relationship which contributes "The Catholic Look" in liturgy and in life.

Now to describe the priest in contrast to the cleric. Priests who can change the appearances of sad faces in assemblies will be persons passionately and prayerfully alive within a community of faith and a community of friends.

A sympathy for the human conditions, a readiness to forgive and encourage sinners, a sacramental feeling for the significant junctures of growth, significant relationships and loss in people's lives: these constitute the elements of spiritual awareness that possess intrinsic and easily recognizable religious authority. Such attributes define sacramental sense of the world that must inform and innervate the sacramental ministry of bishops and clergy.

It is my suspicion that, where priestly leadership is lacking, Catholics can't sing because they are given little to sing about. On the other hand, the presence of prayerful and vital priests within and among the assembly of God's priestly people may empower, with cumulative effects over the generations, a shift in the culture of Catholicism towards the triumph of good taste in liturgy … and in life!

Declericalizing the Celebration of Eucharist
What would it look like for a non-cleric priest, as envisioned by Eugene Kennedy, to preside with, not over, a celebrating liturgical assembly today? Without changing the current structures and texts of the Roman Catholic eucharistic celebration, there are a good number of things which can be done by the presider so that it looks, sounds and feels like the whole assembly is celebrating rather than "Father is reading Mass". Much can be done to diminish the experience of clerical patriarchy even in the present rites.

Imagination is all that is required to "revision" the celebration towards greater inclusion. If we are to re-imagine the Roman Catholic Church as one American Bishop had suggested, we would do well to begin with re-imaging the role of the presider in the eucharistic celebration. Let us review the elements of the Mass to see what such a re-imaging would mean.

The Gathering of the Assembly
Presiders can help establish an energy of hospitality and reverence as members of the assembly begin to arrive for the celebration. As people enter the church, the one presiding would be with the people welcoming them as a fellow believer. For this kind of welcoming presence to be possible, several things should be avoided during the assembly time.

First, the presider should not converse with just a few of the people but would do well to greet as many as possible. He shouldn't spend more time with these persons perceived by others to be the most visible and active members of the community. Any appearance of a 'clique' within the community should be scrupulously avoided. Better to greet and visit with those least known by all, especially persons who are having difficulties at the time.

Second, the presider should not be involved in the last minute details of arranging the sanctuary and organizing the ministers. Others should do this so the presider can devote full attention to the arriving worshippers.

Third, the presider need not don special liturgical vestments until the opening music has begun. Only then does he assume the unique liturgical ministry of presiding. This would allow more gathering music to be sung, thus enhancing the spirit of unity and celebration before the ministers enter the worshipping space.

The Procession
The presider together with all other ministers in the procession, should sing the processional music along with the assembly. All appearances of "welcoming the celebrant" should be avoided although this is difficult to do since the one at the end of the procession is symbolically 'the most important'. It can seem like everyone has gathered for the presider's grand entry.

Another approach to entering, a simpler choreography could be useful to declericalize the introductory rites. Who says that a solemn entry procession is necessary? The General Instructions (no. 25) speak of the priest and ministers coming in during the entrance song. A procession is mentioned, but such an entry could take many forms. Another option is for ministers to gradually take their places in the worship space, reverencing the altar during the gathering music. This would avoid the look of the presider and ministers seeming 'special', rather than the ones who are called to serve.

The Arrangement of the Space
"The people of God assembled at Mass possess an organic and hierarchical structure … The general plan of the sacred edifice should be such that in some way it conveys the image of the gathered assembly"(G.I. 257). The assembly's place should allow all to look, sound and feel like they are the celebrants of the liturgy not mere passive observers before whom the ministers perform the rites.

If clericalism, either of the ordained or of lay ministers, is to be avoided, the 'organic' arrangements for the whole assembly should be emphasized more than the 'hierarchical structure' of the worship apace, without denying traditional hierarchical ordering of the worshipping community. This involves a careful balanced emphasis on the assembly, while not eliminating the distinctive role of the ministers. Since in the past we have tended to disturb this balance by over-emphasizing the place of the presider, we may need for a time to put the emphasis on the other pole to create the experience of the entire assembly celebrating.

But how can the traditional spatial arrangements for 'sanctuary' and 'the places for the faithful' symbolize effectively that 'the whole assembly celebrates'? How is this possible if the presider and the ministers are placed visually and spatially 'over against' the assembly, like actors on a stage? While it is important that the 'distinctive role' of the ministers is visually expressed in the worship space, all semblance of exaggeration should be avoided. For, as it looks, so it will be.

The GI, 257 strongly emphasizes this concern for a balance between the elements of the ministers and the assembly: "Even though these elements must express a hierarchical arrangement and the diversity of offices, they (the presider and ministers) should at the same time form a complete and organic unity, clearly expressive of the unity of the entire holy people."

The place for the presider within the celebrating assembly needs to be imaginatively reconsidered if the appearances of patriarchal clericalism in the celebration are to be avoided. While on the one hand n. 271 states that 'anything resembling a throne is to be avoided'; on the other hand it points out that the priest celebrant's chair ought to stand as a symbol of his office of presiding over the assembly and of directing prayer. Thus the best place for the chair is at the back of the sanctuary and turned towards the congregation, unless the structure or other circumstances are an obstacle (for example, if too great a distance would interfere with communication between priest and people).

This brings to mind the story about the first days of post-Vatican II liturgical renewal. Fr. James Fitzgerald, longtime pastor of St. Mark's Parish in Peroria, Illinois, was informed by his two assistants that the 'changes' called for an altar facing the people and a presider's chair placed up on the top steps, the predella, of the former high altar. Fr. Fritz was willing to try facing the people at the altar but he balked at the high chair. 'I'm not a king!' he said with the intuitive convictions stemming from his pastoral sensitiveness.

I always think of Fr. Fitz when post-conciliar presiders sit enthroned 'over' liturgical assemblies. If Roman Catholics are to ever effectively overcome the appearances and experiences of patriarchy and recover from the effects of an aloof clericalism, not only within the liturgy but in the lives priests share with the other baptized, priestly people of God, then priests need to be brought down off their 'high places' in liturgy and in life. No matter how you cut it, 'thrones' is what you get in most current sanctuary arrangements. Could this be a case of what you see is what you get?

Perhaps GI, 271 allows for a reconsideration of the place of the presider and the importance of 'the chair' where it suggests that certain structures and circumstances are obstacles to effective leadership of the people of God - in life, not just liturgy. If it is true that 'as we act, so we become,' then today we need to act in liturgy in ways that organically unite all of the baptized.

Where, then, should the presider be located within the celebrating assembly? Two principles can provide useful guidelines.

Principle One: Whenever the presider is leading the prayer of the people or praying in the name of the people, he should stand in a position which is spatially central within the assembly in order to be visible to all, and close to, rather that apart from, the worshippers.

This would happen during the following ritual moments:

Introductory rites: the greeting, the penitential rite and the opening prayer.

Liturgy of the Word: Gospel, the homily and the General Intentions.

Preparation of the Gifts and the altar: the receiving of the gifts brought forward by members of the assembly making this more a visual than verbal rite. This can be done through a choreography which brings the gift bearers to either side of the presider at the altar. The people themselves hold up the bread and wine, with the presider's hands under theirs, as the blessings are silently or quietly spoken by the presider.

The entire Eucharistic Prayer

The Communion Rite: the invitation to the Lord's prayer with the embolism; the peace prayer with the invitation to share the peace of Christ; the invitation to receive the sacrament of Christ's body and blood; and the prayer after communion.

The entire concluding rite

Principle two: Whenever the presider is not functioning to direct the prayer of the assembly, a seat could be provided at the side of the sanctuary area, beside any other ministers. This would reflect an arrangement common in the Anglican communion. Another alternative, one emphasizing the 'organic unity' of the assembly and the equality of all the baptized, would place the presider and other ministers in the front seats in the assembly, except when they are leading prayer or fulfilling their proper ministerial functions. This would happen at all moments other than those described above.

The Tone of Voice
Presiders can dominate more that lead assemblies by both the tone and the pace of their voices. Whenever the presider is addressing the assembly, whether praying in the name of the people or inviting the assembly to pray, he should speak in a loud, clear and distinct tone for all to easily hear. Whenever praying or reciting words together with the assembly, his voice should set the pace and rhythm of communal prayer while blending with the assembly's words. This would be the case, for example, during the recitation of the Gloria, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Lamb of God.

The pace of communal prayer set by the presider should be neither rushed nor dragged out. A natural rhythm should be established. Pauses are determined by the cadence of the phrases and sentences, together with the normal need for breathing. This is particularly important during dialogical parts of the liturgy. For example, the 'Lord have mercy' should be recited with respect for the comma after the word 'Lord'. There should also be a pause between the repetitions of the litany. The same would be true for the general intercessions, and the preface dialogue.

Distinguish Primary and Secondary
All of the parts of the ritual are not of equal importance. Presiders can diminish the appearance of patriarchal dominance by de-emphasizing those secondry parts assigned to them. All of the so-called 'private prayers' of the priest should be said silently and without undue extension of time. Included are the prayer before the Gospel, the presider's words during the presentation of the gifts, and the private prayers during the presentation of the gifts, and the private prayers during the Communion rite. Secondarhy actions such as the washing of hands should also be done briefly.

The Recessional
There is no recessional specifically called for in the Roman rite. The liturgy might end with the words 'The Mass is ended. Go in peace.' Then with jubilant music played or sung by the choir, the assembly would simply break into conversation and depart informally as each chooses. The presider and ministers would immediately move from their places to mingle with the eucharistic assembly. 'We are many parts but all one body.'

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