The Download—Liturgy of Man

You are not signed in as a Premium user; you are viewing the free version of this program. Premium users have access to full-length programs with limited commercials and receive a 10% discount in the store! Sign up for only one day for the low cost of $1.99. Click the button below.

See All Plans

People's faith is being choked out by the thorns of fabricated liturgy. The Church needs to tear up these thorns of manmade liturgy in order to save souls from Hell.

The Catholic maxim "Lex orandi, lex credendi" — "As you pray, so you believe" — denotes the reality that how you pray tends to inform your beliefs. As Abp. Fulton Sheen relates, "If you do not live what you believe, you will end up believing what you live."

So it's important to distinguish false liturgy made up by man from authentic liturgy, which is a gift from God. Authentic liturgy has organically developed in the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In a preface to Msgr. Klaus Gamber's book "The Reform of the Roman Rite," the great liturgist Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote,

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: In the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it — as in a manufacturing process — with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.

Consistency is found in the representation of the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). A TLM offered in 10 different parishes on the same day is done virtually in the same way. The TLM always has a priest alone, facing the altar, following a single set of rubrics, distributing Communion at a Communion rail, while everyone is kneeling to receive the Host on the tongue.

Contrived, do-it-yourself liturgy is made evident by its variance in expression. Consistency is demonstrably lacking in how the Ordinary Form, or New Rite Mass, is celebrated from parish to parish. Go to 10 Novus Ordo Masses on any given day and note the number of variations that show up in how it's celebrated.

At the common parish Mass, there may or may not be the following: lay people around the altar, the priest facing towards the people, lay people giving out Communion or dispensing the Precious Blood, Communion on the tongue or in the hand, people standing or kneeling at various parts of the Mass, female altar boys, use of paten or bells, and the priest following a variable set of rubrics with various options at Mass.

Many people blame Vatican II for these variations. But "Sacrosanctum Concilium," the first document to come out of the Council and the only one to deal with the liturgy, didn't legislate these changes. The document actually called for retaining the use of Latin in the liturgy and using sacred music like Gregorian Chant to sing the Mass instead of merely singing at Mass.

Watch the full episode: "The Download—Bad Liturgy Kills Souls."

Have a news tip? Submit news to our tip line.

We rely on you to support our news reporting. Please donate today.