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Happening ... in the Local Church
We really are one Church. Roman Catholics celebrate Mass much the same way the world over. Even someone who doesn’t understand the language recognizes the order of the Mass, and knows the homily is occurring because the congregation sat after the Gospel reading. Consecration of the Eucharist is unmistakable, whether accompanied by tiny bells, massive chimes or dead silence.
The main differences are not part of the Mass, but around it. Worship spaces range from massive structures more than 800 years old to tiny huts with dirt floors. Plush kneelers might exist, or there may just be a wooden plank. Walls may be adorned with priceless antique works of art or Stations of the Cross drawn by the children of the parish.
If that’s so, why do so many Catholics feel uncomfortable if they attend another Catholic church? Some of us even become uncomfortable if someone happens to be sitting in “our” seat at Mass.
It’s probably something in our nature that makes us always want things to be just so. Making a change in the liturgical music or a slight alteration to language in a prayer can be offputting to some. We once lived in a town with two Catholic churches just three blocks from each other. When they were built more than a century ago, the Polish immigrants needed a place to worship apart from the German immigrants. Perhaps we wouldn’t be so selective in the 21st century, yet I’ve heard people speak of not attending one church or another because they don’t like a particular homilist, or because of the music, or even the seating arrangment.
A 2004 USA Today article quoted the chancellor of the Louisville archdiocese as saying, “American Catholics have become consumers, church-shopping like their Protestant neighbors and choosing their parish by the school or the theological perspective or the music that matches them.”
Like most things, this abundance of choice can be either positive or negative.
If the opportunity to attend Mass in a place that suits us leads to an increase in church attendance or a renewed faith, then choice is positive. But if Catholics use the variety as a means of exclusion or derision, or as a rationalization for their frustration with their faith life, it has a negative effect.
We must recognize that our Church is one and that minor differences don’t change that. Jesus came to bring us together. We should stop looking for excuses to create division.
This guest editorial was written by Dom Caristi, associate professor of telecommunications at Ball State University and a parishioner of St. Francis of Assisi, Muncie.