“Pie in the sky when you die” is not enough. We want heaven on earth here and now.

To effect that, we eliminate the difference between the sacred and the profane. If God is in us, one with us, then each of us is God and it follows that we must remove the distinction between God and us [So what does He gain?] – no easy job, for appreciation for the holy is rooted in human nature. People will usually be uncomfortable with our program because it goes against the grain. The more sensitive and intelligent will always be restless, seeking, striving after knowledge of that which they sense intuitively is transcendent and holy. We can hold such people in line only by authority, by asking, “If not the Catholic Church, what?”

Our efforts will greatly satisfy the rational in man at the expense of the mystical. The mystical is a delusion. By assuring the individual that he himself is God and there is no other, by eliminating the bowing and scraping and grovelling before a God imagined in heaven, we should do much to enhance man’s self-respect.

Curiously, we were able to secularise the Mass and strip it of its mystery with the slogan, “That the people may understand.” That is what sold the bishops. As though each mass were to become a class in religion – indeed, it has so become, and the people learn just what we want them to learn. I literally held my breath when our man used “That the people may understand,” before the hierarchy. Surely, I thought, these venerable gentlemen, unlearned though they be, have read John Chrysostom. Surely they realize that a God comprehended is no God at all. But no, the pious blockheads nodded grave assent. Indeed, most of them thought it a fine objective.

For our purposes, the concept of sacrifice in the Mass had to go. You cannot desacralize sacrifice. It is sacred by definition, the most solemn possible act of adoration. It is formal. A banquet, on the other hand, is informal. One normally has light music and minstrelsy. One is relaxed.  Smoking is allowed. It is an earthy, jolly occasion.

Even the old-line theologians were at best half-hearted in defense of the sacrifice idea. It had always been hard to explain the element of anticipation – the sacrifice of the Mass taking place at the Last Supper eighteen hours before the sacrifice of the cross. [What had happened to eternity? At the Crucifixion would it not have been a bit late to demonstrate sacrificial intention?] In fact [?], there was no satisfactory explanation. We reminded them of Harnack’s conclusion: “Christ’s was the last sacrifice. Wherever Christianity spread, sacrifice came to an end.” [Could this be why we always re-presented Christ’s Sacrifice?]

NEXT WE THREW OUT the sacred language and introduced the profane. We never expected the pope to go along with this, for Latin is a bond of unity. More, language is not merely communication, but also expression. Even use of “thee” and “thou” in English, besides communicating a meaning, expresses solemnity. Through almost two millennia, the people had associated Church Latin with divine worship. They had been conditioned. Suddenly we pulled the rug from under them. Naturally there was confusion; in bi-lingual countries such as Canada; in Danzig: should it be German or Polish? – and what of mission territories where often each country has its own language?

Once we had the people confused and demoralized by the switch to the vernacular, we could push on rapidly. We threw out statues and votive lights, tore out the sanctuary railing – that visible mark of separation between the sacred and profane. We turned the priest around to face the people. Now there would be no aura of mystery enwrapping the physical setting of the “miracle” – no relics or flowers on the altar. (Has anyone seen a relic lately? [Even the old clergy are gone!]) By the time we were finished the church looked as bare as a Quaker meetinghouse.

We eliminated the biretta and the maniple. We turned the sacred vessels over to the boys to carry in and out. We replaced the majestic pipe organ with the guitar and gave the people doggerel for hymns. The disappearing Latin carried plainchant with it. With evening devotions gone, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is no longer given and the growing generation has never smelled incense. We even stole the little bell that once marked the solemn moments in the Mass.

Believing that the Eucharist is God, the people have always regarded it with reverential fear and awe. Only the priest dared touch or handle it, a man especially chosen for his faith and discipline. Only the sacristan handled the altar breads. But we advance the idea of each intended communicant dropping his own altar bread into the ciborium on his way into mass. Now he could realize that there is nothing special about altar bread. And we introduced the practice of the communicant receiving the consecrated host in his hand. Now he knows that there is no slightest difference between the consecrated and the unconsecrated host, at least in feeling. If this is a trial to his faith – well, good!

THE NEWER CHURCHES come with frosted or clear rather than stained glass windows – cheaper and saves power. It also banishes the cool, perpetual twilight that invites visits and fosters meditation.

Many pastors have their altar boys serve in shirtsleeves rather than cassock and surplice.

The bishops may have forgotten that instruction is wrought by postures and symbols as well as by word, but we haven’t. Why the frequent occurrence of “three” at Mass if not to recall the Trinity? Certainly it was not functional. One bell at the elevation was enough, one Domine non sum dignus. But the fathers made things triple wherever they could to symbolize the Trinity. We cut most of that stuff out.

Posture, too. A gentleman uncovers his head in presence of a lady. He kneels at prayer. If there was standing room only at the end of Forty Hours, those at the back instinctively fell to their knees when the Blessed Sacrament passed. Kneeling is the natural position of adoration. It humbles a man, bringing him close to the ground.

We changed that. The people now receive “communion” standing. They stand for the blessing. In the long run this will lower the exaggerated esteem for both communion and blessing.

Fasting before communion was always associated with respect for the Blessed Sacrament. “Religion before breakfast.” The host was to be the first thing into the stomach. Pius XII began cautiously tinkering with the Eucharistic fast hoping to coax more people to receive. Then Pope Paul practically did away with it completely. Priests used to touch the Blessed Sacrament with only thumb and forefinger, carefully pressing them together from the consecration until they could rinse them into the chalice after communion. We mocked that sort of thing, calling it “finger pinching.” It is no longer done. Priests always covered the chalice after the offertory with a square of linen to keep out flies and dust. This is no longer required.

BUT OUR BIGGEST achievement was in mucking up the words of institution. This is the precise formula which the old Catholics imagine changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. It has presumably come down to us from the Last Supper. By law, Missals always had this formula set in blackface capitals. Not only did we deliberately mistranslate the Latin but we set the words in the same type as the rest so that people would get over the idea that they had any special effect.

Where the Latin quoted Christ that his blood would be shed “for many,” we made a spacious ecumenical gesture, correcting Jesus by extending salvation to “all men.” The people got upset about this. Many thought it invalidated the Mass. So they consulted the pope himself. Of course they got no satisfaction for, as I said, he is one of us. But he was really cute about it. Talk about the fine Italian hand! He approved the English text – all but the formula in question, which was kept in Latin. He deliberately missed the point.

We scored many a point, and we’re not finished. “And with thy spirit” becomes “And also with you,” conforming with the truth that we have no spirit.

Where it could be gracefully done, we struck “ever” from the phrase “Blessed Mary ever Virgin.” St. Joseph used to be the spouse of Mary. Now he is her husband. Latin makes a very civilized distinction between calix and poculum, “chalice” and “cup.” The Latin has Christ using a chalice and always refers to it as a chalice. But we changed it to “cup” all the way through, not to embarrass the celebrant at informal masses, using now a cup, now a mug, now a stein, now a ladle, etc.

To throw the Old Guard off balance, we inserted the very words they had forbidden their children to say: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory ….

To ease the way for specialized theories on the divinity of Christ, we never say that Christ “rose” from the dead, but that he “was raised” from the dead.

“The Prayer of the People” offers copious opportunity to the alert priest:

“That God may confirm the Jews in their faith (that Jesus was an impostor) …”

“That the Holy Spirit may continue his aid to the Lutherans …”

“That the number of vocations to the Protestant ministry may increase …”

“That our bishop may acquire and use common sense …”

Perhaps our finest achievement was in so filling the Mass time with noise and talk that the congregation has no time for those creative silences that intercalated the old Mass. At the New mass, no one has time to think [or pray]. We want it that way.

ONE OF THE distinctive features of the old Church, making Catholicism a way of life as well as a faith, was “fish on Friday,” Ember Days, the four vigils, and a rigorous Lenten fast. This was supposed not only to tone up the virtue of the individual, but to glorify God. We managed to ditch all of it.

The priest was ordained to offer sacrifice and praise to God through altar and breviary. The seminarian received the “privilege” of reciting the Divine Office on the day of his subdiaconate –and how he looked forward to it! It was considered a serious obligation based on the fact that the people were supporting him in return for his prayers. The breviary took him through the Psalter once a week and through a synopsis of the whole Bible once a year. In the monasteries and great cathedrals, this “sacrifice of praise” was sung or at least chanted aloud every day.

The Office has been whittled down from forty-five to thirty minutes with so many privileges and dispensations that further trim or excuse from it entirely, that very few now believe it a serious obligation, for how could mortal sin attach to what is now so trifling an omission?

Not only did we do away with “novenas of devotion,” we even managed to rid the Church of the ancient official Novena to the Holy Ghost first observed by the apostles and disciples with the Blessed Mother from Ascension to Pentecost.

Stations of the Cross seem a little silly, and are not erected in new churches.

Is the Asperges still performed? Does the holy water tank still stand in the back of the church? If so, it won’t be there much longer.

I CAN FORESEE that churches, if they exist at all, will resemble skating rinks. In line with our principle of function versus symbol, the altar will be square rather than oblong.

We will manipulate the Scriptural pericopes read aloud at the epistle and gospel, highlighting the practical aspects of Christ’s ministry and toning down the rest which (let’s face it!) is fairly useless. All that maundering of St. John now read between Easter and Pentecost will yield to Christ’s program for social action and Christian living.

At our present rate of progress, it won’t be long till the ideal: a priest in his shirtsleeves concelebrating and co-consecrating with his congregation at a card table.