Smelling A Big, Fat Liturgical Rat

A reader writes:

I am concerned about my church. We recently were assigned a new priest. Things have been going along ok until this week. A pastoral representative from the diocese came to our church to talk to us about aligning our church’s archetectural structure as -I believe- per the US Catholic Bishops requests. Currently we have a beautiful (large) wooden crucifix from Italy in the front (and middle) of the church. Under it is the tabernacle. My concern is that the recommendations call for removing the crucifix (not quite sure where yet) and moving the tabernacle to “the side” of the church. Now this is a small country church. There just is not that much room. Also, this priest said that the stations of the cross are too large and he wants to angle the pews -which are currently facing directly towards the alter- and angle them more coming to a point towards the alter (I don’t know why if the tabernacle is not going to be there anyway). I am really uncomfortable about all this. I believe I have cause for concern. I am waiting to here more and am prepared to fight these changes but want to make sure I am not overreacting. I smell a rat Jimmy but need your expertise. Do I have cause to be concerned.

You do have cause to be concerned. It sounds as if you may be being misled.

It is a standard strategy of liturgical renovators to claim that various changes were requested by the bishops when, in fact, the authoritative documents do not request the changes that they are reported to contain.

Often the will of the local bishop (who is the one who gets to decide, from among the options presented in the Church’s liturgical documents, where the tabernacle will be) is often misrepresented by such consultants.

I would ask to see the documents backing up the requested changes.

If the documents are from the national conference, I would check to make sure they are authoritative (some older documents on these subjects are not authoritative but are often pass off as such; in particular the document Environment and Art in Catholic Worship is not authoritative as the bishops as a whole never voted on it).

I would specifically ask to see a document from the local bishop where he makes a directive regarding the placement of tabernacles.

The directives currently in force regarding tabernacle placement are found in these two places:

* Universal Law (scroll down to paragraphs 314-317)
* Particular Law for the United States

Even if the local bishop has issued a general document on this subject, it would be be possible to appeal to him regaring the special situation of this church and the problems that would be posed by making the changes being requested by the consultant and/or pastor.

You also might want to contact the St. Joseph Foundation in San Antonio for assistance.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin