I came across this photo on the St. Mary’s (downtown) website. What is this priest consecrating? It sure doesn’t look like unleavened bread to me. Apparently, they have a entire group of volunteers that bake bread each week for Mass. Does anyone know if the Eucharist at St. Mary’s is valid matter? Their website states that their “celebrations are grounded in the spirit of Vatican II.” This image may be in the spirit of something but certainly not Vatican II. Are these children being spiritually abused? Very disturbing.
Mass at St. Mary’s Downtown Rochester
If its not wheat and water, it ain’t valid matter.
Also, note the kids expressions. Could they be any more BORED? The funny thing about liberals is that they think they know what is best for everyone – they think they are the life of the party. But then everyone ends up being bored and thinking that anything liberals do is stupid and terrible.
That is why liberals should not be able to celebrate Mass. It ends up being stupid, terrible, and boring.
Flag down on the early ’70s hippie chausible. What deep closet did that thing get pulled out of? This qualifies as unnecessary roughing the pew sitters.
Who is the priest?
Tick-tock.
Actually, as long as it’s wheat bread it is valid matter. Can’t tell that from the picture. In the Latin Rite anything other than wheat flour and water makes it illicit. The whole point of liceity is to avoid questions of validity. Whether this is valid or not should never come up in a normal parish – just comply with liceity and the issue doesn’t arise. That it has arisen is a very wrong thing to be sure.
It’s Fr. Bill Donnelly. He retired last year. You may recall the Corpus Christi-esque liturgical abuses at his final Mass:
He and Anne Marie Brogan are the chief reasons why attendance collapsed at St. Mary downtown.
It frightens me that one of our current Diocese of Rochester seminarians attended this parish.
What parent, in his or her right mind, is allowing kids to participate in the consecration?
Nerina,
I see several options.
1. Parent is not in right mind.
2. Parent doesn’t know better (and therefore deserves a strong slap upside the head with a Catechism, in my opinion).
3. All those children are poor ignorant orphans being led astray. (Okay, fine, this one’s a stretch.)
Has anyone been there since Fr. Kennedy took over?
dbb,
Father Caton too? See updated post.
JimR is not quite clear on liceity vs. validity. Adding enough “additives” will eventually cause the matter to not be “wheat bread” and invalid. It’s not always black and white as to exactly how much “extras” can be added but it is very possible in the average parish to alter the recipe so much that it becomes invalid. I have seen printed recipes for ‘alter bread’ that I am pretty sure are invalid.
@drforjc Which is exactly why liceity matters: In the Latin Rite wheat flour and water are the ONLY ingredients for licit altar bread. (In the Eastern Churches leavening must be added for liceity.) If licit, the bread will be wheat bread and there will be no question of validity, i.e., whether it has been adulterated to the point where it is no longer wheat bread. I, too, have seen altar bread recipes that include things like eggs, honey, sugar, leavening, milk, oats, rye flour, spices, etc. All of them are problematic and, as you say, may affect validity – indeed may make the matter invalid. Wheat flour and water alone are difficult to bake into bread without major crumbling issues. But, it avoids the issue of invalidity. Frankly, it’s just not a good idea to have congregants make the altar breads unless they are able to prove they know what they are doing.
A question often asked is why make the distinction between liceity and validity? In extreme situations, e.g., in the concentration camps of WWII, there may be reasons to say Mass without meeting all the rules and laws. Might the Eucharist be invalid if the bread were unknown to the priest to be, say, potato bread? – sure, but the extreme situation mitigates against the wrong of acting against the law in the hope that the sacrament is valid. While unknowingly invalid, the law is flexible enough in such an event to not imply sin in such an attempt to confect the sacrament. In parish in the USA there is no such extreme reason that could easily be conceived.
A priest who flouts the law – i.e., acts illicitly – in a USA parish is almost the exact definition of a person acting scandalously. That is, he leads others to sin by his actions/inactions.
Liberals, generally, don’t care about liceity or validity when it comes to the Eucharist as ‘matter’ does not really matter to them. The meaning of the Eucharist is solely in the ‘action’, of participating in a meal. It is important only that it look like bread. All such discussions are meaningless to them and as they are the Church (they have no real concept of the wider Church except as something to protest against) they reserve all decisions to themselves regarding, well, anything.
You can bet the house it is not valid and to take communion there is probably something of a sin, if you agree with me.
The parents are simply mis-educated and mis-catechized and THAT is all Bishop Clark’s fault!