Rich Leonardi’s editorial at Cincinatti.com
|In the online Letters section in The Enquirer and around watercoolers throughout Cincinnati, area Catholics have been discussing Dan Horn’s recent story about falling local Mass attendance. Most of the remedies that have been suggested – lively preaching, “better” music, and more activities for worshippers – are unlikely to have much of an impact.
The fact is, tinkering with the Mass is part of what got us in trouble in the first place. Under our previous two bishops, a false, externally focused understanding of participation at Mass led priests and worship committees to freight the Mass with a variety of practices, many of which aren’t even permitted under Church law! Things like “Communion ministers,” pop music, and chatty ad libbing by priest-celebrants conveyed the impression that the Mass is primarily about the worshipping community and only secondarily about God. Well, you don’t have to go to Mass to get community, but you do to “get” God – especially His Real Presence in the Eucharist.