Visitors Respond To The "Reverent Mass Directory"

I've had several responses from visitors to yesterday's post on the Reverent Catholic Mass site. Here's the reaction of a visitor whom I've found generally level-headed:

Being very curious about the Reverent Mass Directory, I perused the site. I was interested in how they determined which churches made the list and here are their criteria. It says the Indicators found on church websites or in the bulletins were used to include or exclude Masses. How you can know if a Mass is celebrated reverently without actually witnessing it, I’m not sure, however, the part I found most elucidating was the column of Disqualifiers. Some listed were pretty vague: controversial ministries, controversial Parish Teaching Programs and the one I liked best, Other. Other what? Don’t know, just Other. OK.

By looking over this directory, I am reminded of 1 Corinthians where Paul chastises the “smart” people in Corinth that their “wisdom” was causing disunity in the Body of Christ and creating scandal for the “not as smart” as it caused them to sin or fall away. Is this directory a tool to unite and nurture the Body of Christ in our Church or is it causing division and a sense of “better than thous”? Other than the fact that the methodology seems very subjective and a little sketchy, I don’t’ understand why this tool isn’t being promulgated by more Bishops who surely know what constitutes a reverent Catholic Mass.

Another "disqualifier" was "Altar Girls". People may not like female servers -- heck, they may not like the style of stained glass in the nave -- but female servers are fully licit in the Catholic Church. According to Catholic Answers:

Jesus Christ gave his Catholic Church the power to bind and loose (Matt. 16:18-19; 18:15-18), which includes liturgical disciplinary matters such as permitting or not permitting female altar servers. Consequently, because the Church has lawfully permitted female altar servers, we can conclude that girls or women who choose to be altar servers are not acting in disobedience toward Jesus.

So it seems to me that in this particular regard, the people who are maintaining this list are causing division among people who are following the teachings of the Church in full good faith. But I have other questions. Leaving aside the ordinariate masses that are novus ordo with guitar accompaniment. What about the ones that are held in dilapidated buildings with serious maintenance issues? How is this "reverent"? What about the Our Lady of the Atonement facility, some part of which has been an incomplete empty shell for some years? How is such a fire and safety hazard "reverent"?

My regular correspondent nots,

The use of the word “reverent” to mean something objective when it more accurately describes a subjective state is part of the problem. Something entirely specious could meet my personal expectations of what “reverent” looks like, or make me feel “reverent.” Something coming from deep reverence may not evoke similar feelings in me because of class or cultural differences.

Yesterday's post also mentioned a "Mystery Worshipper" account of a mass on a different website that doesn't use the criteria on the Reverent Mass site. A visitor who is a parishioner at Our Lady of the Atonement remarked,

I just had a look at the reverent Mass directory. Around San Antonio, Our Lady of the Atonement is the only parish listed. I read the account of the Mystery Worshipper. If there was one half as good as the one that visitor described around here I would have attended. There just isn't.

But one former OLA massgoer indicated that in the 1980s and 1990s, the lack of good masses elsewhere in the archdiocese did in fact chase people to OLA. But that visitor said that the combination of disillusionment with Fr Phillips and the increased reverence of other masses due to the leadership of Abp Gómez had allowed that visitor and others to return to their former parishes. So again, we're back to individual preference, and it's hard to avoid thinking the Reverent Mass Directory is promoting a certain level of snobbery that's in fact divisive.

But it's also plain that the Directory confirms the theory I've been forming that among certain Catholics there's an abstract "ordinariate" that does things right and can do no wrong -- confirmation is the criterion that simply suggests that the word ordinariate in a parish bulletin is enough to get them on the list -- indeed, even if they don't have a bulletin, a possibly out of date reference on the ordinariate parish finder will put that possibly empty facility on the list anyhow.

But there's nothing on the criteria that would disqualify St Thomas the Apostle Phoenix from the list, at least as described on the Mystery Worshipper site. I suppose I could e-mail them and ask why that one isn't on the list, but I have things I'd rather do with my time. Today, for instance, I have to go to the dentist.