Seeking Christ Amidst Liturgical Abuse
Author Note: For quite some time this topic has weighed heavily on my heart as I have participated in Masses celebrated in the Ordinary Form in various parishes across different dioceses along the east coast of the United States. This reflection is not about any one particular parish. It was born from a very long period of prayerful lament and a yearning for a return to the sense of the sacred in the Mass. It is offered out of sincere love for the priesthood and the Eucharistic celebration. May it be read in the same spirit of charity in which it was written.
When a Catholic speaks up in the name of reverence, it is often met with a harsh response; a shaking of the head or a pointed finger, the age-old insult of being called a “Pharisee.” The word is purposely used to silence, to shame, and to reduce a genuine concern for what is holy into something cold or judgmental. When the sacred nature of the Mass is defended, it is not about self-righteousness. The crux of the matter is total and absolute love.
A Pharisee, as our Lord condemns in the Gospels, is not simply someone who cares about proper worship or moral truth. The Pharisees are those with hardened hearts who use the law to elevate themselves above their brothers and sisters, who lack mercy, and who perform holiness outwardly while neglecting its spirit. Catholics who love the Mass wholeheartedly and desire its celebration with beauty, fidelity, and piety recognize that Christ is at its center. It is to acknowledge that something miraculous is taking place at every single Catholic Mass, a true glimpse of heaven on earth; where humanity meets the Divine.
The celebration of the Mass is not a matter of personal preference, and the sanctuary is not a stage set for a performance. It is the same sacrifice of Christ at Calvary, re-presented upon the altar. Every gesture, prayer, and structure within the liturgy itself exists to protect that which is holy. The sanctuary is a sacred space and the Mass should never be subject to personal idiosyncrasy or individual whims. The focus of the heavenly banquet is the Mystery of the Eucharist, not the self.
Liturgical abuses adulterate the sacred reality of the Mass and pervert what should reveal God’s presence. When carelessness, unnecessary creativity, or profanation enters into the liturgy, calling it out is not rigidity, it is grief and sorrow, a lament for having to navigate through the murky surface in order to encounter Christ in the Eucharist. The liturgy is becoming more and more protestantized, and it is a dilution of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is a hidden agenda, which most Catholics do not even realize is taking place right before their very eyes. It has been happening for years gradually over time since the Second Vatican Council, not due to the Council itself, but resulting from the misinterpretation, and experimentation that is still being forced down the throats of American Catholics, even today.
These abuses can be grave, such as the incorrect or misuse of liturgical elements, use of improper sacred vessels, altered words of the Consecration or improper distribution of Holy Communion. Serious infractions can be the excessive use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, lay preaching of the homily or omitting the homily on a Sunday or Holy Days of Obligation, not including the Gloria (except during Advent and Lent) or Creed during Sunday Mass, Solemnities, or important feasts, denying a Catholic the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue or ignoring the proper of the Mass. Other times there are less severe offenses, such as ad-libbing the prayers of the Collect or Preface to make them sound more modern or relatable, changing the introductory rites into a talk show type of opening, the use of improper vestment colors, not co-mingling the water and the wine, failure to purify the sacred vessels, removal of holy water from the fonts and the placement of sand during Lent, or the changing of the “Ite Missa Est” to add in secular commentary.
Despite the validity of a Mass, the presence of numerous illicit infractions will gradually deform how the congregation understands the Faith. This follows the ancient Latin maxim Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, which illustrates the relationship between the “celebration of the Liturgy in worship and the formation (catechesis) of the faithful,” [1] When a priest celebrates the Mass according to his own preferences, he is placing himself before the Bridegroom, and is exchanging the Church’s universal prayer for subjective improvisation. It should not be a surprise then, when the parishioners follow suit and do the same. If the shepherd treats the rubrics as a suggestion, why would the flock not treat the Truth as an option? The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states:
“…no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.” [2]
The laity placed in his care are inevitably affected because there is a trickle-down effect. The pride of the priest eventually becomes the spirit of the parish, overcome by unbridled narcissism, where the “I” in the sanctuary leads to the “I” in the center of the pews. The culture of ‘self,’ the prevalent strive for freedom of expression, has gradually made its way through the heavy wooden doors of many parishes, turning the liturgy into a social gathering of mere spectators instead of a communion of saints. The mundane gradually creeps into the nave. The souls of the lay faithful remain tethered to the earth in a horizontal encounter when they should be swept up into the great ascent that leads to the very Heart of God in worship. Saint John Vianney once said, “A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to Hell with a thousand people behind.”
The issue goes far beyond simply breaking rules; it is outright liturgical laxity and indifference. It becomes a habituated mindset where the sacredness of the Mass is no longer viewed as something that needs to be protected, but rather it is viewed as that which needs to be flexible, adaptable, or even outright secondary. The Church’s norms exist to protect the truth of the Eucharist. When they are ignored, that truth becomes less visible. A sense of awe and mystery is lost, and what should lift hearts and minds to God suddenly is dragged down to the ordinary. The Mass is not an empty ritual, it is a literal encounter with the Real Presence of Christ; His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
There is also a pastoral dimension. When the lay faithful come to Mass, they are seeking God with a yearning for Truth, even if they do not realize it. If the liturgy is treated casually or altered in ways that draw attention away from the Lord, the people in the pews are deprived, not of the sacrament itself when it is validly celebrated, but of the fullness of its splendor, which helps the soul recognize and respond to Christ.
It is for the sake of these souls, and out of a profound reverence for the Divine Mystery, that it is necessary to pray unceasingly for priests, that they remain steadfast in their vocation and to never lose their sense of wonder before the Living God.
Addressing liturgical abuses is not about demanding control or offering unnecessary criticism. It comes from a deep desire to restore the sense of the sacred. It is about loving Christ completely and wholly; to desire His Presence be treated with a sincere and genuine respect, and loving others enough to want them to encounter Him without distraction or confusion. Each member of the lay faithful has the right to experience the Ordinary Form of the Mass as it is meant to be offered; carefully prepared, radiant with beauty, and celebrated with deep reverence.
Speaking about these issues is not easy, especially when it involves priests, the very men entrusted with the sacred liturgy and gifted with the role of being spiritual fathers to God’s adopted sons and daughters. There can be a certain hesitation, even outright fear. The truth is that holding priests accountable is not an attack on the Presbyterate. It is a defense of it, which affirms that how the Mass is celebrated does in fact matter.
Faithfulness to the Church is not optional when the priest is acting in persona Christi. Every priest takes an oath of fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church before he is ordained to Holy Orders. On the day of his ordination to the sacerdotal priesthood, he prostrates upon the floor of the Cathedral and officially accepts the call from Christ to leave everything behind and follow Him, willingly choosing a spiritual death to self. The ministerial priesthood is not a role of power or dictatorship, but a role of service, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Mt. 20:28)
A priest is not infallible and can err. All humans by default of having a fallen nature are sinners. Too many Catholics place their priests upon a golden pedestal, and dare not ask questions when the celebration of the Mass is carried out haphazardly. It is important to remember that the priest is the servant of the liturgy, not its master. This is not merely a spiritual sentiment, but a definitive mandate of the Second Vatican Council stated in Sacrosanctum Concillium:
Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church... Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority. [3]
Bringing to their attention a holy concern is an act of spiritual charity to hold priests to the high standard of their calling, not a call to rebellion. The priesthood is a treasure held in “earthen vessels.” Priests need the respect of the lay faithful, but the ultimate allegiance is to God, not man.
Silence is sometimes mistaken for humbleness, when it is instead a form of misplaced deference. There are parishioners who hesitate to question a priest simply because he is the Ordinary Minister of the Sacrament, as though it grants him a de facto freedom to take liberties when celebrating the Mass and to disregard the Church’s liturgical norms under the guise of self-justification. Others assume and take for granted that the Mass is being celebrated correctly simply because they trust the priest’s liturgical integrity. If the details were truly irrelevant and arbitrary to the Eucharistic celebration, there would be no need for the order and precision given to the liturgy by the Church.
Those who have an abiding devotion to Christ and His Church do care, and that is the reason to stand in defense of the Sacred. But it is pertinent that the manner of the defense reflects the beauty of the liturgy itself because the validity of the witness depends completely on the spirit of which it is offered. The heart behind this defense matters. It must not come from a place of superiority or bitterness, but from love; for Christ, for His Church, and especially for the priest, who is a fellow wounded traveler on the spiritual journey towards heaven. Zeal, without love, can become what it is accused of being, rigid and cold. There is a fine line between holy fervor and plain old pride, and it must be constantly guarded.
Fear of being misunderstood cannot justify silence in the face of impiety. Christ Himself overturned the tables in the temple when what was sacred was profaned. That action of our Lord was not Pharisaism, but love in action, a righteous anger. There should be a similar anger that swells the hearts of faithful Catholics when the Mass is celebrated in a “sloppy” sacrilegious manner. It leads to a desacralization of the holiest moments on earth.
The heartfelt desire to defend the solemnity of the Mass reaffirms that Christ is truly the Lamb of God, that the sacrifice upon the altar is never casual, and that worship centers entirely on the Divine. This is not a matter of clinging to rules for their own sake, but of upholding the Sacred and shielding the Mysterium Fidei from the relentless noise of secularization.
In a world engulfed by a culture shackled to the ego, that has rejected God and abandoned any sense of the sacred, the insistence that the Mass must remain “set apart” is not a voice of rigidity, but a cry to preserve transcendent beauty, which facilitates the “reditus,” the return to the Father through the Son. It is a bulwark to the Truth, a witness that refuses to let the Real Presence of Christ be forgotten.
It is a voice of love that is necessary.
[1] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Celebration of the Holy Eucharist,” accessed March 21, 2026, https://www.usccb.org/resources/lex-orandi-lex-credendi.pdf.
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), no. 1125.
[3] Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concillium [Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy], December 4, 1963, no. 22.
For Further Reading:
Benedict XVI. The Spirit of the Liturgy. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.
Catholic Church. Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition. New Edition. Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1999.
Catholic Church. General Instruction of the Roman Missal. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011.
Catholic Church. Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship. Inaestimabile Donum [Instruction Concerning a Few Norms Regarding the Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery]. April 17, 1980. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1980.
Catholic Church. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Redemptionis Sacramentum: On Certain Matters to Be Observed or Avoided Concerning the Most Holy Eucharist. Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2004.
Missio Dei. The Eucharistic Revival Project. St. Louis, MO: En Route Books and Media, 2023.
Tangorra, Philip-Michael. Holiness and the Sacramental Life. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017.
Sarah, Robert Cardinal. The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017.
There are two sacraments listed before the Eucharist: Baptism and Confirmation. These are the sacraments associated with receiving the Spirit of God and Christ. Without these, we are not even supposed to participate in the Eucharist regardless of how reverent it is conducted. The Eucharist does not replace the importance of Baptism and Confirmation, and our interaction with the Spirit (see Romans 8).
Christina,
As one that stands 3 feet away from my Priest during the Eucharist your perception changes radically. It is up close and personal, not experienced by the congregation. The holiness and the ritual means so much more. Our altar faces away from the people but they are still witnessing to the holy mystery taking place. I try to tell them of this but they do not understand. Thank you for your column today, I always enjoy your divinely inspired words.
Regards,
David L. Delich
Senior Verger, St. Philip Episcopal Church