FORCED IN PN CATHEDRAL TO LOOK AT TEEN-BOPPER BOTTOMS DRAPED WITH ONLY A FRILL AROUND THE WAIST

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A Catholic bloke, a pretty normal guy, not a pervert as far as I know, has asked me to think about what Catholic blokes in the Palmerston North Cathedral, the ones who kneel for the Eucharistic Prayer that is, sometimes have in their direct line of sight.

As a 'kneeler' myself, I think it's bad enough that unless I close my eyes I have to look at men's bottoms, which is one of the reasons I close my eyes. (You can't win; I've been criticized for closing my eyes because that's not being 'community'. But keeping your eyes on the 'community' and perhaps being fearfully distracted or even talked to, instead of gazing upon the Trinity within, is making 'community' into a god.)

I'd never thought before about what male 'kneelers' have to look at. Not just other men's bottoms, but women's bottoms. Girls' bottoms. Teeny-bopper bottoms, often draped with little more than a frill around the waist.

Do priests in their 'presider's' chairs in the sanctuary, far from the madding and sometimes maddening crowd, ever think of this? Do bishops?

The Eucharistic kneel-or-sit-or-stand-whatever-takes-your-fancy stance in the PN Diocese is a debacle, and has been ever since Bishop Peter Cullinane sowed seeds of confusion among his hapless congregations.

In 1975 we were told to stand for the Eucharistic prayer, kneel for the Consecration and stand again afterwards. But for some people that was far too energetic and sometime later it was countermanded. 

We had become in the interim, apparently, according to +Peter, "a Resurrection people, a standing people", homus erectus', people who if their Lord and Saviour were suddenly to appear before them - as He does invisibly, at the Consecration - would not fall on their knees like Peter or Thomas, but just stand and gape. 

Not only do we fail to bend the knee, we can't even bow (or curtsy if you're female) - as we surely would, were it the Queen who'd turned up.  

At Our Lady of the Southern Star Abbey - as I try to call it, rather than the secular term 'Kopua' - except for visitors from other dioceses they still stand for the Eucharistic Prayer (those who are still capable of standing, that is). 

When I suggested kneeling for silent prayer as a possible penance, as Pope Francis has requested, for the sex abuse crisis in the Church, my Dutch confessor there was pretty horrified. "We must look after our bodies!" But I have a German doctor, a pretty thorough sort of chap, to look after my body. I need a priest to look after my soul. And don't say, for that you need a spiritual director. yes, I do, but I don't know of any reputable spiritual directors on offer. Please, contradict me.

Anyway, we look forward to +Charles Drennan sorting the kneeling/standing debacle out for us, now he's got over the WYD Panamania and returned to the bosom of his people of Palmerston North.

It's Ash Wednesday, which prompts me to think about returning 'to dust' - although the school children at Mass this morning were certainly not required to think about life on earth ever coming to an end and what might happen next. Oh no. They had to promise to 'give something to God'. Tweaking centuries'-old prayers of the Church at will (but that's another subject). 

I was thinking myself also, about titanium and whether it ever returns 'to dust'. About how if Catholics had continued to kneel throughout the Eucharistic Prayer, there might not now be so many expensive titanium Catholic knees, and so many alas now buried six foot under?  

'Anon' says:

Julia, as a male I find it extremely annoying, staring at standing female backsides at close range, as I kneel myself.  

Each time I remember +Peter years ago, rushing to bring in the next stage of the progressive reform agenda he somehow thought the Church needed. He blew it badly, because standing only half caught on in Palmerston North and its rejected in most other places.  

His 'standing' reform was too cute and the timing was wrong.  From the debates I have heard among fellow parishioners, it remains highly divisive to this day.

A male Catholic colleague told me it is not adultery if you look once, you have to look once to see it is something you should not look at again.  Its adultery though if you look a second time (he didn't mention the third time, but I assume that's not allowed either).  

So, often I have to close my eyes or look down during the Eucharistic Prayer. Then later on in the Mass I get to shake the hand and greet the nice lady whose backside was so in my face I had to make an effort not to look.

Bishop Charles Drennan, its a mess that is not going away, please fix it.

Teresa Coles says:
Peter and I had a good laugh over some of your comments. Yes it is only Palmerston North Diocese that doesn't kneel. 

Peter and I often used to travel from Onga Onga to St Peter Chanel in Hastings every Saturday or Sunday before we moved to Taupo so we could kneel for the Consecration.

It annoys me now to see young people sitting at times when they should be kneeling.

I say:
It's especially awful when the young people are actually 'altar servers', as at St Joseph's in Holy Trinity Waipukurau, on Ash Wednesday. I could see they thought they should kneel but all the other children were sitting so they did too.

St Peter Chanel's in the PN Diocese so if people were kneeling they must have had a faithful priest there. I'm thinking, Philipino.

Sharon Crooks says:

Someone might like to remind Bishop Charles (again) that he inherited the ‘General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2010)’ and as Secretary to NZ Bishops’ Conference, he should be obliged to endorse the said instructions that tell us to “kneel from the completion of the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by ill health, or for reasons of lack of space, of the large number of people present, or for another reasonable cause.”  It goes on to say that the faithful are to “kneel again after the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) until the distribution of Holy Communion. During the period of sacred silence after Communion, they may either sit or kneel” (GIRM # 43).

To cater for anomalies, the GIRM also offers instructions for doing ‘as told’ when the congregation is large and space is lacking, but how many Masses fit that criteria?  Basically, there needs to be a darn good reason why we wouldn’t kneel.  It seems like particularly poor leadership to turn a blind eye to your ‘own’ instructions and then encourage (by your silence) such disrespect for our Lord and Saviour!  Cardinal Ratzinger captured our local liturgical lethargy quite accurately when he said  “...a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core.”  (‘The theology of Kneeling’ from his book ‘The Spirit of Liturgy’).  I’d say things are beginning to look a bit ‘green around the gills...’

Paul Collits says:
Not to mention churches reconfigured so that it is almost physically impossible to kneel in the pews.

Bob Gill says:
Reminds me of when I asked PN cathedral staff recently why no pew kneelers are provided. Our bishop's response: "It didn't happen on my watch".

I say:
We all know whose watch it happened on. But now it's your watch Bishop Charles ,and it's your job to fix it.

Bob adds:
It makes you wonder if those sitting actually believe in the Real Presence.
I notice also that those standing instead of kneeling during the Consecration don't copy the celebrant when he genuflects at the moment of Consecration - not a single person from my observation. Did Palmerston North forget to tell them about that crucial point, or is it just more evidence that they don't believe in the Real Presence?

I say:
Lex orandi, lex credendi: the way we pray is the way we believe. I'm afraid you're right, Bob - most Catholics no longer believe in the Presence of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour in the Eucharist.

One has only to spend hours in the church as I am blessed to do, practising the organ, to realize that. No one comes into St Joseph's Church to speak with or to listen to the Lord.

Sir Raymond de Souza, who spoke to a private meeting of Rad Trads in PN on Wednesday night, made the point very emphatically that the chief reason for this and most other ills is that doctrine and dogma have not been preached in the NZ Church for years.

He said he was shocked when he told the Papal Nuncio that New Zealand was entering schism from Rome and the Nuncio did not deny it. That was in 1987.