And Speaking of Sad Decline...

I recently fulfilled my Sunday obligation at the Catholic church in Delhi, NY. The pastor, whose theology is pure post-Vatican II reformist, skipped the Gloria. For whatever odd reasons, he will not recite the Penitential Act/Kyrie and the Gloria in the same Mass, one or the other but not both  (I suppose a complaint could be filed with the Bishop but with this one sitting on throne, why bother? He's far too busy closing churches, anyway). Father loves to sprinkle his homilies with pithy facts and quotes. In this homily he made sport of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonists for espousing temperance (they did not; they drank, often in staggering amounts), attributed H. L. Mencken's famous definition of Puritanism to W. C. Fields and then, best of all, attributed Belloc's even more famous quatrain on Catholicism ("Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine..."--which Father botched royally) to E. E. Cummings, of all people! To make it all perfect, Father also informed us Cummings was a Catholic convert. Huh? The things one learns!

One of the advantages of living in New York City (which helps offset the many disadvantages) is one doesn't have travel far to find a decently celebrated Mass, Tridentine or even Novus Ordo. It pays, however, to get out of town on occasion and be reminded just how dismal the state of the priesthood and liturgy is in most Catholic parishes. It's makes you grateful if your situation is a more fortunate. On a happier note, it's my observation most younger priests these days take liturgy far more seriously than their predecessors and seem much better read. The problem should solve itself over time (Deo volente).