CNN has this story: “Singing priests revive Catholic Church in Brazil”
It looks like an airport hangar and it sounds like a rock concert. Thousands have packed into a megachurch on the periphery of Sao Paulo for one of Father Marcelo Rossi’s Thursday night masses.
Don’t miss the video.
The article speaks of the “Charismatic Catholic Renovation” – doesn’t that sound like a Vox Clara term for the charismatic renewal??
Really disappointed with the content of this blog lately. When you follow a blog, you hope for and expect original content most of the time, if not all of the time. My feed is instead flooded with posts that are just links to some article or video, with a one-sentence comment by the editor. It’s not really worth my time anymore.
Maybe I’ll come back when you let the experts do the talking, and not just the readers.
It would seem that the mass, in this and similar contexts, is a co-incidental unattraction. It’s pretty obvious what these folks are really excited about. And they tell us that Mozart and Monteverdi masses are unfit for liturgy because the music takes over!
This priest, that priest, Corapi or Pavone, it’s simply cultic when the messenger’s persona is projected greater than the message delivered.
Same story, different names. Meh.
Fr Rossi has been doing this for a decade or more. He started out on the back of a flatbed truck with a few musicians and some amplifier gear, graduating to the fixed location of the “hangar” a few years ago.
It is said that the Brazilian bishops are uncomfortable with the orthodoxy of some of the things Rossi sings, but are reluctant to act because of the huge numbers of his public following. He certainly uses his considerable personal charisma to bring in the crowds, even if the thin line between entertainment/public spectacle and liturgical prayer is often blurred.
This is in fact old and stale news. CNN have only cottoned on to it because of the papal Rio visit for WYD. They are looking for stories.
My own experience with Catholics in the Charismatic Renewal in our diocese is that they are liturgically liberated but very conservative when it comes to doctrine, dogma, morality and politics. I suspect this is true also in Brazil, but don’t know for sure. However, in my former parish in Augusta with a large contingency of charismatics from a covenant community there, a large number of that community would attend our 10:00 AM Mass which was extremely traditional in terms of solemnity, incense and singing/chanting. Their presence at this Mass assured robust congregational participation both spoken and sung. But on Thursday nights at their own community prayer service at their school’s gym, it was pure Pentecostalism and ecumenical. For these Catholics, the style of worship wasn’t either/or but both/and. But yes, the cult of personality plays greatly into their religious experience, that of the personality of the “elders” and of the cult of the “personality” of the assembly also.
Jonathan, why don’t you start a blog? I hope you know that blog-editing/managing can be a lot of work. . especially when the readership is largely “takers” with very few “sharers”. I would think, too, that managing a blog can be frustrating, too, when the comments are reduced often to nit-picking about largely irrelevant matters.
Among clergy-persons there is very often little personal sharing of ideas, spirituality, experiments in “making things better”. . . .or as others encourage “a sharing of our experiences, strengths and hopes.” As an aging. retired-but-still-working priest I come here looking to be inspired, ‘edified’ in the sense of built-up and encouraged. Hard to come by when one is “out of the loop”, ministering to other seniors. . . but I keep on looking.
I am grateful to Fr Anthony for his efforts and perseverance with PrayTell and noticeable efforts to broaden the field here beyond ‘pneums and episemas’ and concern for passive superfragilistic constructions. lol. I am sure the readership is much larger than the ‘regulars’ who take/make the time to add their ideas and commentary. Thanks to those who share and couraggio to those who’d like to. . .
EN JOY!
@ #1, Jonathan, well yes, with the money that you spend subscribing to this blog, you have every right to be upset that there is not fresh and original and witty commentary all the time … oh, wait …
🙂
The article speaks of the “Charismatic Catholic Renovation” – doesn’t that sound like a Vox Clara term for the charismatic renewal??
To me, it sounds like something best avoided if at all possible.
There may well be Catholics here and there who derive some spiritual benefit from this. But for most, I fear, this is entertainment, not worship. A feature, not a bug.
I just got around to watching the video. I actually guffawed at a couple of points, not because I found anything funny about the people in the video, but because CNN is obviously trying so hard to gin-up a story about how awful traditional liturgy is and how the future is celebrity priests (who are themselves slightly creepy, since everything Catholic is creepy).
So we are assured that the crowds at Fr. Rossi’s Masses are young and that this is a contrast with more traditional Masses (though the footage of the two Masses reveals more of less the same age demographic). And to convince us of how tedious traditional forms of worship are, we get a nice shot of one poor woman yawning.
I also was struck by how the reporter told us that a woman was crying because Fr. Rossi was walking through the congregation, and never considered the possibility that the source of the woman’s tears might have been the blessed sacrament that Fr. Rossi had in that honkin’ big monstrance.
I have, like many, my suspicions of “celebrity priests,” but until I see more evidence of Fr. Rossi actually doing something wrong, I say God bless him. Just like I say God bless all the non-celebrity priests who celebrate Masses for parishioners who yawn.
As a longtime liturgical musician who has more recently become interested in evangelization, I wonder if we liturgical ministers share some of the blame for the waves of people leaving Catholicism for non-demoninational churches. A complicated issue to be sure, but I have observed:
The parish where I currently serve has a longstanding reputation for good liturgy. For at least two generations, this was the church in town where Catholics could find excellent music, preaching, etc. of a traditional/conservative bent. Yet like most Catholic parishes, our Mass attendance has steeply and steadily declined for 30 years while the three evangelical churches in our parish boundaries have grown tremendously. I’ve spoken to a few people who have left, and the usual comment is how “amazing” the preaching and music is at those big-box churches, i.e. high-energy praise bands and charismatic preachers. How they feel more engaged and alive in their faith than they ever did as Catholics.
Some would say we need to double-down on ritualized worship, tradition, Latin, chant and all that. They might argue that people really want deep reverence. Yet the numbers don’t bear that out, in my experience.
I’m becoming less interested in liturgy and music that may please the critics but is found boring or irrelevant by the masses. If the goal of parish life is to save as many souls as possible, then I am rightly concerned that our parking lot is half empty while the evangelicals up the street need parking attendants to squeeze everyone in.
@Scott Pluff – comment #10:
If the description of your music and liturgy is accurate, I should think the problem lies not with you and your parish, but with the motivations of those who are leaving for the likes of what they are going to. What about your faithful parishioners? They are staying because of the Catholic faith and the manner in which it is expressed in their parish. Take care of your flock. They know a good thing when they see it!
@M. Jackson Osborn – comment #13:
I appreciate your point, but if our Mass attendance continues to shrink at the rate it has for 30+ years, there will be no parishioners or parish left. A handful of the faithful remnant does not a vibrant parish make.
Many of our older parishioners have been involved in parish life on many levels–the parish has been near the center of their daily lives for 80+ years. For the most part their adult children rarely or never attend Mass and are not involved in any way in parish life. Their grandchildren, other than being baptized as infants, may never see the inside of a church until grandpa or grandma’s funeral. “This church meant so much to him…” but clearly not later generations. (I’m speaking in generalities, but I have seen examples of this exact scenario.)
Many people aren’t deep thinkers and love the show put on at evangelical churches. Also, Catholic churches tend not to have much in the way of lay activities. The local Catholic parish here doesn’t offer much, even though the diocese claims it’s one of the largest parishes in the diocese. The focus seems to be on collecting money for the diocesan tax on the parish. That, combined with the fallout from the brutal consolidation of the old parishes, has sent more than a few to the local evangelical church. The Catholic Church does have a lot to offer but one wouldn’t know that from looking at many parishes.
Many Catholics would like to think that the big ND churches are drawing huge crowds because of the bands, the video wizardry, the preaching, and of course, the coffee and bagels. You don’t suppose they go because they feel engaged, welcomed, and respected by leaders who don’t think of themselves as superior because they are clergy? I think we would do well to check these places out. Maybe we could learn something.
I wonder if what is behind all of this is more than just differences in styles of worship services, but also a greater fluidity in how religious identity is understood. I wonder in a country like Brazil, how many people see contradictions between Catholic devotions, animist practices and pentecostal prayer meetings. Same in the U.S., I think that the religious market is very fluid, don’t the statistics show that people who attend these megachurches rarely last more than ten years? Furthermore if people are abandoning the eucharist, the divine liturgy, the holy sacrifice of the mass, for prayer services with better preaching and music, then something probably is wrong with the liturgy in their parish, but i’m not sure that it’s the worship style. Either way, it’s hard for me to believe that any worship service, no matter how engaging, if it’s just pure entertainment could drag people out of bed on a sunday morning with any regularity.
Stanislaus Kosala : Either way, it’s hard for me to believe that any worship service, no matter how engaging, if it’s just pure entertainment could drag people out of bed on a sunday morning with any regularity.
I suspect there is something more than entertainment happening at those big box churches. My wife’s cousin and her family are very involved at one of these churches, and I see them living their faith with passion. Their big box church is doing something right.
@Scott Pluff – comment #16:
I agree with you. My suspicion is that a good part of it has to do with the fact they do a much better job of making people feel like someone cares about them and loves them, and wants them to do well. In many Catholic parishes the best you can hope for is cold indifference. Catholics, especially conservative ones, often have a genius for alienating people.
One thing that interests me about Fr. Rossi is that he mixes elements that are traditionally Catholic(incense, devotion to the Mother of God, Eucharistic Adoration) with this more pentecostal style of praying and music. It seems more like an appropriation rather than an imitation of styles.
Scott, I hate to say it, but I believe that Pope Benedict was on to something when he said that the Church might get smaller but stronger.
The folks who leave for those places want “easy religion.” Bagels with Starbucks coffee offered before the service, free childcare! But no real presence and not the True Church.
J. Glenn Murray once told me that we can try to emulate these mega churches all we want, but that is not “who we are.” It is not authentic and people will sniff that out a mile away. He said “I can offer the Eucharist. And no one else in town has that.” How very true.
@Dave Jaronowski – comment #17:
Is there anything wrong with offering bagels with Starbucks coffee before the service, or free childcare? I’m not suggesting that we throw in the towel on liturgical worship, but that we need to learn from these other churches about gracious hospitality, outreach, and evangelization.
A friend of mine, after decades as a Catholic organist, recently accepted a position at a Presbyterian church. Their worship is more casual than he prefers, but their emphasis on fellowship before and after the service creates a whole different experience of “going to church” than our parish’s anonymous-faces-in-the-crowd experience. He concluded that Catholic parishes in this town have “absolutely no idea” what church community and fellowship can be.
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