Category: Viewpoint
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Viewpoint: Baptism by Immersion is an Authentic Post-Vatican II Development
One of the aims of the modern liturgical movement before and since the Vatican II has been to make the symbols of Christian life more real and tangible.
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Viewpoint: What’s Broken in the Church’s Liturgy That Needs Fixing?
Not everything is as it should be in the Church’s liturgical life. There is much unease in some quarters, and many people have a vague feeling that something is amiss with the liturgy.
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Viewpoint: Sign of Peace at Mass Needs to Maintain a Public Character
I would hold that the Sign of Peace should not be regarded primarily as an intimate gesture, but as a public sign expressing fellow citizenship in Christ.
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Viewpoint: The Eucharist is the ‘Memory Bank’ of the Church
The tragic and glorious history of the Christian people lives on in the Eucharist, which will reach its completion only at the heavenly banquet.
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Viewpoint: Is Human Society a Covenant Community or a Marketplace?
The commercialization and industrialization of society represents a very beguiling trend. It has much that is attractive about it, but it is finally idolatrous. Its ultimate achievement can only be to reduce the quality of life that it so deceivingly espouses.
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Viewpoint: A New Model of Catechumenal Formation Needs Promotion
What we need today is a form of RCIA formation that incorporates the strengths of solid doctrinal formation with the spiritual vitality that is such an important feature of Catholic life.
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Viewpoint: ‘God’s Household’ Is a Rich Image of the Church
The image of the Church as a household allows a familial view of the divine/human and the human/human relationships. It enables us to see Church history as family history and former generations as our spiritual ancestors.
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Viewpoint: Evangelization Means the Renewal of Catholic Institutions
If Protestant evangelization is word-centered, Catholic evangelization is sacrament-centered. Catholic evangelization is properly guided by the affirmation of Vatican II that the Church has the character of a “sacrament,” a “sign and instrument” of God’s saving activity in the world.
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Viewpoint: Banning Altar Girls is Theologically Unsound and Pastorally Imprudent
In a January 26 statement, Fr. Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco, announced a new policy whereby altar girls at Mass would be phased out and thenceforth only boys would serve at the altar.