Differences of opinion between ministers, people in the pews studied

Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published May 18, 2007

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Michael McCallion's new book, "Transforming Catholicism: Liturgical Change in the Vatican II Church" is meant to show professional Church ministers perspectives of people in the pews. Transforming Catholicism: Liturgical Change in the Vatican II Church Authors: Michael McCallion, Ph.D., Archdiocese of Detroit's director of the Office of Pastoral Resources and professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and David Maines, professor of sociology and former chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at Oakland University. Publisher: Lexington Books, a division of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., in Lenham, Md. Cost: $27.95 To order: Call the Catholic Book Store at (313) 962-4490. Findings Among findings in "Transforming Catholicism": • Most city churches (80 percent) have the tabernacle located in the sanctuary; most suburban churches (56.5 percent) have the tabernacle elsewhere in the building. • 57. 5 percent of RCIA coordinators are women, 25.5 percent are priests and only 11.7 percent are lay men. • Churches in the suburbs tend to adhere strongly to catechetical texts to teach RCIA; RCIA coordinators within the city tend to adapt or deviate from such texts. • In one case, it took eight months for a parish community to decide whether first communicants should sit with their peers or with their parents during Mass.

Dearborn — To Fran Brandi, a mother and school teacher who tries to make it to Mass each day, having the tabernacle as a focal point in a church is an important way of signifying that the Lord is the center of your life.

"If we put Him off to the side," said Brandi, following a weekday morning Mass at Divine Child Parish in Dearborn, "we're saying He's not important — and that's the reason we're here. It's for our Lord."

Brandi and countless Catholics like her — lay people who feel passionate about catechetics, worship and even worship spaces — often differ in opinion with priests and professional lay ministers on such matters, says Michael McCallion, director of the Archdiocese of Detroit's Office of Pastoral Resources and a teacher at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.

McCallion recently co-authored a book, "Transforming Catholicism:  Liturgical Change in the Vatican II Church," based on five years of studies. The work highlights some differences between the way people in the pews and the way Church professionals view worship and catechetics.

"There's quite a gap between the perspectives of the ordinary Catholic and the professional," says McCallion, who studied a host of issues, including tabernacle location, whether the Our Father should be sung or recited, and RCIA processes.

The book, McCallion says, is not meant to incite change or conclude who's right or wrong, but rather to give Church professionals a perspective on where people in their parish's pews are coming from.

"It really gives voice to the person in the pew," says McCallion, who was on-site at many parishes over the years collecting data and opinions for his work. "It would be helpful for the professional to hear the voice of the ordinary Catholic again, maybe in a different way."

Through his study, McCallion followed various situations as they played out within parishes in the archdiocese.

For example, he followed a class preparing for first holy Communion at the former St. Catherine Parish in Algonac in the 1990s, where parents formed a worship subcommittee just to hammer out details regarding the Mass.

"The big issue in first holy Communion is, 'Should the kids sit together or should they sit with their parents?'" he says. "It wound up being an eight-month process." They ended up sitting together as a class.

The book is laced with technical language — McCallion makes clear that it's a sociological study, not a work of theology — and quantifies some differences between inner-city parishes and those in the suburbs. There are contrasts, for example, between ways RCIA is implemented and church construction, he notes.

Essential to the discussion about differences in Catholic opinion, McCallion's subject matter is in the area of broadly-defined Church practices.

For example, the Second Vatican Council never pinpointed — and even offered differing views — on where in a Church or chapel the tabernacle should be. And the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops even recently declined to even take up the matter of whether the faithful should hold hands during the Our Father.

In short, the Church leaves wiggle room.

"It's impossible to address every little detail," says Dan McAfee, the archdiocese's director of worship.

McAfee says that people tend to latch on to what's familiar with them, and often a theological explanation is never attached to it.

At his own parish, he said, people hold hands during the Our Father, though no directive ever came on the issue.

"It's become very important for people," he says. "In my parish, nobody told anybody to do that — they just started doing it."

Many of the differences may come from the fact that professional lay ministers are more apt — and in many cases required — to read documents from the pope or the Church fathers that explain liturgy.

"The tabernacle issue," he says, using an example, "have we really catechized on it?"

The most essential rule, McAfee says, is for liturgists to not add what's not there.

"In liturgical circles, we always say you can't go wrong with the 'rite,'" he says, "so stick with the rite and do what the rite says to do."

But there are ways to interpret rites differently, says Fr. Don Archambault, pastor of Corpus Christi Parish in Detroit.

As an example, Fr. Archambault notes that the wording of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal doesn't specify whether, during the Mass's offertory, a procession of just a few people should bring gifts to the altar, or whether the entire community should process. So, at one Mass at Corpus Christi, the entire community joined the procession of the gifts.

Afterward, Fr. Archambault conducted a survey to see how the parish community accepted the practice.

"These issues (of worship) are not the primary issues of our faith," he said. "They're different options of the way you can do the same thing. I think we have to be pastorally sensitive to where people are at."

Fr. Archambault says McCallion's work can give Church professionals – who often spend their time immersed in liturgical practices and catechetics – a fresh, broad perspective on the Church's faithful.

"He's able to see the differences that we who are in day-to-day ministry are too close to see," he says.

For McCallion, it might be best summed up in the Latin phrase sensum fidelium — meaning "sense of the faithful" — which he attempts to capture with his study, and which he hopes Church professionals will look at.

"The ordinary faithful has something to offer the Church," McCallion says. "They are the Church. What I'm arguing is that (lay people and Church professionals) often see things quite differently, and they ought to really listen to each other quite carefully."