I have been ill. I don't say this to garner sympathy — but, thank you for all the well wishes and prayers; they are humbling and mean a great deal. I say it as a segue into a tangential musing on the providence of God. I just learned that the Pope has completely replaced the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments — completely replaced it. Normally, a few changes are made at one time. A friend of mine, expert in canon law and the history of the Church, cannot remember a parallel situation, where the whole of a congregation has been replaced en masse.
Because I've been under the weather, I haven't been able to write the article to talk about the last episode of "Case Files II: Manhandling God." And that's perhaps providential, because the stark warning of "A Voice in the Wilderness" crying about the liturgy and its importance seems all the more urgent now that men like Cdls. Raymond Burke and Malcolm Ranjith (men I have quoted in "Case Files") are off the Congregation.
I honestly don't know what is going to happen — except with regard to what I am going to do. I am going to say, right now and repeatedly in the future, we should not engage in despair and handwringing and calamitous cries that the sky is falling. When faced with setbacks, we should look to move forward.
Or, perhaps, as C.S. Lewis said, we should move back. When we take the wrong turn in the road, the correct course of action is not to move forward, but rather to move back to where the mistake was made and correct it. The wisest man is the one who turns away from the error first.
And while only time will tell if the Pope's decision here is an error, it is certainly the case that the liturgical innovation, experimentation, changes and, yes, abuses of the last 60 years (when I started my service in this war, it was 50 years) were an error. That is the whole point of the "Case Files" series — the first season addressing a number of abuses, and the second concentrating on Communion in the hand.
We've come to the last episode, and it concentrates on Bp. Athanasius Schneider, the voice in the wilderness who has warned against Communion in the hand for years. I've had the pleasure of meeting him, of seeing his passion for the Eucharist and the Church, but more importantly, of experiencing the depth of his knowledge, which fuels his absolute certainty that the destructive abuse of Communion in the hand must be stopped.
All too often, we look for a top-down solution — "The Pope should just excommunicate people!" Hashtag-real-talk here, guys: That's not going to happen for a whole bunch of reasons, and you know it. But calling for it, or something like it, is easy and lets us off the hook.
Real change happens, as it did when John preached repentance, with individuals and the small groups they influence. You want to stop Communion in the hand? Then argue against it to your family and friends. Make the case. Get them to stop, and then get them to go out and influence others. Spread the word.
We put together "Case Files" so that you could do just that. We didn't put it together so it could be sent to priest and bishops and hands dusted off and "I've done my part, Jack." We did it so you could be the voice in the wilderness, crying for a change. If you haven't already, sign up for a Premium account to watch the show. If you want to be able to share the series with people — meaning sit down with them and watch it together and talk about it, don't just mail a copy and consider it done; buy a copy on DVD.
Be the voice in the wilderness. Only by crying out repentance does the desert sand turn to a garden.