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ENGAGING THE CULTURE
Liturgists: An Affliction Sent By God?
Suffering for the faith at the hands of
liturgical terrorists
(Sept./Oct. 2000)
BY DONNA
M. STEICHEN
SOMETHING CURIOUS IS
HAPPENING in the Los Angeles Archdiocesan Office of
Worship. Observers are unsure whether Roger Cardinal
Mahony is practicing his theories of lay ministry,
placating chancery feminists, or exploiting a woman
compliant enough to try to implement his controversial
liturgy directives. Whatever the reason, Fr. Richard
Alabarano is out and Kathy Lindell is in.
Cardinal Mahony is an
American leader in the field of liturgy. We know this
from the folks at the National Catholic Reporter,
where he is much admired. That "progressive"
newspaper has, for example, claimed without attribution
that the cardinal "is often touted as papabile."
What ignites the Reporter's enthusiasm is the
similarity of the cardinal's liturgical tastes to its
own.
NCR, which maintains that
liberal Catholics are presently enduring a Vatican reign
of terror, praised the "energy and daring" of Gather
Faithfully Together, Cardinal Mahony's 1997 pastoral
letter on the liturgy, as "an endorsement of the
council's liturgical vision…at a time when Rome is
furiously scrambling to reassert much of the uniformity
in rites and language that Vatican II set aside."
It called the letter a
source of "enormous hope and encouragement" to
beleaguered Church professionals—scholars,
liturgists, musicians—who truly understand the
vision of the council and strive "to carry forward
liturgical renewal."
NCR also commended an
address last March by Fr. Richard Vosko, the liturgical
design consultant for the cardinal's unpopular new
cathedral. Fr. Vosko urged that the NCCB clarify the
basic principles of liturgical renewal before issuing any
new documents on church design. American Catholics,
including the clergy, need to be educated about
liturgical renewal as "launched by the Second
Vatican Council," he said, and the first step would
be for the bishops to write a pastoral letter
"similar to Cardinal Mahony's."
In other words, NCR sees
the Los Angeles archdiocese as the cutting edge of
American liturgy. If it is, one would expect the director
of the Office of Worship to be an important person
in the bureaucracy, highly educated in liturgy and the
arts. So attentive chancery-watchers were baffled to
learn recently that the leadership of that office has
passed into doubtfully qualified hands.
The Tidings, the
L.A. archdiocesan newspaper, announced on June 16 that
Kathy Lindell has been chosen to direct Cardinal Mahony's
worship office and oversee implementation of his liturgy
pastoral.
Lindell's road to the
directorship has been theatrically circuitous, though
reportedly the theatre it resembles is less Peyton
Place than Being There. She began her career
as a parish secretary in Hacienda Heights, then became
Msgr. Douglas Ferraro's secretary when he was appointed
to head the Worship Office in 1986. When Msgr. Ferraro
left the priesthood in the mid-1990s for a job with the
Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, Lindell was
promoted to associate director of the Worship office. She
resigned in 1998 and followed Ferraro to the Junior
Chamber, where she was most recently employed as director
of the Riordan Volunteer Leadership Development Program
for at-risk youth. According to the Tidings story,
she was "selected from a strong field of
candidates" to head the Worship office, but
off-the-record sources in the archdiocese say the hunt
for a new worship director was a "show search."
No rumor suggests any
impropriety in Lindell's relationship with Ferraro.
"She's a highly maternal type, who dotes on him like
a son," said one Latino woman.
"But she hasn't a
clue about liturgy," said one young priest.
"She's a nice lady but she got all her liturgical
training reading back issues of Modern Liturgy magazine.
It's a joke among priests that she'll actually be heading
that office. Now it will have no credibility
whatever."
Msgr. Ferraro's successor
at the Worship office was Fr Richard Albarano, a
Josephite from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. He
seemed to share the cardinal's liturgical vision, insofar
as sharing a penchant for cryptic dicta in the manner of
Heraclitus such as his "…liturgy is where I
go—with my brothers and sisters—to make holy so
that we together can be made holy."
Possibly his zeal was
insufficient for the cardinal's purposes. He told NCR in
1997 that he supported the "official reform,"
but was unwilling to use his staff as "liturgical
police" to make parishes conform. "We're trying
to teach the people of God what Vatican II has given us
as gift in the liturgical documents. We're not about to
go around pointing the finger at bad liturgy."
Though he looks like Friar
Tuck, some local priests say Fr. Albarano was "an
ogre" to work with. "The cardinal got a lot of
complaints. The objections were to his personality, not
his theology," said one suburban priest. "Ms.
Lindell will be easier to ignore."
Maybe.
Fr. Albarano, who declined
to be interviewed, is now pastor of St. Francis Xavier
parish in Burbank.
Perhaps, despite the talk
about scholars, artists and church professionals, liturgy
is really an amateur field. Fr. Richard Vosko, the
admitted dean of liturgical design consultants, is often
identified as an expert liturgist or architect, yet he
holds degrees neither in liturgy nor in architecture. His
doctorate is in adult education.
Even Capuchin Father Ed
Foley, president of the board of We Believe, admits that
the image of liturgist as terrorist is justified, though
he says that's all in the past. (We Believe is the
struggling organization invented to defend the liturgical
establishment against the movement for renewal of the
Sacred Liturgy.)
Finally, then, the best
definition of a liturgist may still be Christopher
Derrick's: "a liturgist is an affliction sent by God
so that Catholics living in a time when there is no overt
persecution need not be denied the privilege of suffering
for the faith."
For that role, no
professional training is required.
[ St. Catherine Review ]
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