I’ve never been to an episcopal ordination.
Now, with the election of a new bishop for the Diocese of Baker, I am musing about the ordination and installation of Fr. Liam Cary. The first thing that came to mind was the location of the ordination.
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| Ordination...or basketball game? |
Twelve years ago, Monsignor Robert F. Vasa was ordained to the order
of bishop at the architecturally stunning (not) Deschutes
County Fairgrounds Expo Center just southeast of Redmond. I think it was
held in the same building as the 2003 Centennial Mass – the Hooker
Creek Event Center, where they normally hold rodeos.
Bishop Vasa always
celebrated Christmas and Easter (and the Chrism Mass) at the Cathedral (Bishop Connolly was another story, I'm told); and up
until 2010, all of the diaconate and priestly ordinations of the diocese took
place there as well. In 2010, however, when Fr. Joseph Levine was ordained to
the priesthood, that ordination took place at the new church in Bend. I think
that may have started a (downward) trend.
Although no one has ever asked my opinion about that, I am
more than willing to offer it: ordinations should be held at the Cathedral!
Well, yes, it’s true I live only 12 miles from the Cathedral, so travel isn’t
an issue for me, but still…let’s
think about our Catholic identity and our Catholic traditions! The pictures I’ve
seen of the church in Bend are reminiscent of an Aztec handball court. I haven’t
been there in person.
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| Still...it's better than the basketball arena. |
Well, thinking about the ordination location made me start thinking about all the nitty-gritty details
that are involved – you know, things like rubrics and requirements and
regulations. I like that stuff. It keeps us honest. It helps us to maintain our
Catholic identity. It helps us to celebrate the Mass worthily.
Too bad so few people pay any attention to it.
It seems that the planners of Bishop Vasa’s ordination and
installation were a little loose with the liturgical rubrics. In the
commemorative booklet of the event, I noticed that for “Worship Preparation”
there was a “Native American Blessing Dance”. I shudder to think…! I wasn’t at
the event – I wasn’t even Catholic then! But an eyewitness who remembers it
well tells me there were indeed some disconcerting elements, such as:
…the New Age, pseudo-Native
American pagan rituals (e.g., the wafting of the Sacred Smoldering Sagebrush to
the Four Directions, the half-hour ceremony at the beginning of the Mass – after the entrance procession, while
all were standing in place; and the Sacred Rite of the Commingling of the
Waters...from each and EVERY river in the Diocese)…
Sure enough…The commemorative booklet tells us that, in the
procession, representative groups from the deaneries of the Diocese of Baker
and the Diocese of Lincoln carried in containers of water
...from the various streams,
lakes, and rivers of Central and Eastern Oregon and Nebraska. Now these waters
will be mingled. Archbishop Vlazny will bless this new water… After the
ordination ceremony this blessed water will be divided and some given to each
parish in the diocese for use in the Easter water.
Suspecting that this was not something actually included in
the rubrics for the rite of ordination of a bishop, I dug out my trusty copy of
The Ceremonial of Bishops to see what
I could learn about this whole election-ordination-installation process. I
discovered some interesting things.
The first thing the CoB
says about the election of a bishop is this:
1129 When the local Church is
first informed that the canonical provision has been made, the administrator of
the diocese announces a liturgical service of thanksgiving and prayer for the bishop-elect
to be celebrated on a convenient date in the cathedral church.
I think I missed that announcement…maybe it’s coming soon…? (crickets
chirping).
And the CoB does
agree with me – even if the authors did not
ask my opinion – that
1135 It is most fitting that
the bishop-elect’s ordination take place in
his cathedral church…
Of course, that wording is widely interpreted as “but he doesn’t
really have to”.
The Roman Pontifical
has it this way (emphasis added):
21 The Bishop who is placed as
head of a particular diocese should be
ordained in the cathedral church...
That’s the USCCB's official English translation of the line
which in the Latin editio typica is much stronger: "Episcopus, qui
tamquam caput cuidam dioecesi praeficitur, in ecclesia cathedrali ordinetur."
Or am I wrong? I’m not a Latin scholar…
Moving on…
The CoB says that
if the bishop-elect is ordained in his own cathedral church, he takes
possession of the diocese by virtue of the rite of ordination. But if he is
ordained elsewhere, he takes possession through the rite of reception.
My eyewitness tells me:
In the case of Bishop Vasa's
"installation", what we ended up with was a grotesque bastardization
of the rite of installation. Since they didn't want to trek all the way across
the diocese to the cathedral (which, duh, is where the cathedra is formally,
canonically located, and which by that very fact raises that church to the rank
and dignity of the one and only cathedral church of the diocese) for the
ceremony, they simply threw the portable cathedra in the back of someone's
pickup and schlepped it over to the fairgrounds in Redmond. At the end of the
Mass of episcopal ordination, the newly ordained Bishop Vasa was led by
Archbishop Vlazny (his principal consecrator) to his dislocated cathedra (with
no cathedral in sight) sitting on the platform over the likely spot where, a
few days before, cattle had been defecating, and plopped him down on it. And
that, my friends, constituted the bishop’s formal "installation" as
the Fifth Bishop of Baker. And I expect they'll do the same for the Sixth
Bishop of Baker.
Oh. My. Goodness. And the scariest part is that it’s quite
likely that the same type of “planning” will probably go into the upcoming
ordination as went into the past one. As parish secretary at the Cathedral, I
was involved in the planning for a couple of ordinations. It wasn’t a pretty
picture. There were struggles over the music, always with the refrain, “Well,
what does the candidate want?”
Let’s get a few things straight
regarding the music and "what the candidate wants".
An ordination is not a
"gig" where the guest of honor – even if he is being ordained bishop –
presents the band with a list of his favorite hits. The music is determined by
the text of the propers, which the Church does not leave to the arbitrary whim
of the priest, the bishop, or even the ordaining bishop: they are codified in
the liturgical books – in the case of an episcopal ordination, the Pontificale Romanum. The only
"choice" here is whether to sing the given text according to the normative plainchant setting, in
sacred polyphony, or some other approved style.
If, for the upcoming ordination, a liturgy committee
is thrown together from amongst the liturgical “leaders” in this diocese, we’re
in trouble. I have seen very little
evidence in this entire diocese of any true knowledge or appreciation of
liturgical rubrics, or even a desire to procure such knowledge. You should have heard the
furor a few years back when Bishop Vasa promulgated his pastoral letter, “Servant
of the Sacred Liturgy”, which simply reiterated what the GIRM already said. There were widespread
complaints about how we wouldn’t be able to continue in the liturgical abuses
to which we had become accustomed!
There’s a history here, folks; Bishop
Vasa’s ordination sounds like it was a circus. If we don’t want history to
repeat itself, let’s pray that Fr. Cary appoints his own Master of Ceremonies
and liturgy committee from outside the Diocese of Baker. And let us pray these
planners are aware of the liturgical norms and rubrics, and have a sense of the
dignity and solemnity of such an occasion.
Sigh.
Now, let’s revisit the Cathedral issue one more time. In yet another place in the CoB, in the Sacraments section, we find once again that:
Now, let’s revisit the Cathedral issue one more time. In yet another place in the CoB, in the Sacraments section, we find once again that:
563 The ordination of a bishop most appropriately takes place in his
cathedral church…
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| St. Francis de Sales Cathedral: a fitting place for an ordination. |
Oh, but this is so
impractical!
Yes, yes, yes, I know:
there will be hundreds of people who want to attend, and there just wouldn’t
be room for all of them at the Cathedral. (Say that with a little whine in your
voice.)
So what?! How about this: just tell people that they can attend the ordination of our new bishop ONLY IF they attend Mass every Sunday, they have been to confession in the last year, and they are in agreement with all the statements in Bishop Vasa’s Affirmation of Faith.
That ought to serve as adequate crowd control.
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| Better yet, what if the Cathedral had been restored to this?! - not only architecturally, but spiritually: look at all those clerics and religious! |
(Go here
for a photo essay of the history of the wreck-o-vations and renovations of St.
Francis de Sales Cathedral, assembled by Fr. Julian Cassar, rector of the
Cathedral.)
It is my hope and prayer that Fr. Liam Cary desires and will insist upon a dignified, reverent, and solemn liturgy for his episcopal ordination and installation.
But even if he does not, it is still the right of the faithful to have such a liturgy.
For more on the Diocese of Baker, see Bishops, Cathedrals, and the Diocese of Baker.
Related posts:
Thoughts on the Ordination of a Bishop
For related
posts, click on the “Bishop Liam Cary Posts” tab at the top of the page.
Real Bishops have real Cathedrals
ReplyDeleteAztec Handball Court!
ReplyDeleteThat made me smile and chuckle!