On 4 July, Most Rev. Charles Chaput delivered the sermon for a Mass to close the Fortnight For Freedom.
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“Catholics for Equality” did a press release on July 3d announcing their “peaceful protest” of the Fortnight for Freedom Mass:
The Catholic protesters will gather outside the Mass under the banner, “Bishops: We Need Pastors, Not Politicians. Your Antics are Hurting the Church.” They will be singing traditional Catholic hymns [“Gather Us In”?] and reading an alternate Prayers of the Faithful, in lieu of the hyperbolic political petitions that will be read by the bishops during the political Mass inside the basilica.”
Did they manage to get their entire, six-member North American Contingent to attend?
Had a nice afternoon working in the garden (95+ degrees) while listening to the audio feed of the mass. I was pleasantly surprised that the homily did not seem as loaded with partisanship as I expected.
I find the triumphalist/bombastic/operatic music at that church really distracting from prayer. Not to mention all the time congratulating/thanking themselves for being there. Seemed like an exercise in making each other feel good about themselves.
Wasn’t part of then-Joseph Ratzinger’s critique of contemporary liturgy that it can tend to be more about human beings that God? All these affairs at the shrine seem to be like events where everyone is busy slapping themselves on the back about how righteous they are.
But maybe that’s just me being cynical.
that = than about
I was at the Mass. It was really packed – including side chapels. I appreciated Abp Chaputs pro-life homily, but also wished he had explicitly mentioned defense of natural marriage.
I’ve always found the Shrine so beautiful, but finally something managed to render it unappealing: the Neocatechumenal Way mob. They “occupied” the front steps of the Shrine with Native American type dancing (in a circle, with maracas and bongo drums). They overwhelmed the place — even started banging on their bongos & shaking tambourines inside the church, whilst Cardinal Weurl was still recessing out. They were agressive, badly dressed, and dissonant with the pipe organ – not to mention Catholic identity!! There was one redeeming moment to this: I got to watch two ushers rip down their banner and knock one of them over. :-)
I should have liked to have been able to pay better attention to the homily, but I just couldn’t stop wondering, “Where’s the amice?”
New Sister, you must have been close to where I was sitting. I was about four or five rows in front of the Neocatechumenal Way bunch when they tried to unfurl their big banner, and a couple of the ushers took down the banner and the guys trying to hold it up. A scuffle ensued. There must have been several more of the Neocats interspersed along the sides of the church, though, as the drums and tambourines and chanting got really loud coming from those areas after the end of the recessional hymn (which was America the Beautiful).
PAT – I was on the otherside, on the same row as the Neocat hippies. The older usher couldn’t quite take ’em. Then a younger usher (African dude) lept up, tore down the banner, and plowed one of them to the side, where he (the hippy) fell down. I quickly exited to avoid them, which enabled me to thank Cardinal Weurl for the beautiful Mass.