It is currently Prima Messa season. This is the first official Mass celebrated by a newly ordained priest. It is the priest's introduction to the community and a statement about how he would like to mark his pastoral ministry.
I was ordained some years after Vatican II. For us, the Council was the new Pentecost for the Church. This new freshness was accompanied - among many other things and in different degrees - by a simplification of the liturgy of the baroque-style Prima Messa.
This process of simplification embodied a theological dimension. It was a statement about the nature of the priesthood as a gift for the service of the royal priesthood of all the faithful, in contradistinction to the idea of the clerical establishment as the centre of the ecclesiastical community.
Unfortunately, for a number of years, this process of renovation has not only been halted but also put in reverse gear. The Prima Messa is once more the symbol of this negative reversal. It is being celebrated with the great pomp associated with the pre-Vatican II mentality. It has become a triumphalistic occasion proclaiming the ascent of the neo-clericalism that is becoming so prominent and influential within the Church.
The Prima Messa has become the laudatory hymn of the conservative mentality nourished and bred to (im)maturity during the seminary years. The next step will soon be the celebration of the Prima Messa in the Tridentine rite!
This neo-clericalism is not just confined to Malta. Seminarians in several countries have become nostalgic for a 'golden age' which existed nowhere except in their fantasies about the past. Their nostalgia is their way of coping with the cold reality of present-day difficulties. It is a sign of their collective immaturity and fear of the present.
A Dominican friend of mine sent me an article titled 'Clericalism and the Liturgy. Whatever became of the 'new Pentecost?' by Fr Paul Philibert OP, a former professor of theology. Those interested in reading it can visit the website www.votf-li.org/newpent.pdf.
Fr Philibert clearly shows how this nacent clericalism is built on a pre-Vatican II theology of a passive laity. He continues that "this reduction of the laity to passive bystanders instead of active participants in Catholic worship is the most characteristic manifestation of clericalism".
During the pre-Vatican II era, it used to be said that the laity are there to pray, to pay and to obey. The new clericalists look at the laity as passive pawns. This is in contrast with the theology of Vatican II.
Just one quotation from Vatican II illustrates this: "The baptised, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, that through all their Christian activities they may offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the marvels of him who has called them out of darkness into his wonderful light" (Lumen Gentium 10). The laity are not an appendix; their mission lies at the very core of the Church.
It is a pity that instead of providing the Church with new blood the mentality of some of the newly-ordained is further pushing it down the slope of social irrelevance.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt