Anglican vs Roman Catholic liturgical style (Epiphanies guidelines apply)
angloid
Shipmate
Spinoff from the Cathedrals thread:
It's not a mistaken impression of many Anglican parishes. It's not the norm, but as I suggested in that thread it seems to be an increasing tendency in cathedrals and the sort of parish churches that aspire to their standards. In the old days (20-30 years ago) only the very self-consciously Anglo-catholic churches modelled their liturgy on the major churches of Rome, and probably taught doctrines in harmony with that and encouraged strict practice of the traditional Catholic disciplines. More recently many more churches have gone in for flamboyant worship but probably alongside more liberal teachings and laxer practice. If 'up the candle' refers to ceremonial and nothing else Alan's impression is possibly true.
My impression of 'average' Roman Catholic worship, in the UK but also elsewhere, is that the style is much more relaxed and even casual, to the extent of giving A-C sacristans a fit of the vapours. Although I have several RC friends I have rarely discussed this with them, so I don't know if this generally goes along with a relaxed approach to traditional Catholic teaching. I would guess most priests and people don't often challenge accepted doctrines but are less obsessed by them than many non-Catholics would think.
Here is where I tread on unknown territory. I might be building theories out of nothing, but I wonder, if our two churches have such different approaches to liturgy, that it might derive from our history. It is well-known that the medieval church in England was strongly influenced by Benedictine monasticism, and the post-reformation church inherited much of that tradition. Arguably Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer was a simplified version of the Benedictine rule, seeing the parish community, priest and people together, as a sort of monastery but including the whole of the laity. Hence basing their common life on a common liturgy. This liturgical formation was later able to develop when reformation-era prejudices about so-called 'superstitious practices' began to fade over the last century or so.
Whereas (Roman) Catholics in England were for many years not able to be settled in stable communities, but lived a sort of nomadic existence and were led and taught by missionary clergy. The Jesuits even today seem to be less focused on liturgy and indeed encourage a more individual approach to devotion. There has also been the teaching of ex opere operato (have I got the Latin right?) which crudely interpreted means it doesn't matter how the liturgy is done as long as the basic actions are performed and the right words are said. So a parish mass doesn't need to have elaborate, or even simple and dignified, ceremonial as long as the priest follows the basic rubrics. And in these days of shortage of clergy and multi-church parishes that isn't likely to change much.
Am I onto something here?
I find it interesting that (as evidenced by what I have seen on Youtube) many Anglican parishes seem to be further up the candle than the average RC place. Though that is probably a mistaken impression.
It's not a mistaken impression of many Anglican parishes. It's not the norm, but as I suggested in that thread it seems to be an increasing tendency in cathedrals and the sort of parish churches that aspire to their standards. In the old days (20-30 years ago) only the very self-consciously Anglo-catholic churches modelled their liturgy on the major churches of Rome, and probably taught doctrines in harmony with that and encouraged strict practice of the traditional Catholic disciplines. More recently many more churches have gone in for flamboyant worship but probably alongside more liberal teachings and laxer practice. If 'up the candle' refers to ceremonial and nothing else Alan's impression is possibly true.
My impression of 'average' Roman Catholic worship, in the UK but also elsewhere, is that the style is much more relaxed and even casual, to the extent of giving A-C sacristans a fit of the vapours. Although I have several RC friends I have rarely discussed this with them, so I don't know if this generally goes along with a relaxed approach to traditional Catholic teaching. I would guess most priests and people don't often challenge accepted doctrines but are less obsessed by them than many non-Catholics would think.
Here is where I tread on unknown territory. I might be building theories out of nothing, but I wonder, if our two churches have such different approaches to liturgy, that it might derive from our history. It is well-known that the medieval church in England was strongly influenced by Benedictine monasticism, and the post-reformation church inherited much of that tradition. Arguably Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer was a simplified version of the Benedictine rule, seeing the parish community, priest and people together, as a sort of monastery but including the whole of the laity. Hence basing their common life on a common liturgy. This liturgical formation was later able to develop when reformation-era prejudices about so-called 'superstitious practices' began to fade over the last century or so.
Whereas (Roman) Catholics in England were for many years not able to be settled in stable communities, but lived a sort of nomadic existence and were led and taught by missionary clergy. The Jesuits even today seem to be less focused on liturgy and indeed encourage a more individual approach to devotion. There has also been the teaching of ex opere operato (have I got the Latin right?) which crudely interpreted means it doesn't matter how the liturgy is done as long as the basic actions are performed and the right words are said. So a parish mass doesn't need to have elaborate, or even simple and dignified, ceremonial as long as the priest follows the basic rubrics. And in these days of shortage of clergy and multi-church parishes that isn't likely to change much.
Am I onto something here?
Comments
But as for doctrine, it isn't something that RCs talk about much. Its kind of there in the background. A common comment is that for most, there has been little formation/faith development since leaving school. Homilies are about unpacking the readings of the day, not about doctrinal teaching. Pew surveys in the USA suggest there is a wide spectrum of understanding or assent to even the most basic doctrines among lay folk.
As for liturgy, there is a kind of relaxed seriousness in most parishes on Sundays at the main family Mass, but a much more devotional atmosphere on weekdays. Very few priests would tinker with either texts or rubrics, ever. So for example our main Sunday Mass has an atmosphere that makes room for noisy kids, uses modern music etc but is done by the book. Theologically the Euchrist is seen as an action of the whole Church concentrated at that place, so individualistic tinkering are seen as a serious matter way beyond the remit of individual parishes. There are of course places where Liturgy is conducted with great beauty and seriousness, but they are not typical. But always the actions and words are by the book.
The "ex opere" thing is to do with the spiritual state of the celebrant not getting in the way of the operation of sacramental grace. So God is still operating no matter how appalling a wicked person the priest is. Its not really about the performance of ritual .... we don't really see Liturgy like that.
Openly to challenge the accepted doctrines of the Trinity and the Eucharist would normally get a priest into trouble with his bishop. But you have to ask also for most (Catholic) parishioners what are the 'accepted' doctrines of the Church ?
For most people if you belong to the Church you belong to the Church and leave
the details of doctrine to those who are interested in them. Otherwise you just get entangled in arguments which most people are not particularly interested in.
The Church (and this goes for all religious bodies) is not simply a list of doctrines which one has to believe in. It is for many a place of encounter both with the divine and also with the very human side of our societies. For some it is a very important part of their everyday life ,accompanying them at important stages of 'hatch, match and dispatch. For others it is there in the background and yet for others an irrelevance.
Maybe there is something else involved besides 'the ex opere thing'. I was thinking more, that for a Catholic, especially in times of persecution, the important thing would be simply to worship at the Mass, because there often wouldn't be the opportunity for splendid settings or lengthy liturgy. Hence I am surmising that a tradition might well have grown up amongst English Catholics at least that music, ceremonial, architecture was something of an optional extra.
By contrast, for many years in the C of E the importance of sacraments was downplayed and hence if worship was going to have any power it would be more as an intellectual or emotional activity. The other current thread here about Anglican worship in the pre-victorian age suggests that even those aspects were often neglected and going to church must have been an incredibly boring experience in many cases. Things did of course improve in the 19th century, but I would have thought the emphasis on preaching and music would have been a counterbalance to an exclusive focus on the sacraments.
I'm aware that I am flying kites here of course and even if my theory has any truth there are too many exceptions on both sides to make much of it. So shoot me down if you wish!
Nevertheless there is an obvious difference between RC and Anglican worship which doesn't always reflect different theology. Full-on 'up the candle' Anglo-catholic liturgy is usually recognisable as Anglican even if the words of the rite are from the Missal and the ceremonial is from (pre or post Vatican 2) RC handbooks.
I agree with your final paragraph.
It’s also very noticeable when a Roman Catholic Priest has crossed the Tiber and become Anglican. I watched an Anglican service once where I kept saying to myself “I bet he was one of us!” I wasn’t surprised when I found he had crossed the Tiber several years before.
There are certain giveaways in the liturgy, usually around the way Anglicans interpret the rubrics around the epiclesis and consecration which is hard to explain. Anglicans are usually more precise in their gestures, and I imagine they spend a lot of time studying how their hands are positioned in the orans position because they’re never lopsided.
Most Catholic clergy tend to be a little more relaxed about such things, without being sloppy.
Last week, I was at a mass where the priest said the entire Eucharistic prayer whilst not central to the altar, I must admit I found it a little distracting but I imagine if I said anything to the priest he really wouldn’t have cared.
I'm pretty high up the candle, but that was perched in the point of flame. Nice experience, though.
In general, I think that parishes that are self-consciously AC are not the norm. Most in TEC, at least, are broad church or low, although Anglican low and not happy-clappy low.
I suspect you have never experienced the Church of England. I've only a limited experience of TEC, but I think that most churches you would describe as 'low', most C of E Anglicans would perceived as middle-to-high. But yes, I think even the 'highest' TEC churches are recognisably Anglican, not just in subtle ways but in their loyalty to approved Anglican texts. The C of E covers a much wider spectrum (including 'happy clappy low').
Our occasional services, though are very close to the occasional rites of the Roman church. Once I was in the hospital ICU as a patient. A Roman priest came by and said the Liturgy of the Anointing of the Sick to a man in the next bed. He was amazed I knew the whole rite from memory.
It does seem the TEC is more formal in gestures. I sometimes get tripped up. When do I genuflect? When do I reverence the altar? When do I cross myself? Things like that. Still I can do a passable job in a TEC setting.
But, when it comes to other denominations we ELCAers are in fellowship with (Methodist, UCC, Presbyterian), things are much less formal.
And nobody much cared.
Is that the RC difference in a nutshell?
Well my point about St Clement's is that they are among the "highest" parishes within TEC and they aren't really recognizably Anglican. It's a Missal Mass, so the priest says the canon privately, the peace comes at the end of the canon, etc. I suppose the missal is approved, in some sense, but also I think they and parishes like them are mostly allowed to continue on because they've been doing it for so long.
The churches I am classifying as low in TEC are the sorts that do Morning Prayer instead of communion at least once a month. How common are parishes of that sort in the CoE? To be fair, although I know of several in TEC, they are all in cities. It seems like most rural parishes do communion on Sundays and may be considered fairly "high" by CoE standards; I don't know what the baseline is there.
Although English people are by nature rather conformist, most of them would take the line that they're blowed if they're going to stand up, kneel, genuflect or cross themselves - or for that matter not do so - or when - just because the vicar tells them to.
Thanks for correcting my over-simplified view of TEC! I didn't realise that there were still Morning Prayer churches... do they tend to be in certain regions? Morning Prayer, aka Choral Mattins, is now very rare in the C of E: but the centrality of the Eucharist has taken a knock in the last few years, partly because of the shortage of clergy but also because of an evangelical takeover of many parishes with 'praise services' and the like.
Because rural churches in England tend to be more conservative, many of them have been slow to catch up with the Parish Communion movement even after nearly a century, but equally they have been slow to abandon liturgical Morning Prayer. A bit different from your description of rural TEC parishes. But they have been even harder ht by the shortage of clergy, so non-eucharistic services are often the norm except in small towns.
But an excellent homily.
Mind you ....... you can find all of that among hyper Trad RC orders, like this lot. I will probably go to hell but I can't get the word "zombies" out of my head
https://youtube.com/shorts/kVMXPxCdmL0?feature=shared
I think they started in Brazil. They are no friends of Pope Francis according to Wiki.
I think they were banking their staffs on the floor. There are other strange clips on YouTube.
On a very serious note .....
Apparently they have communities all over the world and aim to attract young folk. There would seem to be something very controlling and worrying going on.
I soon found that nobody followed those rules, some women cover their heads... but they might also be wearing jeans and trainers.
On the altar, even I, a dyed-in-the-wool 'novus ordo liberal', have noticed that things are not quite as slick as they could be. Liturgically, altar servers are a little sloppy. The younger servers even wear flashing trainers. Nobody bats an eyelid. They're here for mass... not to judge footwear.
I get the feeling that even the most conservative Catholic places in England are still quite laid back compared to High Anglican places, and are certainly more laid back than US Conservative Catholic places.
Interestingly enough, I just met an English woman after church today who commented on how the service was more like what one would get back in England. Fun timing!
I've lived in the northeast and now live in the upper midwest, and you can kind of always find a Morning Prayer church--in the urban areas, that is. I think that in the rural and suburban areas it's most likely going to be a eucharist service. I'm not sure why that is, and I hadn't really put that all together until this thread. I used to live in a city and attended an extremely AC church there. There were 3 other TEC parishes in the city, two were broad church, and the third was a Morning Prayer church.
I currently live in a somewhat rural spot in the upper midwest and go into the city for Mass to get out of the sticks. The city I go to has three TEC parishes: one church that tries hard to be AC, a broad church that I go to, and then a very reformed style church that does Morning Prayer every other week, uses leavened bread for communion, and tends to have longer sermons.
I'm not sure how the priest shortage will impact churches in TEC, but I rather think that the first big hit overall will be with all of the baby boomer parishioners dying off, and the subsequent closing of small parishes. It will be interesting to see how these changes impact the liturgy.
Warning. Some of what follows may sound harsh to some Shipmates.
The first reason goes back to the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century, when the more ultra-montane wing of Anglo-Catholicism - itself already a wing - started looking to Roman Catholicism of that era to try to rebuild how they thought the CofE ought to be if it hadn't been for the Reformation. So it was all self-conscious, a bit like the liturgical equivalent of the Sealed Knot Society, driven by a strong commitment to emulating something else, rather than expressing a tradition that was live. It sprang from the head, not from the heart, more aimed at getting everything right, creating a model of being Catholic as it looked from outside, than living a life of faith.
Over time that has changed the rest of the CofE. Its liturgical centre of gravity is further up the candle now than it was 124 years ago. However, the second reason, is that the rest of the CofE is much less bothered about the geeky stuff. That is particularly so since Common Worship came into use because it provides a wide range of alternatives and options. Well before that, most ordinary clergy approached putting services together according to how their training incumbent taught them to do it and what they think will work for their congregation. Common Worship has endorsed that.
Also, although the general flavour of the rest of the CofE has gone up the candle, it's more influenced by the happy clappy end than some of the generality like to admit. And multiple benefices mean that a lot of clergy cover more than one church. What works in one of their churches may not work in another. It's only the more foolhardy clergy that don't accommodate that.
So what happens in the rest of the CofE isn't quite what you're describing and may well not fit with what @Gramps49 has found with the TEC. It varies how dignified it is, but even in cathedrals, it isn't that consistent or prissy.
The great difference in that for the RC is that nobody much cared. In many high Anglican churches there would have been delegations to the rector, and many harsh words at morning tea.
Disgraceful - some wore glasses and others didn't. Those who didn't need them should have been wearing pairs with plain glass to keep uniformity.
Reading the comments it seems as if that is a real church and not some sci-fi fantasy. Is that really the case? If so it is exceedingly creepy.
Enoch, above, hits the nail on the head. There is much that is wrong with the current C of E, not least its obsession with what used to be called on here Dead Horse issues, but also with the liturgical (at least semi-) chaos which Common Worship attempted to control in vain. We've moved from the 16th century, Elizabethan, ideal of a church that didn't set tight limits on belief ('I would not open windows into men's souls.') but insisted on a uniform liturgy, through increasingly diversity of practice mirroring different theologies, to the present situation of a vocal minority attempting to force conformity to a very narrow set of beliefs, while tolerating a much wider variety of practice.
As I understand it (notwithstanding some of the corrections from Thomas Rowans) TEC and probably most other Anglican churches, have a generally accepted form of liturgy. Maybe because there is less theological diversity. But it would be nice to live in a church where you could attend any parish and share in familiar worship. Much like being a Roman Catholic.
At its best, when it is neither prissy nor pompous, traditional Anglican worship is priceless.
Who says there is no diversity? It's right there.
Apologies if I have caused offence.
It's our silver too. The Anglo Catholic tradition can be ridiculously overly possessive about it, to the point of wanting to write the modern Roman Catholic church out of the picture entirely. But that cuts both ways.
Indeed they are. Quite right too.
The Heralds of the Gospel is an offshoot of the rightwing militarist Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, also known as TFP. Fascism appeals to a certain segment of any society, it would seem.
Not to me! I know the feeling. There is a difference between discovering the richness of one's own inheritance (which is what the Anglo-catholic movement at its best aimed for) and trampling over that inheritance in order to seize someone else's glittering prizes. (I won't ask you to reveal the identity of that church publicly; if it is local to us both I think I can guess. But a PM would satisfy my curiosity!)
It were in God's own county.
Yes. There was something of 1930s Germany about that clip.
I haven't encountered one of your "Morning Prayer" TEC places in my travels. I think on average, TEC parishes have somewhat more liturgical formality than C of E ones. Which is to say that most TEC places I've been to somewhat resemble the formal end of the C of E.
I've only experienced a couple of Anglo-Catholic liturgies that were so stratospheric that I had G-Force tremors down my cheeks.
It makes the Orthodox look like Quakers or Plymouth Brethren.
I once attended an Anglo-Catholic service when the notoriously martinet vicar was away and a guest cleric took the service with far less military precision.
You could tell that the congregation didn't know how to react. They didn't know whether to run around and stretch their muscles now the straitjacket was removed or castigate the visitor for not conducting things so rigidly.
Like others here, I retain a soft-spot for that rarely found Anglican worship that doesn't teeter on a stalagmite spike on the one hand nor descend into chaotic blandness on the other.
Maybe such parishes can be found in traditionally-low Virginia.
Come to Scotland - that's pretty much my experience of the piskie services I've attended. I wonder whether the almost universal use of the 1982 liturgy helps?
Far too much 'they do this' going on for me - so much so that at this point it would be difficult not to post as though on the defensive.
I totally "get" that. This is an area where sensitivities can be trampled on all sides.
However there are genuine areas of puzzlement and genuine areas of mutual explanation.
Yes, but the thread is about style rather than doctrine, although the one can inform and affect the other.
As they say "Lex orandi, lex credendi" - the rule of worship is the rule of belief. The two are inextricably conjoined.
St Obscures is what most people would call Anglo-Papalist but it is not for them a religion of the head but of the heart. Novus Ordo (tick), bits in Latin (tick), incense (tick) and I can go on. The Anglican heritage is visible only in the occassional evensong (BCP) and the English saints included in the lectionary.
However, compared to my experience of Presbyterians there are relaxed about liturgy. The Mass is the mass and honestly someone kneeling, sitting or standing at the wrong point does not invalidate it. Indeed as a congregational member what others are doing is none of my business, though I do have to check others are not just copying me because I do not always get it right*. I do not think we yet have a little old lady praying the rosary during the mass and just falling quiet for the consecration but maybe J will do that when she retires from the choir. It will not make any odds with the chaos that goes on a Sunday morning anyway. You can not be too prizzy if you have children in the nave for the whole of the mass. Nor is it sensible to be fussy about how everything is performed if you are dealing with an eighty plus year old priest with declining health. We are grateful that they are still willing to say the mass so we can receive beyond that we seek to make them as comfortable saying it as possible. If that means something happens that does not quite conform to the rubrics then so be it. People are people they are not robots and the Perichosis is likened to a dance not a military parade.
Normally Father lays the fussiness on the part of the CofE he sees as High Church but not Catholic. I am not sure he is right, one congregation does not make a movement and there are some in our congregation who can get worried about little details of worship.
My sociologist of religion hat says the big difference at least in the UK is because the two groups are trying to prove different things in their liturgy. The Roman Catholics do not use liturgy to demonstrate their catholicism that is fully embedded in their allegiances, or if you prefer the familia they belong to. Their worship is formed in that context. However, they do have half an eye on not being thought of as properly English, i.e. being seen as the church for the Irish diaspora in England or because of centuries of persecution based on the distrust created at the time of the Reformation. Anglo Catholics on the other hand as part of the Church of England do not spend time worrying about their Englishness but are rather concerned to prove their Catholicism and use the liturgy to show case this.
* I know they copy me, as when the Sacristan and I stood up at the end of Holy Hour to take things through to the Sacristy and the whole congregation stood up. They are getting better at being themselves and trusting themselves to know the mass.
After some discussion backstage, we thought let’s try that - we won’t move the thread - but Epiphanies guidelines will apply. Please read them.
Thanks,
Doublethink, Admin
I think @Jengie Jon is right that Anglo-Catholics use their liturgy to demonstrate their Catholicism.
That's certainly how I've seen it presented at ecumenical conferences. That's not to criticise it. I quite enjoyed it although did feel somewhat dizzy from altitude sickness.
All that said, I'm quite sure Anglo-Catholics can be far more accommodating of young children and people who don't know the ropes than some hot Prot traditions can be.
I just checked the website of the parish I attended while living in Richmond for a year and they are still alternating between Eucharist and Morning Prayer for their big 11:00 Sunday service. I admit I found it strange when I was there, because Eucharist on Sundays is par for the course in Canada pretty much anywhere you go, but they did it very well.
To respond to the OP I find it hard to compare Anglican and Roman Catholic practice in Canada for lack of recent experience of the RC side of the equation. Anglican liturgy in Canada is all over the map. When I was around 10-11 years old and growing up in Ottawa (early 1980s) I was seeing more RC liturgy than I usually do now and it was definitely of the baby-out-with-the-bathwater style as far as more traditional liturgical and musical practices were concerned. Somewhat by accident lately I’ve been talking to some people coming out of the RC tradition and there seem to be promising things happening in places, without necessarily veering into ultra-trad territory.
As a Roman Catholic, for many years I'd intermittently attend Latin Masses said once a week at a Catholic church in Green Point. It wasn't controversial, nobody made a special effort to go there just for the Tridentine Mass. From time to time I've been to Requiem Masses, especially for older clergy, where the Mass has been in Latin and hearing the thundering Dies irae (Day of Wrath) brings me out in goosebumps. Some older German missionary orders here (Schoenstatt, I think) have Holy Week retreats with pre-Vatican II liturgical elements.
There's no doubt that much of the rich magnificence and beauty of the liturgy was lost after Vatican II, even though many of us support the change to the vernacular and the social justice encyclicals. We have a small FSSPX church out in Pinelands but a major problem is that younger local priests don't know Latin well and there are complaints about all the errors. Traditional Catholicism is perceived as problematic here not on grounds of liturgical restoration but because it is bound up with white minority rightwing politics. There isn't much time for Eurocentric Catholic cultural snobbery out here: Irish Catholicism played a role in settler culture and missionary work, but so have German Dominicans, Filipino Carmelites and English Jesuits. And there are many Latin American and Cuban priests working in local parishes, offering Masses in Portuguese and Spanish for Catholic asylum-seekers from Angola and Mozambique. Novo Ordo Masses in the Cape are often in Xhosa; those in Gauteng are in Sotho or Zulu. Inculturation remains part of Catholic liturgy and parish life here.
The most popular Catholic liturgies right now are the Zimbabwean sung Masses in Shona (at St Mary's Cathedral) and Congolese Masses in French. Last year in February 2023, Pope Francis visited Kinshasha in the troubled Democratic Republic of the Congo and more than a million Catholics attended the open-air Mass held at Ndola airport because nowhere else was large enough for the crowds (it might help to remember the Congo is the geographic size of Western Europe). This Mass was streamed live to church halls for the Congolese Catholic and Kimbanguist communities around South Africa.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t see Doublethink’s post about this thread following Epiphanies guidelines, but please avoid using derogatory terms about other traditions.
Thanks
Spike
Ecclesiantics host
I wonder if that's why SEC services don't seem as fastidious - outwith a handful of evangelical former CofE affiliated Qualified Chapels.