Comments on Go In Peace To Love and...What's My Line?

[...]I’m glad that in a few years I won’t be able to recite the proper responses to these calls. It makes me even less of a Catholic.

I'm with you on this. I've not been to mass, except family funerals, since I was 13 and I still remember that stuff. It'll be weird the next time a Catholic family member dies.

My grandmother's Lutheran church has been doing the "...and with your spirit" thing for a few years. Wonder if that's where the Catholics got it!

Thank God I'm an Episcopalian, they aren't doing anything to fuck up their...errr never mind.

What is up with that "and with your spirit"? That's passive aggressive. "The Lord be with you" Yeah, well buddy, he'd best be with your spirit cause we all know it needs all the help it can get.

And! what do you mean they took out that whole died, risen, come again spiel? Isn't that the bedrock of it all????????

"like the dewfall"?!

Hell, I may go to mass just so I can bust out laughing when the priest recites that line.

Unitarian services are fun, because you can just say whatever you want, provided you spin your hand above your head in a lasso-ing motion.

Hoyden = Hilarious! I noticed that only 4 superheroes are Lutheran when I went to the list. I sense an anti-Lutheran bias. I am going to complain like the muslims and baptists and get people to bend over backwards to appease me. Wait... Sorry, that won't happen, because Lutherans aren't a buncha whiners, pushing what they believe into everybody's faces. And neither are the Norse/Teutonic pagans. Ain't that right, Big Sven?

p.s. Do they have to pay Cat Stevens every time they say "like the dewfall?"

The literal translations of the Latin they revert to are almost as ugly as the Latin itself. Not that Latin is ugly, but church latin is - the decadent remnant of the real thing. E.g. *Domine non dignus sum ut sub tectum meum intres.* is such an ugly turn of phrase that it's an embrassment keeping it in the mass in Latin.

I was thinking of doing something with Hulk give Jesus can of RIZE, but have decided to just wait for it.

Catholics mumble their prayers at mass. No need to learn the new stuff. Just fuzz up the mumble a bit when the new stuff comes up. God'll get a chuckle.

I call bullshit on changing "And also with you" to "And with your spirit."

I only go to mass for the tradition of it. I am a terrible Catholic but, man, I love that old timey feel of a good mass.

I'm with 10. The last time I attended mass (taking my grandparents), I amused myself by looking around at all the bored people who had no idea what to do and no desire to learn. And somehow being reeleejus and going to church makes them a better person than me, or so I'm told.

Joe M @ 4, I'm going to be laughing over that image all day. Thanks.

Boring! The zombie-Jesus stuff was the best part of this hackneyed religion.

This is gonna be a big mumble for me for a while, as I'm hit and miss on making it to mass every week and sometimes still have to mumble as it is....
C'mon, isn't being a disgruntled ex-catholic-who-stopped-going-as-soon-as-they-went-to-college so 2005?

There's no dewfall in Phoenix. I guess that means we're damned if we don't, and not damned if we dew?

@2 - The Lutherans actually got it from the Catholics. Before the liturgy was translated in to English (pre-Vatican II), the response to "Dominus vobiscum" (The Lord be with you" was "Et cum spiritu tuo" (and with your spirit). It has been the response for hundreds of years. I personally think that it is way to elevated and makes the priest seem much more important to than the laity...but then again, that's a big part of the reason I left.

The only one of the changes I like is the "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof..." because the revised language (which is again a literal translation of the Latin of the pre-Vatican II liturgy - all of the changes are) is actually from Scripture. The rest...they are just too...stilted for me.

So these would be....mass changes?

@3 - I memorized the Red Book of Common Prayer when I was an altar boy (Anglican, same thing as Episcopalian only way more fun and more sex at camp).

Still know most of it by heart - it never leaves you if you did it long enough, PopTart.

I too only go when I'm home visting Mother Vel-DuRay. The thing I find most disturbing is when they put their hands up in the air during the "Our Father". Sometimes people even want to hold hands during it. That's way too protestant for my liking.

And the music! I used to like to sing at church. It was a nice way to break the monotony, and the old hymns were stately and sedate. The new stuff all sounds like it was written by a theology major who was looking to make a quick ten bucks.

“Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.”

If it means the Catholic Church will be abusing commas instead of children, I'm in favor of these changes.

I remember going to my aunt's church wedding and my mother tapped my shoulder because I didn't kneel during the prayer. I was 20. I privately gave her a piece of my mind after the service and put a final nail in that little coffin of misunderstanding as far as she's concerned.

PS Does anyone know how one goes about getting excommunicated? Can I rescind my baptism? (I narrowly escaped confirmation.)

@6: Lex Luther-an. That's all I'm sayin'...

I was about to recite the Apostles Creed (or is it the Nicene Creed? Fucked if I can tell them apart).

It wasn't until moving to Seattle that I discovered that there were two different versions of the Our Father. Oh, and two different sets of Ten Commandments. Oh, and that everyone doesn't call it "mass" or have "priests".

Is there an ex-Catholic social group around somewhere?

Going to Mass really rekindles the memories. Growing up surrounded by all Catholics. Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics.

The Protestants went to churches elsewhere removed. The smattering of Jews and Greeks were Catholic enough, ate pizza (like any good Catholic does) and wore green on St. Paddy's. I grew up suspecting there to be no such thing as a Black Catholic. And I don't know if the Chinese were Catholics or not, but they kind of moved in en masse anyways towards the end of high school.

@22-

Yukyukyuk! Love it!

@23 - more like hundreds of versions, actually.

As a non-believer whose church experiences are predominantly with a small liberal sect on the edges of Christianity, I find the idea of everyone reciting the same liturgy and universally changing what they say on the whims of the church hierarchy baffling. You could all be describing the marriage rituals of Alpha Centauri and it wouldn't sound any less familiar.

Read that shit again with your perv translator on. They just removed all the sexual entendre from the mass.

It sounds to me like Cam'Ron and The Pope are seeing the same shrink.

@14: Not going to church had nothing to do with college. It had to do with finally being in charge of my own time. My whole life, as far back as I can remember, I was dying to not go to church. I never got a hang of that whole 'believing in God' thing, and that makes everything else seem, well, stupid.

And you're saying I'm a cliche because I don't go to church?

Wow.

Anyway, at least I don't refer to myself as a 'recovering Catholic.' I hate that shit.

But it is a cliche, is it not? To be of our generation (assuming you're x-ish) and to be an ex-catholic? It's like having a tattoo.

@ 24 - Try mass anywhere in New Orleans and at Immaculate Conception here in Seattle. 80% or more black Catholics.

You're making assumptions about my atheism that I'm not at all comfortable with, @30.

How about I don't assume you're an unquestioning moron for going to church and you don't assume I gave up Catholicism because I'm a crowd-following hipster—do we have a deal?

You wrote above: "And 'Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again' has been removed from the ceremony altogether."

You also wrote: "'Let your Spirit come upon these gifts, to make them holy' has been replaced with 'Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.'"

I'm wondering where you obtained your information.

From what I've seen and heard, the affirmation of faith that begins "Christ has died..." has not been ommitted in the new wording for the Mass. Another affirmation will be used in its place, but the final wording has not yet been determined. The other affirmations of faith remain the same.

I have read several copies of the current four Eucharistic Prayers as they will be used with the new wording and nowhere have I found any reference to "sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall."

Please do let me know your sources so that I can check them out.

Thank you kindly.

I hear ya, scharrera. It was a little nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Irish/Italian Catholic pretty much suggests White. The first black person I interacted with in my town (a rare sight) was a co-worker my dad brought home with him for a beer after work when I was like 12 or 13. I remember that our dog wouldn't stop barking at first. Kind of a key moment for me at a time where I was just beginning to point my ship towards adulthood.

As a non-Catholic person who spends alot of time around Catholics, I always liked the singing of "Christ is died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again". Musically, it's pretty neat... are they getting rid of that?

Who cares if being "ex-Catholic" is cliched, by the way. It's cliched because lots of people leave the Catholic church -- for very good reasons like, I don't believe in God or the (sometimes ridiculous) tenets. Lots of people are ex-Protestants or just plain ex-religious too. Generally because our parents forced us to go to church, and once we were able to decide for ourselves, we didn't connect with the faith of our birth.

I think 28 has it right - no more "receiving" and "coming" and "being with you".

@32: The source is pretty clearly cited. Click the link above the quotes.

"Anyway, at least I don't refer to myself as a 'recovering Catholic.' I hate that shit."

Amen to that. Those people are dreaful bores.

Simmer down @31! I make no assumptions. A "cliche" isn't always a bad thing - hell, I'm a liberal democrat living in Seattle - it doesn't get more cliche than that either. I'm ok with it. And it's not just hipsters who are ex-Catholics - it's everywhere. And not all ex Catholics are atheists either - read up on your Margot Adler and find that a ton of them are Wiccans.
@ Lloyd, I'm totally with you - I grew up in a heavily hispanic church where I thought that 1. there was something wrong with my family 'cause we were so pasty and 2. there was one little (adopted) black girl in my church growing up - I actually asked my mom if black people could be Catholic. For (not so secret now) shame.

Catholic priest give Hulk holy communion, Hulk eat body of Jesus, drink blood of Jesus, freak out, Corleone out, HULK BECOME MICHAEL CORLEONE!

MICHAEL CORLEONE WILL ORDER EXECUTION OF HEADS OF FIVE FAMILIES AND MOE GREEN!

And no, I don't feel like letting it go.

You wrote: "The source is pretty clearly cited. Click the link above the quotes."

Yes, I read that article. I should have said what are your sources other than the article to which you provided a link. I don't necessarily believe everything I read on the Web first time around, especially when someone quotes just one article.

I wouldn't go to church just to please the parents. I would feel like a hypocrite. And besides, it's all such mythological bull. And it's all stolen from other religions.

@28- I CAME in here to say that- whew. I feel better now. Thanks for COMING in here and letting that out for all of us Sloggers!