Why Applause is Out of Place in a Church
January 23, 2011
JAMES BOWLING MOZLEY, the nineteenth-century English theologian, wrote:
A Christian is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, and cannot release himself. His religion has brought evil to light in a way which it never was before; it has shown its depth, subtlety, ubiquity; and a revelation, full of mercy on one hand, is terrible in its exposure of the world’s real state on the other. The Gospel fastens the sense of evil upon the mind; a Christian is enlightened, hardened, sharpened, as to evil; he sees it where others do not …. He owns the doctrine of original sin; that doctrine puts him necessarily on his guard against all appearances, sustains his apprehension under perplexity, and prepares him for recognizing anywhere what he knows to be everywhere.
Daniel Mitsui
— Comments —
Steve writes:
You need not turn to a 19th-century theologian to explain why why applause is out of place in a church, you need only turn to the earlier works of our Pope, now gloriously reigning:
“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. ” (emphasis added; Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy p. 198)
