Here is an interesting article from the New Oxford Review about how the Catholic bishop of Orange has banned kneeling during the Agnus Dei throughout his diocese. Traditionalist Roman Catholics are revolting, as one would expect. One person asks: "It's hard to understand why any bishop would prohibit his people from expressing reverence in the way they have done for centuries," said Helen Hull Hitchcock, a founder of the conservative Adoremus Society for the Renewal of Sacred Liturgy in St. Louis." A big stink developed when the pastor of one parish, who offered a popular Latin mass completee with lots of kneeling, retired, and was replaced by a guy who did the regular mass, and followed the bishop's order, and banned kneeling during the Agnus Dei. He promptly canned some servers and council members who refused to comply with this directive. It seems like a bad situation.
But I have to ask: who are these people to blatantly defy the order of their bishop, who was appointed by the supreme pontiff? And who are they to defy their priest, who represents the bishop? The Roman Catholic Church is not a democracy. I sympathize with them for wanting to kneel, but they simply must obey their bishop in mattters like this. And this raises a larger issue. Everyone who enters the Roman Catholic Church must be prepared to acccept whatever the supreme pontiff teaches and declares as truth. In the Archdioces of Baltimore, people entering the Roman Church are required to say: "I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God." So, should the Catholic Church ever allow priests to marry, or ordain women, the laity better be prepared to accept that. Granted, those are different issues than kneeling or not kneeling, but that's not the point. The point is obedience; will the laity obey those whom the Lord has set over them not matter what they say or do?
