Avoid obsession with minor issues

by Letters Editor · July 31, 2014

From Frank Bompas, Johannesburg

Over the past few weeks The Southern Cross has carried letters from John Lee and some others on the issue of the correct way to receive Communion, as well as the posture people should have during Mass.

Exaggerated emphasis on small things is a tool used by the devil to divide and discredit the Church and drive people away from God. (CNS photo/Patrick Novecosky)

I would like to support what your editorial of July 23 said, that the differing opinions and practices in the Church are a healthy and necessary part of the Church.

Even in the New Testament there were quite heated differences of opinion that had to be sorted out in a meeting of the apostles.

I believe making personal attacks on people one does not agree with does not assist in the debates that have to take place in the attempts by the Church to understand and follow the leadings of the Spirit.

However, I have been rather upset by a lack of tolerance on the part of a priest on a completely different issue.

While a certain parish priest returned to his home country for an extended holiday, the parish was put in the care of another priest, who decided that those attending Mass had to sit together in the first few pews when the congregation was relatively small.

The message was repeated ad nauseam by him and when a handful of parishioners ignored his instruction to move to the front during the Saturday evening Mass, he announced that he would not preach.

This incident raises a number of issues. Firstly, can people be compelled to move to the front of the church during Mass? Secondly, what authority does a temporary supply priest have to impose a measure like this?

I do not doubt that from the point of view of liturgical correctness, it is better for people to gather together at the front of the church during Mass.

However, there is no need for a priest to be obsessive on a minor issue like this.

Exaggerated emphasis on small things is a tool used by the devil to divide and discredit the Church and drive people away from God.

We have been admonished by Pope Francis to focus on building up the Church through love and compassion and to avoid giving secondary issues such as liturgical correctness a prominence they do not deserve.