New Episcopal bishop in DC

News flash from a swamp I left recently: New Episcopal bishop voices liberal views. Justice is a good thing, so it’s no doubt good that the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. favors justice. Still, interpretation is everything, and it’s interesting that his old home diocese joined a number of others who didn’t consent to his election.

Meanwhile, back in Brooklyn, I attended a (Tridentine) pontifical high mass yesterday, the first here in decades. It’s an interesting ceremony, remarkably non-utilitarian and un-American—a choir sings key texts while the celebrant and servers go through the ritual up front. It’s basically incomprehensible unless you know the Latin mass thoroughly and can tell what’s going on at each point from the gestures. You don’t hear the celebrant much at all except when he does the readings, delivers the homily, and provides a few transitional cues. Just as well, since he (the nuncio or whatever to the UN) had a terrible voice and everything is sung. Whatever the defects of his voice, though, it was a shocking thing for an American in the year 2002 to be present at an event that, among other things, was a supreme expression of high civilization presented and accepted as a living reality.
Posted by Jim Kalb at June 03, 2002 08:59 AM | Send