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L i t u r g i c a l A b u s e s
FR. WITHIT
By TODD M. AGLIALORO
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 1
 January 1994 
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MY legs felt uncooperative as I approached the back
of the church, where Father was greeting the congregation after Mass.
I had endured it all in the past without a word: altar girls, rubrics
rearranged or ignored, heterodox homilies, even electric-piano accompaniment
to the Consecration. But I had never before confronted a priest about
it. Until today.
I had borne no suspicion at the beginning of Mass. The celebrant,
Father Withit (not his real name, of course) was white-haired and
kindly-looking, probably in his late sixties or early seventies, and
spoke with a rough brogue; instinctively I trusted him.
I know one should never judge by appearances, but if he had been thirty-something
and long-haired, with traces of blue denim and Nikes peeking out from
beneath technicolor vestments, my disposition might have been different.
As it was, I felt optimistic that we were in store for a fairly straight
liturgy, and this made what was to follow more difficult to swallow.
The first sign of trouble came at the penitential rite. Instead of
one of the conventional formulas calling on the members of the congregation
to recall their sins and to ask God to forgive them, Fr. Withit prayed
aloud for God to give us grace to "love one another better."
There was an awkward pause, and the choir followed hesitatingly with
the Kyrie.
A crack having appeared in the dike, the whole works soon burst into
a flood. The remainder of the Mass provided a good example of changing
conventional ways of saying or doing things for no other reason than
to get people to notice, a technique which intends to foster greater
attentiveness but which usually just breeds confusion (see "Adjusting
the Focus," October 1992).
It was evident to everyone by the halting, stumbling way in which
Fr. Withit read from the sacramentary that he was paraphrasing nearly
every sentence, with palpable effort and little success. (It couldn't
have been easy; my heart went out to him.)
One particular goal of his "translation" of the words of
the Mass seemed to be the circumlocution of every instance of the
word "sin." The example par excellence of this practice
came during the Communion rite, after the Lord's Prayer but before
the doxology, where the celebrant should say, "Deliver us Lord,
from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep
us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful
hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ."
Father Withit's version went like this: "Lord, we want to feel
happy and peaceful, not burdened down by the stress and anxiety that
we sometimes feel when we don't quite live our lives according to
the way you want us to. Help us to have peace and joy in our hearts
when we greet Jesus when he comes again." My memory may have
misplaced a word here or there; if anything, the outrageousness of
it all has been diminished, not embellished, in the retelling.
The nadir came just before Communion, when the priest, taking the
host, is supposed to announce that "This is the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world." Fr. Withit felt compelled
to deflate the awesome sense of mystery and reverence (not to mention
fact) which those words convey, and, waving the host casually, substituted
these words instead: "We want to welcome Jesus here this afternoon,
present in this bread and in this wine, and say how pleased we are
to be present at his table"--to which we responded incongruously,
"Lord, I am not worthy . . ."
Not only had Fr. Withit again ad-libbed, turning our plea for mercy
and healing into an ironic non sequitur, but he had pronounced
heresy. "Present in this bread and in this wine" does not
give the teaching of the Church. The notion that Christ is present
in the bread and wine is called consubstantiation, a view held by
some Anglicans and Lutherans.
The Catholic teaching is transubstantiation. It is Christ who is held
in the priest's hands. The bread and wine do not contain him like
a genie in a bottle; they entirely cease to be in their substance.
This is a crucial distinction, and it was on this point that I felt
justified in addressing Fr. Withit.
I waited patiently after Mass was over (although it was never declared
ended; we were just told to "have a good afternoon") until
Father had finished well-wishing his flock. I approached him cautiously.
Right or wrong, this was a priest, and I was about
to tell him his business. Suddenly Father Withit was free and turned
to head back to the sacristy.
"Excuse me, Father," I said without a trace of courage.
"May I speak with you for a moment?" I told him I was disturbed
by some of the things he said during Mass. He seemed genuinely concerned
and strangely surprised.
I first asked him why he had changed so many words of the liturgy
and received two stock replies: (1) Vatican II allowed for certain
variations to be made at the priest's discretion and (2) he liked
to do it occasionally because it helped "shake them [the congregation]
up a bit."
I knew that there are certain parts of the Mass that allow optional
or ad-libbed prayers, but these are few, and there are many more parts
which specifically do not allow for variants. Fr. Withit had changed
nearly everything, with the exception of "This is my body"
and "This is my blood."
Only by coincidence did the odd word or phrase coincide with the sacramentary.
I could see he was arguing ad ignorantiam, and, not wanting
to embarrass him and not wanting him to pull rank on me, I focused
on his second reason.
"But why do this, Father? One of the good things about being
Catholic is that the liturgy is the same always and everywhere."
He contended that after hearing the same words over and over again,
the Mass becomes routine and eventually "they don't hear anything."
Mixing things up a little every now and then helps the people to appreciate
the meanings better, meanings, of course, being more important than
words.
I suggested it was dangerous to separate meanings from the words
intended to convey them, especially in religious matters. The Church
chose certain words for certain reasons, and it was folly to think
we could improve on them. I wanted to tell him that, if he really
wanted to "shake up" the congregation, he should try reading
the Mass straight out of the sacramentary and preaching a homily on
the readings, but I didn't.
Father nodded. "You're right, you're right," he told me,
sincere but unconvinced. Realizing I was getting nowhere, I decided
to bring up the issue of consubstantiation, but before I could speak,
a fresh wave of exiting parishioners, having stayed behind to hear
the choir finish the recessional, approached.
"Thank you so much," gushed a heavy-set woman in
her early fifties, graying, golf-shirted husband in tow. "Beautiful
sermon, Father," said the man, shaking his hand. Fr. Withit smiled
and waved and turned his attention back toward me, even as I hoped
for a chance to slink away. Having the Father Withit Fan Club on the
periphery certainly didn't help my resolve.
Nevertheless I set about explaining to him the problem with saying
that Jesus is present "in the bread and wine," and
I said that at least in that particular case it might be better to
stick with the conventional words, if only to avoid confusing the
people.
He looked at me squarely. "Are you a seminarian?" he asked,
with what I thought might have been a hint of distaste.
I told him I was a student, temporarily forgetting that I wasn't
and not wanting to let on that I worked for Catholic Answers. We went
back and forth for a few minutes, as I tried to establish that there
was a difference between trans- and consubstantiation, and he claiming
that it was just a matter of wordplay. I think I won, because he suddenly
changed tactics.
"Ah, well, you see, transubstantiation is not the teaching of
the Church. It was just a theory of St. Thomas Aquinas. We don't know
how Jesus is present in the bread and wine [I cringed again at the
phrase], because it's a mystery." He smiled.
"Of course it's a mystery, Father, but that doesn't mean we
can't know some things about it. We partially understand what it is
and, more importantly, what it isn't."
He asked what I studied. Theology, I said. "Well, you see,"
he started again, "you can tell the difference. But they,"
he said, motioning toward the church doors, "they don't think
like that. Ask anyone, and they'll [sic] say, `Jesus is present in
the bread and the wine.' But you're right, though, you're right."
His brow furrowed, and he repeated to himself, "Jesus is present
in the bread and wine." It seemed as if he was thinking it through
for the first time. "Still, they don't know the difference."
All the more reason to teach them the truth, I thought. All the more
reason to say Mass the way the Church intends. "Why feed their
ignorance?" I wanted to ask.
Putting his arm around my shoulder, Fr. Withit began to walk back
to the sacristy. This gesture made me trust and want to follow him,
as I have trusted and been guided by other priests since my youth.
He asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I answered him as I
would answer my father: I said I wanted to teach theology. He stopped
walking and began to laugh.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Well, it's just unusual. I mean, a young guy like yourself,
and you want to teach theology?" He laughed again. I didn't know
whether to feel flattered or embarrassed. I chose embarrassed and
excused myself, thanking him for hearing me out.
At the time I counted this as an unprofitable experience, but in retrospect
I see I've learned some things, the first being that priests who propagate
error and dissent are not all (or even mostly) young, scheming radicals
straight out of liberal seminaries.
I realized that sometimes it is the Priest Next Door who is the greatest
danger to the faith: a good man with honest intentions, but in error
nonetheless--in the case of Fr. Withit, a good old man,
easily predating the Council to which so much of this heterodoxy is
(wrongfully) attributed. One's guard tends to be down around a priest
like him. One thing's for sure. We'll have to stay alert--the
Fr. Withits are legion.
Todd M. Aglialoro graduated from Franciscan University
of Steubenville and is the editorial assistant for This Rock..
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