The Tablet (aka The Bitter Pill) has printed a piece about the washing of women’s feet during the Holy Thursday Mass.
Let’s see what this extremist has to say, with my emphases and comments.
Priests should not wash women’s feet, says liturgist
PARISH PRIESTS in England and Wales should not follow the example of Pope Francis by washing women’s feet, according to the liturgy secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. [WOAH! Wait! What a fanatic!]
During the first Holy Week of his papacy, Pope Francis washed the feet of two women on Maundy Thursday at the Casa del Marmo prison for young offenders in Rome.
Fr Paul Gunter, secretary of the Department for Christian Life and Worship, told The Tablet that Pope Francis had legitimately dispensed himself from liturgical norms but that his was a unique pastoral context. In parish churches, Fr Paul said that the washing of the feet is meant to be an imitation of the Last Supper and is “intrinsically attached” to the institution of the priesthood. [Poor poor Father… doesn’t he understand that it’s really all about making people feel good about themselves… and keeping feminists happy? He’s just trying to turn the clock back!]
Other liturgical experts have also pointed out that liturgical rubrics specify that only men should have their feet washed on the grounds that the washing of the feet is supposed to imitate Jesus’ washing the feet of the male Apostles. [Not only sexist, but also species-ist! People should be able to bring their female pets to church to have the hooves and paws washed, or in the case of the leg-challenged, their long pale underbellies.]
Fr Paul, a Benedictine monk who is a professor at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’ Anselmo, Rome, said: “The purpose of the indications for the Washing of the Feet, as given in the Missal, is not to be meanspirited or petty [You know those conservatives. When they day it isn’t about being meanspirited and petty, it’s about being meanspirited and petty.] but to present the rite as the mimesis [imitation] it is,” he said. “Jesus performed the Washing of the Feet when he gave his mandatum to the 12 Apostles. [But the church has move beyond Jesus and those male apostles. We are now free of those hidebound, time-bound, cultural paradigms of patriarchal oppression.] Since the occasion was intrinsically attached to the institution of the priesthood, the gesture was not incomplete because of its not being extended to women.” [Vatican II changed all that. Listen to the Voz del Pueblo!]
Fr Paul also stressed that papal liturgy should not be seen as the exemplar for other liturgies. “It is precisely because the papal liturgy is a distinct reality in itself, that local churches can neither call on its precedent to dispense themselves from norms that apply to the whole Church, nor change, of their own accord, the approved rites and prayers that define and steer the liturgical celebration itself,” Fr Paul said. [See all that white male oppressive legalism? It must be a manifestation of inner insecurities and fears.]
“While it is known that there exist, in some parts of the Church, those who extend the rite of the mandatum to women, contrary to the liturgical norms contained in the liturgical books, and that there are those who also celebrate other rites according to their personal preferences; such indications, nonetheless, pertain to different conversations about ecclesiological perspectives regarding the magisterial authority attached to authorised liturgical books.” [They sure do! Since 13 March we are now free of those old oppressive ways. We are an Easter Pueblo!]
Sounds like “Say The Black – Do The Red” to me.
And on that note… you can buy some stuff!
