After photos appearing to depict blessings or baptisms by water gun went viral online, several priests cautioned that Catholics should take care to treat sacred objects and rites with a proper sense of reverence.
“Putting holy water into a squirt gun and treating it as if it were a comedy sketch on SNL is treating both the sacrament and the blessed water unworthily,” said Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, assistant professor of canon law at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California.
He noted that the Catechism teaches that profaning sacred objects or treating them unworthily is a sin – the sin of sacrilege.
Pietrzyk cautioned against assuming that the intention in a specific instance was to mock the sacraments. “I think we ought to proceed from the premise that it involves individuals who were attempting to make light of the difficulties of the coronavirus situation,” he told CNA.
Still, the priest said, while the intent may have been lighthearted, the photos raise serious concerns.
“[B]lessed objects, including holy water, should be treated with respect and reverence as things set aside to build up the life of faith,” Pietrzyk said.
Fr. Daniel Cardo, who holds the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Liturgical Studies at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, noted that there is a liturgical instrument specifically intended for the sprinkling of water – the aspergilium – which is used during the Easter Season and in other ceremonies when holy water is sprinkled.
“We do this all the time. We bless people at a distance with holy water. We have a beautiful thing that we can use [the aspergilium]. We don’t need toys to do that,” he told CNA.
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Considering the general lack of faith in the clergy, I wonder how many priests bother to bless the water at all.
So nice to hear voices of reason from those we look to as leaders!
So if the priest blessed the super-soaker, would that be kosher?
Where TH is this???? Do these people have above a double-digit I.Q.?
From the look on the congregants’ faces, it appears they are well-entertained.
Maybe it’s an evangelical church and this is their weekend entertainment to bring in the parishioners to keep those collection plates full. Oh, wait… that’s a CRUCIFIX, so it MUST be a Catholic Church.
Remind me again why I converted to The One True Faith. All I see around me are Protestant churches disguised as “Catholic.” Boy, was *I* fooled.
I admit, I’m all for opening the grace of the waters of baptism to everyone and often, even in these days of viral spread, but this makes even me squeamish. I’m the farthest thing from a rad trad, but this really makes me want to run the other way.
Another “spirit” of Vatican II moment. Is acting silly and irreverent in the syllabus at seminary?
Did you not notice that seminary profs at both Saint Patrick Seminary and Saint John Vianney Seminary are noting that it’s not appropriate to use toys with sacraments? So, in answer to your question, acting silly and irreverent is not in the syllabi at either of those seminaries. Nor do I think is cynicism. We should all pray for the men being prepared for priesthood at all seminaries.
When the Mass is made primarily into a social gathering, a la the novus ordo, this behavior is a reasonable conclusion that can be drawn.
If this Mass is understood by the priest as an offering that is pleasing to God, and a re-presentation of Our Lord’s suffering and death on the cross, and is understood by the people to be the means in which the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ (without which “you have no life in you” as Our Lord said) is made present so that they may be strengthened on the journey that leads to the particular Judgement, THEN there is no room for foolishness bordering on sacrilege like this to take place.
This may offend novus ordo attendees and priests but calls for “a more reverent” novus ordo have failed to change anything because of the fundamental nature of the novus-ordo-as-social-gathering built into it by the so-called liturgical experts who fabricated it back in the 60s.
I have been going to Mass for several decades, and never seen anything approaching this nonsense. It certainly isn’t a normal thing and the priest ought to be taken behind the woodshed for a tounge lashing, at least. But, I suspect it is an N-of one, and doesn’t represent the normal Mass. Sometime we try too hard to be relavent.
There is no excuse for this. This priest can get a holy water sprinkler or an aspergilium online or at a Catholic bookstore from $15.95 for stainless steal and on up for the more expensive. Ever a cheaper plastic holy water sprinkler would be far more appropriate.