'Missa latina,' yes:
Bowman, Jim
authenticity, Palestinian nationality. So the Palestinian Christians equal human beings; nobody should dominate us or feel they are not a minority. We are Palestinians and we happened to be ...
...national superior of the society's thirty-five priests in the U.S., But that makes it a quintessential ritual language, special lan- takes passing shots at rock music and television (is that so bad...
...been easier than for most other women in Palestinian society...
...They want something more reverential...
...Watching people return from Communion is a medi- Now we have something that may have veered too sharply tation on solidarity, friendship, brotherhood, sisterhood...
...KELLY: What about the place of women...
...our women's movement...
...At the same time, we have been a soci- got to try to make it succeed...
...Say it isn't so...
...Instead, you just show up and more or less nestle into They get it at Lady Immaculate...
...They fill the air while you the wor- causes...
...Maybe because of our geographic Mary Pat Kelly has recently completed her second film position, of our history, the pilgrims that came, we were never about Northern Ireland and is the author of Martin Scorsese: an isolated, self-enclosed society...
...He's one of the few es...
...He's not insecure at all, and into dealing with the human condition took some time...
...At a certain point, he Mass church (doesn't every neighborhood was a socialist...
...He replied, "You has its ups and downs, but it also presents a support system, for are an obstacle to the fulfillment of biblical prophecy...
...modest proposal, if you please, to return My father always believed in social justice...
...Not to pick the favored whipping boy and girl, but The high Mass is sit-and-watch time for worshipers, but it's anti-abortion activists do sometimes put others off with their listening time too...
...Even the forgetful sinner is saved, thanks to this codWomen wear lace head-coverings here, and there are no altar ifying of divine mercy itself...
...he liked...
...ASHRAWI: Our society is a traditional society...
...My mother was very involved...
...For them the Mass says it all...
...You would like to walk Instead, we concentrate on God above...
...It has always ASHRAWI: I'm very realistic...
...guage for church, language that says church is not an exten- but concentrates on devotional themes: how Holy Communion sion of the five-day week, but something different, something infuses charity, for instance, thus cleansing the soul even of out of the way...
...The regular priest, the Reverend Peter Scott, This Mass is in Latin, which is Greek to most of us, I know...
...Do not look for discussion of rights, women's or otherwise...
...He was firmly convinced that all types of dis- have one...
...That gave me a very significant gelicals...
...You would like to make contact...
...We have opposition from what I feel is a riage as a relationship of competition, but one of mutual reinvery sinister source, Christian fundamentalists, the extreme evan- forcement and respect...
...women who are not necessarily know in the First Crusade, they killed the Palestinian Christians educated, who have to gain their own confidence and their own who went out to receive them, massacred all of them...
...ness to the rest of the world...
...They want meat on neighbor...
...Does that mean they are all ical party or parent-teacher organization, but never with quite wrong...
...I had an advantaged upbringing...
...I said it...
...my response to his ship, to restore some of what worked before reform...
...girls, though women sing in the choir above and behind us, where It makes you squirm a bit, but Scott is no martinet...
...advantage over other women, who have to struggle against their I was told by one evangelical, "You people [Palestinians] own family background, their own husbands, their own brothhave no right to exist, whether Christians or Muslims...
...So he wrote a lot about women's rights...
...the more or less monastic, the meditative, the being solitary in That's not my position, but I like their Mass...
...We are Palestinians and we happened to be owned us...
...My parents said, "Our job as parents is to help you Christians, and this is part of our heritage and our authentici- explore your potential, and then you go ahead and forge your ty...
...He wrote even cated priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, heirs to the late about self-liberation, "You cannot liberate the land without lib- rebel archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, who never met a novus ordo erating yourself...
...None turns to me at the rism of the well-meaning klutz-then maybe those stubborn handshake of peace...
...At the same time, as any other Arab society, any third- A BITE OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT world...
...What...
...KELLY: How do you feel about the peace agreement...
...Jim Bowman, former religion editor for the Chicago Daily Let the record show I am not knocking horizontal worship...
...liturgy...
...He was a doc- somehow, somewhat to the old liturgy...
...priest...
...The Muslims are guardians of holy places, of Christian places, future...
...At thing different...
...communion...
...I'm alone with God, and I love it...
...lesson is there one way or another: restore formality, stateliLook, a good modern-church Mass is a joy forever, or at least ness, reverence to the Mass, or ratchet up your current formalfor a few Sunday-afternoon hours...
...nobody should dominate us or feel they are not a minority...
...Traditionalists are a crotchI can get something a lot like it at a meeting of my local polit- ety lot, rebellious and cocksure...
...they have a sense of moral responsibility and not just pros- men who don't measure their value by the amount of oppreselytizing or preaching...
...I'm not he doesn't have this macho male ego...
...This kind conscious awareness of their rights...
...Holding hands at the Lord's ity levels, etc...
...You love God, you might even like the kiss of peace, we do not turn to shake hands with our neigh- God...
...This is important...
...We also have a strong and thriving women's movement...
...ety that has valued education, that has a strong sense of open- Determination and tenacity are necessary...
...no right to exist...
...He was originally from Nazareth...
...As a church we took quite a flyer twenty-some years Walking down the aisle rubbernecking to see who's around is ago when we put our worship in the hands of some liturgical fine, taking the whole-wheat host that cracks when I bite it, that's experts and told them to do it up new...
...V=SA LATRUL' YES I would say for me personally, it hasn't been easy but it's I LIKED IT SO EXCOMMUNICATE ME...
...I tor, yes, but at the same time he always said, "I'm a person first make it after worshiping five Sundays in a and a doctor second...
...Don't look for a lot of refugees from noise and frou-frou, balloons in the sanctuary greeting and meeting, though young parents can be seen after and all that...
...It wasn't easy...
...JIM BOWMAN the Christian twist...
...But the hardest of these, urging me for the tism did not entirely take as a member of the new church, it umpteenth time to give them a favorable report, smiled when seems...
...It's natural...
...Sermons are devotional and things, which isn't bad after a week of bumping into people aggressively pre-Vatican II, drawing on the heavily codified right and left in your search for wealth and immortality...
...He said this even under the British Mandate...
...If it isn't Tridentine (dat- It's just that man is not fed alone by the bread of human ining from the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent 450 years tercourse, even in a divine setting...
...Wow...
...Therefore we did not have A Journey (Thunder's Mouth Press...
...Among the Lady Immaculate worshipers are It's a serious bunch at this church...
...He said they don't go away by Lady Immaculate Roman Catholic, is run by the excommunithemselves, you have to struggle against them...
...These are traditionalist Catholics who reject Vatican II as He raised [my sisters and me] to firmly believe that we were the work of freemasons and Protestants and running-dog lib6: 8 October 1993 Commonweal erals...
...perience...
...You have ers...
...Now it has evolved brant force for equity and justice, it can also be used by ideo- into a genuine grassroots movement that reaches out to women logues to justify atrocities...
...Yes, there are some novus ordo Masses are anathema to these folks at Our Lady hard-nosed folks there, yearning for readier reference to hell Immaculate...
...All the me and for many other women who are working...
...I'm number five, the youngest...
...It isn't against the rules to greet your worship is no cabaret, no more than life...
...There is some backlash now...
...True, from...
...And don't be intimidated...
...I didn't work Jews have to come to Palestine, and therefore you shouldn't in isolation...
...No neighbor in the pew is look- If God writes straight with crooked lines-the favorite aphoing for my hand at the Lord's Prayer...
...Optimism alone doesn't work...
...in search of a newspaper story...
...most societies in the world, women were not always viewed as equals...
...The church, Our crimination were destructive...
...fundamentalism or real discrimination as part of our ongoing heritage...
...He had five daughters...
...It I said, "You want to exterminate all of us...
...as Christians can be guardians of Muslim holy places...
...It just isn't something you have to do as part of the them bones, and sometimes almost raw meat at that...
...It was traditional, So while Christianity is a tool for modern reform, and a vi- composed of urban, middle-class women...
...At the same time, what I do also helps reinforce even be here...
...Especially No celebrant is looking me in the eye, sometimes like a veri- do I feel that something ought to be done about Sunday wortable talk-show host, eliciting (extorting...
...The Lord be (or is) with you...
...mortal sins which one has inadvertently not confessed...
...of absolutist, fundamentalist, dogmatic mentality is counter- Generally, fundamentalist movements would victimize women productive, whether it is Christian, Muslim, or Jewish...
...The effort to translate Christian values sion they exercise over women...
...News, is now a free-lance journalist...
...fine too...
...Daood Mikhail, was a strong believer in women's rights...
...Writing the organist, an insurance salesman and part-time jazz musi- my news story, I found him open and cooperative, unlike some cian, belts out Kyries as choir leader as well...
...sitters have nothing to do but let the music and smell of incense There you are after running around all week, ready for someand overall ambiance of set-piece reverence wash over us...
...My father, Dr...
...It reminds me of the Crusades...
...It's for a whole parish to work on, not just the Prayer is O.K., shaking on it before Communion is fine...
...Commonweal 8 October 1993: 7...
...There was inherent in the system discriminatory attitudes and practices...
...Gregorian Kyrie, Gloria, and the rest come tight-lipped intensity...
...The There...
...Dare I say it...
...Ditto rock-ribbed liberals pressing their hurtling down from above...
...We meditate and leave away changed, if only a little...
...It goes back to the 1920s and chariI felt that if this is Christianity...
...For one thing, I relish the passivity of this worship ex- she spoke of Judgment Day when I would receive my just desserts...
...table work...
...He had such immediate and genuine feel- row at my neighborhood Tridentine-Latin ings...
...It has Latin and the company of others that characterized the now discredited, Gregorian music and incense and long periods when we pew- indeed mostly forbidden, Latin Mass...
...But even before he married, he'd been an advocate of women's rights...
...For them Mass comparing notes...
...theology of that day...
...But God is different from you and me...
...shiper have time to think and be moved...
...I also was very fortunate to marry a man who was very libThe Palestinian churches are active and committed church- erated...
...He was a humanist, an intellectual...
...No song leader is up there waving and weaving to But that's not my point, which is that pre-Vatican II devotion get and help me to be a good Catholic by singing up a storm...
...Tradition...
...Extremely differbors-the virtual highlight of the Masses I usually attend...
...But that's not what comes through in this Tridentine conThe whole thing is anathema to the modern churchgoer, as gregation, unless you ask around, as I did...
...I think we have to keep at it and been male-dominated...
...Lefebvrists are telling us something we ought to listen to...
...first...
...He doesn't view marsaying they all do it...
...You want a mood for some quiet the hand-shaking for Rotary, Kiwanis, and the K.C.'s...
...seems not incompatible with 1990s' soul-feeding...
...I count myself a modern churchgoer, but my bap- and damnation...
...Humankind is fed also by ago), it's not a Mass...
...You in refugee camps, in villages...
Vol. 120 • October 1993 • No. 17
