The Real Pandemic Exposed – by Jean Doyle
The Church has not escaped the effects of the virus, with churches closed across the globe.
That no effort appears to have been made to keep churches open, even for private prayer, is a tragedy that the bishops will have to give account for.
Perhaps even more deadly for the Church, however, has been a different sort of virus slowly killing the Faith for decades.
Ironically, the Covid-19 crisis has exposed the real and more dangerous pandemic – the grave liturgical sickness that infects so much of the Catholic Church in our time.
The proliferation of online Masses has given an insight into some of the horrors that pass for Catholic liturgy around the globe.
An unlikely but vivid example of this cancer that has afflicted the Body of Christ can be found in the southern-most Diocese of the world – Dunedin in New Zealand.
It has often prided itself on being the furthest Diocese from Rome. Read into that what you will.
The diocesan webpage links to various “lockdown” resources here.
Online liturgies from the Vicar General, Father Gerard Aynsley, and the Vocations Director, Father Mark Chamberlain, are promoted.
If there were any doubts as to why Dunedin boasts no local vocations at present, a glimpse of Fr Chamberlain’s liturgies would give a very clear answer.
Easter Sunday from his office desk, complete with paua shell paten and extemporised prayers, really does make one wonder what sort of vocations could be inspired by such a bizarre liturgy.
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For Holy Thursday, the Vicar General, Father Aynsley, decided that he would “acknowledge what we are missing” by streaming a liturgy other than Mass. A casual Father Aynsley gave an opening talk “handing over the celebration of this liturgy to members of our community.”
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The Easter Sunday “Mass” from the Vicar General’s parish had virtual participation from various people around the parish, including a “Gloria” of sorts to the tune of ‘Old McDonald had a Farm.’ Then, Father Aynsley, Vicar General, handed over to a lady parishioner to give a “homily.”
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Instead of being an embarrassment, Father Aynsley and Father Chamberlain appear to have the full support of Bishop of Dunedin, Most Rev Michael Dooley, who not only has them as his Vicar General and Vocations Director respectively, but also chose them as his chaplains for his episcopal ordination in Dunedin Town Hall on 26 April 2018.
The Diocesan Sunday Mass count has fallen from around 15,000 in the 1980s to less than 5,000 today.
If the liturgies of the Vicar General and Vocations Director are any indication of the state of things throughout the Diocese, there can be little wonder that this is a local Church facing collapse.
Faithful Catholics in Dunedin Diocese may well hope for an outbreak of the Wuhan flu to relieve them of the real virus that has been killing them for decades.