Another media outlet flunks a religious-literacy test

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 19, 2018

On an otherwise serious day, let’s have a little fun, at the expense of Maine Public Radio, at whose web site you will find this headline:

Diocese Changes Traditional Mass To Avoid Spreading Flu

The story explains that, in order avoid spreading disease:

The diocese announced Thursday that it’s suspending the sharing of consecrated wine during communion and holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer. The diocese is also discouraging parishioners from shaking hands while greeting each other during the passing of the peace.

People familiar with Catholicism (unlike the headline writer here) know that “Traditional Mass” means something specific: the Extraordinary Form, in which there is no sharing of the Precious Blood and no holding or shaking of hands. But take an extra moment and ask yourself: where are those practices mandated in the Ordinary Form? And if they are not mandated, how is the Mass—T/traditional or otherwise—being changed?