My Dad grew up going to a little congregational Protestant church in an old part of Kansas City, Kansas. His conversion to the Catholic Church was an intellectual decision.

Mom's conversion, a few years before Dad, was based in an emotional connection and a bit of divine providence. It's her story, not really mine, so I won't share it here. But if we're ever hanging out some time, ask me. It's a great story. But I digress.

A lot of Dad's perspective on the Catholic Church comes from his Protestant background, it's interesting to me to hear him posit on the Church because his point of view is pretty different than mine. But he's Catholic and for years helped teach the classes for people wanting to learn more about Catholicism since he'd done it all before (and knows how to speak Protestant).

One of the things that he likes to chuckle about is how his church would hire their own preacher. If that preacher spent too much time chastising the congregation, they'd call a committee together and fire the reverend. If they got a really good preacher, the little church would see attendance grow as people would bring their friends and family. If they had a preacher that wasn't a real dynamic speaker (an occupational hazard in the preaching business), there weren't so many butts in the pews any more.

On paper, Catholics don't do that. If we get a priest assigned to our parish that is a crummy homilist, folks, we're stuck with him. If he doesn't offer Mass just exactly the way you like it or if his sermons ramble meaninglessly for twenty minutes--tough cookies. He's going to be at the altar for the next 2 to 8 years. Ordinary Catholic churches are divided into parish boundaries, if you live in a particular parish's boundaries, you're to go to the corresponding Church. If you want to be a member of a parish outside the boundaries, you've actually got to get permission from your territorial parish to join the other. It's not really the hassle that it sounds like, I promise. My lovely wife and I did it.

There are non-territorial parishes, called "personal parishes", who carry permission from the Bishop to operate without boundaries. Personal Parishes serve a particular mission or need--like the Holy Trinity Chapel in Johnson County. It serves the Korean Catholic community. Additionally, a lot of Latin Mass communities are based in personal parishes. But again, I digress.

Because people are generally divided into their neighborhood parishes, congregations way outlast priests. In my Ordinary round spaceship parish, there's people in the pews that remember the parish before it was considered Ordinary and before it was a round spaceship. The biggest difference is that your usual rank-and-file Catholics don't get a vote in who their priest is going to be--the Bishop makes those decisions, not some self-appointed committee. There's probably a lot of people who'd like a vote in the process, but the Catholic Church is not a democracy! So if you get stuck with a priest that doesn't flip your dipper, you've just got to wait it out.

And this too, shall pass.

It probably wasn't as big of a deal until the last few decades. There used to be a lot more priests than there are now, a large parish might have a main pastor and 3 or 4 other associate pastors. So if one priest wasn't very sermon-oriented, you might not catch his stop in the rotation for weeks at a time. But these days, even the huge suburban parishes are lucky if they've got 2 priests, some country priests might be pastors to 3 or 4 parishes at the same time. So if you're idea of liturgy and Father's idea of liturgy don't match up, there's not much avoiding it. But for the last 500 years or so until the 1960's, the Mass was a lot more codified and wasn't so priest-centric.

One thing my Dad likes to talk about is how good it was that the Second Vatican Council de-emphasized the priest as the only portal to God; he says that the old Tridentine Latin Mass was rigidly priest-centric. He's never been to the old Mass and isn't interested in going. That's fine. He doesn't have to go! But I'd make a case that between the pick-and-choose prayers, the priest's chair is in the middle of the room in front of the tabernacle and crucifix, the priest standing at the middle of the room at an altar table-- and all the pews wrap around him behind the altar table, that all the altar servers have been reduced to mere props to hold books or fetch cruets for the priest--in fact, the Novus Ordo Mass is MORE priest-centric than the old Mass. In the TLM, the priest and people each faced the Lord together, altar boys attend to the sanctuary and congregation as well as the priest, the priest's chair is off to the side and all the focus is on Christ on the cross. In fact, with the priest standing before some of the great high altars, the priest is really quite dwarfed by the majesty of Christ on the altar. But again, I digress.

In any manner, I wonder if when there's a mismatch between priest and congregation, who is more uncomfortable--priest or congregation?

Good Father Rossman is a recently ordained priest and associate pastor of Prince of Peace Church in Olathe, Kansas. He's on his first assignment out of seminary, and it looks like some of his congregation wants to butt heads with him. As he's presented the story, he's got some parishioners who just start singing their own songs at daily Mass and don't care to listen to what he says about the liturgy. Sorry folks, it doesn't work like that. It's the priest's call, not yours.

Liturgy is quite a mess for your average Catholic in the pews. We've all got an opinion. If you're a recent convert and think you don't have an opinion, wait until you've got a new priest assigned to your parish--trust me, you've got an opinion (and it may not be a charitable opinion). Going to Mass on Sundays is how most churchgoing Catholics interact with their Church. For most of us, that's the only time we really spend thinking about being Catholic. So if we're going to give an hour or so, we expect that the priest is going to act out the show just the way we want it.

Expecting perfection is probably asking for disappointment.

Liturgical abuses and honest mistakes aside, priests generally want to offer a good Mass every day. They (should) take time to write a good homily, they expect that the organist and choir knows how to do their part, that the lector has pre-read the readings and knows how to pronounce Zerubbabel, Artaxerxes, Mithredath and Tabeel, that the servers know how to light candles without setting their cassocks on fire... there's a lot of "moving parts" to Mass. I bet there's a little breath-holding every time the pianist bangs out the opening notes to "Gather us In".

But since most of us only "touch" the Church through Sunday Mass, we've got some high standards. Unfair? Perhaps. Real anyway? You bet.

I had a friend of mine shoot me a text message the other day wanting to know about a Mass he was just getting back from attending. He said that right after the "sign of peace", everyone knelt for the "Lamb of God" prayer and for the Centurion's prayer, but that Father just forgot that part and started handing ciboria to all the Extraordinary Ministers around him. It was probably an honest mistake and doesn't affect the validity of the Mass, but that's the kind of stuff that really gets under the skin of Catholics.

I bet that congregational Protestant churches don't have these dilemmas. But Catholics have a handbook that allows them to better micromanage from the pews, so it's right in our wheelhouse. We've got the script and the stage notes ahead of time.

This is something I really struggle with.

I have to stop myself from feeling real resentment when Mass doesn't go my way. I have a tendency to be a liturgical fuddy-duddy. It's not fair to Father, it's not fair to my wife (who disinterestedly puts up with my complaining), it's not fair to me. Being judgmental and polemic is a weakness, and I have to make up my mind ahead of time to not let Mass be a near occasion of sin. And I haven't figured out if it's something I should include in confession and how, exactly, to tell Father that his Mass drives me crazy. It's hard. But this isn't a perfect world, and when I was in the sanctuary, I was a crappy altar boy--so I guess I can understand a little of what the priest has to deal with. Early daily Mass helps that; they're usually so rigid and formulaic that there's not much variation. And there's not many moving parts: if there's an altar "boy", he's probably in his 60's, as is any lector that might be there.

I like daily Mass. I get up early and go at least once a week. The Masses are quiet and fairly slow, they really give a sense of a "sacred silence" that you don't get on Sunday Morning with the honking flutes in the children's chorus or the tambourine rattle of the noon-time folk Mass. Daily Mass people aren't there for entertainment or a show. I'm a fuddy duddy. I like daily Mass.

Yet still, each Mass offered validly and licitly is worth any other Mass offered validly and licitly. So personal preferences aside, we meet our Sunday Obligation even if we prefer the cantor to sing Marty Haugen songs rather than David Haas ditties. And as a matter of meeting the minimum obligations, this much is true. But if it is further true that the law of prayer is the law of belief, then based on some sloppy Masses, we've got some Catholics with sloppy beliefs. Myself included, of course--I'm on my way back from being a "Cafeteria Catholic", which for years I just somewhat jokingly called an "American Catholic".

This journey back is part of my fudd-duddery.

But, if as in Fr. Rossman's case, I agree that the priest can put limits on the Congregation making up their own service music, then probably the door swings both ways. Father probably has the ability to loosen the limits on what is fair game in a church liturgy--within the wide boundaries of the black and red print in our St. Joseph's hand missals.

These are the cards we're dealt. The Catholic Church isn't a democracy, we don't get a vote. Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est. And when the Mass ends, go in peace. There's enough strife in the world, don't let church cause you any more.