From Fr Z’s blog:
For a moment let’s consider the negative sort of clericalism that is part of the The Present Crisis. There is a good kind of clericalism, in a healthy clerical identity. Let’s admit there is a negative clericalism. Surely it rose, in its present form, with constant focus on the priest who is forced by versus populum celebration to become the center of attention. The older form of Holy Mass kept the priest under tight control and made sure that he, as a person, wasn’t the focus.
Versus populum turning of Mass creates an expectation for the priest to perform and to become the reference point, who hectors (with the help of amplification) into a
“self-enclosed circle” as Joseph Ratzinger describes, but with the priest at the center, not so much as alter Christus but as “Just Call Me Bob”, who just happens to dress up in robes and sit facing the people in a finer chair than Caesar ever had.
Read full post here.