Venial Issue, Mortal Response

I read the story a few days ago and then double-checked the calendar.

Yep, it’s 2006.

I’ll try to keep the glibness to a minimum, but it is not going to be easy. I’m just finding it hard to believe that 15 centuries after the settling in of the so-called Dark Ages, the Catholic Church still is sorting out the fine print of the faith.

You can almost hear a 6th century pope saying, “See, I told you this was complicated.”

But this isn’t AD 506. These aren’t times when peasants can’t read or think for themselves or do anything without the prelates telling them what’s what.

It’s AD 2006, and the peasants are much brighter than they used to be. So this question nags at me: Is it really in keeping with the worshipful spirit in an enlightened age that a priest would chastise some in the flock -- grown men and women -- for kneeling in church during a point in the Mass?

I mean, if you can’t kneel in church....

The word “chastise” is too tame; the priest at St. Mary’s by the Sea says it’s a mortal sin and has invited 55 offending members to leave the church.

They have declined, although I can’t imagine why.

As reported in Sunday’s paper by The Times’ David Haldane, the to-kneel-or-not-to-kneel issue involves a particular moment in the Mass after the priest holds up the chalice and consecrated bread and invokes Christ. For centuries, Roman Catholics knelt after that part of the liturgy. In recent years, however, the Vatican allowed local dioceses to eschew kneeling, and the Orange County diocese has backed the no-kneeling rule during that part of the Mass. Parishioners still kneel during other parts of the service.

Because my mail historically has run the gamut from the devout to the nonbeliever, I know some of you see this as a vexing issue of faith and others are tearing your hair out over the maddening dogma of organized religion.

Don’t get me started, but is it too much to ask whether arguing about kneeling is really doing God’s work on Earth? Is this how the Catholic Church wins back its parishioners?

Here’s how cockeyed things can get: The priest enforcing the kneeling ban says it’s more in keeping with the modern church. That is, those who want to kneel are traditionalists imitating the behavior of early Christians.

For those who didn’t see the Times story or who haven’t been able to figure out how kneeling could possibly be a mortal sin, it’s like this: Traditionalists believe kneeling at that point in the Mass (known as the Agnus Dei), signifies submission and adoration. The modernistic take is that kneeling pays too much homage to an ancient past.

Even as a non-Catholic, I can appreciate that as a potentially interesting debate. But a debate where those on one side are committing a mortal sin?

Why can’t it just be a reasonable difference of interpretation among Catholic brethren?

An e-mailer, a Catholic, confessed to his own uncertainty. “To be honest,” he wrote, “there are so many new rules it’s a bit confusing for us old folks. Especially since this kneeling thing has been going on for hundreds of years and still apparently goes on in many places where local bishops are not as progressive as ours here in the O.C.”

Because I don’t know the e-mailer, I can’t say if he was being sarcastic or not.

I grew up in Protestant territory and always rather admired the mysterious world of the Catholic Church. It just seemed livelier than the staid manner of the Baptist clergy. And some of the more interesting conversations I’ve used in past columns have been with priests.

But I just don’t understand this flap. I don’t understand why, in a world already roiling with religious contentiousness and extremism, a presumably peaceful Orange County church wants to divide its members over whether to kneel or not.

It’s enough to make you wonder: Are people just looking to pick fights?