Pope Leo XIV's gentle criticism of contemporary western liturgy is a vital wake-up call - Catholic Herald

Too often, the Catholic Mass in the modern Roman rite feels like a meeting. A well-meaning one, perhaps – but horizontal, flat and alarmingly un-mysterious. There’s handshaking. Folksy banter from the altar. Music that sounds like a leftover from a 1970s guitar retreat. It’s meant to be “engaging”. It ends up being banal.
And people are walking away. Not just from the pews, but from the sense that what happens at Mass is sacred – something transcendent, something beautiful, something terrifying in the best possible sense. About a third of regular Mass-attending Catholics don’t believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist – the “source and summit” of the life of the Church – which is to say nothing of the majorities of Catholics in most countries who don’t even attend Mass.
Pope Leo XIV has noticed.
His 14 May Jubilee address to the Eastern Catholic churches is a rare intervention on this very point. Listening carefully to it, this becomes evident: while praising …