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Blasphemy and Drones in Sorocaba
Welcome to the 21st century, where we have drones and people are only beginning to explore their potential applications.
So it was that the São Geraldo Magela church in Sorocaba, Brazil recently used a drone to deliver a monstrance to a priest. The drone flies in, and with a little assistance, makes it to the priest, who places it on the altar. For what it’s worth, the crowd loved it, as you can see from the video:
Since this video has made the rounds, it’s caused a stir, with one blogger at the Catholic Herald calling it “sacrilegious silliness.”
Now, despite being an atheist, I do have an extremely conservative sense of aesthetics, and am extremely conservative when it comes to Catholicism. So I can understand why people would get worked up about this.
That being said, I can see how doing this could be justified, and I don’t know as if it’s particularly blasphemous or anything. It’s certainly novel, but novel isn’t always bad. And old institutions have ways to make compromises with modernity.
So what does everyone think of this? Is there room for drones in church services? Or is this just gimmicky nonsense? And does that make it bad? And is using a drone like this to carry a monstrance sacrilegious?
Published in General
I’ll tell ya what bugs me : in the European cathedrals they’ve replaced the rows of votive candles with electric tea-lights. (Maybe in American ones too? I’ve never been)
To light one little candle is an act of powerful Christian symbolism. This little light of mine. Trim your feeble wick, my brother, etc. It’s not the same when you deposit your precious farthing and the illumination is accomplished by the mechanical clunk of a circuit, the emerging flare of flickering fire by the immediate unwavering pinpoint of a mini-bulb.
I guess they did it cuz they just spent millions scraping the accumulated soot of centuries of candle flame from the walls and ceilings of these places. I don’t care. I don’t like it, no sir!
The Church is sacramental — She engages the senses as an outward sign of the sanctifying grace imparted by God. She attracts by her beauty. Not only are we to experience God’s grace through sight (white garments, lighted candles, exposition of the Eucharist), though. Through touch (the waters of Baptism, the laying on of hands), taste (the Body and Blood experienced in the outward form of bread and wine), smell (incense and anointing oils), and hearing (the words of absolution), we get the full human experience Christ instituted for us during his earthly ministry.
Using a drone in the liturgy detaches us from the sensory experience as human persons. Same with electric tea lights. The Church should present as winsome. I want to smell the sulfur of the match and the bee’s wax of the candle, dangit! We’re conducting a love affair here! Not spending time at the arcade!!
/end rant
I recently attended a service with a cousin’s family at a Byzantine Catholic congregation. It was interesting and I’d go with them again, but for a couple days afterwards my throat was raw from breathing all that incense. Maybe people adjust and get used to it.
Ah, you’re not alone. Incense is a problem for many. My theory is we’ve all grown hypersensitive since we moved away from the
gardenfarm.“The church should present as winsome”. Win some, lose some, I guess! 😂😂😂. But I so agree. Smells ‘n bells, very important. Along those same lines, they never shoulda replaced the poetry of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer with the awful awful gibberish you now have to read. I don’t think there’s any question of memorizing it, cuz it’s neither beautiful nor poetic. It would be like memorizing an instruction manual that’s been poorly translated into English. A sacred space and its rituals should be distinguishable from The World.
It isn’t the Body and Blood of Christ until the priest holds it up at Mass, along with the wine, and blesses it, then the spiritual transformation takes place – the Mystery through the Holy Spirit. It is a weird way to deliver it – but gives a whole new meaning to manna from heaven!
Use of the monstrance presumes that the host has been consecrated. The monstrance ain’t a UPS truck.
You are misinformed. The host in the monstrance is a consecrated host – in other words it is Jesus Christ. Hosts leftover from consecration at mass are placed in the tabernacle – it is Jesus Christ – He is present there.
Small point, maybe, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of monstrance processions, but I gather holding the monstrance up isn’t just so everyone can see it, it’s also giving the monstrance a place of reverence, as befits Christ’s presence.
The monstrance dangling below the drone, though, is below the drone, so that the drone, not it, occupies pride of place. That is distracting.
Not being Catholic myself, I don’t have opinions on this as sacrilege, but it sure does seem silly. I’m not the sort to get angry when worship fails happen, but it sure looks like a worship fail to me.
This is the kind of liturgical abuse and nonsense that Francis Cardinal Arinze addressed in his Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, on certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist.
As he writes:
These prescriptions can be found here (#’s 82-100).
The priest who allowed this needs to be corrected, and if his bishop approved of this, that bishop should be censured by Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.
Given the amount of rules given for Eucharistic linens , I agree.
@midge – even the Episcopal church has really surprising rules concerning the Eucharist. The adornments of linens, gracing the altar, crossing behind the altar when the host is on the altar (new one I learned recently!) We really aren’t that different from Catholics on this one.
They couldn’t find a clown on a unicycle to bring it in??
Oh, nonono….I’m leaving this thread, it’s beginning to strike me as very funny, the idea of the Eucharistic meal being delivered like a takeout pizza…good night, ye faithful!
This would be a good thing to run by Bishop Barron
Yes I know – I thought it is transformed during the Mass, if it is coming by drone, and dropped off or someone delivers it, it is still blessed by the priest in the service, but before that it is merely bread or a wafer?
Here is an explanation of when the bread and wine are changed:
http://www.uscatholic.org/glad-you-asked/2009/08/when-do-bread-and-wine-become-body-and-blood-christ
Is this not correct?
The monstrance is only ever used to contain a consecrated host. There are hosts in monstrances used for perpetual adoration that are there for months — maybe longer. I haven’t looked into it, but I’m sure there are practices for the proper disposition of older consecrated hosts — consecrated hosts that are dropped on the ground during communion are usually consumed by the minister, if not the communicant. The body and blood of Jesus are treated with the utmost reverence, which is why using a drone to “deliver” Him to the altar is so very wrong.
As Martin Luther pointed out when debating/discussing the matter with Zwingli, it depends on the meaning of “is.”