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Views from the Choir Loft

Liturgy & Clericalism

Fr. David Friel · June 1, 2014

O PRIEST ever wants to be accused of “clericalism.” To be accused of clericalism is an insult to every priest, from the most progressive to the most traditional. It seems, however, that it is more common for priests who are traditional to be considered “clerical.” Why?

Most “traditional” priests have a special love for liturgy. (Shouldn’t this be true of every priest?) There is life outside the liturgy, to be sure, but should not the sacred liturgy be fundamental to every priest’s existence? There is a sentence in the introduction to the new collected works of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI that captures this sentiment quite frankly: “The liturgy of the Church has been for me since my childhood the central reality of my life.” That is a profound claim.

Very often, this love for liturgy will be used by a particular priest’s detractors as evidence of his clericalism. Many such accusations, though, boil down to nothing more than a healthy sense of priestly identity. Love of liturgy—and, specifically, employment of its traditional forms—is not clericalism. The liturgy, after all, is not about the priest. It is about Jesus Christ, the spotless, innocent Lamb.

Clericalism subsists, rather, in the priest who believes that the Church and her faithful exist to serve him, instead of the reverse. A true clericalist is one who interiorly rejects the image of Christ as One Who came “not to be served, but to serve.”

Towards the end of my time as a student at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, we were blessed by the presence of an old priest who had been assigned to live there and work as a spiritual director. He was well admired by everyone on campus. In some five decades of priestly service, he served as a beloved professor, confessor, and pastor. In his sprier days, he had been the quarterback of his high school football team, but by this point he was tethered to an oxygen tank and never strayed too far from his rollator. Everyone called this priest “Father Meehan.”

Fr. Meehan gave a homily one day, shortly before his death, that struck me deeply. He sat to give this homily, not in defiance of the rubrics, but because he lacked the strength to stand. It was close to the end of the academic year, so ordination was imminent for many of the men in our community. Father spoke movingly about the meaning of priesthood and the life of Christian service to which all priests are called. Some priests, he observed, think of being ordained as an achievement, or a promotion, or a reward for enduring seminary formation. He pleaded with us all to forget those ideas. To the contrary, he explained: “Ordination is not a step up; it is a step down.”

A “clericalist” is not one who loves liturgy, but one who rejects the wisdom of Fr. Meehan.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Latin Mass, Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum, Traditional Latin Mass Tridentine Rite Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

Impelled by the weightiest of reasons, we are fully determined to restore Latin to its position of honor, and to do all We can to promote its study and use. The employment of Latin has recently been contested in many quarters, and many are asking what the mind of the Apostolic See is in this matter. We have therefore decided to issue the timely directives contained in this document, so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored.”

— Pope John XXIII (22 February 1962)

Recent Posts

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  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)

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