Catholic Liturgy Caught Between Polemics About Differences and Embracing Diversity

This chapter starts from the observation that in the Roman Catholic Church the liturgy has been quite a battlefield over the last decades. Many different opinions about it have been uttered, often loaded with affections and attachments to certain ritual forms and shapes. In addition, the liturgy has often been approached from various ideological angles, each one promoting the enhancement of the liturgical life of the faithful and the Church. Ironically, however, very few of these ideologies and opinions have done well to the liturgy itself, or even seriously listened to it. The fundamental reason for that is probably that, whereas ideological schemas tend to function on the basis of binary oppositions, the liturgy cannot be captured by any such dichotomy. Liturgy even invites to undermine binary thinking and reaches out to overcome the blind-sidedness and narrowmindedness that comes along with such schemas. Concretely, four such conceptual oppositions are discussed in this chapter: sacred and profane, liberal and conservative, hierarchical and democratic, and active and contemplative. The goal of disentangling the complexity of being caught in these oppositions is to demonstrate that liturgy does not fall prey to them but instead helps getting beyond them. Moreover, it is shown that liturgy has a unique theological potential not only to further but also to incorporate inclusion and diversity in the Church.