Unlike Don Quixote, we are not delusional, mistaking the windmill, the latest liturgical directive from Rome, for a giant that must be defeated. We shall wave our swords up and down the Vatican grounds in a show of strength we know we don’t possess, then get on with our lives.

It would be great fun if it were not for the fact that the winds generated from Rome are too strong to be ignored and too irrelevant for lengthy sword-playing. Besides, the windmill received an added burst of energy from the June 15th issue of the Chicago Tribune. What it lacked in relevance, it made up for in sheer print inches, contributed by Margaret Ramirez.

Certainly, the story was not worthy of the front page, full right-hand column, and almost an entire half of the back page, in an article titled, “Bishops may alter the words of mass.”

Personally, this much-ado-about-nothing in liturgy land left me embarrassed, not only for the paucity of material generated by the bishops’ conference, but for the newspaper, caught between the obligation to reserve the right-hand column for real news, and placating the hierarchy’s penchant for publicity. In this instance, I suggest no publicity would have been better for the bishops than to see the results of their efforts as front-page news.

Almost with baited breath, Ramirez tells us of the changes in the Mass: After the priest says, “The Lord be with you,” the response would change from “and also with you,” to, “and with your spirit.” Pure semantics.

The faithful would begin the Nicene Creed with, “I believe,” rather than “We believe.” Personally, since the Mass is a community experience, I would think “We “ would be preferred. But then, I am no scripture scholar.

The line, “one in being with the Father,” would change to “consubstantial with the Father.” That’s as prayerful as calling time out for a theological class in the middle of Mass. It won’t work. No way. The windmill may turn round and round, but I can’t imagine its generating much prayerfulness, especially not with the children, whom we are introducing to Jesus, their friend, who speaks their language.

Further on, we find “He was born of the Virgin Mary” would become “by the Holy Spirit was incarnated of the Virgin Mary.” Of course, the second phrase is more accurate, but it is awkward, and will it not be more of a distraction than a prayer? Is not the best here the greatest enemy of the good, as Chesterton might well assert if he were on hand with his great gift of common sense?

Cardinal George came forward with a bit of that rare commodity when he said that many bishops have expressed fear over disrupting the mass as leaders work to restore trust damaged by the sexual abuse scandal. He explained further: “Liturgy is what the church is all about, so no matter what the question is, liturgy inspires intense debate.

“Everybody knows that this translation is far more faithful to the Latin. whether or not it is a good example of the receiver language, English, is one consideration. Whether or not, no matter how good it is, is this the time to change anything, is another consideration. Those are the two arguments going back and forth as the bishops struggle with whether or not to pass this.”

This morning’s news reported that the bishops voted in favor of the changes. Time for all of us Don Quixotes to pack up our swords and leave this particular windmill to twirl around for another day, or another century.

Thousands upon thousands of dollars, contributed by the faithful nationwide, paid for the transportation, hotel bills, meals, etc. to fund this Bishops’ conference, which could easily have been handled by E-mail, leaving each bishop free to visit churches in his diocese, sit down over a cup of coffee with the parishioners, and learn about: lost jobs, mortgages on life-support, the high cost of rest homes, college tuition, braces, etc. Above all, church leaders might hear how much the Mass means to their people, and how a well-thought-out, prayed-over homily can revive their faith, grace their days, and bring joy to their lives.

Chances are, no one will mention a genuine hunger for the liturgical police to guard the sanctuary of the Lord.

Strangely enough, the liturgists didn’t have much to say about the remembrance of one’s sins in the beginning of Mass. After the scandals of the past years, and considering the pivotal part the bishops played in the cover-ups, a lengthy mea culpa might have been expected. Not so. Rather, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, William A. Donohue, a week prior to the national meeting of the nation’s bishops, took out an ad on the op-ed page of The New York Times, defending the church’s handling of the clergy sex abuse crisis, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial released June 16, 2006.

NCR: “The clergy sex abuse crisis -- some would have us believe – is largely about priests taking advantage of or being seduced by older teenage boys. In other words, it’s a gay thing.”

Donohue: “In June 2002, U.S. bishops assembled in Dallas for their annual meeting. It was not a happy time: The sexual abuse scandal dominated the news about the Catholic church.

“Next week the bishops will meet in Los Angeles, only this time few in the media are focusing on the scandal. That’s too bad because this time the news is quite different:”

Donohue noted from a report commissioned by the U.S. bishops that “81 percent of the victims were male, and most were not little kids – they were post-pubescent (the identical figure was reported in cases found between 1950-2002).”

NCR: “It’s simply not true. It’s spin, designed to add heat rather then light to the discussion over the greatest challenge to confront the U.S. church since its founding.”

Then, he goes on to quote statistics from a study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice:

• Of the 6,089 victims assaulted by a priest with multiple victims, two-thirds were age 14 or younger, 20 percent age 10 or younger.
• Of the 1,178 boys assaulted by a priest reported to have abused one minor boy, 55 percent of the victims were age 14 or younger.
• Of the 1,159 girls molested by a multiple-abuser priest, nearly 77 percent were age 14 or younger.
• Of the 591 girls abused by a priest reported to have molested one girl, two-thirds were 14 or younger, nearly one-third age 10 or younger.

NCR: “The ugly inference we are to take from this is that some (many? most?) sexually adventurous teens, largely gay, got what they were looking for.”

Donohue: “It is estimated that the rate of sexual abuse of public school students is more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”

NCR: “...there’s scant evidence and no reliable studies that indicate any such thing. ..virtually no serious research on the topic has been carried out. (NCR, June 2)

Rather than one moment of grief or repentance for this ugly, sinful past, the bishops saw fit to wipe the slate clean by the ad, to tell the world not that much harm was done; the kids were older, knew what they were doing; many seduced the priests. Absolution for the bishops.

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but to speak of liturgical changes without addressing the problem of an ever-diminishing priesthood is to insult the laity’s intelligence. Rome wants to have it both ways: A pre-Vatican liturgy and a pre-Vatican clergy. If they can figure out how to square that circle, I’m listening. Rome should be listening to the announcement by the Women’s Ordination Conference, that on Monday, July 31, 2006, eight U.S. women will be ordained as priests, and four as deacons, in the Roman Catholic Church on a chartered boat in Pittsburgh, Pa. The boat, “Majestic,” will depart from Station Square at 3:00 pm and will sail on the Three Rivers, the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio.

The Pittsburgh ordinations will follow those of four women on Saturday, June 24, 2006, on Lake Constance between Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

While it took years before the Curia paid attention to the sexual abuse of children, though I’m not a betting woman, except at pinochle, I’d lay any odds that already the excommunication papers have been drawn up in classic Latin for these women.

The director of the Women’s Ordination conference, Aisha Taylor, has said, “The Vatican’s stance on ordination, including Canon 1024, which states only a baptized man can validly receive ordination, is based on a lack of respect for women. It also contradicts its own research; in 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission determined that there is no scriptural reason to prohibit women’s ordination. Recent scholarship has confirmed the existence of women ministering in the early church. We are simply asking the Vatican to re-instate the tradition of women’s ordination.”

If a modern Don Quixote wants a Sancho Panza to raise a sword against the windmill of prejudice against women priests, he’ll find a vast army at his disposal, to fight for a new beginning for the Church we cherish.

God bless everyone with the courage to tilt at windmills, great and small.

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