If we had a Bishop, I'd call him.

I went to what I like to call Milwaukee's "Last Chance Mass" last night, which takes place in an East-side parish at 7 p.m. I generally try to avoid this Mass, because I prefer a more, shall we say, reverent form of worship. But because I fell asleep on my couch watching Cider House Rules, woke up late Sunday morning, and wanted to get some golf in, I attended this evening service. I assure you, that will not happen again.

This friendly parish is on the trendy East-side, and, for better or worse, does a wonderful job of reaching out to those in its community by catering to their progressive lifestyles. At this parish, I have frequently seen same-gendered couples cuddling during service, female alter-servers with their arms raised and lips moving pretending to consecrate the host with the priest, etc.

Well, last night, they had interpretive dancers during the Responsorial Psalm and during the two readings. Yes, I said the two readings. There was no second reading. We went straight from dancing the Psalm into the Hallelujah and the Gospel. The second reading was was forgotten, likely because of the distraction of the midriff-bearing interpretive dancers. And the reading was from Romans. I love Romans! What's even more absurd, is that the 22-second homily was mostly about the reading from Romans, about uniting our sufferings with Christ, which I was able to identify because I had read it beforehand, thank Goodness with a capital G.

Now I'm no pre-Vatican Two-er. I even like Life Teen Masses and think they have their appropriate time and place in the Church, and I was once broken up with because my taste in liturgical music was too progressive. But some things are just not right, and participating in behavior so distracting it spoils the sacred Liturgy of the Word is certainly one of those things.

If we had a Bishop, you can be sure he would be hearing from this one.