Ratzinger charged that after Vatican II, some Catholics “deliberately raised ‘desacralization’ to the level of a program.” By this, he was referring to a liturgical theology that begins from the abolition of the temple and the rending of the vile and concludes that “the death of Jesus, outside the City walls, that is to say, in the public world, is now the true religion. Religion, if it has any being at all, must have it in the nonsacredness of daily life.” Following this program, “they have despoiled the churches as much as they could of that splendor which brings to mind the sacred; and they have reduced the liturgy to the language and the gestures of ordinary life, by means of greetings, common signs of friendship, and such things.”
But: If the abolition of the temple and the rending of the veil don’t mean that, just what do they mean? Isn’t some sort of de-sacralization inherent in the gospel?
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