Liturgy and Culture
2002 Reston, Virginia
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Seminar Convener 2002
Mark Francis, C.S.V. (resides in Rome; superior general for the Congregation of St. Viator)
Seminar Participants 2002
Eileen Crowley-Horak, Arlo Duba, Raúl Gómez (visitor), Clare Johnson (visitor), Thomas Kane, Ruth Meyers, Keith Pecklers, David Petras, Julia Upton
Seminar Report 2002
After a short organizational meeting the Liturgy and Culture Seminar began its work with a brief tour of Reston, Virginia conducted by new resident and seminar member Eileen Crowley-Horak. Taking advantage of the NAAL meeting in Reston, we were especially interested in this city that was founded in the 1960s to counteract the often alienating effects of U.S. suburbia. During our second session we spoke with five local pastors who shared with us the positives and negatives of ministering in a planned community like Reston. We questioned them at length on the relationship between the civic “culture” of Reston and the place that it allows for the churches to be a public witness to the justice of the gospel as well as on the tensions they feel—especially in worship—between their received traditions and the needs of a young, transient population looking for both innovation and stability in worship.
On Saturday morning we asked Linda Sun Crowder of the Ritual-Language-Action Seminar to repeat for us her excellent presentation with slides on “Funeral Rites in San Francisco’s Chinatown.” This presentation provoked a lively exchange and points of comparison with other ethic groups in the U.S. as they face the challenge of maintaining their identity in the context of mainstream U.S. culture.
On Saturday afternoon, using Bill McKibben’s The Age of Missing Information (which dealt with the effects of television on our ability to discern the important questions of human life) as a springboard for discussion, we dialogued on how televised ritual played such an important role in the aftermath of 9-11.
Finally, we determined a more focused agenda for our meeting next year. Three of the group members will offer papers for discussion and critique: (1) Clare Johnson, “Hermeneutical Paradigms and Liturgiam authenticam”; Raúl Gómez, “Points of Convergence and Contrast between Memorial Day and the Hispanic Dia de los Muertos”; Eileen Crowley-Horak, “The Influence of a Culture of Mass Media on Liturgical Practice” (the general theme of her doctoral research).