A bishop in New Zealand intends to celebrate Mass ad orientem throughout Advent, noting how this reflects the Church’s liturgical “diversity” and further emphasises how “the Mass is not about the priest.”
Soon to turn 63, Bishop John Adams has only been in his see of Palmerston North in New Zealand for a little over three years. In that time the Church’s life has been dominated by the Synod on Synodality and the Vatican’s call for “listening” and the “widening of the tent”.
Citing the Synod’s preparatory document, Adams expressed his commitment to widen the tent as requested, but noted that “we have tended to widen the tent on what we might call the progressive side of the Church.” While he expressed no displeasure at that aspect, he wrote that “a tent needs support on both sides if it is to stand, and there is a legitimate diversity within the Church that we should recognise and strengthen.”
