What is a Catholic to make of a “Mass” in which the celebrant throws the Host to the ground and smashes the Communion chalice in fury?
The answer should be simple: denounce this sacrilege. And many Catholics did, when Leonard Bernstein’s Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers was premiered at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
Forty-seven years later, as the musical world celebrates Bernstein’s centenary, Mass still provokes a shudder from orthodox Catholics who think the composer was mocking the cosmic miracle of the Eucharist. And, even if he hadn’t made an act of desecration the climax of Mass, how do you defend dousing the Latin liturgy in radical chic?
