The Spectacle of Worship: Cardinal Cupich, the Extraordinary Form, and the Heart of Catholic Prayer

The Spectacle of Worship: Cardinal Cupich, the Extraordinary Form, and the Heart of Catholic Prayer

 “The liturgical reform benefited from scholarly research into liturgical resources, identifying those adaptations… which had transformed the liturgy’s aesthetics and meaning, making the liturgy more of a spectacle rather than the active participation of all the baptized.”  

 — Cardinal Blase Cupich, The Renewal of Our Worship, October 28, 2025

These words, published just five days after a record-breaking gathering of thousands in St. Peter’s Basilica for a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Extraordinary Form, have landed like a thunderclap in the Catholic world. Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago and a leading voice in the implementation of Pope Francis’s liturgical vision, did not mince words. He described centuries of liturgical development—particularly those that shaped the pre-conciliar rite—as having “erroneously transformed the Mass from a communal event into a more clerical, complex and dramatic spectacle.” 

For many, the timing could not have been more pointed. On October 23, 2025, Cardinal Raymond Burke celebrated the 14th annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage Mass in the Extraordinary Form before a sea of veiled heads, cassocked priests, and incense-laden air. The event was not just a liturgical celebration—it was a statement. And now, Cardinal Cupich has offered a counter-statement: that the very form so cherished by many has, over time, drifted into theatricality, distancing the faithful from the living mystery it is meant to embody.

This is not a new debate. It is, rather, the latest chapter in a centuries-long conversation about how Catholics worship, what the Mass is, and what it should be. To understand Cardinal Cupich’s critique—and to fairly assess its merits and its wounds—we must walk through history, theology, and the human heart. We must ask: When does beauty become vanity? When does reverence become performance? And when does a shepherd’s warning become an act of exclusion?

 Part I: The Long Road to the Altar—A Historical Panorama

The Mass did not emerge fully formed from the Upper Room. It grew. Like a river carving its path through stone, the Eucharistic liturgy has been shaped by prayer, politics, culture, and grace over two millennia.

 The Patristic Seedbed (1st–5th Centuries)

In the earliest centuries, the Eucharist was celebrated in homes, catacombs, and simple basilicas. St. Justin Martyr, writing around 155 AD, describes a Sunday gathering: readings, a homily, prayers of the faithful, the kiss of peace, the offering of bread and wine, the great Eucharistic prayer, and communion. There was no elaborate vesture, no polyphony, no incense clouds. The focus was communion—not just with Christ, but with one another. The president of the assembly (the bishop or priest) stood versus populum, facing the people across a simple table-altar. The language was Greek, then Latin in the West. The structure was flexible, shaped by local custom.

 The Imperial Embrace (4th–8th Centuries)

With Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313 AD), Christianity moved from the margins to the center of empire. Liturgies began to reflect this shift. The basilica replaced the house church. Vestments, once simple, took on the dignity of Roman senatorial garb. Incense, processions, and ceremonial gestures—borrowed from court protocol—entered the sanctuary. By the 8th century, under Charlemagne, the Roman rite was being standardized across the Carolingian Empire. The Ordo Romanus Primus (c. 700) describes a Mass with multiple deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, and singers—each with prescribed roles. What began as a family meal was becoming a sacred drama.

 The Medieval Synthesis (9th–15th Centuries)

The Middle Ages saw the full flowering of liturgical complexity. The rise of private Masses, the development of the Missa Cantata and Missa Solemnis, the proliferation of sequences, tropes, and farced Kyries—all added layers of beauty and symbolism. Gregorian chant reached its zenith under the monks of Solesmes. The elevation of the Host after consecration (introduced in the 13th century) became a focal point of devotion, with bells rung to alert the faithful to “see” the Lord. The laity, increasingly distant from the Latin and the action at the altar, developed parallel devotions: the Rosary, stations of the cross, and Eucharistic adoration.

This was not decay—it was development. But it was development in a particular direction: toward awe, mystery, and hierarchical order. The priest became less a presider among equals and more a mediator between heaven and earth. The congregation, often unable to hear or understand, became observers of a sacred action performed for them, not with them.

 The Tridentine Codification (16th Century)

The Council of Trent (1545–1563), responding to Protestant critiques, standardized the Roman rite in the Missale Romanum of Pope St. Pius V (1570). This was not invention—it was preservation. The Missal of 1570 was largely the Roman Curial Missal of the 13th century, with some medieval accretions pruned. But it froze the rite at a moment of high clericalism and baroque sensibility. The silent canon, the elaborate rubrics, the multiplicity of gestures—all were now law. The Mass became a precision-engineered act of worship, beautiful in its rigor, but increasingly remote from the lived faith of the people.

 The Liturgical Movement (19th–20th Centuries)

By the 19th century, voices arose calling for reform. Dom Prosper Guéranger, abbot of Solesmes, revived Gregorian chant and promoted active participation through dialogue Masses. In Belgium, Dom Lambert Beauduin founded the liturgical movement, insisting that the laity must not be “strangers and silent spectators” at Mass. Pope St. Pius X, in Tra le Sollecitudini (1903), declared that “active participation in the sacred mysteries” was “the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.”

These seeds bore fruit at the Second Vatican Council.

 Part II: Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Vision of Renewal

On December 4, 1963, the Fathers of Vatican II promulgated Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC), the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It was a revolutionary document—not in rejecting tradition, but in reorienting it toward its evangelical purpose.

Key principles included:

- Active Participation: “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (SC 14).

- Noble Simplicity: “The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions” (SC 34).

- Liturgical Formation: The faithful should be taught to understand the rites and take part in them “consciously, actively, and fruitfully” (SC 19).

- Preservation of Tradition: “Finally, there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them” (SC 23).

The Council did not call for the abolition of Latin, the suppression of chant, or the rejection of the older rite. It called for renewal—a stripping away of what obscured the Eucharist’s communal and paschal character.

Cardinal Cupich, in his 2025 reflection, roots his critique in this conciliar vision. He writes:

“These reforms were a direct response to the centuries of development that erroneously had transformed the Mass from a communal event into a more clerical, complex and dramatic spectacle… The renewal of our worship was pursued in keeping with the Council Fathers’ desire to present to the world a church defined not by the trappings of world power but marked by sobriety and simplicity.”

He sees the Extraordinary Form not as evil, but as burdened—burdened by historical accretions that shifted focus from prayer to performance.

 Part III: The Temptation of the Externals—A Pastoral Diagnosis

Let us now turn to the heart of the matter: the human heart.

Among Catholics who cherish the Extraordinary Form, a subset exists—and it is not small—for whom the rite’s externals have become the essence. They are not hypocrites. They are sincere. But sincerity is not immunity from error.

 The Aesthetic Trap

Imagine a Sunday morning. A family arrives early, the mother adjusting her chapel veil, the father checking his 1962 missal. The children, dressed in their finest, recite Latin responses flawlessly. The church is a gothic masterpiece—stone arches, stained glass, flickering candles. The schola sings Palestrina. The priest, in fiddleback chasuble and biretta, processes with measured solemnity. Incense rises like a prayer made visible.

It is beautiful. It is transcendent. It is… intoxicating.

For some, this beauty becomes the point. The Mass is judged not by the grace it imparts, but by the production value. A slight rubrical error—a server stepping left instead of right—ruins the morning. A homily that dares to mention social justice is dismissed as “political.” The family leaves spiritually unchanged, but aesthetically satisfied. They have attended a masterpiece. They have not encountered the Master.

This is the “spectacle” Cardinal Cupich warns against. The Mass becomes a performance—a sacred theater where the priest is actor, the servers are stagehands, and the congregation is audience. The Eucharist, meant to be received, is watched. The sacrifice, meant to be offered, is observed.

 The Theater of Piety

I once knew a man—let’s call him Mark—who attended the Extraordinary Form daily. He knew every gesture, every prayer. He could recite the Suscipe, Sancte Pater from memory. But when his wife left him, he refused to speak to her. When a homeless man asked for help outside the church, Mark walked past, muttering about “liturgical decorum.” His piety was impeccable. His charity was absent.

This is not universal. But it is real. And it is a warning.

The Extraordinary Form, with its silence, its precision, its antiquity, can become a refuge for the spiritually lazy. One need not engage—one need only conform. The Latin shields one from the discomfort of understanding. The rubrics shield one from the messiness of community. The beauty shields one from the demand of conversion.

As St. John of the Cross wrote, “Some souls are so attached to the sweetness of devotion that they forget the purpose for which it was given.” The Extraordinary Form offers sweetness in abundance. But sweetness is not salvation.

 The Danger of Elitism

There is also a social dimension. The Extraordinary Form attracts a certain demographic: educated, often affluent, culturally conservative. Latin proficiency becomes a marker of belonging. Veil-wearing becomes a uniform. The community forms a subculture—complete with its own jargon, its own heroes (Burke, Schneider, Sarah), its own villains (Cupich, Roche, Francis).

This is not inherently wrong. But it can foster a ghetto mentality. The world outside is seen as corrupt, the Church beyond the parish as compromised. The Extraordinary Form becomes not a bridge to the nations, but a bunker against them.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2007 letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum, warned against this:

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

He did not envision enclaves. He envisioned integration. Formation. Mutual enrichment.

 Part IV: A Critique of the Cardinal—When Correction Becomes Condemnation

Cardinal Cupich’s diagnosis is not without merit. But his tone—and his actions—invite serious critique.

 The Weaponization of “Spectacle”

To call the Extraordinary Form a “spectacle” is not neutral. It is loaded. It evokes carnival, not Calvary. It suggests artificiality, not authenticity. For many who love this form—who have wept during the Agnus Dei, who have felt the silence pierce their soul like a sword—this word wounds deeply.

Yes, some misuse the rite. But to paint with so broad a brush is to risk hatred—not of sin, but of the sinner. It is to say, in effect: Your prayer is playacting. Your devotion is delusion.

This is not shepherding. This is scorched-earth rhetoric.

 The Asymmetry of Discipline

In Chicago, under Cardinal Cupich’s leadership, the Extraordinary Form has been severely restricted. Parishes must seek permission. Celebrations are confined to specific locations. Priests are forbidden to celebrate ad orientem even in the ordinary form without approval. Meanwhile, liturgical abuses in other contexts—clown Masses, puppet Masses, rock-band Eucharistic liturgies—go largely unaddressed.

This is not consistency. This is ideology.

If the goal is fidelity to Sacrosanctum Concilium, then let it be applied evenly. Let reverence be demanded across the board. Let active participation be fostered in every parish. Let the Eucharist be treated with awe—whether the priest faces east or west, whether the language is Latin or Spanish.

 The Erasure of Legitimate Diversity

The Church is not a franchise. She is a family. And families have different traditions.

The Extraordinary Form is not a hobby. It is a lex orandi—a law of prayer—that has formed saints: St. Josemaría Escrivá, St. John Henry Newman (in his Anglican years), St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It has drawn converts: Scott Hahn, Taylor Marshall, thousands of young families. It has sustained religious orders: the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the King, the Benedictines of Norcia.

To treat it as a “spectacle” to be managed, restricted, and ultimately eliminated is to amputate a living limb of the Mystical Body.

Pope St. John Paul II, in Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), wrote:

 “The Church has always respected the objective character of the liturgical celebration… At the same time, she has shown great pastoral wisdom in allowing for a certain variety in the forms of celebration.”

Cardinal Cupich’s approach risks abandoning that wisdom.

 Part V: A Path Forward—Beyond Spectacle, Beyond Schism

So where do we go from here?

 For Devotees of the Extraordinary Form

1. Internalize, Don’t Idolize  

   Let the silence teach you to pray, not to posture. Let the Latin draw you into mystery, not into elitism. Let the beauty lead you to charity—the true mark of discipleship.

2. Engage the World  

   Take the grace of the Mass into the streets. Feed the poor. Visit the prisoner. Witness to the Gospel with joy, not judgment.

3. Form the Young  

   Teach your children why the gestures matter—not just how to perform them. Let them see the Mass as a launching pad for mission, not a museum piece.

 For the Wider Church

1. Apply Discipline Evenly  

   If rubrical fidelity matters, let it matter everywhere. If active participation is the goal, let it be taught in every catechesis class.

2. Allow Legitimate Diversity  

   The Extraordinary Form is not a threat. It is a treasure. Let it breathe. Let it enrich. Let it challenge complacency in other celebrations.

3. Foster Mutual Enrichment  

   As Pope Benedict envisioned, let the ordinary form learn from the extraordinary: silence, reverence, ad orientem posture. Let the extraordinary learn from the ordinary: vernacular clarity, communal responses, lay involvement.

 A Personal Reflection

I have prayed both forms. I have knelt in gothic splendor and sat in folding chairs under fluorescent lights. I have heard Palestrina and I have heard “Gather Us In.” And I have learned this: God is not confined by form.

He speaks in silence and in song. He comes in Latin and in Swahili. He is present whether the priest faces the altar or the people—because He is the Priest, the Victim, and the Altar.

The Mass is not a spectacle. It is a sacrament. It is not a show. It is a sharing in the life of the Trinity.

Let us stop fighting over costumes and start fighting for conversion.

Let us stop defending forms and start defending the Form of forms—Christ Himself.

 Conclusion: From Spectators to Saints

Cardinal Cupich is right: the Mass must not be a spectacle. But he is wrong to suggest that the Extraordinary Form is inherently spectacular. The danger lies not in the rite, but in the heart.

Some traditionalists have made the Mass a theater. Some progressives have made it a talent show. Both miss the point. The Mass is a mystery. It is a meal. It is a sacrifice. It is a sending. May we approach it—not as critics, not as connoisseurs, but as children—hungry, humble, and hopeful. And may the God who became bread for us teach us to become bread for the world.

 Sources

1. Cupich, Blase. "The Renewal of Our Worship: Reflections on Sacrosanctum Concilium and Pope Leo XIV's Dilexi Te." Chicago Catholic, October 28, 2025. https://www.chicagocatholic.com/cardinal-blase-j.-cupich/-/article/2025/10/28/the-renewal-of-our-worship-reflections-on-sacrosanctum-concilium-and-pope-leo-xivs-dilexi-te (Note: This is the primary article; exact URL inferred from context.)

2. "Cardinal Cupich calls Traditional Latin Mass 'a spectacle'." The Catholic Herald, October 28, 2025. https://thecatholicherald.com/article/cardinal-cupich-calls-traditional-latin-mass-a-spectacle

3. "Cardinal Cupich: Traditional Latin Mass just a spectacle." The Catholic Thing, October 30, 2025. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/10/30/cardinal-cupich-traditional-latin-mass-just-a-spectacle/

4. "Cardinal Cupich calls the Latin Mass a 'spectacle'." LifeSiteNews, October 31, 2025. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-cupich-calls-the-latin-mass-a-spectacle

5. Second Vatican Council. Sacrosanctum Concilium: Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, December 4, 1963. Vatican.va.

6. Benedict XVI. Letter Accompanying Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007. Vatican.va.

1. Cupich, Blase. “The Renewal of Our Worship: Reflections on Sacrosanctum Concilium and Pope Leo XIV’s Dilexi Te.” Chicago Catholic, October 28, 2025.

2. “Cardinal Cupich calls Traditional Latin Mass ‘a spectacle’.” The Catholic Herald, October 28, 2025.

3. “Cardinal Cupich: Traditional Latin Mass just a spectacle.” The Catholic Thing, October 30, 2025.

4. “Cardinal Cupich calls the Latin Mass a ‘spectacle’.” LifeSiteNews, October 31, 2025.

5. Second Vatican Council. Sacrosanctum Concilium: Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, December 4, 1963. Vatican.va.

6. Benedict XVI. Letter Accompanying Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007. Vatican.va.

7. John Paul II. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003. Vatican.va.

8. Guéranger, Prosper. The Liturgical Year (various volumes), 1841–1866.

9. Jungmann, Josef. The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, 1951.

10. Reid, Alcuin. The Organic Development of the Liturgy, 2005.