What happened to sacred silence?

George Weigel

Catholics once had an intuitive understanding of sacred space: To enter a church, especially in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, was to enter a different kind of environment, one of the hallmarks of which was a reverent silence. Some of that intuition remains. But much of it has been lost.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/01/the-chattering-classes-are-us