priest fired over improv prayers…

… this story reminds me of a local parish I visited once where the priest changed the Agnus Dei to something like, “Protector of the Earth, you take away our carbon footprint” and some other such nonsense.

“In a rare letter of explanation about an internal personnel dispute, Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville, Ill., publicly responded to the firing of the Rev. William Rowe, who has been pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Carmel, Ill., for 18 years.

Braxton said in the Feb. 14 letter that several parishioners of St. Mary’s had brought audio and video evidence to the bishop “which showed the many changes and omissions Fr. Rowe makes in the Mass.”

Rowe said that when he prays the Roman Missal — the book of prayers, chants and responses used during the Mass — he tends “to change the words that are written in the book to match what I was talking about” in the homily.

“He mentioned in the letter that we clash in our ecclesiology — our image of the church,” said Rowe, 72. “He’s right. He seems to consider the church as the bishops’, and my notion is that the church starts with the people.” full article

Hmm. The same “people” who went to the Bishop in objection of the improvised prayers. The source and summit of the Church is the Eucharists, not the people. Even my nine year old knows that.