In this recent interview, Cardinal Ratzinger explains why treating the liturgy as a "show" ends up being its downfall.
Q: You are severe in the book with any one who uses the liturgy only in a communicative way, as a means of education of the faithful. Why?
Cardinal Ratzinger: I want to specify that the liturgy is communicative and pastoral.
I am opposed to those who think that it is only communicative when it is transformed into a spectacle, into a sort of 'show,' reducing to very little that great work of art that the liturgy is, when it is well celebrated, with interior participation.
In the last 20 years, Sunday Mass attendance in Germany has decreased by 70%. The faithful do not feel involved in 'creative' celebrations that say nothing to them. Too often the liturgy is treated as something that one can dispose of according to one's whim, as if it were our exclusive property. But in this way we end up by corrupting it.
