Is the "New Aesthetic of the NC Way Catholic?

Is the “New Aesthetic” of the NC Way Catholic?

There’s another serious unresolved problem after the delivery of the finally approved Statute: the transformation of churches according to a “new aesthetic” which, in the words of the founder, ‘will save the Church of the third millennium’. Clearly, this “new aesthetic” presupposes a “new theology” that is extraneous to the one which springs from the Apostolic Revelation.

New parish in Madrid: the people dressed
in white are those who receive the baptism
in the Jordan at the end of the Way

Looking at the available pictures of many churches founded by the NCW or at the sacred spaces horribly modified in other churches entrusted to them, we can easily verify that along the nave’s main axis the baptismal font (that in the recently built churches becomes an immersion pool), the altar (transformed into an hypertrophic table), the ambo and the presidential seating chair are disposed in a straight line.

This kind of disposition is not accidental or merely aesthetical: it follows a precise symbolical criterion set by the founder, meant to establish a strong feeling of conviviality reinforcing unity inside the community through Neocatechumenal Eucharist. According to Kiko, the church-parish (basically, every NC community which it is split in) may be seen like a woman in labor: the altar represents her stomach; on the Eucharistic table, indeed, the “holy dinner” is celebrated without presenting to the Father, in a bloodless way, the offer of the sacrifice of Christ, who has died for our salvation; the bread (the breaking of the chains of the slavery to egoism) and the wine (the new exodus for all mankind) are considered references to the Jewish Easter more than to the Last Supper (the Body and Blood of Christ, shed as an atonement of sins). The ambo represents the woman’s mouth (indeed, it is from the mouth that the Word is proclaimed); finally, the presidential seating chair represents the woman’s head. The baptismal font is the uterus. The presbyter is merely president of the celebration assembly, a sort of primus inter pares whose charisma is merely that of worship. The traditional figure of the Alter Christus is totally absent. The priest is not celebrating in Christ’s stead, in persona Christi: he merely symbolizes Christ.

The community is hypostatized and anthropomorphized through symbols that aren’t Catholic at all, since the Church identifies itself as Christ’s Mystical Body.

St Toma in Venice: the kneelers disappeared.
This is the disposition of an aligned assembly instead of
a praying Assembly celebrating the Holy Sacrifice

The placement of the benches in a stepped semicircle also tends to highlight the convivial aspect of the Eucharistic liturgy and its reduction to a meeting of the assembly. As a matter of fact, against all the precepts of the magisterium, Kiko believes that it is the assembly who celebrates the Eucharist and states that ‘without Assembly there’s no Eucharist.’ We wish to remind John Paul II’s words in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 31: ‘We understand, then, how important is for a priest to pay head to the conciliar recommendation to daily celebrate the Eucharist—both for his spiritual life, and for the good of the Church and the world—, which is always an action of Christ and His Church, even when the believers have not the opportunity to attend it.’

Even the kneelers have been abolished because the believers ought not kneel, not even during the Consecration. It’s an evident display of indifference towards the Real Presence of the Lord during the most intense, sacred and solemn moment of worship.

According to this “new aesthetic”, the presbyteries in churches are totally transformed according to Kiko’s indisputable instructions: the altars are replaced by enormous square tables (80 cm of height and 235 cm of width) around which the believers sit as if they were dining. The concept of Sacrifice disappear, replaced by the feeling to participate to a dinner, served to the diners by the priest. On top of that, in order to emphasize this communitarian idea every one takes the communion together with the others, not individually after the priest. This practice is contrary to liturgical books and Catholic praxis, that privileges the personal relation with the Lord, that precedes and prepares the communitarian one and may not be replaced by the latter, otherwise the spiritual growth of the single believer is transformed into a symbiosis between the members of a fellowship. This is also contrary to the teachings of the Church, and to a sane psychological growth. Symbiosis paralyzes people and fosters dependence between them. Let alone the “fractio panis” and the care of the sacred vases entrusted to lays as “ostiaries”—a function that is exclusively sacerdotal. It’s another signal of the common priesthood of the believers, belittling sacerdotal ordination, which differs from the first not only for its importance, but in its essence (LG 10).

How is it possible that a lay, Kiko, has had the power to “impose” over the Church this changes that have nothing to do with Catholic tradition?

Browsing all the Documents of the Church and the recent catecheses by the Holy Father about this issue, we wouldn’t be able to find anything to confirm such a devastation of our parishes.

To find evidence about what has been done, it’s sufficient to enter the parishes where the NCW has been sheltered even before any official approval. Some basic but revealing examples: in Rome: the Church of Nativity (“La Natività”) in Via Gallia; San Mauro Abate in Laurentino neighborhood; the crypt of the Canadians Martyrs, once marvelous, now divided into cubicles for the private celebrations of each community; the NC Center of Porto San Giorgio; San Bartolomeo in Tuto in Scandicci, etc. Say nothing of the Domus Galileae and Domus Mamre in Jerusalem, in which you can see (and hear) what happens around the “table”, which is not an Altar [click on the link], as the image here proves.

Together with the Nueva Estética, other extraneous elements have been introduced: pounding, Hispanicized songs (even the liturgical ones), used only by the Way; liturgical furniture—the same in every part of the world—, as much as the sacred images made by the founder; symbols imitating the Jewish ones; a different hierarchy and new functions and praxes. (Many of them are kept secret, which is intolerable in a Catholic context.) Since this “other” reality doesn’t integrate into the Catholic one but swallows and replaces it, it’s fair to say that this is a Church in the Church, whose actions are devastating.

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