Screens and Sacraments

The coronation of King Charles III made for great television: horsemen in breastplates and plumes; a bejeweled aristocracy and the emissaries of empire; a whiff of scandal over the royals who did and didn’t show; and a liturgy as high-church as can be. There were golden copes galore; trumpet blasts and Latin anthems; arcane symbols from the Middle Ages—swords, spurs, a golden orb surmounted by the cross; and the weighty admonition of Scripture that the King of kings had come not to be served but to serve.

The event was suffused with sacramentality, with the conviction that the Incarnation of Jesus is reflected in sacred signs and grace is made efficacious in material things. But, though the symbols of the new monarch’s earthly power—crown and scepter—were photographed, filmed, and broadcast around the world, the rite that most embodied sacrality—the anointing of the king with oil—was hidden from the cameras. In choosing not to allow the heart of the ceremony to be filmed or photographed, Charles was following the precedent set by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, whose coronation in 1953 was the first ever to be televised.

More is at stake in the decision of what to put on screen than British decorum and good taste. Not that decorum should be discounted—I attended an ordination recently at which even the concelebrating priests jostled obnoxiously for photos. But such royal restraint reflects a deeper sacramental sensibility. Liturgy and sacraments do not, after all, confer more grace if they go viral or get likes on social media. A holy anointing works because God is the principal actor in the rite. Television and streaming are instruments of great power; prohibiting their use in all or part of a religious ritual is a way of asserting that the work of a superior power is immeasurably more important.

Living in a city awash with tourists, I’ve also come to realize that taking pictures always means stepping back from full participation in the moment in order to present that moment to an audience elsewhere. Prohibiting the filming or photographing of a royal anointing is a way of asserting how unique and irreplaceable that moment is, that the reality is more important than its representation.

I made a similar argument a few years ago in the midst of the pandemic, with a piece in America magazine questioning the wisdom of streaming the Liturgy of the Eucharist. After all, the consecration of the Eucharist is more sacred even than the making of a king. Not that I doubt that some good can come from putting images of worship online; all the pomp in Westminster Abbey did more to burnish the popularity of the royal family than any number of princes jetting off to conferences on climate change.

The case for putting Mass online and on TV during the pandemic was fairly obvious, the case against it less intuitive. It allowed Catholics to hear the readings and the homily, perhaps while praying along, perhaps while preparing breakfast. The homebound especially were comforted by seeing their familiar parishes. For those formed by years of participation at Mass, the sights and sounds of the liturgy were effective prayer prompts.

But I’ve also learned from pastoral experience that when it comes to the homebound, televised Mass can be a double-edged sword. I’ve seen it used as an excuse to neglect the spiritual needs of the elderly: No need to go to the trouble of bringing Mom to church when she can watch it just as well from home. Watching Mass online means not contributing one’s presence to a flesh-and-blood community.

My suggestion for balancing these competing goods was not unlike the solution struck by Queen Elizabeth: to broadcast the Liturgy of the Word but not the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Liturgical history, after all, teaches us that those who were present for the Word—catechumens, for example—did not always remain for the Eucharist. This solution would allow the homebound to see familiar places and faces but remove the pretense of replacing the Real Presence with virtual presence. A parish wanting to do outreach to sick parishioners could tailor a message or prayer to their needs after the Liturgy of the Word, including contact information for arranging a visit to bring them the sacrament. The homebound themselves could easily be included in making and exchanging such video messages. But there is no substitute for visiting the sick and bringing them communion. Neither the sacraments nor the corporal works of mercy work well on the cheap.

The reaction to the concerns I raised about online liturgy during the pandemic confirmed my suspicion that the Church, by following what everyone else was doing, had conjured a liturgical Frankenstein. I received messages from pastors expressing similar misgivings but saying they felt powerless against the trend. The article’s public comments section filled up with messages wishing me something other than the sign of peace, and I found myself getting snarky in return. I should not have been surprised. As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has observed, the platforms that dominate life online are “almost perfectly designed to bring out our most moralistic and least reflective selves.”

I realized that in suggesting any limits to what could be done online, I had stepped on a new entitlement. Those who had accepted without objection the loss of the actual sacrament lashed out at any restriction of its virtual representation. Some of the “advantages” claimed for online liturgy revealed what was really a darker side. One could surf the world for a liturgical and theological style to one’s liking, rather than be stuck with the local parish. No more pesky fellow parishioners singing off-key behind you, no more having to sit next to the guy who just nabbed your spot in the parking lot. Unfriending your enemies is more efficient than loving them. And though I don’t doubt that online Mass helped many Catholics handle the anxiety of the pandemic, this very fact obscures the larger truth that much of the panic and isolation people were then experiencing was itself the product of our compulsive consumption of online media.

There is something addictive, in fact, in the dynamics of online life, in which all power in heaven and on earth seems just one click away. Screens are an almost magical invention. They make us see what isn’t there and become anything we want. With just a scroll and a tap—less effort than rubbing Aladdin’s lamp—they give us whatever we wish and invite us back for more. Small wonder screens are the source of so many of today’s addictions, from gambling to pornography. Perhaps no invention since money itself so feeds man’s consumer instinct.

And perhaps no object is less sacramental. Instead of the earthy specificity of bread, wine, oil, and touch, screens come as close as material objects can to embodying abstraction. In themselves they are a total blank, yet equally the medium of special effects, delighting us with what isn’t there and what isn’t real. They are all accidents and no substance, transubstantiation inverted.

Occasionally I am asked about using screens in other ways during the liturgy. What about a priest using a tablet to read his homily or the Mass prayers? I am especially reluctant to see the Missal, the Lectionary, or the Book of the Gospels replaced by screens. These are liturgical objects in their own right, which, according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, are themselves “signs and symbols of heavenly realities” and so ought to be “worthy, dignified, and beautiful.” During the liturgy these objects—and not just the ideas they contain—are treated with reverence. The deacon or priest kisses the Book of the Gospels when he finishes reading; a bishop uses the same book to bless the people. Liturgical objects are consecrated—set apart with the sacred—because they put us in touch with realities that transcend this world. I have yet to see an iPad consecrated for liturgical use. The advantage of such devices, after all, is their plasticity; they can be used for just about anything.

Books are not the only objects to reveal the liturgy’s technological conservatism. We don’t need candles for light anymore, but they remain on the altar. This isn’t accidental. Our rites have been handed on to us by a tradition, and their shape and substance reflects the path they’ve traveled to reach us. They are not our inventions, and our reception of them imposes a responsibility to pass them on intact. I do not doubt that those setting up screens on either side of the altar with scrolling words and graphics—yes, I’ve seen it done—intend to aid the transmission of the message contained in Scripture. But unlike the art of medieval cathedrals, which was created with the same aim, the flashiness that makes screens such attention-grabbers also makes them distracting. Raised higher than the altar, they draw the eye from what is central and toward what is peripheral.

When it came time for the anointing of England’s new monarch in Westminster Abbey, after the archbishop of Canterbury had blessed the oil, a half dozen red-coated attendants moved three large screens into place around the throne, blocking the view from every direction except the altar. These screens were rather different from the screens on which the world was watching the ceremony. The three screens placed around the fourteenth-century coronation chair were as low-tech as they come—but they thwarted the camera’s prying eye and all those tens of millions of other screens around the world.

Sometimes what is real is still the most effective. Sometimes showing less reveals more. The sophisticated and ubiquitous screens of our digital world likewise both hide and reveal, but often in the opposite way. Showing too much, they blind us to what is really there.

Anthony R. Lusvardi, S.J., teaches sacramental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Image by Frank O. Salisbury, in the public domain. Image cropped.