Christians do it, Catholics do it... from Steubenville to Brazil. Religious entertainment seems to be in fashion these days; all under the pretense of praising and worshipping God….
And what do we have here? Hyped up kids, jumping and waving… is this a rock concert? It looks like one… it sounds like one… it produces the same kind of hysteria... it brings on the same type of emotions... with the same style of song and dance... But no rock concert here; just Catholic kids tricked into believing they are giving glory to God with mayhem. At the 2006 Steubenville Catholic Youth Conference they called it "Praise & Worship". For shame!
Walsingham charismatics having a rocking good time!
Mass in Sao Paulo led by the Rev. Marcelo Rossi, who uses aerobics, films and rock music to reach the young.
RIO DE JANEIRO, OCT 13 (ZENIT).- Fr. Marcelo Rossi, who has had record sales for his CDs of religious music in Brazil, was the closing performer in a massive religious concert yesterday, featuring the talents of eight other priests. An estimated 140,000faithful crowded into a Rio de Janeiro stadium for the event.
At the celebration, Fr. Rossi performed some of the numbers from his best-selling CD "Aerobics of the Lord," which set a record of more than 3 million sales. The profits were designated to create a tribute to the Patroness of Brazil, Our Lady of Aparecida.
Organizers of the event had only planned for 120,000 attendees; in fact, some 15,000 people had to be turned away for lack of space in the stadium, according to reports from the EFE agency.
The "Megashow for Our Patroness," as the event was called broke previous attendance records at the stadium, such as Madonna, whose 1993 concert attracted 118,000 people, and the Rolling Stones, with 90,000.
Wow!
CHARISMATIC ROCK-N-POP
The music ministry sets the tone, arousing the crowd, guiding it between frenzy and sentiment. The crowd sways and shouts and weeps and dances, and all of these are induced by the music. The simple songs, the repetitious verses are mesmerizing.
"Rock"... is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp 147-8)
