Where Catholics Meet the Church, by Peter Kwasniewski

By Peter Kwasniewski, Crisis Magazine, April 28, 20211

Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is a writer and speaker on traditional Catholicism. He is the author of ten books, most recently The Holy Bread of Eternal Life (Sophia, 2020). Visit his website at www.peterkwasniewski.com.

Let me begin with a plain fact: the sacred liturgy is where most Catholics most of the time encounter the Church and her teaching.

“The Church” and “the Magisterium” might well seem like abstractions until they take on concrete form in the liturgical rites—the texts, music, ceremonies, and other elements of worship—by which the Faith is expressed. No one has better expressed this “common sense” point of view than Pope Pius IX in his Encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925, explaining why he is instituting a feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ: …