'In certain parishes near here they no longer do anything. In ours there is the profession of faith in the afternoon [3], which lasts barely an hour [4], without mass or communion [5}, and the children go to mass the following day [3)' (p. 87).
'What is one to make of the attitude of certain priests (all priests in some parishes - it must be contagious) who make no gesture of respect [5J, either by genuflecting or a slight bow, when they are taking or returning the holy sacraments to the tabernacle?' (p. 82).
'In the past one used to say: "Let us not fall into temptation", but now one says [6]: "Submit us not" or "Lead us not into temptation". It's monstrous. I’ve never been able to make myself say it’ (p. 50).
‘It was remarkable to hear, in an ancient Gothic church, the formal version of "Hail Mary" f“Je vous salue Marie’J employed with a much more familiar form of address "Hello, Mary" ("Tie salue Marie”). This familiarity /6/ does not match the spirit of our French language" (p. 86).
‘On returning, after two days of "retreat" [6J, solemn communion was reduced to a profession of faith at five o'clock (3/ one Saturday evening [3}, in everyday dress [7/ (without mass (5] and without communion). "Private" communion is already nothing more than a piece of bread /8J and... no confession [5JP (p. 87).
'Hut I suggest that, with regard to "standing" [5/, you must make a particular reference to those who receive the Eucharist as if they are in a hurry [4), which is t/uile shocking' (p. 49).
themselves, because his speech concentrates within it the accumulated symbolic capital of the group which has delegated him and of which he is the authorized representative. The laws of social physics are only apparently independent of the laws of physics, and the power which certain slogans have to secure efforts from others without expending effort themselves - which is the very aim of magical action1 - is rooted in the capital which the group has accumulated through its effort and whose effective use is subordinated to a whole set of conditions, those which define the rituals of social magic. Most of the conditions that have to be fulfilled in order for a performative utterance to succeed come down to the question of the appropriateness of the speaker - or, better still, his social function - and of the discourse he utters. A performative utterance is destined to fail each time that it is not pronounced by a person who has the ‘power’ to pronounce it, or, more generally, each time that the ‘particular persons and circumstances in a given case’ are not ‘appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked’;4 in short, each lime that the speaker does not have the authority to emit the words that he utters. But perhaps the most important thing to remember is that the success of these operations of social magic - comprised by acts of authority, or, what amounts to the same thing, authorized acts - is dependent on the combination of a systematic set of interdependent conditions which constitute social rituals,
