'We have seen such disconcerting masses on television ,.. verging on sacrilege (little tables used at Lille. Holy (?) Communion offered by women [1/ with baskets [8], jazz f5f etc.) that from now on I will abstain from following these incredible ceremonies!’ (p. 158).
'Women fl] read epistles from the pulpit publicly, there are very few or no children in the choir (If, and women even offer communion fl J, like at Alencon' (p. 44).
'... that is when the sacraments aren't given out like lollipops by laymen fl J, in parishes where there is more likely to be a plethora than a penury of vicars' (p. 49),
'When the time came for communion, a woman [IJ emerged from the ranks, took the chalice and offered the communion wine /8/ to the assistants' (p. 182).
crisis in the ritual discourse which it upheld and which upheld it. Austin's analysis of the conditions of validity and efficacy of performative utterances seems very bland and thin, in its purely formal ingenuity, when one compares it with the real analysis and criticism which, occasioned by the crisis in the Church, separates out the components of religious ritual - agents, instruments, moments, places, etc. - which hitherto had been inseparably united in a system as coherent and as uniform as the institution responsible for its production and its reproduction. What emerges from the indignant enumeration of all the infringements of the traditional liturgy is a picture - a kind of photographic negative - of the set of institutional conditions which must be fulfilled in order for ritual discourse to be recognized, i.e. received and accepted as such. For ritual to function and operate it must first of all present itself and be perceived as legitimate, with stereotyped symbols serving precisely to show that the agent does not act in his own name and on his own authority, but in his capacity as a delegate. ‘Two years ago an old lady who was a neighbour of mine lay dying, and asked me to fetch the priest. He arrived but without being able to give communion, and. after administering the last rites, kissed her. If, in my last moments on earth. I ask for a priest, it isn’t so that he can kiss me, but so that he can bring me what I need to make the journey to eternity. That kiss was an act of paternalism and not of the sacred Ministry. ’ Ritual symbolism is not effective on its own. but only in so far as it represents - in the theatrical sense of the term - the delegation. Rigorous observance of the code of the uniform liturgy, which governs the sacramental gestures and words, constitutes both the manifestation and the counterpart of the contract of delegation, which makes the priest the holder of ‘a monopoly in the manipulation of the goods of salvation’. Conversely, the abdication of the symbolic attributes of authority, like the cassock. Latin, and consecrated objects and places, highlights a break with the ancient contract of delegation which united a priest with the faithful through the intermediary of the Church. The indignation of the faithful underlines the fact that the conditions which render ritual effective can be brought together only by an institution which is invested with the power to control its manipulation. What is at stake in the crisis of the liturgy is the whole system of conditions which must be fulfilled in order for the institution to function, i.e. the institution which authorizes and regulates the use of the liturgy and which ensures its uniformity through time and space by ensuring the conformity of those who are delegated to carry it out. The crisis over language thus
