La liturgie confinée

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only interrupted the daily existence and the regular functioning of the Catholic Church. Well beyond this interruption, but based on it, the pandemic has ended up highlighting incredible weaknesses in the process of rediscovering of the ritual dimension of faith. This study develops this line of thought by giving it concrete content as a contribution to the debate on the value and non-value of religious rites for human existence as well as secular rites for the life of faith. The study is organized into two parts. In the first part – the ritual pandemic – we begin with the terms of the ritual problem in general, focusing on aspects of the pandemic that can be interpreted from ritual categories. In the second part – the kenosis of the liturgy – we explore a path of negative foundation of the Christian liturgy.