Abstract / DOI
From Radio to Metaverse. Old and New Issues with Liturgy and Media. The relationship between Liturgy and Media is very complex and multi-layered. This paper looks at the beginnings of broadcasts of liturgical services on radio and television and recalls the brief but heated discussion in the 1950s, in which Romano Guardini and Karl Rahner, among others, rejected them with reference to arcane discipline. In the face of de facto success of liturgical broadcasts, the concept of intentional participation in worship by those not physically present was coined. The current pandemic has seen a significant increase in the number of church service broadcasts, livestreams, and other digital offerings. These, with their more and more interactive potentials, and the Internet’s progression into the metaverse raise numerous fundamental liturgical and sacramental theological questions. Many of these are not as new as they may seem.