I distinctly remember the day I found myself at Mass at a Capitol Hill church, seated next to one of Congress' great scoundrels. I won't name him but he was a Representative whose legislation at one point nearly destroyed the Reagan presidency and was the cause of rising enemy attacks on the US. Of course during the pax I was compelled by the circumstances to look this fellow in the eye, smile and shake his hand, whereas I would rather have given him a swift knee to the groin. I have never seen what value there can be in compelling some people to pretend in that way at Mass, nor in compelling a worshipper to feel guilt and insincerity. What should one do, flee to the confessional and repent that you want to punish the enemy of my beloved country?
That said, I have no problem in praying for his well-being, his enlightenment, and -- he has since deceased -- his immortal soul. I continue to believe it would have been better to leave the ancient custom alone, let the celebrant and acolytes embrace, and allow the congregation to pray and meditate on how best to reconcile with people who have harmed them, whether in reality or in their imagination. The compelled and embarrassing outward act of handshaking seems to me profoundly inauthentic and for many, makes the Mass smack of hypocrisy.
Thomas Day in "Why Catholics Can't Sing" has a wonderful story of an elederly woman in the cathedral in Chicago quietly telling her beads and repelling would-be shakers with a hissed "I don't hold with that s**t!"
Part of the problem's the banality of the gesture of the handshake - "simple and faithless as a smile or a shake of the hand" as TS Eliot observed - and the promiscuity with which it's given and received. People should be taught how to do it formally, as we did at school, the traditional shoulders/elbows grip conducted in a graceful and stately manner. To one person only. So you see this gesture make its way through the congregation gradually.
If you shift the event to earlier in the Mass, you'd have to move the prayer for peace which follows the Pater Noster. I suppose you could have it at the beginning after an initial rite of purification, so let's bring back the Asperges, that's what I say! - "et super nivem dealbabor" (dealbabor is my third favourite word in the liturgy after "iureiurando" and "phantasmata").
"dealbabor" is especially fun to sing!
It is, isn't it!
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