Strange usage of "reverently" -- can it be defended?

Solution 1:

I don’t fully appreciate where the confusion resides. Are you thinking it only involves holy things not just respected things?

Reverently simply means in a reverent manner, with reverence — and per the OED reverence itself means:

1. a. Deep or due respect felt or shown towards a person on account of his or her position, status, or relationship to oneself; deference. Now rare.
   _{In later use difficult to distinguish unambiguously from sense 1b.}

   b. Deep respect, veneration, or admiration for someone or something, esp. a person or thing regarded as sacred or holy.

2. a. The state or condition of being deeply respected or venerated; the quality of inspiring feelings of awe or veneration.

So the way it is used in your cited example it simply means “with deep respect”. There are no holy relics to be venerated here, no holy cows to be gored.

They do have a separate entry for reverently, but it says no more than:

In a reverent manner; with profound respect, veneration, or honour.

As with all these related Latinate ‑ent / ‑ently / ‑ence forms, reverently is a new concoction unknown to Old English, being first attested in the Middle English of the Wycliff Bible after 1382 and in Piers Ploughman perhaps of 1387.

Through derivational morphology, there are a humpty-gazillion more of such triples:

• belligerently, in a belligerent manner, with belligerence
• benevolently, in a benevolent manner, with benevolence
• compliantly, in a compliant manner, with compliance
• confidently, in a confident manner, with confidence
• eloquently, in an eloquent manner, with eloquence
• impatiently, in an impatient manner, with impatience, without patience
• indignantly, in an indignant manner, with indignance
• indolently, in an indolent manner, with indolence
• ineloquently, in an ineloquent manner, with ineloquence, without eloquence
• insouciantly, in an insouciant manner, with insouciance
• intelligently, in an intelligent manner, with intelligence
• irreverently, in an irreverent manner, with irreverence, without reverence
• jubilantly, in a jubilant manner, with jubilance
• magnificently, in a magnificent manner, with magnificence
• negligently, in a negligent manner, with negligence
• nonchalantly, in a nonchalant manner, with nonchalance
• patiently, in a patient manner, with patience
• penitently, in a penitent manner, with penitence
• persistently, in a persistent manner, with persistence
• petulantly, in a petulant manner, with petulance
• plangently, in a plangent manner, with plangence
• pruriently, in a prurient manner, with prurience
• reluctantly, in a reluctany manner, with reluctance
• significantly, in a significant manner, with significance
• subserviently, in a subservient manner, with subservience
• tolerantly, in a tolerant manner, with tolerance
• truculently, in a truculent manner, with truculence

And many more besides.