EDITORIAL Mixed signals worsen liturgy
divisions
Aomething very strange and
topsy-turvy is happening en route to the third revised edition of the Roman
Missal.
No wonder the several hundred U.S. liturgists gathered in Costa
Mesa are bewildered -- as well as battle-scarred -- by the July
release of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (NCR, Aug 25).
Not without reason do they ponder whether someone has been using this
instruction to make mischief.
Currently two documents are circulating -- the General Instruction
on the Roman Missal, which is the law regarding the Roman Missal, and the
Pastoral Introduction to the Order of Mass.
The latter simply is a resource guide to whats in the
General Instruction. The General Instruction itself is something that will be
folded into the Roman Missal.
So, step-by-step: Rome released the General Instruction, which
governs use of a Roman Missal that hasnt yet been issued.
Next, it released the General Instruction in a Latin text, which
itself still has to be corrected. (A Latin text, morever, say critics, that
makes substantial changes to the text without consulting
anyone.)
Further, Rome unveiled this General Instruction aware that local
episcopal conferences do not implement these instructions until after they have
first studied their own official language translation and then written their
own appendix for implementation to the General Instruction.
So, any final version is a year or two away.
To make matters more confused, the U.S. bishops Secretariat
for the Liturgy released its own study translation of the
Vaticans Latin text. U.S. scholars have pointed to 200 errors in the U.S.
study translations 400 paragraphs, plus errors in the Vaticans own
Latin text.
Finally, an unprepared U.S. Catholic church was suddenly besieged
with very mixed signals coming at them from their media before U.S. bishops,
liturgists or pastors had a clue what was happening. Liturgical extremists
suddenly had an opening to take matters into their own hands, and there have
been nasty incidents and exchanges emanating from both altar and pew.
Whatever the intent of all these steps, the results are
disastrously unsettling.
Now U.S. liturgists themselves -- kept out of the discussion loop
-- have to tell the U.S. bishops what to do next to salvage some reason from a
mess dumped on them simultaneously by their own bishops liturgy committee
and by Rome.
This episode is but one more sign of the growing arrogance of some
Vatican congregations in the twilight of this papacy. Romes bureaucrats
have once again placed bishops in an awkward situation in which they act as if
nothing has changed while privately seething that their leadership has been
usurped.
The liturgists want the bishops to withhold release of the
Pastoral Introduction resource guide in any form until diocesan
liturgical commissions and offices of worship have had time to study it.
They want the U.S. bishops to appoint an interdisciplinary ad hoc
committee of bishops from the liturgy, canonical affairs, and pastoral research
and practices committees to study the General Instruction and make
recommendations.
They also urge that in the future the Bishops Committee on
the Liturgy adheres to established processes by which the bishops study,
approve and confirm the texts to ensure a fruitful and orderly
reception.
These are the minimum requirements.
The liturgists particularly, and Catholics generally, deserve an
apology, not just an admission of mistakes, from the conference for its inept
handling of contentious liturgical issues.
We know the bishops are tired of the liturgical haggling. We know
they hope the divisions will heal. We know working with Rome has become an
almost impossible balancing act.
But the divisions have worsened. It will help if the Bishops
Committee on the Liturgy issues a clear statement on how the committee
functions. The bishops have a clear and serious responsibility for cooperating
in the creation of a liturgy for the worlds premier multicultural church
in the light of post-Vatican II liturgical reform. If they are co-responsible
with Rome for developing liturgy, they must also discharge their duties without
allowing the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship to dictate its view.
The bishops must keep in mind that they are also co-responsible
with their own liturgists. And co-responsible with the 62 million Catholics who
currently dont know whats happening to their liturgy. Or why.
National Catholic Reporter, October 20,
2000
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