In Koch’s view, the readmission of the celebration of Mass in the preconciliar form is “only the first step,” but “the time is not yet ripe” for further steps. Rome can take further actions only when there is readiness among Catholics to consider new forms of liturgy “in service of the Church.”

According to Koch, “the pope suffers from accusations” that he wishes to go back on the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). On the contrary, the pope wishes to take up statements of the Council on liturgy which have not yet been implemented.

Koch maintains that not everything in today’s liturgical praxis can be justified by the texts of the Council. He named as an example the priest facing the people during the celebration of the Eucharist, about which the Council said  nothing.

In Koch’s opinion, further development of liturgical forms is necessary for an inner renewal of the church. “If the crisis of church life today is above all a crisis of liturgy, then the renewal of the church must begin with a renewal of the liturgy,” he said.

The cardinal’s remarks provoke several reflections.

It is not the case that the Second Vatican Council exhaustively defined the parameters of liturgical reform. Much of this was left to the Consilium to carry out after the Council closed. The Council never mandated versus populum (priest facing the people), nor has any Church document since the Council, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the practice an illegitimate development. Scholars such as Fr. John O’Malley have demonstrated that there is a “spirit of Vatican II” opening up new vistas for the Church. It is to be expected that responsible and creative implementation of the Council would lead to possibilities not yet foreseen at the Council itself. Whether versus populum is one of these can remain an open question. Which is to say, the fact that it isn’t mentioned by the Council doesn’t really answer the question.

I suppose it’s inevitable that any interpretation of Vatican II will emphasize some passages more than others. Ratzinger and Koch and others can point to a few statements of the liturgy constitution (Gregorian chant is to have pride of place, Latin is to be retained) to buttress the claim that they wish to implement the Council’s statement that have been ignored up until now. Fair enough – but specific directives of the Council have to be ever reevaluated in within the broader context of ongoing liturgical development. Within this context, it is difficult indeed to see how the Council fathers ever intended that an unreformed rite of Mass would remain in use alongside a reformed rite. And there is no denying that Liturgiam authenticam, the 2001 Roman document on translation, introduced centralism and thereby undoes the explicit directive of the liturgy constitution that translations are to be prepared and approved by bishops (not Rome).

Finally, I would be very interested in the cardinal’s thoughts on liturgy and ecumenism, not least because he is the head of the Holy See’s ecumenism department. How does he understand his liturgical proposals to contribute to the work for church unity? Some theologians believe that Roman decisions in recent years have been a setback for the cause. What would Cardinal Koch say?

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Pray Tell has a couple articles on ecumenism to share. Here is the first, an incisive reflection on recent backward moves in liturgy and ecumenism by Max Johnson:

“Ecumenism and the Study of Liturgy: What Shall We Do Now?”

(Liturgical Ministry 20, Winter 2011, 13–21. Reprinted with permission.)

Kerfuffles and fisticuffs are nothing new among the various churches that share custody of the major shrines of the Holy Land. Raymond Cohen’s study, Saving the Holy Sepulchre (Oxford, 2008), not only highlights a few of these colorful moments in intra-Christian relations, but illustrates how lack of agreement over how to manage and care for such spaces has imperiled (at times) the fabric of these ancient, holy places.

As a Christian with sympathetic ties to and respect for the Armenian, Byzantine and Roman traditions, I lament that these spats occasionally erupt. I have to wonder how such internal scuffles appear to Christians without an appreciation of the difficult history of these places — or without concern for the ancient historic churches. Moreover, I have to wonder — I can only imagine — how such things appear to non-Christians, whether they are believers in some religious system or not.

Let us pray for one another.

He claims that “language is a piece of social technology for enhancing the benefits of co-operation.” At the same time that the total number of languages in use globally is falling rapidly (it is now something between 7,000 and 8,000), some groups, e.g. on Pacific islands, are creating new languages every day, with significant language variation appearing every kilometer or so. Papua New Guinea, for example, has somewhere between 800 and 1,000 distinct and mutually incomprehensible languages.

Pagel sees language as a means of strengthening group identity. “We use language not just to co-operate but to draw rings around our co-operating groups.”

“This seemingly natural tendency we have toward isolation, towards keeping to ourselves, crashes head-first into our modern world,” he says. He cites the EU as an example; it spends over €1 billion (about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars) annually on translation costs alone. And he concludes:

If language really is the conduit of our co-operation, can we afford to have all these different languages? … In a world in which we want to promote cooperation and exchange, and in a world that might be dependent more than ever before on cooperation to maintain and enhance our levels of prosperity … it might be inevitable that we have to confront the idea that our destiny is to be one world with one language.”

The quotes above are drawn from a talk that Pagel gave at a conference in July of this year; you can watch the video here.

I’m sure that others can contribute sources on language and identity, but I have enjoyed The State of the Language by Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels, published first in 1980 and again in 1989 by the University of California Press, with different essays in the second edition. The 1980 edition features a blistering attack on the language of the revised Episcopalian Prayer Book, and the same author, Margaret Doody, returns in 1989 with an essay on the folly of revising classic hymns for inclusive language. Both editions seem to be readable online through Google Books.

The discussion of language and identity naturally led me to think about the new translation. Some praise it because it will ‘strengthen our Catholic identity’; several blog posters have commented that it ‘sounds more Catholic’ than the 1973 translation. This idea of a distinctively Catholic liturgical language seems to have been mooted in Liturgiam authenticam:

§27   … it will be seen that the observance of the principles set forth in this Instruction will contribute to the gradual development, in each vernacular, of a sacred style that will come to be recognized as proper to liturgical language. Thus it may happen that a certain manner of speech which has come to be considered somewhat obsolete in daily usage may continue to be maintained in the liturgical context.

Similar remarks crop up about Latin, once proposed as a universal language, more recently seen as the ‘sacred language’ of a specific group, rather as classical Hebrew is used in Jewish liturgical worship.

One problem with a group-defining language is that it naturally excludes others. Apparently this was not a problem for the authors of LA:

§29   It is the task of the homily and of catechesis to set forth the meaning of the liturgical texts, illuminating with precision the Church’s understanding regarding the members of particular Churches or ecclesial communities separated from full communion with the Catholic Church and those of Jewish communities, as well as adherents of other religions – and likewise, her understanding of the dignity and equality of all men.  Similarly, it is the task of catechists or of the homilist to transmit that right interpretation of the texts that excludes any prejudice or unjust discrimination on the basis of persons, gender, social condition, race or other criteria, which has no foundation at all in the texts of the Sacred Liturgy. Although considerations such as these may sometimes help one in choosing among various translations of a certain expression, they are not to be considered reasons for altering either a biblical text or a liturgical text that has been duly promulgated.

Our group-defining language is here. Like the rosary or holy cards or the Angelus prayer, the new translation now distinguishes us from other Christians: we are the ones who now say ‘consubstantial’ in the Creed, ‘chalice’ in the Eucharistic Prayer and ‘with your spirit’ to the priest. As a writer in Our Sunday Visitor put it,

The [1973] translation, growing out of the changes initiated by Vatican II, was born in a period of great Catholic optimism. In the spirit of the council, at least as it was popularly understood, the Church was more a partner to society than its scold or its antagonist. In this country, the council coincided with the election of John F. Kennedy, and there was a palpable sense that Catholics had arrived in America. No more Latin. No more fish on Friday. Like the theory that had guided the first vernacular translation, there was now a “dynamic equivalence” between Catholics and their fellow Americans. What so many Catholic leaders of the 20th century had worked for was now true: Catholic Americans were seen as the same as all other Americans.

Some of the younger priests I know seem enthusiastic about no longer being seen as the same as others.  They lard their conversation with Latin words – mens instead of mind, creatio instead of creation; and Latinate locutions – ‘apprehend’ rather than ‘understand,’ for example. Their language creates a stronger Catholic identity.

If all this is true then what does this imply for ecumenical work and worship? Some Orthodox friends of mine say that they are forbidden from praying with non-Orthodox. We aren’t barred from praying with Protestants, but in what language should we do so? How, like Paul, can we become ‘all things to all people’ when our language is distinctive?

To put it another way, how can we be truly Catholic, in the sense of ‘universal’?

Jonathan Day is a consultant and writer; he is also a member of the parish council of the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception (Farm Street) in central London.

A similar thorny issue of liturgy and ecumenism is raised by the participation of Roman Catholics in the ordination of Roman Catholic “womenpriests.” I recently heard of some Catholic women religious prohibited from attending such ordinations. The prohibition raises interesting questions. Of course Roman Catholic laypeople and clergy can and do participate in Protestant ordination liturgies, including in ministries such as lectoring. What is the decisive distinction between, say, an ELCA or Presbyterian ordination and a womenpriest ordination? Is it that the womenpriests are breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church? But so were the Protestants 4 or 5 hundred years ago. (Or, more accurately, Roman Catholics and reformist Protestants broke away from each other, but I’ll let that issue pass for now.) Is it a matter of time, then? You can only attend when the break happened a really long time ago? How long, then, will it be before the womenpriest movement is old enough that Roman Catholics can attend its ordinations in an ecumenical spirit?

It doesn’t work to claim that the prohibitions in the above two cases are needed because the issues are so important. Same-sex unions and women’s ordination are surely important issues, and the teachings of the Roman magisterium are clear in both cases. But surely these teachings are not more important than the Roman Catholic teachings on the Real Presence, or Mass as sacrifice, or invocation of saints, or prayers for the dead, or the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What is the basis for saying that Roman Catholics can attend and participate in ordinations of those Christian traditions rejecting the latter Catholic teachings, but not those ordinations where the doctrinal difference are on much less central teachings around sexuality? Do we Catholics really think that opposition to same-sex marriage and women’s ordination is more central to the faith than the Eucharist and the communion of saints?

Perhaps the issue of scandal is more pressing in the two cases at hand. Many Catholics are agitating for a change on same-sex unions and women’s ordination – in fact, a clear majority of U.S. Catholics disagree with the Roman magisterium on both issues. Ecumenical participation in each other’s liturgies could sow confusion about the official Roman Catholic position. By comparison, Roman Catholics aren’t really pushing for a change in the official position on Real Presence or Eucharistic sacrifice or prayers for the dead or honoring Mary and the saints, and ecumenical liturgical sharing doesn’t imply Catholic agreement with the position of others, or suggest that a change in the Catholic position is imminent.

Be that as it may, this is a PR problem, I think, for the Roman Catholic Church. The impression is given that our highest priorities are the political issues of the day, more than Jesus Christ, his teachings, his mission, his continuing presence in the Church, his call for unity among his followers.

A final note: we all know what the official Roman Catholic position is on same-sex and women priests, and we all know the main reasons why many Catholics don’t accept those teachings. It’s not really a contribution to the discussion to restate or rehash all that, on either side. Could we talk rather about ecumenism and liturgy?

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A few days ago I participated in a Lessons and Carols service in the greater Washington area. While sponsored by a Roman Catholic institution, the service itself was not promoted as Roman Catholic per se, and attracted participants from multiple Christian traditions.

The service was beautiful and spiritually moving; however, something occurred at its beginning that gave me significant pause and raised a question about how far the new Missal translation should reach outside the celebration of the Eucharist.

The presider, a Carmelite priest, began the service by proclaiming, “The Lord be with you.” The congregation responded, “And also with you.” There was a moment of silence, followed by a wave of laughter that swept across the entire worship space for almost thirty full seconds.

Then, the presider said, “Let’s try that again. The Lord be with you.” The laughter immediately died down and the congregation responded, “And with your spirit.”

The presider’s insistence to “try that again” surprised me. First, the greeting itself was not in the program, so presumably the presider took the liberty of offering one, which I find appropriate. However, was his insistence on a greeting that drew upon the new Missal translation appropriate?

The service was not a celebration of the Eucharist or any of the sacraments. The priest fulfilled the role of a prayer service presider – a role for which he qualified by reason of his baptism, not his ordination. Under this scenario, I find it highly questionable for any presider (clergy or lay) to insist upon a particular response recently enshrined in the new Missal translation. It’s neither required nor needed in this context. The presider greeted the congregation, and the congregation responded in kind. Move on.

What happened at the service was relatively small potatoes; yet, it makes me wonder how far the new Missal translation might venture out beyond the celebration of the Eucharist and affect the language of other prayer services and paraliturgies. By and large, these celebrations have enjoyed a level of linguistic freedom in which the unique cultural and spiritual needs of a praying assembly can be captured or expressed through the rich use of metaphors and other poetic devices. I hope this freedom endures for generations to come.

Jeffrey P. Regan received a M.A. in Theology from the Saint John’s School of Theology·Seminary in 2010. He currently serves as a healthcare advocate at a major medical specialty association in greater Washington, D.C. Jeff and his wife, Natalie, reside in Alexandria, Virginia.

Upon publication of the new spiritual guide last weekend, Pope Benedict XVI ordered that an extra 10,000 copies of the missals be “launched” for shipment by air to the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“This new Mass is the bomb,” the Pope was overheard as saying. “I want our Mormon brethren to experience it immediately.”

Full report here.

The whole is worth a read, but perhaps some paragraphs towards the end are particularly significant:

Our part of the Church is not alone in having spent a great deal of effort on liturgical reform. At Advent, our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church will be required to use new liturgical texts. We can always learn from the example of other members of the Christian community and indeed our own liturgy has been reformed by reference to the testimony and practices of the Church of the first centuries.

In former times before the liturgies of our Church had fully recovered these early forms, some of our priests adopted the Roman rite as a sign of fidelity to the ancient common tradition and an expression of our unity in Christ. At best their intention was to contribute to the recovery of a tradition which is both Catholic and Reformed, while pointing the way to the liturgical convergence we now enjoy, not least through the work of the international English Language Liturgical Consultation. They also recognised the proper place in the liturgy of prayer for leaders in the world wide church in addition to our own Archbishop. This is especially true of the Pope, who is undeniably the Patriarch of the West and as head of the Roman Catholic Church is charged with awesome pastoral and missionary responsibilities.

Much has been achieved and the debates of previous generations have influenced the Church’s liturgical practice and contributed to a convergence of eucharistic doctrine and rites. So it is with some dismay that I have learned of the intentions of some clergy in the Diocese to follow instructions which have been addressed to the Roman Catholic Church and to adopt the new Roman eucharistic rites at Advent.

The Pope has recently issued an invitation to Anglicans to move into full communion with the See of Rome in the Ordinariate where it is possible to enjoy the “Anglican patrimony” as full members of the Roman Catholic Church. Three priests in the Diocese have taken this step. They have followed their consciences.

For those who remain there can be no logic in the claim to be offering the Eucharist in communion with the Roman Church which the adoption of the new rites would imply. In these rites there is not only a prayer for the Pope but the expression of a communion with him; a communion Pope Benedict XVI would certainly repudiate.

At the same time rather than building on the hard won convergence of liturgical texts, the new Roman rite varies considerably from its predecessor and thus from Common Worship as well. The rationale for the changes is that the revised texts represent a more faithful translation of the Latin originals and are a return to more traditional language.

Priests and parishes which do adopt the new rites – with their marked divergences from the ELLC texts and in the altered circumstances created by the Pope’s invitation to Anglicans to join the Ordinariate – are making a clear statement of their disassociation not only from the Church of England but from the Roman Communion as well. This is a pastoral unkindness to the laity and a serious canonical matter. The clergy involved have sworn oaths of canonical obedience as well as making their Declaration of Assent. I urge them not to create further disunity by adopting the new rites.

There will be no persecution and no creation of ritual martyrs but at the same time there will be no opportunity to claim that the Bishop’s directions have been unclear. All the bishops of the Diocese when visiting parishes will celebrate according to the rites of the Church of England allowing for permitted local variations under Canon B5.

They do things differently in that part of the Church. For a Catholic response, perhaps less careful theologically than it should be but broadly sympathetic, see here.