VIEW FROM THE PEW
Hey, how about that Magnum Principium?
That ought to push the Liturgiam Authenticam back to the bottom shelf, yah?
Maybe we will get back in the true spirit of the Sacrosanctum Concilium; not a minute too soon, I’d say.
I know some think Papa Francisco exceeded his teaching magisterium limits with the motu proprio he issued Sept. 9, making changes to Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. No doubt there’s even some who wish one of the pope’s 265 predecessors had declared ex cathera that God wants us to worship him in Latin, period.
But why would he? I mean, his only son was sent into a culture and time where Aramaic was spoken and Latin was the language of the cruel conquerors. The Christian scriptures were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.
But, back to Latin in the 21st century. The classical language of ancient Rome is still the official language of the Vatican, a standard of communication down through the ranks, across the globe, same thing whether you’re a Catholic who speaks German or Urdu or Hawaiian. It is the text of pronouncements which are identified by the first few words of each document, but you probably know that, right?
Pope Francis’ apostolic letter last month, starts out “The great principle” — magnum principium. It’s identified in Vatican-speak as motu proprio, written on his own initiative as compared to being the result of a committee or council. He tweaked Canon Law to affirm the work of the Second Vatican Council — sacrosanctum consilium — by shifting authority from Vatican bureaucracy to bishops around the world when it comes to approving language we people in the pews use in celebrating the Eucharist. It’s a major shift from the 2001 “authentic liturgy” instruction from the Vatican Office for Orthodoxy and Obtuse Language that effectively detoured liturgical language reform from understandable vernacular language such as English and put us back into translations from the ancient Latin.
I lied, that’s not the agency’s real name, just my take on the mindset of a sizeable slice of our church’s bureaucracy who lean toward “reforming the reform” made by Vatican II. Thanks to that conclave, we speak our own language in prayers, hymns and proclamation of Scripture, we watch the priest facing us during the consecration, we are a community worshiping together not only spectators to the priests and bishops.
Since that happened more than 50 years ago, why grind on history?
I had a flashback just a few weeks ago, emptying an overloaded desk drawer. Deep in the back corner was my 1950 edition St. Joseph Daily Missal, a couple inches thick. On each page, there’s the Latin on the left, English on the right. There’s the memory of trying to keep up as Father read the Latin, hard to hear since he had his back to us. I remember the altar boys racing each other to the finish of the responses which none of us were speaking aloud. I had an alleluia moment just tucking that artifact away.
But that’s not a universal attitude. Just last year, there was an attempt to send us back to medieval times when the cardinal head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments sent out instructions that priests shall resume saying Mass facing east — the back wall instead of the congregation. Pope Francis quickly squashed that retro idea.
That skirmish in the liturgy wars made headlines in some media, as did his action last month affirming bishops’ power to determine the language. “Francis altered a key 2001 instruction by Pope John Paul II that empowered Vatican officials in Rome to ensure local translations adhered to the standard Latin,” said a Sept. 9 New York Times story which headlined the action as a hugely important liturgical reform. “Catholic progressives have advocated a greater use of contemporary idioms consistent with the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and many bristled under what they considered a heavy and out-of-touch hand from Rome.” The story pointed out what a shift it is from the tenure of Pope Benedict XVI who promoted greater access to the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass in his own motu proprio.
We know all that stuff, you might say. Who cares as long as I can find the current liturgy in the pew. If you’re a typical Catholic with limited access to, or interest in, real news sources, all the liturgy war chapters may have completely passed you by. But there you are in the trenches standing to recite the Nicene Creed together at Mass. If you’re like me, you reach for the missalette to read it verbatim because “consubstantial with the Father” and “was incarnate of the Virgin Mary” don’t trip lightly off my tongue, even these six years after this version was imposed on us by Vatican traditionalists.
Sometimes I respond to the priest’s “The Lord be with you” by saying “and also with you”— followed by a mutter to myself for regressing to the good old post-Vatican II days when I memorized the responses.
Many of us are uncomfortable with this English translated from Latin, not just the crew in the pew. “It was very difficult on a lot of priests, the English used is so obtuse,” said Father Jack Ryan, pastor of Newman Center. There was some joking among clergy “that they did such a poor translation so we’d want to go back to Latin.”
Now we hear priests read the sometimes poetic, often archaic language as altar servers risk back problems holding up the hefty volumes. Of the several eucharistic prayer choices, I notice that most priests go for number two, the shortest. It’s also a true link to history; “it goes back to ancient, second century language,” said Father Ryan.
Actually bishops have tried to have a handle on the language. Prelates of 11 English speaking countries “decided to revamp and clear up some wording” from the first runs of vernacular liturgy, said Ryan. A committee worked on it for years and had the English Mass ready to go in 1998. The issue of using inclusive language became a sticking point. For example, “Bishops proposed language that Christ’s blood was spilled for all. That’s what Catholic doctrine is, Christ died for all,” said Ryan. The Latin translation has it “all men.”
He recalled “The bishops submitted the liturgy to the Vatican. They rejected it out of hand for issues more ideological than theological.” Years later, when Pope Benedict XVI asserted that it should remain “all men,” bishops from around the world opposed it. “German bishops had a public disagreement with the pope on the issue,” Ryan recalled. The Germans acquiesced, but then the German pope resigned “and the bishops dropped it.”
There are yards of stories about the liturgy reform, the pope’s moves forward and the pushback from those who think we lose something when we do. I urge you to cruise the worldwide web to expand your Catholic consciousness because it’s not likely a topic you’ll hear from the pulpit. I’m a great fan of National Catholic Reporter, whose Sept. 22 editorial pointed out that “the discussion of our public worship and changes to it can evoke deep emotions and the zero-sum passions of a political contest.” The editorial essayist pointed out that “The tensions, of course, are as old as the community. They are as evident today as they were when the original community’s leaders argued over who could join and what they could eat.”
No need to go online for that story; check the Acts of the Apostles in your Bible. Back in the day, as Gentile converts joined the Christian church, some of the Jewish disciples wanted to impose the laws of Moses, which required circumcision and forbade eating pork, shellfish along with 600-plus other rules for the Hebrew people. Well, we know how that worked out, right. James and Peter and the first leaders decided to move forward, and the rest is history.
I would love to see a quick fix being made, back to the creed language still in my memory bank, back to “and also with you.” But quick is not in the vocabulary in this church of ours, is it.
Father Ryan echoed the response from professors, theologians, authors, and even a few bishops as seen in the news. “What’s going to happen? Nothing right now. When you look at what Pope Francis is doing, he is trying to bring things back to the center. That’s a work in progress.”
And there’s the purely practical impact the change would have, said the Manoa pastor. “Those books weren’t cheap,” he said. Even if the American bishops and other English- speaking churchmen agreed to dust off that 1998 rejected liturgy, the presses won’t be rolling very soon.
“The biggest change of Vatican II was the participation of the congregation. That’s well established” and won’t be lost, no matter what the words, said the pastor.
One of the wonderful outcomes of the liturgy reform has been an ever growing body of prayerful, joyful, thoughtful music. “It started up without having had centuries to develop English hymns. A lot of folk songs were used with new words,” recalled Marianist Brother Dennis Schmitz. “The music has continued to mature. As you do in theology, you develop a deeper understanding of our relationship with God, as an individual and also as a community.
The musical aspects of liturgy will be explored in the annual Marianist Hawaiian Islands Liturgy and Arts Conference Nov. 2 to 4 at the Chaminade University Mystical Rose Oratory. There’s a fee for the whole event of workshops, concerts and meals; see marianisthilac.com for details. But the opening concert at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 featuring compositions of Joe Camacho and other local composers will be free.
Another free element of the weekend will be the annual Mackey Marianist Lecture at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 4. “Open Your Hearts: Liturgy and Immigration” is the timely topic of Franciscan Brother Rufino Zaragoza, who works with Vietnamese and Hispanic immigrants, and Pedro Rubalcava, who composes bilingual — English and Spanish — liturgical music.
The topic of the lecture in honor of the late Chaminade founding president Father Robert Mackey brings home the fact that people have faced worse distractions than a war of words when they gathered to pray together. Most of us can only imagine what was in the minds of congregations in wartorn places, in a time of plague or oppression, hiding from persecutors. But our own politically fraught century gives us some insight. Said Schmitz, “If we pray with immigrants who are nervous and fearful … our prayer is not in isolation.”
