Questions Liturgiques: "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa" (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
Catholics and Orthodox often desire and discuss modern and contemporary liturgical reform. There are many ways to go about such reform. The largest experiment to date occurred from 1964-1967, yet it is little known and little studied. Most scholarship concentrates on the "Novus Ordo Missae" (1969). My doctoral dissertation attempted to undercover the rationale and methodology for the original reform of the Mass that failed to gain general acceptance at a 1967 Synod of Bishops in Rome. The ambiguous results stemming from episcopal votes on the text and celebration of the "Normative Mass" nonetheless allowed it to survive in a modified version as the skeleton upon which the current dominant order of the Latin liturgy (Novus Ordo Missae) is now enfleshed. This investigation serves as a point of reflection to consider the adoption of consistent and a priori values of reform before engaging any practical reform process. Any particular or universal Church that does so will likely minimize mistakes and maximize its possibility of achieving its ends. Finally, this study shows the absolute necessity of a good analogical application of metaphysics (genus, species, specific difference, essential properties) in order first to come to a knowledge of "what specifies a rite" so as to avoid the risk of expunging defining characteristics....the nature of which is often debated among many liturgists and liturgiologists of the various rites of Christendom. I have attached organizational charts for individuals who are interested in the actual function of the reforming groups and their interaction with other quasi-agencies of the reform process.
Worship in Spirit and in Truth: Essays to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger's The Spirit of the Liturgy. Proceedings of the 13th Fota International Liturgical Conference, 2023
In this paper, the various suggestions made directly before the Second Vatican Council regarding the reform of the Mass lectionary are examined, with the aim of seeing how consistent they are with the "spirit of the liturgy" as expressed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Beginning with the various international liturgical conferences of the 1950s, we proceed to a detailed investigation of the pre-conciliar «vota» of the Fathers of Vatican II, a much-neglected body of primary source material for the interpretation of the Council. Finally, there is a brief look at the composition of the relevant sections of the draft liturgy schema that would be presented to the Fathers at the beginning of the Council, with some conclusions about whether the subsequent post-conciliar reform of the lectionary was in keeping with either their intentions, or the spirit of the liturgy.
Psallite Sapienter: The Liturgy of the Hours. Proceedings of the 11th Fota International Liturgical Conference, 2019
This paper examines the vota of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, and the proposals for reform of the Roman Breviary contained within them. First, there is a brief introduction to the antepreparatory period of the Council, what the vota are, and their value for a general hermeneutic of the Second Vatican Council. The suggestions and proposals made in the vota about the Breviary are then examined, to get a view of precisely what the expectations of the future Council Fathers were in this matter. Finally, there is a brief comparison of these proposals with the 1960 Code of Rubrics, followed by some preliminary conclusions about the relationship between the suggestions in the vota and the subsequent post-conciliar liturgical reforms. This paper can be found in "Psallite Sapienter: The Liturgy of the Hours", the published proceedings of the 11th Fota International Liturgical Conference. These can be ordered by e-mailing Smenos Publications at smenosbooks@yahoo.co.uk.
Theological Issues in the Case of the Reform of the Offertory in the Roman Catholic Rite of Mass
Review of Ecumenical Studies • Sibiu, 2023
This article examines a section of the Roman Catholic rite of the Mass, the offertory, investigating the relationship between theological ideas and the latest reform of liturgical practice (1969). How did the dogmatic theology, developed from the Middle Ages until the age of the Protestant Reformation, influence the liturgical reform under Paul VI? This is taken as a case to thematise the interplay between theological datum (lex credendi) and practical datum (lex orandi).
"Expert Consensus" in the Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms: More Half-Truths and Dated Scholarship
New Liturgical Movement, 2024
When the Consilium ad exsequendam was engaged in its work of radical liturgical reform in the 1960s, it was the 'expert consensus' that the so-called Apostolic Tradition was written by Hippolytus of Rome, and provided a witness to the liturgy more ancient than the Roman Canon. Thus, we were given various "restorations" in the Roman Rite, such as Eucharistic Prayer II, popularly known as the 'Canon of Hippolytus', as well as an epiclesis in every one of the new eucharistic prayers, since this was thought to be a primitive feature of all liturgies that mysteriously went missing from the Roman Canon [https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/04/ reforming-canon-of-mass-some.html]. Indeed, one still hears these sorts of things from time to time, even from people who ought to know better! Of course, the current scholarly consensus [https://www.ccwatershed.org/ 2014/08/17/hippolytus-rome-eucharistic-prayer-ii] is that the Apostolic Tradition is neither the work of Hippolytus or any other individual. Rather, it is now considered to be a composite work redacted over several centuries, and not at all representative of the early Christian liturgical tradition in Rome (being West Syrian in origin). 1 Eucharistic Prayer II is thus the best-known example of previously 'assured results' of historical-critical scholarship making their way into the post-conciliar reforms without, as it turns out, much of an 'assured' basis at all-in spite of the admonition of Sacrosanctum Concilium 23 that "there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing." It should not be terribly surprising, then, that there are many other examples of dated scholarship influencing aspects of the work of the liturgical reformers, and I would like to highlight one that recently jumped out to me. Is Philippians 2:6-11, used in the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Hours as a canticle at I Vespers of Sundays every week, really an early Christian hymn that was used in the primitive liturgy?