Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Liturgy: Archbishop Ranjith on the need for a "reform of the reform"

This is big news, partly because of the people involved, and partly because of the impact of the matter.
A key Vatican official has called for "bold and courageous" decisions to address liturgical abuses that have arisen since the reforms of Vatican II. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cites a flawed understanding of Vatican II teachings and the influence of secular ideologies are reasons to conclude that — as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in 1985 — "the true time of Vatican II has not yet come." Particularly in the realm of the liturgy, Archbishop Ranjith says, "The reform has to go on." ...

Specifically, Archbishop Ranjith writes: "Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of 'active participation'." ...

Today, Archbishop Ranjith writes, the Church can look back and recognize the influences that distorted the original intent of the Council. That recognition, he says, should "help us to be courageous in improving or changing that which was erroneously introduced and which appears to be incompatible with the true dignity of the Liturgy." A much-needed "reform of the reform," he argues, should be inspired by "not merely a desire to correct past mistakes but much more the need to be true to what the Liturgy in fact is and means to us and what the Council itself defined it to be."
Read the complete article. I'm adding True Development of the Liturgy by Msgr. Nicola Giampietro (a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) — with foreword by Archbishop Ranjith — to my wish-list!

[H/T: Catholic World News]

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