Vatican Downplays

There are lots of stories out there with headlines beginning "Vatican Denies . . . "

There have to be.

The crazy Italian press guarantees lots of stuff that the Vatican needs to deny.

Sometimes the person doing the denying is even using a mental reservation (or something along those lines) when making the denial.

But you know it's significant when the headline only says "Vatican Downplays . . . " If the headline is accurate, it means that there is an implicit, up-front admission on the part of the person that the press interviewed that there is at least some truth to the story.

That's why I really like this headline:

Vatican official downplays report of planned liturgical reforms

As the story indicates, there apparently have been some liturgical reforms proposed by the CDWDS and some of its individual members to Pope Benedict. 

We'll have to see what comes of that. Maybe a few things; nothing huge (I very much would doubt an outright ban on Communion in the hand); maybe nothing at all. But it's good that reformist proposals are being made.

(NOTE: I'm working on the next installment of the Age of the World series, but the text I'm dealing with is so rich that it's taking me a while to get the post done, which is why I went with this one today.)

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

22 thoughts on “Vatican Downplays”

  1. What reform? Communion kneeling, Latin, Ad Orientem – these are are the normal ways of saying Mass in the Latin Rite. From that article it doesn’t look like any changes will be made to the NO, just saying Mass according to the rubrics.

  2. I can believe that there may have been suggestions from the CDWL to restore a sense of the sacred in the Mass. But the USCCB lobby must have vetoed them.
    The USCCB is the hand that dumbs down the Liturgy in English. Even while the new English translations have been approved, the US Bishops still sent out a list of proposed ammendments. Like, “hymns and songs” instead of “chant” for the Opening, Offertory, and Communion music of the Mass.
    So was Communion in the hand. Altar girls. Ordinary use of Extraordinary ministers. These were all US-English innovations.
    It’s sad because the English translation (not the Latin original) is what translation in the Asian languages (i.e., the Philippine languages) is based upon. If the USCCB gets a list of dumb-down ammendments in, these ammendments become automatically applicable to the Liturgy in the Asian languages.

  3. Is anyone else hoping they move the sign of peace (horizontal communion) nearer to the beginning of mass and away from the Eucharist (vertical)?

  4. Communion in the hand is NOT a US innovation. The Chaldean’s have always had this practice and they are an ancient Apostolic Church.

  5. They should continue to allow receiving communion in the hand because of the swine flue and other communicable diseases.

  6. Can’t imagine why there’d ever been a flap over Communion in the hand — that’s precisely how Mary (and Joseph) received Jesus.

  7. Steve, it doesn’t matter to me when the Sign of Peace occurs. It has always seemed redundant –we’re already united for and in Mass. What would be better for all is if we took that smiling Sign out to the street to those people whose hands no one shakes.

  8. Even though I think people get carried away during the sign of peace, it is fitting where it is in the Mass. It symbolizes what Jesus says in Matthew 5 about offering your gift at the altar. “So, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
    We make the sign of peace with our brother and then give our gift (ourselves) to Jesus as he gives Himself to us in the Eucharist.

  9. In the maronite right the “kiss of peace” is during the liturgy of the word.
    One can only hope these new reforms will put the choir back in the loft and keep it away from the alter.

  10. Many many changes have been made in our parish, and I’m happy about that — I love watching two altar-servers walk down the aisle like angels, then precede the folks carrying up the gifts. I love watching the EMHCs remain reverently near the Tabernacle while the unused but Consecrated host is placed in the Tabernacle by the priest himself. I love how neither the choir nor readers remain near the celebrant. Etc. Etc. But Mass is Mass, and people who refer to it as NO Mass have NO clue. Stow away your semantics; grasp humility for a change. As for receiving Christ in the hand, that is what both Mary and Joseph did, initially. If that’s not good enough for ya, then you must be more special, and again I say, stow it. Or, there are megachurches that are perfectly pc out in the midwest, always looking for another lifelong willing tither. Meanwhile, we await the fruit of a bazillion GIRM changes which fix what ain’t broke, but whatever changes come to Mass, they come from Rome administered by locals. Either wait in humility for that, or apostatize over to the whited sepulchres of Trads/Sedes, where the “outside of the cup” is pristine, but the inside is rinsed with the day’s spitwater from a dentist’s.

  11. Dear Carol,
    You wrote:
    Meanwhile, we await the fruit of a bazillion GIRM changes which fix what ain’t broke, but whatever changes come to Mass, they come from Rome administered by locals. Either wait in humility for that, or apostatize over to the whited sepulchres of Trads/Sedes, where the “outside of the cup” is pristine, but the inside is rinsed with the day’s spitwater from a dentist’s.
    No offense, but you may want to better inform yourself of the issues involved, especially since Pope Benedict seems to have quite a different view of the Liturgy than you do. If you read Latin, you would know the abysmal state of the translations from ICEL currently used in the American English Mass translation. In fact, it may not be broke, but it surely is twisted.
    EMHC are not mandated or even, properly speaking, appropriate in the number found in many American Churches. You may look at the documents from the Vatican to prove it. Th altar servers were an appropriation by some American bishops, entirely without cause, from a permission allowed in South America.
    The administration of the changes put forth from Rome have not always been well administered by local Ordinaries. For instance, look at the fiasco of music in the American Mass.
    In fact, these changes are an attempt to better follow the rubrics. That is humility. What you suggest, if I understand you correctly is to leave the current defects in place. That is neither humility nor prudence. Humility means to do what is right, not what you prefer.
    The Chicken

  12. Let me further add that true humility requires returning to the original Greek and Hebrew and translating from these sources.

  13. There were original Hebrew sources for the Mass?? The problems in translations concern the rubrics, not the Biblical texts.
    The Chicken

  14. Oneil:
    I have made a strategic decision not to police the “age of the world” combox for topicality. Unless Jimmy should say otherwise, that combox is now for all practical intents and purposes a “Catholicism vs. Fundamentalism” free zone (though other rules still apply, like the necessity of documenting inflammatory claims).
    This exemption is for the “age of the world” combox only. The topicality of other comboxes will be strictly enforced.
    The topic of this combox is changes in the Catholic liturgy. In this discussion, the “original” is the Latin missal. There is no “original Greek and Hebrew.” Of course the liturgy depends on the Bible, but it is not a translation of it.
    Stick to the topic, or stick to the “age of the world” thread.

  15. For one who is not Catholic, and, indeed, is anti-Catholic, “true humility” would be to mind his own business regarding the rubrics of the Mass.

  16. Of course, as a purist, I, for one, would love to hear the original Greek and Hebrew for the Biblical texts at Mass, but then, you would have to translate them for those who do not read Greek or Hebrew. Either way, a translation would seem necessary. There are two type of text duting the Mass: Liturgical texts, including prayers and rite, and Biblical texts. The Liturgical texts come from the Latin; the Biblical texts come from the original languages of the Bible. Both require translations, but they are separate translations. My comments to carol concerned the Liturgical translation.
    The Chicken

  17. My comments to Carol concerned the Liturgical translation.
    The Picayune-Capitalization-Correcting Chicken

  18. The liturgy is precisely one of those areas of extra-biblical Tradition that have been passed on since the beginning of the Church at Pentecost. The bible itself is very sketchy on the *form* of worship.
    I have nothing to support it, but I like to think that the liturgy might have been a large part of what Jesus taught to the Apostles in the forty days between his resurrection and ascension. The bible is silent on what he did teach them during that time, of course… unless I missed something.

  19. Hopefully this is not off topic Tim J.
    From St. Luke ACTS Chapter 1:
    “[1] In the first book, O The-oph’ilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, [2] until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. [3] To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.”
    I don’t think it is too much of a stretch that Jesus planted the seed of the Liturgy of the Word and of the Eucharist during this 40 days. At the end of the Gospel of Luke the famous road to Emmaus account shows the correct order: first the word, then the body.

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