Allelu-

Oops! That will have to wait until Easter! Just like the new Vatican Document on liturgical abuse!

The document has been unusually controversial.

Among other things, the draft insisted on limiting the role of lay ministers, forbade liturgical dance, warned against use of nonapproved texts, cautioned against pseudo-liturgical rites by and for women, and said distribution of Communion under the forms of bread and wine is not always a good idea.

That sounds reasonable, not controversial.

At the end of the session, Servite Father Silvano Maggiani, president of the Association of Professors of Liturgy, read a message expressing the liturgists’ fear that the liturgical reform movement opened by Vatican II was being closed down.

The reform needs to be reformed! The reform “movement” isn’t a movement any more – it simply perserves liturgical practices that are supposed to give more meaning to things many lay people don’t even understand. Take the glass chalice, for instance. “We want people to see the red of wine – it looks like blood.” Is is blood, Christ’s blood, after the Consecration, but focusing on the accidents of wine doesn’t help anyone to come to belief and reverance for the Blessed Sacrament.

What we need is orthodoxy and stability in the litgury, and a renewed focus on faithfulness to the Magisterium and Catechesis. The yahoos who want to re-form the liturgy every Sunday need to realize there are a multitude of souls at stake.

Father Maggiani told Catholic News Service that the association later sent personal letters to Pope John Paul II and other high officials at the Vatican, expressing “bewilderment, unease, fear and concern” at the apparent direction of the liturgical abuse document.
Father Maggiani, a consultor to the office that prepares papal liturgies, wrote that it was not right to “define as abuse things that are not.” Any real abuses should be corrected not with a “repressive” spirit but through formation, he said.
He also wrote that it would go against Vatican II to try and return to a “schism … between lay faithful and ordained ministers.”

What a load! Reading things like this make me want to grate cheese.

Cardinal Pell is El Hombre

NCR reporter John Allen interviewed Cardinal Pell about Vox Clara on March 11. The interview may be found here. My favorite question and response:

Let me ask you something I hear from a lot from non-experts, which is that as important as questions of translations may be, the quality of liturgical experience is much more influenced by how good the homily is, how beautiful the music, and how welcoming the community. If you really wanted to do something about liturgy, wouldn’t it make more sense to address these other variables?

…[T]hese other things are enormously important. Whether they are so clearly superior to this issue I think is debatable, but it’s not a debate that’s particularly worth having. You see, it’s a very difficult thing to do anything about the welcome in a community, the quality of preaching, but here with these translations – that’s something that we can improve. Also, if you get the right quality of language, it can be a great help to worship, in calling people to prayer. You’ve only got to look at the enduring influence of something like the Book of Common Prayer, or the King James Bible. Even though its language is no longer appropriate, the King James Bible was written to be proclaimed. You’ve only got to get up and read it and you can feel that. I don’t want a quaint translation. I want something that is clear, though not everyday by any manner or means…

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

eyck_annunciation.jpgAnd in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
Luke 1:26-30
The Annunciation is one of my favorite feast days, and it’s very popular with the Johnson kids, too. This is the day when God’s promise of salvation has begun to be fulfilled. Let us praise the Holy Virgin by whom that salvation comes.

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Yes for Kiev

Now this is one for the geek Catholics: obscure intra-Church stuff with an ecumenical angle.
The Ukrainian Catholic Church has petitioned the Pope to be raised to the dignity of a patriarchal Church — giving its principal archbishop the title of Patriarch of Kiev. In practice, their clergy have been using the title for years. Since the Russian Orthodox Church gave itself the same status many years ago, it only seems fitting that the Ukrainian Church, which was founded earlier, should have it too. The prelates of the Russian Orthodox Church, however, don’t take kindly to the idea.
Here’s a statement from Ukrainian Catholic bishop Basil Losten.

Judge Permits Testimony About Fetus Pain

A pediatrician who says a fetus can feel pain during an abortion will be allowed to testify in a legal challenge to a new law banning a type of late-term abortion, a judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Richard Casey ruled Friday that Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand can testify as a government witness at a trial scheduled for later this month.

Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand Anand has conducted research on pain in fetuses and newborns and concluded that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation.