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| Ultima Cena [The Last Supper], a painting by Kiko Argüello, founder of the Neocatechumenal Way |
(For further reading: the 2006 Rorate article on the Neocatechumenate's defiant response to papal commands to drop most of their liturgical peculiarities.)
Towards the end of 2004, a priest of the Neocatechumenal Way, Don Piergiovanni Devoto, published a book entitled: "The Neocatechumenate: A Christian Initiation for Adults". It was printed by the Chirico publishing house in Naples and utilized then-unpublished texts by the Neocatechumenal Way's founders (Francisco "Kiko" Argüello and Carmen Hernández). Sandro Magister, in a column published on January 24, 2005 has the following description of, and excerpts from, the book (emphases mine):
The book is an open apology for the Neocatechumenal Way, in response to the criticisms advanced up to now, even by authoritative bishops and cardinals, before and after the approval of the statutes. Lending weight to this apology is the ardent preface written by Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the pontifical council "Cor Unum," and even more so the innumerable attestations of esteem made by John Paul II, which are compiled in the second part of the book.
But there is one point upon which this apology remains weak. And it regards the liturgical practice of the Way...
...
The book "authorized" by Fr. Devoto seeks to defend the Way from some of the recurrent accusations: in particular, that it obscures the sacrificial nature of the mass and minimizes the permanent real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread.
And to justify the liturgical praxis of the Way, the author refers to unpublished texts by Kiko and Carmen, in which they recount to their disciples their own highly particular history of the mass, according to which the great merit of the Way is that of restoring the celebration of the mass to its original purity.
But this historical reconstruction – with the practices which are derived from it – is itself the most questionable point of the apology.
Here by way of example are some passages taken from pages 71-77:
"Over the course of the centuries, the eucharist has been fragmented and crusted over, repackaged to the point at which we did not see anywhere in our mass the resurrection of Jesus Christ"...
"In the 4th century, with the conversion of Constantine and the entry into the Church of pagan masses that neither understood nor lived Easter, Christianity became the official, and thus protected, religion of the empire. The emperor and his court also went to church to celebrate the eucharist: thus were born the rites of entrance solemnified by songs and psalms which were eliminated over time, leaving only the antiphon, which constitutes a real and true absurdity"...
"Analogously, place was made for offertory processions, in which there emerged the conception of natural religiosity, which tends to placate the divinity through gifts and offerings"...
"With the passage of the centuries, private prayers were inserted into the mass in notable quantities. The assembly was no more, and the mass had taken on a penitential tone, in stark contrast with the paschal exultation from which it had emerged"...
"And while the people lived out the privatization of the mass, the erudite elaborated rational theologies which, although they contain the essence of revelation ‘in nuce,’ are wrapped in philosophical garments foreign to Christ and the apostles"...
"So it is understandable why Luther emerged, making a clean break with everything he believed was a purely human addition or tradition"...
"When what a sacrament is, what a memorial is, is lost from sight, one proceeds to give philosophical definitions which not only cannot exhaust the reality that they contain, but are not even necessarily linked to the philosophy used to express them. Thus Luther, who never doubted the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, rejected 'transubstantiation,' because it was bound to the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of substance, which is foreign to the Church of the apostles and the Fathers"...
"The rigidity and fixity of the Council of Trent generated a static mentality in the liturgy, which has persisted to our day, quick to be scandalized by any change or transformation. And this is an error, because the liturgy is life, a reality of the Spirit living among men. For this reason, it can never be bottled up"...
"Having emerged from a legalistic and rigid mentality, we witnessed at Vatican II a profound renewal of the liturgy. The cloaks that had covered the eucharist were removed from it. It is interesting to see that originally, the anaphora [the prayer of consecration] was not written, but was improvised by the presider"...
"The Church has tolerated inauthentic forms for centuries. Thus it is seen that the 'Gloria,' which was part of the liturgy of the hours recited by the monks, entered into the mass when a single celebration was made of the two actions, and that the 'Credo' emerged with the appearance of heresies and apostasies. Even the 'Orate Fratres' is a culminating example of the prayers with which the mass was stuffed full"...
"The celebration of the eucharist on Saturday evening is not intended to facilitate Sunday recreation, but to go back to the roots: the day of rest for the Jews begins with the sighting of the first three stars on Friday, and the first vespers of Sunday for the entire Church have always been on Saturday evening"... "On Saturday, we join the feast with our whole being, to sit at the table of the Great King and taste even now the banquet of eternal life. After the supper, the day concludes with a cordial and friendly celebration"...
