Not your usual liturgical dancers

Young nuns. In full, traditional habits. Dancing at a charismatic Mass (apparently celebrated this past Sunday) in a parish in Brazil.

For the record - the never-ending quest for more reforms.1) CDW Secretary: Non-Catholic spouses of parishioners could be selected for foot-washing rite.2) Lutherans given communion during Mass in St. Peter's Basilica

1. Even as the reform of Maundy Thursday foot washing was being announced, its loopholes were already being explored by the supporters of further reform. Buried in Catholic News' Agency's report on yesterday's change (Women may now have their feet washed at Holy Thursday Mass, Pope says) we find the following interpretation from Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the CDW (our emphases):

Although the Pope has previously chosen to wash the feet of both non-Catholics and non-Christians, Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cautioned that the new change does not necessarily include them.

In Jan. 21 comments to CNA, the archbishop said that the changes are meant for “the local community,” and members of “the local parish.” 

He said that reading the decree as an invitation for non-Catholics to participate would be a “selective interpretation” of the text, and that while this could be something that happens “in the future,” it’s probably not what the Pope’s decision intended. 

However, Archbishop Roche did say that although the decree is meant for the local community, it’s possible that a non-Catholic spouse of a parishioner who regularly attends the Catholic liturgy could be chosen to participate. 

The inevitable: Pope Francis decrees that Maundy Thursday foot-washing can include women

When, within two weeks of his election, Francis chose to include women (including a Muslim) among the "viri" whose feet he washed as part of the Maundy Thursday Mass, we immediately grasped its significance and posted that it was "The Official End of the Reform of the Reform - by example". He repeated the inclusion of women in the foot-washing rite in 2014 and 2015, which could only have meant that he desired to normalize the practice. Today's reform was inevitable. It was only a matter of time. 

We predict that before long, like many other “options” such as communion in the hand, female altar boys, “extraordinary” ministers of holy communion and “ad populum” celebrations, having women take part in the Maundy Thursday washing of the feet will become virtually obligatory, with the priests who refuse it being stigmatized as “reactionaries” and punished in a variety of ways. 

Francis pushing this decree through Robert Cardinal Sarah is another reminder that, no matter what the highest officials of the CDW say and do in their private capacity, it is still the express will of the Pope that matters in the end. Beautiful reflections, edifying personal example and words of encouragement are no substitutes for clear legislation. As long as the “Reform of the Reform” is not embodied in clear legislation that is vigorously enforced from the very top, it will never take off the ground and will never be more than the hobby of a tiny minority. No amount of brave talk from a handful of bloggers will change this.

At the same time this "reform" should not be surprising, as it flows from the intrinsic malleability of the “Novus Ordo” (by which we mean not only the Mass but also the entire range of liturgical books associated with it.) The reality of the Novus Ordo makes slogans such as “say the black and do the red” and the entire concept of “liturgical abuse”, essentially meaningless. When the “black” and “red” could be changed anytime under the pressure of clerical and lay disobedience and the whims of those in power, today’s “disobedience” could end up being tomorrow’s obedience to the “God of Surprises”. 

One last point: the new rubrics for foot washing still limits it to the "faithful", members of the "People of God". Muslims are definitely not part of the "People of God", no matter how much one tries to stretch the meaning of the term without losing all coherence. Next Maundy Thursday, will the Pope still wash the feet of an unbaptized woman or two?

There is a silver lining to all this, of course: our fellow Rorate contributor Joseph Shaw explains in his Statement on allowing the washing of the feet of women at the OF mandatum:

These concessions have moved many to reconsider the Extraordinary Form, which is not affected by this decree, or similar concessions to liturgical abuses in the past. It is in the Extraordinary Form that the Church's liturgical traditions are maintained.

ORIGINAL POST:

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The text of the decree in Latin and Italian, signed by Robert Cardinal Sarah: Decreto della Congregazione per il Culto Divino e la Disciplina dei Sacramenti sul Rito della “Lavanda dei Piedi”, 21.01.2016

From Vatican Information Service:

The Pope decrees that not only men may be chosen for the washing of the feet in the Liturgy of Holy Thursday

Vatican City, 21 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has written a letter, dated 20 December and published today, to Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, in which he decrees that from now on, the people chosen for the washing of the feet in the liturgy of Holy Thursday may be selected from all the People of God, and not only men and boys.

A Vatican II Moment in Philadelphia: Widespread Concelebration is the Celebration of Man

"Concelebration, whereby the unity of the priesthood is appropriately manifested, has remained in use to this day in the Church both in the east and in the west. For this reason it has seemed good to the Council to extend permission for concelebration..."

Sacrosanctum Concilium, 57

Yep, great idea! Click!
[Image: CNS]

Guest post: Former student laments liturgical abuse at former Catholic high school

This year’s observance of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary provides the opportunity to reflect on the two rites of the Roman Missal. On invitation from the Chancery in Philadelphia, the Tridentine Mass was offered in the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, as part of the annual Mass of Thanksgiving by Mater Ecclesiae Parish based in Berlin, New Jersey, contrasted to the “ordinary form” of the Roman Rite, as offered to a group of high school boys at LaSalle College High School in suburban Philadelphia – poolside, in swimsuits. It is important to reflect on the differences in the two Rites of Holy Mass in these times as it demonstrates the increasing divide between those who would call themselves “mainstream Catholics” and “Traditional Catholics”.

Self-Serve Communion on Holy Thursday: 8 years of "Reform of the Reform" of the Mass of Paul VI had no effect

As we have often and repeatedly said here, the "Reform of the Reform" of the Rite of Paul VI was bound not to have any effect without a combination of text modifications, strict enforcement, and stern example from the very top -- it survived barely based on the third item, now annulled by ad hoc selective application or non-application of the liturgical law.

On Holy Thursday 2014, a practice that used to be widespread in parts of Western Europe in the post-conciliar years, and intermittently ever since, was back in full view: Self-Serve Communion of Paten and Chalice.

In the Cathedral of Our Lady of Tournai (Notre-Dame de Tournai), Belgium:

In the parish church of Saint Claire, Hénin-Beaumont, Diocese of Arras, France:

The only truly enduring Reform of the Reform, made possible by the work of justice known as Summorum Pontificum, is the Traditional Roman Rite. 

[Source: first image; second image. Tip: Le Forum Catholique.]

Speaking of strange altars, part 2

We recently wrote about some very strange altars (see here). Then, a former student of Calvert Hall College High School in Maryland, sent us the photo below of the school's "Thanksgiving Liturgy." We weren't sure at the time if this was the unbloody Sacrifice on Calvary or aisle 8 at Whole Foods. 

Then, after a barrage of criticism on the school's Facebook page, which in the thread had the priest in the photo defending this Mass with Vatican II arguments, the school took the photo and the thread down. 

But wait! There's more ...

Today, in a live stream of the school's "liturgy," it's clearly Advent! The report below is from a former student of the school:

Speaking of strange altars ...

We recently wrote about some very strange altars (see here). Now, a former student of Calvert Hall College High School in Maryland, sent us this photo via Facebook of the school's "Thanksgiving Liturgy." We're not sure if this is the unbloody Sacrifice on Calvary or aisle 8 at Whole Foods. 

Who says Catholic education is dead? Feel free to weigh in here. 

(The Crescat has also posted this.)

Cardinal Burke on "mutual enrichment"

The Catholic News Agency's November 28, 2011 article / interview on Raymond Burke's first year as a member of the College of Cardinals has garnered attention primarily for its prediction of coming persecution against the Catholic Church in the U.S.A. Our readers might find the following passage to be of equal if not greater interest:

Cardinal Burke is also responsible for overseeing the Church's liturgy as a member of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship.

He is grateful to Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for giving the Church "a font of solid direction" regarding worship, based on the Second Vatican Council's vision of a "God-centered liturgy and not a man-centered liturgy."

That intention was not always realized, he said, since the council's call for liturgical reform coincided with a "cultural revolution."

Many congregations lost their "fundamental sense that the liturgy is Jesus Christ himself acting, God himself acting in our midst to sanctify us."

Cardinal Burke said greater access to the traditional Latin Mass, now know (sic) as the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, has helped correct the problem.

"The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested," he noted, "and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great" in the sixth century.

Many Catholics now see that the Church's "ordinary form" of Mass, celebrated in modern languages, "could be enriched by elements of that long tradition."

In time, Cardinal Burke expects the Western Church's ancient and modern forms of Mass to be combined in one normative rite, a move he suggests the Pope also favors.

"It seems to me that is what he has in mind is that this mutual enrichment would seem to naturally produce a new form of the Roman rite – the 'reform of the reform,' if we may – all of which I would welcome and look forward to its advent."

The 'updated' 1962 Missal: Coming soon?

Universae Ecclesiae, citing Benedict XVI's letter to the bishops on the occasion of the publication of Summorum Pontificum, mentioned that "New saints and certain of the new prefaces can and ought to be inserted into the 1962 Missal, according to provisions which will be indicated subsequently." However, UE didn't mention that a commission to effect this was already established last year.

From Sandro Magister's latest article on Chiesa:

VATICAN CITY, September 19, 2011 – "The activity of the Holy See" is a hefty volume that gives a year-by-year account of the actions of the pope and the Roman curia. It is an "unofficial publication," as specified on the frontispiece, but in spite of this it contains not a little information, sometimes rather unusual, that cannot be found in other Vatican sources.

To verify this it is enough to leaf through the latest edition, on the activities of 2010, which has just been printed by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1343 pp., 80.00 euro).

In it we learn, for example:

- that last year the disciplinary office of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith opened 643 procedures, 82 percent of which concern "delicta graviora" (which include the sexual abuse of minors by clergy), 8 percent "offenses against the faith," 3 percent "cases of apparitions," and 7 percent other matters of various kinds.

- that during the same period, the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments dealt with several hundred cases regarding requests for papal dispensations in order to remarry after a marriage "ratified but not consummated." A dispensation that was granted in 301 cases, and withheld in 2.

- that the congregation for the evangelization of peoples gave, through the pontifical society for the propagation of the faith (whose charitable fund, however, has been "significantly" reduced because of the economic recession), more than 85 million dollars in assistance to dioceses in mission territory. More than 30 million was distributed through the pontifical society of St. Peter the Apostle. And more than 19 million through the pontifical society of missionary childhood.

- that the Roman Rota, whose jurisprudence is a model for all the ecclesiastical tribunals in the world, during the judicial year of 2010 issued 175 definitive verdicts on the nullity of marriage, the majority of them (93 versus 82) in favor of nullity.

- that the pontifical council for legislative texts, at the direction of the pope, set up four study groups in view of a possible revision of parts of the code of canon law, on questions of penal law, procedural law, marriage and family law, and the relationships between the code of the Latin Church and that of the Eastern Churches.

- that a joint commission was set up, with experts of the commission "Ecclesia Dei" and of the congregation for divine worship, for the "updating" of the commemorations of the saints and the "possible insertion of new prefaces" into the preconciliar Roman missal of 1962, to which Benedict XVI gave full citizenship in 2007.

- that the office of papal charities, in response to almost seven thousand letters from individuals and families requesting help, provided "with discretion" and "on a day-by-day basis," in the name of the pope, a sum "close to one million euro." A sum entirely covered by the contributions received for parchments with apostolic blessings requested by the faithful: 115,500 parchments issued directly by the office of papal charities, and 112,00 distributed through almost eighty partner organizations.