Posted on 07/11/2016 8:47:23 AM PDT by ebb tide
The Archbishop of Westminster has told clergy Mass is 'not the time for priests to exercise personal preference or taste'
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has written to priests in Westminster diocese discouraging them from celebrating Mass facing east.
He issued the message to clergy days after the Vatican’s liturgy chief Cardinal Robert Sarah invited priests to celebrate Mass ad orientem from Advent onwards.
Cardinal Sarah was speaking at a liturgical conference in London.
Following Cardinal Robert Sarah’s appeal at the Sacra Liturgia conference in London, Cardinal Nichols wrote to priests reminding them that, “the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, approved by the highest authority in the Church, states in paragraph 299 that ‘The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. The altar should, moreover, be so placed as to be truly the centre toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns. The altar is usually fixed and is dedicated.’”
While he noted that the Congregation for Divine Worship had confirmed in 2009 that this instruction still allows for Mass to be celebrated facing east, the cardinal wrote: “But it also ‘reaffirms that the position towards the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier’. Thus the expectations expressed in GIRM 299 remain in force whenever the Ordinary Form of Mass is celebrated.”
Cardinal Nichols said that Mass was not the time for priests to “exercise personal preference or taste”, and “as the last paragraph of the GIRM states so clearly, ‘The Roman Missal, though in a diversity of languages and with some variety of customs, must in the future be safeguarded as an instrument and an outstanding sign of the integrity and unity of the Roman Rite’ (399).”
After the Sacra Liturgia Conference last week, Cardinal Sarah paid a personal visit to Cardinal Vincent Nichols.
Meanwhile, Fr Antonio Spadaro, a papal adviser and editor of the influential journal La Civiltà Cattolica, has shown his support for Mass facing the people on Twitter.
Following Cardinal Sarah’s widely reported comments, Fr Spadaro tweeted quotes from the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, such as: “The altar should be built apart from the wall in such a way that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people” and “the priest, facing the people and extending and then joining his hands, invites the people to pray.”
how the heck has the church been infiltrated with these bozos?
I know a lot of them turned out to be gay. I knew a guy who was planning to go into the seminary whan I was barely out of high school
He bragged how he had attracted more recruits than the past few years combined, and I remember a very uneasy feeling that they were all guys with no apparent interest in girls... if you catch my drift, and so life with other men seemed more attractive to them - he did not talk about devotion to God or anything, just how many other guys he got to join up with him.
this was nearly 40 years ago.
Untrue. The modernists deliberately mistranslated the GIRM to suggest that mass facing the people is desirable, whenever possible. The phrase "desirable, whenever possible" refers to free-standing altars.
I also find it fascinating that suddenly the Cardinal is a stickler for enforcing the norms found in the GIRM. I wonder if he's also insisting that the Introit, for example, is chanted instead of some sappy hymn.
“But it also ‘reaffirms that the position towards the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier’.
To Whom is the priest "communicating" during the canon? Maybe that could help guide what direction he should face.
To be blunt, I can't really get worked up about this as I don't really care what happens in the Novus Ordo. I gave up on it years ago. It's hopeless.
LOL at the mistake in the title.
Reporters and writers need to educate themselves before they write about the Catholic Church.
It was spelled correctly in the sourced article. My computer’s spell checker slipped the “correction” by me without my notice.
How can celebrating Mass according to the immemorial tradition of the Church be categorized as "exercising personal preference"? We're not talking about ad libbing parts of the Canon or filling the sanctuary with dancers or balloons. We're talking about celebrating Mass as the Church has always done.
This confirms my opinion of Nichols as a dolt who is hostile to tradition.
To Whom is the priest “communicating” during the canon? Maybe that could help guide what direction he should face.
this is the question I’ve asked numerous people at the local Novus Ordo parish, and have gotten the same blank stare in return, as if I’ve suddenly sporting a second neck...I ask ‘what is the purpose of having a priest at Mass’ and they always reply ‘to assist us in praying to Jesus”; I continue ‘then that being so shouldn’t the priest direct his prayers to Jesus, whom we see crucified on the cross on the wall in front of us...his posture, in facing the congregation, would seem to be directing the crucified Christ in praying to us...’
I further say, ‘if you were in battle, how would an officer be showing leadership by facing you, thus with his back to the enemy...? From their stare back at me, I feel my second neck begetting a third...
Sorry if I offend but modern Catholics are, to be blunt, interested only in the social club value of church...
Including elements of the TLM into the Novus Ordo service is not the same thing as celebrating the mass the way the Church has always done. Really what should be happening is completely ditching the MO mess and return to the TLM 100%.
MO should be NO
Look at the understated hauteur in a statement like:
“The priest extends his arms to invite the people to pray”
Doesn’t it imply the people are stupid and must be given dramatic signals as in aerobics class to know to pray? A simple “oremus” could not possibly touch their feeble minds?
People who are in church are there to pray! They know to pray in a church! They come to pray and want to pray, and will pray regardless of any old man in a rainbow chasuble flapping his arms.
A simple “oremus” could not possibly touch their feeble minds?
in a typical suburban parish, that is precisely the case...
Really what should be happening is completely ditching the MO mess and return to the TLM 100%.
I guarantee that will not happen; the Church has too much riding on not admitting failure of their precious Spirit of Vatican II...
This is where true, courageous Catholic saints, prelates and popes come into play. The question is: where are they?
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