 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 19th, 2008 11:16 am |
|
Nairobi, Mar 19, 2008 / 02:33 am (CNA).- Cardinal Francis Arinze, the Church’s “liturgist-in-chief,” recently made a speech at an African university in which he criticized liturgical abuses and protested Masses where the recklessly innovative priests act as “Reverend Showman”.
The Nigerian-born Cardinal Arinze, who is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, was in Kenya to conduct a workshop and a retreat on liturgy for the bishops, according to CISA. While he was at the Catholic University of East Africa, the cardinal delivered a public lecture in which he discussed the importance of following liturgical rubrics and the proper place of inculturation in the liturgy.
The cardinal discussed sentiments that cause errors in worship, such as regarding everyone as an expert in liturgy, extolling spontaneity and creativity to the detriment of approved rites and prayers, seeking immediate popular applause or enjoyment, and ignoring approved liturgical texts.
He said that liturgical abuses were often due to an ignorance that rejects elements of worship whose deeper meaning is not understood or whose antiquity is not recognized.
Cardinal Arinze clarified the nature of the reforms of Vatican II, saying they must be seen as continuous with the past rather than as a dramatic break. “The Catholic Church is the same before and after Vatican II. It isn’t another Church,” he said.
Some aspects of liturgical rites can be modified according to pastoral needs. “The Church does not live in the Vatican Museum,” the cardinal said. However, he said that incorporating local traditions into the practice of the faith, which is known as inculturation, should be compatible with the Christian message and in communion with the universal Church.
Inculturation, he said, “should make people part of a Church which is universal but also local.”
Cardinal Arinze attacked distortions of inculturation, saying, “It is a caricature of inculturation to understand it as the invention of the fertile imagination of some enthusiastic priest, who concocts an idea on Saturday night and tries it on the innocent congregation the following morning. He may have good will, but good will is not enough.”
The cardinal also condemned individualistic experimentation, saying, “the person who of his own authority adds or subtracts from the laid down liturgical rites is doing harm to the Church.”
Proper inculturation, the cardinal said, required bishops to guide the introduction of new elements into worship. Innovations should take place only after careful consideration, after bishops have set up a multi-disciplinary group of experts to study a cultural element to be included in the liturgy.
The group of experts should then make their recommendation to their bishops’ conference. If both the bishops’ conference and the Holy See approve the innovation, after limited experiment and “due preparation” of the clergy and the people, the new element may be incorporated. “Otherwise it is wild liturgy,” said Cardinal Arinze.
Cardinal Arinze characterized a successful celebration of the Mass as one that
“manifests the Catholic faith powerfully, encourages those who have the faith already, shakes up those who are slumbering and those who are at the edge, and makes curious those who are not Catholics at all.”
The Mass must send Catholics home “full of joy, ready to come back again, ready to live it and to share it.”The cardinal encouraged future priests’ proper formation in liturgy and the ongoing liturgical formation of both clergy and lay people.
The above article is reposted with permission from Catholic News Agency.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
|
|
|
Steven Barrett
Member
|
Posted: Wed Mar 19th, 2008 10:27 pm |
|
I was hoping Cardinal Arinze would've been elected if it wasn't Joseph Ratzinger; so seeing Arinze taking hold of the CHurch's liturgical reins surely makes one traditionalist-minded Catholic feel more at home. Unfortunately, Arinze's sentiments often meet a (thick) as a brick wall when it comes to many Americanized priests and their parish liturgical committees.
This shouldn't surprise anyone in an time when "Celtic Christianity" seems to be rising in popularity; not so much for whatever the old Celts had back then, but mostly for their willingness to stick up for their way of doing things; i.e., defending "indigenous Christianity" as opposed to the "Roman Catholic" system. The Council at Whitby always comes into play as an example of "Roman Catholicism's" heavy-handedness.
Rubbish. Whitby symbolizes continued raw political English arrogance moreso than anything else. Christianity in Ireland wasn't endangered; but the Church, in Rome, which had since the time of Clement, esp. exerted Her authoritative right to insist upon uniformity. So far the system's worked pretty good. Thanks to Whitby, notwithstanding age-old feuds between Celts and Anglo Saxons, Ireland joined and helped to spread Catholicisim, not her own parochial brand of what many (liberal) Catholics and evangelical wannabeliketheCatholicswithoutactuallybecomingCatholic Protestants would love to see the Church to put into place.
Cardinal Arinze is right to insist upon a basis sense of shared uniformity which lends an expected air of dignity which any Mass-goer can anticipate everytime he or she enters a church. This also takes a lot of pressure off of parishoners who might otherwise be expected to show up at a certain Mass where so and so and his wife and kids will be putting on an "awesome" skit to highlight the moment when Mary Magdalen realized Jesus had indeed arisen. (As if the Gospel reading and our Catechism was never enough; not to mention receiving COmmunion!)
Plays, skits, special choral presentations during the actual Service are by and large mostly evangelical Protestant and excessive (or slavish) post-Vatican II-style innovations shoved down the throats of many otherwise contented and unruffled Catholics.
Without Cardinal Arinze's steady hand holding the reins, we could wind up with more examples of a liturgical Hell's Kitchen with the chef overlording and demanding this, that and all else, not to mention the other innovators messing up the Meal with their various additions, subtractions and ethnic flavorings.
The Cardinal from Nigeria, a convert, no less, isn't against keeping any locall customs, etc. But he doesn't want them to detract from the reason we go to Mass, either. When I attended a Polka Mass in Hadley once and heard -- no kidding -- the melody to "In Heaven there is no beer" (I'm sure they meant "no fear"), I didn't recall anything else and that was the Offertory hymn. Any self-respecting cynical wiseguy would've automatically thought it was a call for beer money! (They don't do that anymore here.)
For those among us who like our meals plain, edible and reasonably tasty, Cardinal Arinze is just the man Pope Benedict needs to make sure the sheep will be well fed and not left wanting for more (substantive) food. They'll be getting bread, not junk food, wine, not grape juice.
And yes, every recipe will have a longstanding bill of approval granted by real pros. (Besides, being Irish, but no lover of corned beef and cabbage, I'll take lasagna any day. Italian cooking has always grabbed my palate as well as Roman theology has always been there in my heart and head. It's predictably good.)
Mangia!
And, as some of you well know, in some Protestant churches, even its version of communion isn't served if Easter doesn't fall on the locally dedicated week of the month. (sigh) But there will be a skit.
Last edited on Wed Mar 19th, 2008 10:37 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
|
|
|
Current time is 06:33 am | |
|
|
|
|
|
