New rules for taking communion issued
July 17, 2003
BY CATHLEEN FALSANI Religion Reporter
While the changes might seem minor, the first revisions the Vatican has made to the mass since 1975 will affect every Roman Catholic who walks forward for communion.
Before they take the bread and wine, they'll have to bow, as a sign of reverence for the Eucharist, the bread and wine Roman Catholics believe becomes the actual body and blood of Christ during the mass.
Catholics also must be quieter during the mass, sitting meditatively in silence before it begins, after the homily, and after they receive communion instead of chatting with neighbors, or whispering to the kids.
In a letter sent to every priest and deacon in the Chicago archdiocese, Cardinal Francis George asked that the revisions to The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the guide for how mass should be celebrated by every Roman Catholic in the world, be in place in parishes throughout Cook and Lake counties by Nov. 30, the first Sunday in Advent, said Todd Williamson, director of the Office for Divine Worship.
The dioceses of Joliet and Gary, Ind., already have instituted the revisions, spokesmen said.
The Vatican revisions to the Roman Missal were passed in 2000, but were written in Latin. Their English translation and special "adaptations" requested by the American bishops were not approved until last November, said Monsignor Anthony Sherman, associate director for the Secretariat for the Liturgy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The idea of the revisions, however minor, is to make sure every Roman Catholic is celebrating mass, the central event in their faith, the same way.
"This is the most important thing we do all week long," Williamson said. "This is a great opportunity for parishes to renew their understanding and their appreciation of the Eucharist."
Some critics wonder why church leaders are focusing their energy on liturgical tinkering instead of working to restore the trust of Catholics disillusioned by the worst clergy sex abuse scandal in the history of the American church.
After recently listening to a liturgy expert from the U.S. bishops brief a group of Chicago priests about the importance of bowing before receiving the communion wafer, the Rev. William Kenneally, pastor of St. Gertrude parish on the far North Side, was so perturbed he preached a homily about it.
"If I was an actor and some director was insisting that my head should be turned this way, and I was missing my lines, I would just be thinking, 'Don't you understand what's important any more?' " Kenneally said.
The liturgy expert told the priests that "people don't respect the Eucharist like they used to," and "we should get people doing the same thing externally and this leads to internal unity," Kenneally recalled.
"I don't know what they're doing, if they're not watching people or what. People love the Eucharist. If they're trying to fix something, they should fix it by making sure there's always Eucharist for people, and that's about ordination," Kenneally said. "They're putting in a fix, like what they did in the scandals. They did a fix, and that's not fixing."
The Rev. Anthony Brankin, pastor of St. Thomas More parish on the Southwest Side where the Latin mass is still said at noon on Sunday, welcomes the revisions.
"There are no bigger fish to fry," Brankin said of the importance of the mass. "If we do that right, then it's an indication that maybe everything will at least follow in some sense. If the act of worship . . . is out of control, is it not possible that everything else could be out of control?"