Review of Liturgical Reform Proposed by Cardinal Sodano

VATICAN CITY, AUG. 29, 2003 (Zenit.org).- Four decades after the liturgical reform carried out by the Second Vatican Council, it is right to examine the way it has been implemented, in order to relaunch it, says Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The Vatican secretary of state made that proposal in a letter to the participants in Italy's National Liturgical Week, held in the town of Acireale. The event ended today.

In the letter, which expresses the Pope's greetings to the participants, Cardinal Sodano reflected on the 1963 constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium," approved by the council fathers.

"Forty years later, it is right to ask what the liturgical reform itself has represented for the renewal of Christian communities, to what degree the liturgy, reformed according to the indications of the council, is able to mediate between faith and life, so that it forms believers able to offer consistent evangelical testimony," the cardinal said.

At the same time, "it is useful to ask oneself with clarity and sincerity if the reform has experienced some weak point and where, and, above all, how it can be relaunched for the good of the Christian people," he added.

According to the cardinal, the challenge the Church faces today is "to translate the reform in the life of the believer, called to integrate himself in the communion that the Son desires to establish with each one, a communion that we celebrate constantly in the liturgy."

Cardinal Sodano presented these questions to the participants in the Liturgical Week and asked them to give thoughtful answers. At the same time, he offered guidelines for their answers.

"Although it can rightly be said that the conciliar reform has been carried out, the liturgical pastoral program represents a permanent commitment which enables one to draw from the richness of the liturgy the vital force that is spread from Christ to the members of the Body, which is the Church," he said.

In this connection, "perhaps some of the principles of the constitution have to be better understood and more faithfully applied," the cardinal added.

In particular, he said, "it is useful to analyze some specific topics such as, for example, the relation between creativity and fidelity, between spiritual worship and life, between catechesis and celebration of the Mystery, between liturgical presidency and role of the assembly, between formation in the seminaries and the permanent formation of priests."

Actually, there are canon lawyers who dispute the legitimacy of Fr. Feeney's "excommunication". In fact, he never arrived in Rome for his 'hearing' because the Vatican did not allow him his canonical right to be represented by a Canon Lawyer, nor did they ever notify him of the nature of the original charges they were bringing against him. And it is very strange that it was the Church itself, (through Cardinal Medeiros), that requested the Vatican lift the censure against Fr. Feeney, which they did without asking him to recant anything, but merely asked him to make a profession of faith.

Fr. Feeney was excommunicated for disobedience, not heresy. So to be reconciled, he would not be required to make a "recantation" of his "heresy", since he was not censured for such an act to begin with. How stupid do you take the rest of us for?

Oh, and who are these "some canon lawyers" who dispute the excommunication? Is the Acta Apostolicae Sedis not the official publication of such decrees? Is the decree of excommunication not contained within it?

None of your aruments are convincing, and that nonsensical cunard that I am excommunicated

No, an interdict. You are forbidden from the Sacraments until you confess, because the dissemination is a mortal sin. Read the decree. Its quite clear.

And I'm sorry that Decrees of the Holy Office are not "convincing" to you. Perhaps damnation will be, when you discover that the Holy Office really does have authority to forbid the dissemination of this work.

He got shafted by the modernists who seek to change the Catholic Church just as surely as Melanie Calvet did.

Sorry, he disobeyed the command to come to Rome for a Canonical trial. He was not "shafted". He refused legitimate authority, just like you.

And since the La Sallette apparition is fully approved, and Melanie Calvet's 1879 brochure has the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Lecce, we have the assurance there is nothing doctrinally unsound contained in the prophesies.

An Imprimatur is an approval to publish, not a statement that there is nothing doctrinally wrong with a work (that is a nihil obstat). Given the numerous condemnations of this so-called secret, the Imprimatur here is not worth the paper it is written on.

I have this brochure. There are a number of false statements within it. A few of them:

9. Because in less than seven years after the introduction of the New Mass, priests in the world decreased from 413,438 to 243,307 -- almost 50%! (Holy See Statistics)

This is an apples and oranges comparison. The first number is the total number of Priests - Diocesean and Religious. The second number is the total number of Diocesean Priests ONLY. You can verify this by looking at the referenced work in a good Library. Presently, the total numebr of Catholic Priests in the world is about 465,000, IIRC.

21. Because the narrative manner of the Consecration in the New Mass infers that it is only a memorial and not a true sacrifice (Protestant Thesis)

The GIRM is perfectly clear in referring to the "Institution Narrative" and the "Consecration". There is no "narrative manner of the Consecration".

GIRM 55 d. Institution narrative and consecration: in the words and actions of Christ, that sacrifice is celebrated which he himself instituted at the Last Supper, when, under the appearances of bread and wine, he offered his body and blood, gave them to his apostles to eat and drink, then commanded that they carry on this mystery.

26. Because the New Mass was made in accordance with the Protestant definition of the Mass: "The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred synaxis or assembly of the people of God which gathers together under the presidence of the priest to celebrate the memorial of the Lord." (Par. 7 Intro. to the New Missal, defining the New Mass, 4/6/69)

The editio typica of the GIRM reads:

7. At Mass or the Lord's Supper, the people of God are called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord or eucharistic sacrifice.[13] For this reason Christ's promise applies supremely to such a local gathering together of the Church: "Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst" (Mt. 18:20). For at the celebration of Mass, which perpetuates the sacrifice of the cross,[14] Christ is really present to the assembly gathered in his name; he is present in the person of the minister, in his own word, and indeed substantially and permanently under the eucharistic elements.[15]

34. Because statistics show a great decrease in conversions to Catholicism following the use of the New Mass. Conversions, which were up to 100,000 a year in the U.S., have decreased to less than 10,000! And the number of people leaving the Church far exceeds those coming in.

These statistics are confusing, because seperate statistics on the number of adults received into the Church without Baptism were not fully kept. However, the number of adult Baptisms into the Church in the US never dropped below 75,000. It certainly was not 10,000. Today, there are between 160,000 and 180,000 converts per year in the US, about 1/2 adult Baptisms.

I very much doubt that there has been any real drop at all.

"Solange Hertz is a cuckoo clock. Period. Any credibility you may have had has been destroyed with this citation. Malachi Martin was also "brilliant."

I love how you neo-Catholics try to slander good people by spitting onto their faces the dastardly labels of "insane", or other catchy little stereotypes that calumniate their character. It's your cowardly little way of trying to destroy their integrity and moral authority...just as Melanie Calvet, who was selected by Heaven to meet face to face with the Mother of God, was deemed a "cuckoo clock" by your ilk. Your whole argument is premised on throwing dung at people until something sticks. But when you scratch the surface of your shallow faith and transparent hatred, it's plain to see that you're scared to death of the revelations of Father Malachi Martin, the laicized priest who was granted a dispensation by Pope Paul VI to leave the Jesuits for a private life, and who maintained his priestly faculties, and who lived out his vows of celibacy inspite of being released from them -- something so many of the weak spirited, neo-Catholic priests can no longer do.

They always murdered the prophets and shot the messengers, I guess it's just human nature.

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