From Rubrics to Ars Celebrandi—Liturgical Law in the 21st Century

Abstract

From Rubrics to Ars Celebrandi—Liturgical Law in the 21st Century Alcuin Reid Introduction During the 1970s and 1980s rubrics—even modern ones— were widely disregarded if not dismissed as irrelevant. They were years when the General Instruction of the Roman Missal was too often treated simply as a set of guidelines and the Missal itself as a mere planning resource. Liturgical law was not taken seriously and grave liturgical abuses took place, even in seminaries. Bishops were not infrequently “surprised” by occurrences in liturgies over which they presided. Today the abuses of the immediate postconciliar decades seem largely—though not entirely—to have ceased. The problem now is more one of ignorance of liturgical law and of a laissez-faire attitude to ritual which evacuates liturgical rites of the sacred and to a lesser or greater extent renders each parish or community’s celebration not the celebration of the Liturgy of the Church as the Church has given it us, but a celebration of “what we do here.” Thus a subjectivization of the Church’s liturgy endures and in some places has taken root. It gives rise to the question: Does positive liturgical law have a place in the life of the Church of the twenty-first century? Or is such law devoid of meaning and authority ? Are there reasons for taking rubrics seriously?1 The Nature of Liturgical Law What is liturgical law? The clearest definition may be found in the 1954 doctoral dissertation of Msgr. Frederick R. McManus (1923–2005): “The ordering and regulation of the Sacred Liturgy 1 I am assuming that for celebrations of the usus antiquior the answer is self-evident; cf. Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Instruction Universae Ecclesiae (30 April 2011), no. 28. Antiphon 17.2 (2013): 139–167 140 Alcuin Reid make up liturgical law.”2 McManus sees liturgical law as having divine origin in the dominical command: Hoc facite in meam commemorationem (cf. Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:23), and in the authority given by Christ to the Church (cf. Mt 28:18-20). He regards it as part of the potestas ministerii of the Church.3 Historically, this potestas was exercised at a local level; bishops or their chapters gave assent to the modification of liturgical rites and texts as necessary.4 At times secular princes—who were by no means “secular” in the sense of the separation of Church and State as we understand today—intervened in liturgical regulation, the most notable example of whom was the Emperor Charlemagne (c. 742–814), in what has become known as “the Carolingian reform” at the end of the eighth century.5 The disputes and denials of the Protestant Reformation and the decadence that had given rise to them led the Council of Trent to underline the local bishop’s duty to correct sundry errors and to supervise liturgical observances.6 Interestingly, in its seventh session (3 March 1547), the Council asserted liturgical discipline quite strongly: If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church in customary use in the solemn administration of the sacraments may, without sin, be neglected or omitted at choice by the ministers, or can be changed to other new ones by any pastor whatever: let him be anathema.7 2 Frederick R. McManus, The Congregation of Sacred Rites (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1954) 5. 3 Cf. ibid., 6–7. 4 Examples of pre-Reformation liturgical regulation of local liturgical books may be found in: Archdale A. King, Liturgies of the Primatial Sees (London: Longmans, 1957). 5 See: Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy (2nd ed., San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005) 22–27. 6 “Quæcumque in diocesi ad Dei cultum spectant, ab ordinario diligenter curari atque iis, ubi oportet, provideri æquum est.” Session 21, canon 8. Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. II (London—Washington DC: Sheed & Ward—Georgetown University Press 1990) 731. 7 Canon 13: “Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbatos ecclesiæ catholicæ ritus in solemni sacramentorum administatione adhiberi consuetos aut contemni, aut sine peccato a ministris pro libito omitti, aut in novos alios per quemcumque ecclesiarum pastorem mutari posse: anathema sit.” Tanner...