What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

For a rigid backward looking conservative, Pope Benedict XVI sure does some progressive things.

The most recent surpise from His Holiness is a change to the Synod of Bishops.

Originally the Synod, called to meet occasionally to discuss questions put to them by the Pope, could before only offer observations and statements.  Pope Benedict has now given them deliberative power concerning certain precise questions. 

The new edition of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis indicates the changes in new statutes for the Synod.

The Synod will be able to vote on issues, but the vote must be ratified by the Pope.  Thus, in certain specific questions, it seems the Synod will become a kind of micro-Council. 

This move brings the Synod perhaps more in line with the way ancient Synods worked.  It also resonates with the way the Orthodox bishops deliberate, though clearly they don’t have the Petrine dimension excercized by the Pope.

So, this Pope seems to be bent on loosening the vice clamping around some dimensions of the Church’s life since Pope Paul VI.  He is exploiting the provisions in Canon Law about the Synod and relaxing artifical and harmful restrictions imposed on the Church’s liturgical life.

 

 

 

In today’s La Reppublica there is an article from Marco Politi confirming two things which we already know.

First, the Motu Proprio is coming.  Second, Mr. Politi doesn’t understand what he is talking about on this matter.

Keep in mind that there was a dustup a week or so ago about a Jewish group which raised concerns about the language in the pre-Conciliar Missale Romanum.  People just don’t seem to grasp that changes were made to the Missal after  its release in 1570.  Really!

Here is the relevant bit in Politi’s article.  Try not to laugh.  (My translation and emphases)

 

Great expectation surrounds also the imminent publication of the papal Motu Proprio which will fully authorize traditionalist Catholic community to celebrate Mass in Latin according to the rite of Pius V.  Pope Ratzinger will explain in the document the rules to follow, but the text of the Missal is already ready and new copies are already on sale in bookstores.  The Missal turns out to have been emended in respect to the original of Pius V, following decisions made in the Vatican in 1962 and even before by John XXIII. [Yah… this news is only 45 years old.]

Obviously the mention of the "perfidious Jews" has disappeared, but also gone are the deprecationes, the curses against "schismatics and heretics", namely, the orthodox and protestants, just as also passages which ring as anti-Muslim.  What is striking in the reading of the old rite is the total abolition of the active role of the faithful, [He grasps nothing about the true meaning of "active participation".] relegated once again to the function of a flock which follows the one officiating.  Curiously – for the followers of absolute necessity to preserve the traditional text and to celebrate Mass in Latin – the Missals have the text in Italian on the facing page.  [Probably because these are "hand missals" to be used by the faithful iduring Mass to facilitate their full, conscious and active participation.]

Repubblica, 27 April 2007

This was a tag to the greater issue of what the Pope did in regard to the Synod of Bishops.

The key to understanding where Mr. Politi goes wrong here is that he doesn’t understand what "active participation" means.  It seems that he thinks "active" necessarily means that people must be constantly talking or singing or clapping or carrying stuff around.  That is a facile understanding of participation.

It may be that some time in the future, His Holiness will travel to the USA.  The terms are still quite vague, however:

POPE ACCEPTS INVITATION TO VISIT U.N. HEADQUARTERS

 

VATICAN CITY, APR 27, 2007 (VIS) – Yesterday afternoon, Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. announced that Benedict XVI has accepted the invitation presented recently by Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, to visit the headquarters of that organization in New York.

 

  "The Pope," said Fr. Lombardi, "has accepted the invitation in general terms, and has expressed his willingness to visit the U.N. headquarters, although as yet there is no date or program for the trip."

 

  Servant of God John Paul II visited the U.N. headquarters in 1979, and again in 1995 for the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the organization.