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

The Cardinal Newman Society
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 16, 2008

Cardinal Calls for Faithful to Rally
in Rome in Support of Pope Benedict

CNS Urges Americans to Support Pope with Prayers on Sunday

MANASSAS, VA – The Cardinal Newman Society, a national organization that works to strengthen and renew Catholic higher education, is urging American Catholics to pray Sunday in solidarity with Pope Benedict XVI following offensive protests that forced him to cancel an address at Rome’s La Sapienza University.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, has urged Catholics to rally in St. Peter’s Square during Sunday’s recitation of the Angelus as a powerful display of support for the Holy Father, whose visit to La Sapienza was canceled because of anti-Catholic protests and false accusations that the Pope is not supportive of scientific discovery.

“For American Catholics who cannot be in Rome, we urge special prayers on Sunday to demonstrate both our love for Pope Benedict and our steadfast confidence in the unity of faith and reason,” said CNS president Patrick J. Reilly.  “We hope that pastors will join us by including special prayers in Sunday’s petitions and by teaching Catholics the truth about the Church’s centuries-old dedication to science and higher education.”

Pope Benedict will make a rare visit to the United States in April 2008 and has summoned all presidents of U.S. Catholic colleges to meet with him in Washington.  For nearly 20 years the Vatican has been working to strengthen the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges, and the intensity of those efforts has increased in recent years.  CNS has been supporting and promoting these Vatican initiatives in the United States for the past 15 years.

“In advance of the Holy Father’s historic visit to the United States in April, we can draw upon this unfortunate incident as a valuable teaching moment for the Church and the secular world, which would seek truth without recognizing the Father and Creator, the fount of all truth,” said Reilly.

The unity of faith and reason has been a lifetime interest of Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor Pope John Paul II, both of whom had been university scholars with great appreciation for higher education.  The noted philosopher Ralph McInerny has said, “It sometimes seems that the only voice insisting on the power of human reason is that of the Holy Father.”

My friend Mr. Phil Lawler has a good piece in the fine Catholic World News, to which you all ought to be subscribing.  He writes about the issue of ad orientem worship.   Let’s have a look, with my emphases and comments.

The Forum: Ad orientem: the single most important reform

by Phil Lawler
special to CWNews.com

Jan. 15, 2008 (CWNews.com) – Actions speak louder.

Before he ascended to the throne of Peter, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote frequently about the liturgy, and explained his love for the Mass celebrated ad orientem—with the priest facing toward the altar, toward the east. Now as Roman Pontiff he has made his argument all the more eloquent, simply by celebrating Mass ad orientem himself in the Sistine Chapel.

If you read about the ceremony in the secular media, you almost certainly read that the Pope had "his back to the people." While that description is not inaccurate, it is reflects a distinct perspective. You could just as well observe that the Holy Father and the other worshipers in the Sistine Chapel were "facing in the same direction."

When the priest-celebrant faces the altar, he looks like what he is: the leader of a community at prayer. Everyone is facing the same way; everyone is involved in the same action. When the priest faces the people, on the other hand, he appears to be a performer, with the people as his audience.  [Papa Ratzinger also explained that, while ad orientem focuses the priest and congregation outward, to the Lord who is coming, celebration versus populum creates a "closed circle", a turning inward of the focus of celebration.]

The liturgical changes of Vatican II were intended to encourage more active participation by the laity in the Eucharistic liturgy. But think of any other situation in which one man faces a group: a classroom lecture, a musical concert, a product demonstration, an after-dinner speech. In those situations we ordinarily expect the group to be passive: to listen but not to participate. The speaker or soloist is the focal point of the action; he commands the spotlight.  [This is a good point: the psychological impact of turning the altars around devastated the sense of true participation at Mass.  I think the turning around of the altars was the single most harmful change after the Council.]

The holy Sacrifice of the Mass does not belong to any priest. This is the Sacrifice of Calvary. The celebrant is not the central actor in the liturgy, except insofar as he acts in the person of Jesus Christ. [I think Mr. Lawler has been reading WDTPRS!  o{];¬) ] When we shine the spotlight on the person of the priest—on his face and features, his gestures and expressions—we can easily become distracted from the true meaning of the Eucharistic liturgy.

How often, in the years of liturgical turmoil since Vatican II, has a priest been carried away by the knowledge that he is the center of attention? How many times has the celebrant adopted the attitude that the Mass is his "show," and felt free to adapt the liturgy to fit his own personal style? And how frequently have lay Catholics—even informed, pious Catholics—slipped into the same attitude, so that they tell their friends, "I like Father Smith’s Mass."

In reality, of course, the Eucharistic liturgy is an act of the entire Christian community, in which priest and congregation pray together as one body. As the Catechism teaches us, "The whole Church, the Body of Christ, prays and offers herself ‘through him, with him, in him,’ in the unity of the Holy Spirit, to God the Father." So the time-honored custom of the Church was to have the priest stand at the head of the people, all facing in the same direction, forming one body united in worship.

When priest and congregation face in the same direction, toward the altar, their posture reflects the unity of the Catholic community at worship. When they face in opposite directions, with the priest facing toward the people, that unity is broken. Liturgists refer to the usual posture for Mass today as versus populum. The Latin phrase sounds as if the priest is in competition with the people, and sometimes I think that is true.

If I could choose one reform to encourage greater reverence among Catholics and a better appreciation for the meaning of the Mass, it would be a return to the tradition of celebrating Mass ad orientem.  [AMEN!  SAY IT, BROTHER!]

As it happens, however, no reform is necessary. Neither Vatican II nor any subsequent liturgical directive required priests to face the people. In 2001, when asked whether priests could still use the ad orientem posture in celebrating Mass, the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship replied that both postures, ad orientem and versus populum "are in accord with liturgical law; both are to be considered correct." In fact, the Congregation added, "there is no preference expressed in the liturgical legislation for either position."  [That’s all very nice, but I think there is.  First, the rubrics really assume that the priest is celebrating ad orientem.  Also, the practice of celebrating versus populum is still an innovation, in the long scheme of things.  But the CDW has to say things like that.]

Now, with his own public celebration of Mass ad orientem, Pope Benedict has called public attention to this option and shown the beauty of the liturgical tradition.

My own preference for the ad orientem liturgy is based mainly on practical concerns. As long as the celebrant is put in a position that tempts him to think he is "on stage," I cannot foresee an end to the unauthorized experimentation and self-indulgence that have marred the Roman liturgy since Vatican II. But Pope Benedict has more profound and more persuasive reasons for his own preference.

In his beautiful work The Spirit of the Liturgy then-Cardinal Ratzinger explains how the Christian community developed the practice of facing the east, toward Jerusalem, toward the site of the Resurrection, as a "fundamental expression of the Christian synthesis of cosmos and history, of being rooted in the once-for-all events of salvation history while going out to meet the Lord who is to come again."

You readers might want to check my PODCAzTs on this issue.

048 08-01-01 Athanasius on Mary and Christ; Gamber, Schuler and turned around altars

043 07-08-23 Benedict XVI on Mass “toward the Lord” and a prayer by St. Augustine

037 07-07-18 The position of the altar and the priest’s “back to the people”

We have seen a string of panicky or simply ignorant articles on the Holy Father’s Mass for the Baptism of the Lord when, in the Sistine Chapel, he celebrated ad orientem versus.

I am pleased that Catholic World News, as you would expect, got it right.  My emphases and comments:

Pope celebrates Mass ad orientem, speaks on Baptism

Vatican, Jan. 14, 2008 (CWNews.com) – Pope Benedict XVI baptized 13 infants, the children of Vatican employees, in keeping with a Vatican tradition on the feast of the Baptism of Christ.

The Holy Father used the ad orientem posture, facing in the same direction as the congregation, [WHAT??  He didn’t "turn his back on the people"??!?] using the magnificent altar of the Sistine Chapel rather than portable altar ["magnificent" vs. "portable"] that had been set up in previous years. This provoked widespread comment, with many journalists reporting that the Pope had revived an old liturgical tradition. (In fact, the ad orientem posture was never abolished.)  [As a matter of fact, it is assumed by the rubrics of the Missale Romanum.]

Msgr. Guido Marini, the new master of ceremonies for papal liturgies, said that the traditional posture was used to emphasize the "beauty and harmony of this architectural masterpiece," as it was originally designed for liturgical ceremonies. [If that was his explanation, Papa Ratzinger has other, theological explanations.] He noted in a public statement that in celebrating ad orientem, the Pope was not breaking with existing practice but "making use of a possibility contemplated by liturgical norms." Still the Pontiff’s return to a traditional practice revived rumors that Pope Benedict will soon celebrate a public Mass using the "extraordinary form"—the traditional Latin Mass.

The Pope baptized 8 girls and 5 boys at the January 13 ceremony. (One of the boys was named John Paul.) In his homily he reminded the parents and godparents that in Baptism the child enters "into a personal relationship with the Creator, and this lasts forever."

"It is for this reason that Christian parents bring their children to the baptismal font as soon as possible," the Holy Father continued; "knowing that the life they have communicated to them invokes a fullness, a salvation, that only God can give." By having their children baptized promptly, he said, "the parents become God’s collaborators, transmitting to their children not only physical but also spiritual life."

"Unfortunately," the Pontiff continued, "man is capable of extinguishing this new life through sin." For other animals, death means only the end of life,  [You mean Fluffy doesn’t go to heaven?!?]

Later on Sunday, at his midday Angelus audience, Pope Benedict reflected on the Baptism of Christ, noting that the event marked the beginning of Christ’s public life. "By having Himself baptized by John together with sinners, Jesus began to take upon Himself the burden of sin of all humanity," he said.

The Pope continued: "The whole of Christ’s mission may be summed up in this way: Baptism in the Holy Spirit to free us from the slavery of death and open us to heaven—in other words … to true and full life."