|
T h e A p o l o g i s t ’ s E y e
Strategic Missal
|
This Rock
Volume 11, Number 10
 October 2000 
|
|
|
At the end of July the Holy See and the national conference of bishops released a new edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) which will be part of the new Roman Missal due out this fall. The General Instruction is an overview document that provides regulations concerning the way in which Mass is to be celebrated. It is commonly published in the front of the Sacramentary, the book of prayers used by the priest at Mass.
The introduction of a new GIRM, like the introduction of a new Missal itself, is momentous. For the last 25 years, most Latin Rite Catholics have worshiped according to rite of Mass set forth in the Missal of 1975 (often—though erroneously—called the novus ordo Mass). However, once the new Missal is promulgated and translated into the vernacular, we will be worshiping according to the rite of Mass set forth in the Missal of 2000.
The new GIRM addresses several areas of worship that have been the subject of confusion in recent years.
1. The altar cross. Quoting the U.S. bishops’ conference Committee on the Liturgy summary of the new GIRM: “Where the previous Institutio [instruction] spoke only of an altar or processional cross, the revised Insitutio speaks always of ‘a cross with the figure of Christ crucified upon it’ (308, 122). This cross, ‘positioned either on the altar or near it,’ should be clearly visible not only during the liturgy but at all times, recalling ‘for the faithful the saving passion of the Lord [and] remain[ing] near the altar even outside liturgical celebrations.” This means the bare crosses and crosses with the resurrected Christ that have proliferated over the last quarter century are not to be used as altar crosses.
2. Placement of the tabernacle. The new instruction gives equal weight to the options of having the tabernacle in the sanctuary or in a separate chapel. If a chapel tabernacle is chosen, the chapel should be “integrally connected to the church” and “conspicuous to the faithful.” If the tabernacle is in the sanctuary, it should “not be on the altar on which Mass is celebrated,” which clears up an ambiguity in the old instruction. The new instruction indicates that a sanctuary tabernacle may be placed medially behind the altar on which Mass is celebrated. It also adds a bottom-line condition that should put an end to both sides of the argument: Tabernacle location should always be determined “according to the judgment of the diocesan bishop” (314–317).
3. Posture of the faithful at the consecration. The 1975 GIRM stated that the congregation should kneel at the consecration “unless prevented by lack of space, number of people, or some other good reason” (21). The new instruction makes explicit “reasons of health” in this list of exceptions (43)—it was already implicit. In addition, it instructs that those standing “ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration” (43) (emphasis added to point out that the adjective “profound” has been added to the word “bow” in most instances). More significantly, again quoting the U.S. bishops’ conference Committee on the Liturgy, “the new Insitutio notes that ‘where it is the custom that the people remain kneeling from the end of the Sanctus until the end of the Eucharistic Prayer [as in the United States] this is laudably retained (43)” (emphasis added).
The new instructions will take effect following the promulgation of the new Missal later this fall. When they will become mandatory in the U.S. is not yet clear. That may not be until an approved English translation of the new Missal is promulgated.
—James Akin
Tyndale Was No Superhero
While I was growing up, my parents subscribed to Guideposts, a nondenominational Christian magazine full of inspirational stories of how God had touched people’s lives in ways both subtle and miraculous. I wasn’t as attuned to such matters then, but I don’t ever recall running up against anything in the magazine that ran contrary to our Catholic faith.
It’s been many years since I’ve seen Guideposts, but this month a subscriber sent me an stale copy (March/April 1999) of Guideposts for Kids. It contains a four-page comic-book section titled “True Super Comic: Manhunt!” that paints sixteenth-century reformer William Tyndale (c. 1491–1536) as a sort of Christian superhero battling a pitiless Catholic Church in his quest to bring the Bible to the common folk.
“Imagine if the Bible was written in a strange language that only a few people could understand,” the first panel reads. It shows a bewildered kid looking up at a minister who is speaking in gibberish that sounds vaguely like Latin: “Vo humstem ipsy bartle et verbum, vet tebscrel . . .” The next panel reads, “And imagine if the police were after you because you’d managed to translate the scriptures into English” and shows the frightened kid dashing into a dark alley clutching a Bible as he is chased by policemen who shout, “Stop that kid! Grab that book!” On the wall of the alley is a “Wanted—Public enemy #1” poster with the kid’s face on it. “Back in 1524, Englishman William Tyndale was on the run for this very ‘crime.’” The comic depicts his valiant struggle to get a vernacular Scripture into the hands of the people until he is captured through treachery and thrown into prison.
In fact, Tyndale was ordained a Catholic priest in 1515. Several years later, wanting to translate Scripture from Greek into English, he asked for the patronage of the bishop of London and was refused. He then traveled to Germany where he met Martin Luther and embraced Protestantism. By 1525, his English translation of the New Testament was complete and copies were smuggled into England. “No cargo more precious ever crossed the English Channel, or ever will!” one of the comic characters says. But then a panel showing soldiers grouped around a great bonfire reads, “Many copies were intercepted and destroyed. But many more got through, and some bishops even tried buying copes to keep them from the people!”
In fact, Church authorities, trying to protect souls, were rightly concerned about the unorthodox character of Tyndale’s text. The New Catholic Encyclopedia notes that “traces of Luther’s German version are apparent in it.”
Though the Guideposts for Kids comic only hints at Tyndale’s fate, he was executed in 1536, not for translating the Bible into English but for heresy. Ironically, a year earlier Sir Thomas More—a fierce intellectual opponent of Tyndale’s—was put to death for refusing to sign a heretical oath of supremacy that recognized Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church in England and in effect denied papal primacy.
The moral of the story: Always be on the lookout for subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Catholicism, especially in mainstream “Christian” material—and most especially when that material is aimed at your children.
—Tim Ryland
More Food Or Fewer People?
The next time someone in the grocery store casts a jaundiced eye at your big family and mutters something about overpopulation, you might mention this item: A conference of scientists that convened in late August issued a statement saying current world cropland has the potential to support up to 10 billion people—almost twice the world’s current population.
“More than 50 percent of the yield potential is lost to diseases, weather conditions, a shortage of water and inadequate research,” Hartwig Geiger, professor of genetics at the Hohenheim University, told the international conference on crop science.
Congress chairman Hubert Spiertz, another geneticist, agreed with Geiger’s figures, but was fatalistic. “That potential could never be fully achieved,” he told a news conference on the last day of the congress.
The Zenit news agency reported that Geiger said development of genetically modified crops still can provide solutions to malnutrition problems such as a lack of beta-carotene. (According to the World Health Organization, 125 million children worldwide suffer from a shortage of beta-carotene, which can lead to blindness in the worst cases.) Beta-carotene deficiency was most severe in countries where rice is the staple diet. A recently developed genetically modified rice variety can provide 80 percent of the minimum required amount of beta-carotene, according to Geiger.
You could also tell the grocery-store kibitzer that you’re only doing your patriotic part to stave off economic disaster by bolstering the national birth rate (which is currently below replacement levels) and that governments should concentrate on equitable distribution of existing food before we stigmatize procreation. Or you can simply do as my sister-in-law does when—as occasionally happens—someone looks at her seven kids and says, “Are these all yours?” “Yes,” she replies with a smile, “isn’t it a wonderful start?” Or you could smile and quote Kruschev: “We will bury you.”
—Brian Kelleher
"Glorious and Immortal" Pius IX
As the months wound down to the beatification of Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti—Pope Pius IX (1846–1878)—allegations of supposed anti-Semitism onhis part were bandied about in the press. In May, the Italian press agency Adista published an article, “The Legend of the Kidnapper Saint,” that raised the case of Edgardo Mortara, a 2-year-old Jewish boy during Pius IX’s pontificate who ran the risk of dying for having been secretly baptized by an acquaintance. The child did not die, but a problem emerged for the Church: What should be done with a baptized child whose parents refused to raise as Catholic? Against the parents’ wishes, the Church took a hand in Mortara’s education, and in 1873 he became a priest. The case has been sufficient reason for some to accuse Pius IX of anti-Semitism. The Mortara case was also covered in June by the Washington Post, which condemned Pius IX’s work.
The Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI) addressed these same accusations in a June meeting in Rome. At the opening of this congress, UCEI president Amos Luzzatto said, “We make it clear that this decision [Pius IX’s beatification] will entail consequences in our relations with the Vatican.”
Following a lengthy mandatory investigation, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints had noresevrations as to the goodness of Pius IX’s actions. In fact, he was much loved by the Jewish people of his time—to the point that in 1847, the chief rabbi of the Israeli University in Rome dedicated a psalm and prayer to the pope, calling him“ glorious and immortal.”
Pius IX was responsible for the end of the Jewish ghetto in Rome, a neighborhood in the Eternal City especially reserved for Jews. He also sent men to defend the Jews from the fury of people angry over his decision. It was Pius IX who said that Jews should not be considered “foreigners.”
The psalm of Rabbi Mosč Israel Kazzan reads thus: “When an entire people is proud to conduct itself justly, You, Oh great God of the armies, grant it a king who is gentle, a prince who represents you worthily.” (The “king” Kazzan was referring to was Pius IX, who at the time was also the highest authority of the independent Pontifical States.)
Referring to Pius IX’s work in favor of Jews, Kazzan wrote, “He showed mercy to a degraded, exiled, dispersed, and persecuted people. . . . Before the world, he removed it from the disdain of peoples, because you wanted its restoration, Oh Eternal One!”
Kazzan’s psalm ends with these words: “Let it be known in the remotest islands with how much glory Pius IX governs, how he administers justice with exactitude, how the whole world shines with splendor because of him.”
On September 3, John Paul II beatified both Pope Pius IX and Pope John XXIII.
—Tim Ryland
|
