Catholic Sensibility

I always enjoy reading John Allen's NCR column, especially so when something liturgical comes up, like this week's interview with Cardinal George of Chicago, one of the leading lights of the Vox Clara Commission, set up to give a few bishops a more direct dealing with ICEL, the English Translation agency for liturgical rites. First, the cardinal expects Catholics to be responding "and with your spirit," when the changes do come down the pike. It was specifically requested by the curia in 2001. I was pleased to see the cardinal is not working in an ivory tower over it. George said, "People possess the English texts in a way they never possessed the Latin. For some, it will be a difficult habit to break." Indeed. A minority of Catholics were deeply upset over the Vatican II liturgy changes, which were handled badly in some places. (But not everywhere.) I can think of about a dozen people in my parish who might just refuse to go along and keep saying the old words ... after the other 2200 break the habit. I confess that though despite reading a commentary or two about "et cum spiritu tuo," I'm baffled by what the distinction means. Not the translation distinction, mind you; that's clear enough. But the notion that a greeting is worded in such a curious way: a ritualized wish for God's presence "with you," followed by what seems to be a needless clarification of "your spirit." Does that speak somehow to the priest's liturgical role? Does it narrow the sense of what the priest is doing, confining his presidency to the spiritual and eliminating his human gifts of preaching, speaking, singing, etc.? Maybe someone can tell me. George seems to think no other changes to the people's words are coming along. This will not satisfy many people. Think about it: make one substantial change because the curia says so, then make no others. Some people on both sides of the liturgy wars will say, "Why bother?" And both might have a legitimate beef. According to the cardinal, we have another three years to wait for a translated Roman Missal. Advent 2008 at the earliest, and maybe another year or two after that. That's about the past track record for liturgical changes. I was unimpressed with George's response when Allen asked him about the "'collateral damage' from the liturgy wars." His observation here seems limp: "The challenge Rome put to the local bishops was to take possession of the process itself, to have bishops involved in every step. Maybe it's more accurate to say that control has been taken away from the experts and given back to the bishops. Canonically, I don't believe it's any more centralized than before, the structures are intact, but with a different cast of characters." I'm not dreaming when I recall liturgical issues getting hammered out in USCCB general session, am I? By adding the Vox Clara Commission, George and his cronies in the curia have added one new layer to the bureaucracy. You have ICEL doing the grunt work. You have Vox Clara fussing over fine points in non-vernacular English. And you have eleven English-speaking bishops' conferences still picking the work apart and sending it back to committee--two committees, in fact. If local or individual bishops were uninvolved before, it wasn't for the lack of opportunity. Even if you've not been selected to the (US) Bishops' Committee on Liturgy (BCL), it's not as though a bishop is cut off from commentary either at meetings, or in writing. My thinking: George is dodging a bit in this interview. But I'm grateful he recognizes the problems from a pastor's viewpoint. He's one up on the curia on that score. Twenty years ago, I would have agreed that an emphasis on "a text's suitability for public proclamation, its beauty as English prose, and its comprehensibility" was the major challenge facing liturgy geeks everywhere. Whether politicized from one angle, another, or both, the process has just taken too damned long. Another problem might well have overtaken the "quality" issue. (Quality really should have been settled in the 70's. It's just sheer stupidity that the translation that should have taken the longest and been done with the most care (namely, the first) was rushed, and that the subsequent tweakings should have been far quicker.) Text alone will not ensure the quality of proclamation and prayer. And given the damage to both the liturgy and the episcopacy, that should be the next task tackled by the BCL and the CDWS. Anything less than a full-scale effort to unify Catholics under the Church's liturgy will be pastorally, if not criminally, neglectful. I think if you asked me what three personalities I'd invite to dinner, this week I'd have to say Cardinal George, Bishop Trautman (BCL chair) and Cardinal Arinze (the curia's head liturgist). I'd be fascinated to hear their responses to a good batch of questions I've cooked up. If they hurry up and book their flights to Kansas City for this week, they'll get homemade apple or pumpkin pie for their trouble.