Worship prefect calls for Masses celebrated towards east

Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

The Vatican’s liturgy chief has called on priests to celebrate parts of the Mass facing the east, as this is what Vatican II wanted.

The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Robert Sarah, made this call in an interview with a French Catholic magazine.

Cardinal Sarah said Vatican II did not require priests to celebrate Mass facing the people.

This way of celebrating Mass, he said, was “a possibility, but not an obligation”.

Readers and listeners should face each other during the Liturgy of the Word, he said.

“But as soon as we reach the moment when one addresses God – from the Offertory onwards – it is essential that the priest and faithful look together towards the east.

“This corresponds exactly to what the council fathers wanted.”

The cardinal rejected the argument that priests celebrating Mass facing east are turning their backs on the faithful “or against them”.

Rather, he said, all are “turned in the same direction: towards the Lord who comes”.

“It is legitimate and complies with the letter and spirit of the council,” he said.

Cardinal Sarah said the celebration of the Mass “versus orientem” is authorised by the rubrics.

These specify when the celebrant must turn to the people.

“It is therefore not necessary to have special permission to celebrate facing the Lord,” the cardinal said.

Last year, he wrote in an article in L’Osservatore Romano that it was “altogether appropriate, during the penitential rite, the singing of the Gloria, the orations and the Eucharistic prayer, that everyone, priest and faithful, turn together toward the east”.

This is so as to “express their intention to participate in the work of worship and redemption accomplished by Christ”.

The cardinal added in the article that Mass facing east could be “implemented in cathedrals, where the liturgical life must be exemplary”.

Sources