Transparent, collegial and synodal reform of liturgy

Monday, May 10th, 2021

Fr Thomas J Reese’s article ‘Vatican II made changes to the liturgy. It’s time to think about making more’ (America, April 16, 2021) generously invites others into a conversation on a ‘second phase’ of liturgical reform, where consensus is transparent, collegial and synodal. This conversation in the English-speaking churches needs to be globally diverse, not least of all, because the United States Catholic worldview is deeply fractured and politically segregated.

Context

The Catholic mission to Aotearoa New Zealand was established in 1838 by French missionaries for Māori, the Tāngata Whenua. From 1840 on, the impact of Irish, Scots, and English immigrants changed the mission’s outlook. By 1870 the mission had become an Irish settler church that by 1877 had a church school system. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Eurocentric colonial frameworks of worship and ecclesiology formed structures and attitudes, which we are now shedding. Since the 1970s, we have been rediscovering the ancient language and tradition of Te Reo Māori. We have become a bi-cultural and tri-lingual nation, and the Church has been changed through these strong, social forces. This is true for many churches of the previous English Empire, which is now the Commonwealth of Nations.

Enculturation

Enculturation is a complex but not an ‘unanswered question’ as Fr Reese suggests; it is an ongoing discovery. Two points of difference between the churches of Aotearoa New Zealand the United States, apart from the size, wealth, and international influence, are the indigenous voice and the exercise of patriotism. When I was a visiting scholar at Notre Dame University in 2000, I was asked to preside at Eucharist in the basilica. I would have readily accepted but for one thing, the United States National flag in the sanctuary. The flag, I explained, is a nationalist emblem which, at that time, was an international symbol of oppression and militarism.

Along with the Vatican flag on the other side of the sanctuary, I explained that baptism into Christ and not into the United States or the Vatican should mark liturgical buildings. Needless to say, the flags were not removed, and I did not preside. National flags in churches seem to say: “here’s proof we belong” and reflect the need for social acceptance.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, nationalism of another sort is seen in civic religion when it co-opts Christian prayer forms to create civic religion for its own ends. Our challenge—and wherever ancient pre-European traditions are re-emerging from under the gloss of imposed European cultural catholicisms—is to discern if there is a theological difference between the ancient rituals and theologies of pre-missionary Aotearoa and the Roman liturgical rites that trace their origins to Indo-European pagan rites, Byzantine vesture, inter-Germanic tribal conflicts, and medieval European society. This is a liturgical problem that needs to be discussed in creative detail.

Justifying one set of rites as sacred and the other as in need of evangelisation is difficult. While the Gospel is accepted as the Word that critiques human society, it is delivered in very strong social-cultural wrappings. As indigenous language and cultural expression re-emerge, liturgical practices and rites must be capable of sometimes rapid adaptation. The demand to reform colonialist, Eurocentric concepts of God has an immediate impact on liturgical texts, rituals, and architecture.

In our parish, we begin the Easter Vigil at 5 am, not only because the rites direct that it should take place during the night, but because the ritual of Māori life begins at dawn with Karakia (prayer) that addresses God, the people, and the day in the Mihi Whakatau or speech of greeting.

Liturgical enculturation challenges us to encounter the voice of the First Peoples and the Latin liturgical tradition. Authentic enculturation moves us beyond nationalism to deeper, more profound expressions of our shared humanity than nationalism can provide.

I would offer this as a key element of the conversation into which Fr Reese is welcoming us.

Ministry

Fr Reese raises the question of clergy shortage on the one hand and the availability of lay ministers on the other. I think his references to reconciliation and anointing are red herrings because these sacraments are related to presbyterial ministry and the forgiveness of sin, which are not, essentially, gender-specific. Perhaps the point he is raising is how sacramental ministry—and its theology—is too often used in the construct of power and exclusion?

The way we use sacramental rites to demarcate people, places, and rights flow over into the discussion of liturgical practice. Sacramental rites are ritual constructs that did not fall from heaven; they have evolved over time through multiple influences, not all of which are Gospel-based. Our contemporary scarcity of presbyterial ministers is not a liturgical problem; it is an ecclesial one. The liturgical rite of ordination does not create the theology of priesthood; it reflects it; it reflects the concepts of power and authority and their delegation to legitimated recipients. In this, it is not a liturgical problem.

The liturgical question concerning the shortage of presbyters is the—pre-Covid—commodification and international trafficking of clergy and seminarians. A priest from Africa is commodified when he is used by his own diocese as a source of international income and commodified by his host diocese when he is used as a stop-gap solution for a reality they refuse to face. The commodification of clergy is indicative of a deeper functionalist understanding of presbyterial ministry—dislocated from context—where a ritualistic approach to worship is operative (through a legitimated person), often at the expense of parishioners. The liturgical problem is: the local community is inhibited from worshipping to the fullest extent of its baptismal call because their gathering is not driven by the value of their full, conscious, and active participation but by their own commodification.

Globalisation

The impact of globalisation is observable in competing cultural catholicisms. Cultural catholicisms that are based on popular religiosity are challenged by more rational catholicisms and vice versa. As a result, established cultural catholicisms are left feeling battered, and “new” cultural catholicisms feel unwanted. Where piety ends and superstition begins is often hard to judge in many cultural catholicisms. Where popular religion is too heavily used worship is compromised because culture is used as a proxy for salvation and ritualism is too easily confused for liturgy.

Dealing with cultural catholicism transmission while fostering unity within a parish is the daily reality of many pastors. We know that parishes do not change; parishioners do. Nothing is static and dealing with change is exhausting. For the most part, we have to work out for ourselves what to do next.

Diversity in worship is a hallmark of our contemporary experience. A topic for Fr Reese’s conversation is whether the single presumptive Latin Rite is ended—replaced by many local rites in the catholicity of the “Western Church”—and if this justifies creating new rites and Eucharistic Prayers that are expressive of their Local Church’s, languages, and customs?

Eucharistic Prayer

The ancient tradition of “praying as best as one can” is long gone, and the reason for this lies in an over-reliance on the notion of illicit and licit ways of praying.

I do not believe we need more Eucharistic Prayers, as Fr Reese suggests, but we do need prayers written in the language of the Local Church. The nonsense of the Swiss Eucharistic Prayers being translated from German into Latin, only to be translated back into German, is indicative of the problem we face. This ecclesial problem is also a liturgical one. Fr Reese has identified a key problem for liturgical prayer that bears greater discussion: if the liturgical prayer of the assembly is not ‘transformative of the community’ then it is inauthentic.

Translations

Fr Reese’s comments are totally in order. The present English translation is barely English! It has all the hallmarks of an ideological, Stalinist approach to language that defines a period of Church and liturgical history. Into this period of history goes Summorum Pontificum and its explanatory note. They are indicative of what happens when the relationship between lex orandi and lex credendi becomes politicised. Those who celebrate both the ordinary and extraordinary forms do so, only, because they understand the ecclesiology of neither. This not a liturgical problem, but it is exploited liturgically.

The key issue with the translation is not the translation itself but the process of its creation. The bullying by large, powerful, wealthy episcopal conferences and individuals is part of the story, as is the acquiesce by smaller, poorer, and less skilled episcopates. The translation is an example of theopolitics, not liturgy.

Kiss of Peace and Fermentum

The first was discussed during the pontificate of Benedict XVI with a view to moving it before the preparation rites. Because its original place in the Roman rite was more likely before communion (though is not absolutely clear) the decision was to keep it there. I think the Fermentum is a superseded sign of union. A richer sign would be the sharing of the Eucharist itself and a new Good Friday service designed to bring all Christian communities together.

Ecumenism

Practical ecumenism is already operative. In the German parishes where I ministered pre-covid there were weekly religious services—alternatively Lutheran and Catholic—in local rest homes and in specific communities. In the rest homes, all the residents attended and received communion, irrespective of their baptismal denomination. These octogenarians seemed to be quite pleased with this arrangement; it is only priests—like me—that got a little unsettled. Laity leading clergy and changing the Church and liturgy is not new; I rather think it is the norm. How ecumenism is understood depends on how baptism is understood.

Next phase

A second phase needs a language change. “Liturgy”, for too many people, means ritual entertainment, which is incapable of leading to full, conscious, active participation in God’s saving work, or Leitourgia. Liturgy is entertainment when equated to nice singing, beautiful artistry, snappy vestments, clouds of incense, super homilies or traditional sermons, eucharistic piety, and cool or conservative presiders. Most of our “liturgical arguments” are over this “stuff” and we debate elements that are essentially ritualistic, functionalist and consumerist. As a result, our worship is transactional and not transformative, just like our ecclesiology. Where ecclesiology and liturgy do not grow out of Leitourgia, Martyria and Diakonia, we only have rituals.

The profundity of leitourgia forces us below the veneer of ritual prancing, pointy hats and all that silly stuff that passes for “liturgy” to the place that enables worship to be “God-service” (service-of-God, service-by-God, service-to-God).

Dr Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).