CENTRO PRO UNIONE N. 68 - Fall 2005 ISSN: 1122-0384 semi-annual Bulletin In this issue: Letter from the Director..................................................p. 2 Eucharist and Mission in the 21 st Century Keith F. Pecklers .................................................p. 3 The Call for Eucharistic Renewal in a Multi-Cultural World Mark R. Francis .................................................. p. 7 La Cena di Gesù: tra addio e presenza Marinella Perroni ..................................................p. 15 A Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues Twentieth Supplement (2005) ......................................... p. 20 Centro Pro Unione - Via S. Maria dell'Anima, 30 - 00186 Rome, Italy A Center conducted by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement Director's Desk In this issue you will find the up-date of the Bibliography of the International Interchurch Theological Dialogues. You may also find the up-to-date bibliography (in real time) on our web site at all times (http://www.prounione.urbe.it click on library and then on bibliography of interconfessional dialogues). Our readers can also read three texts from the Centro Pro Unione’s special series on the Eucharist held as a preparation for the special synod held in October of this year. The opening text of Prof Keith Pecklers looks at the relationship of the Eucharist to the mission of the Church. Prof. Mark Francis looks at the delicate issues surrounding the cultural adaptation of the Eucharist. Lastly, Prof. Marinella Perroni closes this series with a biblical exploration of the question of Eucharistic presence and Jesus’ farewell discourse at the Last Supper. This year’s three week Summer Program entitled “Introduction to the Ecumenical and Interreligious Movements” was well attended with students who were enthusiastic about the experience offered. In addition to the usual on site visits we added the experience of a tea ceremony which introduced the participants to the spirituality of the Far East. See the flyer included in this Bulletin for further information and a registration form. The eighth annual Paul Wattson/Lurana White lecture will be given by Mons. Eleuterio F. Fortino, Under Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. He will speak on the origins and evolution of Prayer for unity begun by Paul Wattson celebrated in most parts of the world between 18-25 January. In 2008, we will celebrate the 100 th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. More information on his lecture is found in this issue. Lastly, our readers can find the program for the ecumenical symposium sponsored by the Ecumenical Institute «Studi Ecumenici» San Bernardino and the Centro Pro Unione to be held at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum, Rome, from Dec 1-3, 2005. The theme of the symposium will be “The Relation between Bishop and the Local Church: Old and New Questions in Ecumenical Perspective”. Many of you have known two of our dear friends who have recently passed on to the Lord: Canon Harry Smythe, second director of the Anglican Centre in Rome and Fr. John Long, SJ, who ministered at the Council of Christian Unity and at the Oriental Institute and Russicum. We are very sorrow to have lost these good men but now they enjoy unity with their Maker. May they rest in peace. We welcomed many groups and guests this year to the Centro. Some of these included St. Olaf’s College of Minnesota (USA), the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey (Switzerland), a group of Mennonite pastors from Germany, and an International Anglican study group studying the recent ARCIC text on Mary. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 (http://www.atla.com). James F. Puglisi, sa DirectorN. 68 /Fall 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 3 Centro Conferences CCCC Eucharist and Mission in the 21 st Century Prof. Keith F. Pecklers, SJ Professor of Liturgy and Liturgical History Pontifical Gregorian University and Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’Anselmo (Conference held at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday, 14 April 2005) 1. Introduction One of the greatest gifts of the Second Vatican Council has been a recovery of the intrinsic link between Eucharistic participa- tion and the Church’s mission within the world. Forty years on as we consider our future as a Church in a postmodern world this relationship is more important than ever. History is always instructive as we try to discern present circumstances and see a path toward the future. So a brief consideration of the historical evolution of our subject is in order. 2. History The organic relationship between Eucharist and mission found its locus in the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ rediscov- ered at the University of Tübingen in the 19 th century and then promoted by the liturgical movement in the 20th. That image of the Church as Christ’s mystical body clearly present in the Letters of St. Paul was further developed in the Patristic writings of St. Augustine, but then gradually waned in the medieval period concomitant with the distancing between liturgy and life. Responding to the ecclesial and especially liturgical malaise he witnessed in sixteenth century Germany and faithful to his Augustinian roots, Martin Luther called for a recovery of that unity between Eucharist and Mission lived out in social responsi- bility. One of his Christmas sermons stands out as a striking example. Preaching about the human response to the incarnation, contemplating the scene of the Son of God born into desperate poverty, Luther wrote: “There are many of you in this congregation who think to yourselves: `If only I had been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby! I would have washed his linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!’Yes, you would! You say that because you know how great Christ is, but if you had been there at the time you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Childish and silly thoughts are these! Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.” 1 That was Luther in the sixteenth century. But the Church would need to wait a few hundred years for other voices to emerge arguing in a similar vein. I’d like to propose two pivotal figures from the 19 th and 20 th centuries, each of whom reawak- ened the Church to recovering worship’s social dimension in a unique way, and actually embodied the very organic vision of the Church they were promoting: Johann Adam Möhler of Germany and Lambert Beauduin of Belgium. Neither one had any particu- lar liturgical formation to speak of, yet their contribution to recovering the relationship between Eucharist and the Church’s mission in the world has left a lasting mark on the renewal of the Church and its worship. 3.Johann Adam Möhler Johann Adam Möhler was born in 1796 in Würtemberg, the son of a local baker. In 1815 at the age of 19 he began theological study at the newly-opened seminary of Ellwangen. But that seminary proved too distant from intellectual centers and two years later was moved to Tübingen and incorporated into the university. This was particularly astonishing since Tübingen already had a well-established Protestant theological faculty and hardly needed yet a second school of theology. 2 Nonetheless the Catholic Faculty of Theology established itself and registered growing interest in new trends both in German Romanticism and idealist philosophy. This moved Catholic theological study at Tübingen away from the sort of classical scholastic and rationalistic theology towards a more integrated scientific and historically conscious approach which would greatly influence Möhler’s own theological inquiry. At the heart of German Romanticism and consequently central to the theologi- cal agenda at Tübingen was a rediscovery of the organic model of the Church and the role of the Holy Spirit within the Christian community and its worship. Given such concerns it is not surprising that the Pauline and Patristic model of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ would be rediscovered there. 1 “Nativity”in The Martin Luther Christmas Book (translated by Roland H. Bainton) (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) 38. 2 M.J. HIMES, “Introduction,”in J.-A MÖHLER, Symbolism (trans. By James Burton Robertson) (New York: Crossroad/Herder, 1997) xi-xiv.4 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 68 /Fall 2005 Möhler was ordained priest in 1819 and three years later he began his tenure as Professor of Church History at Tübingen. As preparation for his new position, he took a seven month sabbatical visiting both Catholic and Protestant theological faculties around Germany, meeting with professors and students, sitting in on lectures. In Berlin he heard lectures by Schleiermacher and was deeply impressed by the vision and approach of the Jewish- Lutheran Church historian Johann August Willhelm Neander. Those encounters would have a profound impact both on his teaching and writing. 3 As professor at Tübingen Möhler initially focused his interests around Patristics which offered a new vision of church in relation to 19 th century German society leading to the publication of his first book Die Einheit in der Kirche in 1825, basing much of his research on the work of Schleiermacher and Neander. The book was not without its difficulties, however, and Möhler would later attempt to re-state some of the propositions and convictions exhibited in that text. Nor was the book uncontroversial: it both inspired numerous young Catholic intellectuals and at the same time alarmed a number of Church leaders as it seemed to call into question the hierarchical nature of the Church itself. His second book Symbolik was published in 1832 and was really his magisterial work which explored Protestant doctrinal positions in relation to Catholic tradition. 4 Thanks to Möhler’s openness and scientfic curiosity along with that of his colleagues, what evolved was what came to be known as the Tübingen school which stood out in sharp contrast to the sort of Catholic theology being done on the rest of the continent in the 19 th century. Not surprisingly, the Tübingen theologians were considered suspect: Catholic theology of that epoch tended to be ahistorical and did not look kindly on modern philosophy. Even at the dawn of the twentieth century some conservative critics blamed the Tübingen school for the evolution of Modernism. Years later, ecclesiologists like Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac promoted a rediscovery of Möhler’s work. 4.Lambert Beauduin As a seminary student in Liège, Lambert Beauduin was greatly influenced by the landmark encyclical of Leo XIII, Rerum Nova- rum promulgated in 1891: a response to the conditions created by the industrial revolution offering a strong call to social justice, especially regarding labor and the right to a just wage. Six years later in 1897, Beauduin was ordained priest. Thanks to the forward-thinking Bishop of Liège, that diocese had already sponsored congresses on social issues even prior to Rerum Novarum and a school of Christian Democrats was founded there. Conservative reactions registered in Belgium criticized the formation of labor unions as well as progressive ideas about the Church’s social mission emerging from the Catholic University at Louvain. The Bishop stayed the course nonetheless, and in 1895 established a fraternity of Labor Chaplains – priests dedicated to promoting faith and spiritual formation among workers. Toward that end those labor chaplains organized residential retreats and formation programs in hostels that could accommodate up to 200 or 300 individuals but as many a thousand would pass through the recreation room each day for a snack or conversation.5 In 1899, two years after his own presbyteral ordination, Beauduin offered himself as a candidate for the fraternity and spent the next seven years engaged in pastoral ministry to workers and advocacy for a just wage until he joined the Benedictine monastery of Mont César in 1906. What evolved within Beauduin was a radical transformation of his own understanding of worship in the mystical body in which the Church takes on flesh at the Eucharist. Given his passion for the working class, it was no surprise that he dedicated himself to making Church worship accessible to the poor and uneducated. He wrote: “What a shame that the liturgy remains the endowment of an elite; we are aristocrats of the liturgy; everyone should be able to nourish himself from it, even the simplest people: we must democratize the liturgy.” 6 In September, 1909, at Mechelen, during the National Congress of Catholic Works, Beauduin offered an address: “La vraie prière de l’Église” in which he called for full and active participation of all people in the Church’s life and ministry, particularly in the liturgy. Present was Godefroid Kurth, an historian and a prominent Catholic who shared Beauduin’s vision. It was Beauduin’s analysis that too often pastors and pastoral assistants put their efforts into social outreach while neglecting the liturgy. Thus he argued that the organic relationship between both was essential to the effective living out of the Church’s mission in the modern world. Beauduin and Kurth met during that meeting and devised a concrete plan for putting their vision into practice: liturgical study days for clergy and laity; week-long conferences; retreats for liturgical musicians; the launching of a pastoral liturgical review and the publication of books. All this would have as its goal: promoting the liturgy as the “primary and indispensable source”for the living out of baptismal life and for the Church’s mission. And so the liturgical movement in Belgium was born not in a monastery but at a labor conference from where it spread to Germany, other European countries and then to the United States and Brazil in the 1920s. Beauduin’s talent as a bridge-builder spread to other areas as well. In addition to his labor and liturgical pursuits he was also passionate about ecumenism, especially dialogue with Anglicans and the Orthodox. Deeply influenced by the famous “Malines Conversations”of 1921 to 26, Beauduin wrote his own proposal which his friend, Cardinal Mercier read at the fourth conversation (May 19-20, 1925). Beauduin argued that since the pallium had been given by Gregory the Great to Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, in 597, symbolizing effective 3 Ibid., xii. 4 Ibid., xii-xiv. 5 S.A. QUITSLUND, Beauduin: A Prophet Vindicated (New York: Newman Press, 1973) 3-5. 6 L. BOUYER, Dom Lambert Beauduin, un homme d’Église (Tournai: Casterman, 1964) 31 – cited by Bouyer, source not given.N. 68 /Fall 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 5 jurisdiction over all English bishops, present and future, Beauduin developed the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, there was among Anglican bishops something akin to the power invested in Eastern patriarchs. Thus, he reached the conclusion that the Anglican Communion should be united to but not absorbed by Rome much in the way that Eastern Catholics maintain their liturgical and canonical diversity and autonomy while remaining united to the Bishop of Rome. 7 It was the same ecumenical passion that led him to found the Monastery of Chevtogne in that same year, 1925, as a monastic community specifically dedicated to Christian unity. 5.Lessons from Möhler and Beauduin The theological foundations of Möhler and integrative vision of Beauduin established a firm foundation for the pre-conciliar liturgical movement of the twentieth century and that social vision of worship held sway as the movement came into contact with the biblical, ecclesiological, ecumenical, and patristic movements of the churches. Those diverse movements led to the same conclusion: Eucharistic participation demanded social responsibility. And the important papal encyclicals of Mystici Corporis in 1943 and Mediator Dei in 1947 eventually ratified what those pioneers had been promoting. The Second Vatican Council, of course, brought that missionary vision of worship to full stature not only in the Liturgy Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium but also in Gaudium et Spes and especially Ad Gentes. What can we learn from Möhler and Beauduin as we consider our own situation and look toward the future? Firstly, each of those figures had the capacity of building bridges and thinking “outside the box:” Möhler forged new paths in the doing of theology through dialogue with philosophers like Schleiermacher and was unafraid to engage in ecumenical and interreligious discussion and even debate. Those encounters greatly influenced the way Möhler taught and wrote theology. For his part, Lambert Beauduin’s formation in labor and social outreach transformed him into the sort of preacher and leader who naturally made connections between Christian worship and the world which further led him to the ecumenical dialogue. In 1966, just after the Second Vatican Council, J.G. Davies published an important work Worship and Mission 8 in which he addressed the age-old desire to divide the two realities of liturgy and life within the world. Davies criticized worship that remained insular – in the sacristy – isolated from the rest of life and consequently, from the task of mission and evangelization. At the same time, he also criticized the sort of witnessing to the gospel which failed to rely on the Eucharist as its necessary lifeblood. Davies argued for a fundamental rethinking of both liturgical theology and missiology in order to rediscover that indispensable union between the two realities. 6.Post-Vatican II Worship and Future Challenges Today in 2005, our world is different from the days of Möhler and Beauduin and even from forty years ago when Davies published the book just mentioned. But their inspiration gives us much food for thought. Religion and religious practice always needs to fight the tendency to compartmentalize faith from life, a church that remains pure and protected from the rest of human society. That was the fundamental problem of Gnosticism in the 2 nd century but it remains a perennial temptation which needs to be held in check: dividing the world between the saved and the damned; between insiders and outsiders; between those who have the truth and those who do not. We are increasingly challenged to see ourselves as one body– the one body of Christ. This is, of course, especially crucial as we consider the growth of Islam around the world and our capacity for dialogue. But before we can dialogue with Muslims or Hindus, Buddhists or Jews, we need to find our own common voice as the one body of Christ for what we can do together we must do together. Indeed, the Eucharist that we celebrate calls us to this. Last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, proposed the opening of a special office to treat this important relationship between worship and mission. To his surprise, someone on his Council asked: “But what do those two realities have in common?,” to which I believe he responded: “Everything! I have encountered similar reactions in my travels when told by some Jesuits and others: “You are interested in liturgy and that’s fine. But I am interested in social justice and evangelization.” I always respond, of course, that the two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, for a faithful witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, one cannot live without the other. Having embarked on a new millennium and a new century we are more aware than ever that the Eucharist we celebrate is done within the framework of a “world church.” At the beginning of the twentieth century, 80 percent of all Christians were white and lived in the northern hemisphere. By the year 2020, however, 80 percent of all Christians will be people of color who live in the southern hemisphere. 9 This change in demographics increasingly makes itself present in multicultural worshiping communities. In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Mass is celebrated in 38 languages each month. Our Eucharistic future is clearly multicultural and this presents both an invitation but also a challenge regarding how our liturgical participation will be lived out in mission. Last October in his Mission Sunday address, the late Pope John Paul II affirmed this inseparable link between Eucharist and Mission as a non-negotiable: Ite Missa Est: literally, “Go you are Sent.” But the recognition of that “sending forth” must be lived out intentionally each day as we seek to discover what it means to be Christ’s body in this world, given the complexity of issues and 7 S.A. QUITSLAND, Beauduin..., op. cit., 66. 8 (London, 1966). 9 K.F. PECKLERS, S.J., “The Liturgical Assembly at the Threshold of the Millennium: A North American Perspective”in M.R. FRANCIS and K.F. PECKLERS, eds., Liturgy for the New Millenium: A Commentary on the Revised Sacramentary (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000) 57.6 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 68 /Fall 2005 problems that were unknown to us five or ten years ago or even in 2004. The tragedy of the tsunamis that struck on December 26 th could not have been imagined even six months ago, but they took more than 200,000 lives and destroyed the lives and towns of hundreds of thousands of others. The magnitude of that tragedy shook the world and found a place in our worship as we remembered the victims and prayed for those who were left behind. But there are, of course, under-reported tragedies that continue to rock the world: More than 200,000 people die each month due to hunger or hunger-related illnesses. That is equivalent to a 747 jet crashing every 30 minutes. In Africa, more than 30 million people are at risk of starvation. AIDS continues to ravage so much of the African continent taking the lives of 2.5 million people in 2002 alone and leaving more than 11 million African children orphaned. And of those Africans living with HIV/AIDS more than 58 percent are women.10 During his visit here last November, Anglican Bishop David Beerge told me that more than 50 percent of his South African Diocese is HIV positive. While such statistics have significant implications for Christian worship on the African continent, they also necessarily impact worship throughout the entire church. Indeed, the suffering of Africa, the tragedy of world hunger in places like Darfour, the loss of life in the Tsunamis, the victims of the war in Iraq or of the violence in Palestine and Israel must influence our worship, for when one member suffers the whole body suffers. That it what worship in the mystical body of Christ means. And it is that sort of solidarity which flows from and indeed is fed by the Eucharist that protects us from the sort of narrow “tunnel vision” and isolationism that runs contrary to the gospel of Christ. “Ite Missa Est: Go, you are Sent.” In other words, taking our Eucharistic practice seriously will demand of us the kind of Christian witness in the work of justice and peace that remains open to embracing the whole of God’s world as Christ would have us do. The whole of God’s world, I say, the insiders and the outsiders, the respectable types along with the great unwashed, believers and non-believers alike, Muslims and Jews as well as Christians. Here again the vision and example of Möhler and Beauduin is instructive because effectively living out the Eucharistic mission in the 21 st century will mean “thinking outside of the box”and abandoning our old categories. We will need to look for where the Eucharist is being lived out and yearned for in very unexpected places. And that is our challenge. Closer to home, there is a pressing issue regarding our topic if Christian worship is to have any viable future here in western Europe and elsewhere in the developed world. Several years ago, the Bishop of Como, Alessandro Maggiolini wrote a book entitled La Fine della nostra Cristianità in which he predicts the demise of Christianity in Italy. Bishop Maggiolini laments the fact that churches (at least in the cities) are largely empty on Sunday mornings and those present tend to be much older. He fears that within fifty years, many churches in Italy will be abandoned and nothing more than museums. The Bishop may, of course, be right. But he then proceeds to offer his analysis of what is taking place: young people are disobedient, not listening to the Holy Father in areas of Church teaching especially regarding sexual morality; divorce is on the rise in Italy; the birth-rate is down and his list continues. In my own reading of the situation, I tend to assess the reasons for decline in Eucharistic participation somewhat differently. I do not deny a certain degree of validity in what Bishop Maggiolini writes but more fundamentally, I see the problem posited squarely in a credibility gap between what is celebrated on Sunday mornings and the lives of those present in the assembly. It would be easy to blame young people for disobeying church teaching or point to other issues as the root of our problems, but I fear that the reason for decline in church attendance is actually more complex. Our preaching often leaves much to be desired, failing to address the problems in people’s lives, and so the credibility gap widens. As some Italian friends have told me, they find no good news in the “Good News”so they look elsewhere, and of course, this mystical body suffers because of their absence. Addressing this credibility gap, the former Master of the Dominican Order, Timothy Radcliffe, puts it very well: “Our preaching will only gather in the people of God, if we honestly name their sorrows and joys. We have to speak truthfully, to tell things as they are. Do people recognize their lives in our words? Our congregations include young people struggling with their hormones and the teachings of the Church, married couples wrestling with the crises of love, the divorced, old people facing retirement, gay people feeling on the edge of the Church, sick and dying people. Does their pain and happiness find some space in our words? Do they recognize the truth of their experience in what we say?” 11 7.Conclusion If our words will have meaning and if our Eucharistic worship be credible in the wider context of the Church’s mission, then we will need to “listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches”at this moment in our history, and allow ourselves to be led on pilgrimage to those unexpected places: to the margins, to association with “the great unwashed,” to those “beyond the pale,”for whom Christ came and to whom the Church’s mission is directed. Last year at a Catholic conference in Alberta, Canada, theologian Richard Gaillardetz spoke on the transformative power of the Eucharist. He called the Eucharist “a dangerous prayer because we dare to pray not only the bread and wine be transformed, but that we be transformed.”12 Such transformation lies at the heart of the link between Eucharist and Mission in the 21st century and we clearly have our work cut out for us. Indeed, our witness to the message of Christian hope and salvation proclaimed in credible worship is more urgent than ever. 10 K.A. ANNAN, “In Africa, AIDS Has A Woman’s Face,”The New York Times (29 December 2002) 9. 11 T. RADCLIFFE, OP, “The Sacramentality of the Word,”in K.F. PECKLERS, S.J., ed., Liturgy in a Postmodern World (London: Continuum, 2003) 140. 12 Ramon Gonzalez, “Beware the life-changing Eucharist”in Western Catholic Reporter (April 5, 2004), p.1-2.N. 68 / Fall 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 7 Centro Conferences CCCC The Call for Eucharistic Renewal in a Multi-Cultural World Prof. Mark R. Francis, CSV Superior General of the Clerics of St. Viator Professor of Liturgyand Liturgical History, Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’Anselmo (Conference held during the Week of Prayer at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday, 21 April 2005) We live in a world and church profoundly marked by myriad human cultural traditions. Despite—or rather because of—globalization, never before in history have we Roman Catholics and our brothers and sisters of other Christian communions been in a better position to appreci- ate the variety and richness of the cultural mosaic that makes up the Body of Christ. However, the tessera that form this Christian mosaic are being reconfigured. No longer is the Church demographically dominated by the North Atlantic—the nations of Europe and North America. Rather as Philip Jenkins recently pointed out in his provoc- ative book, The Next Christendom, Over the past century . . . the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America. If we want to visualize a “typical” contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela. As Kenyan scholar John Mbiti has observed, “the centers of the Church’s universality are no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila.” 1 What implications does this fact have for contemporary liturgical practice in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, especially for the celebration of the Eucharist? Do we Roman Catholics have the resources, both theological and structural, to realistically face the challenge to the liturgical celebration of our faith brought about by these changed circumstances? I would contend that we do indeed have the resources to take up this challenge. We were all encouraged to hear the new Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, underline the ongoing importance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council in his first public address. “These teachings,” he said, “have shown themselves to be especially pertinent to the new exigencies of the church and the present globalized society.” 2 With the Pope I am convinced that the basic answer to Eucharistic renewal today in a multicultural world is to be found in the documents of Vatican II which are still relevant to our present situation. However, we need to be aware of some of the obstacles to renewal that stand in the way. While some of these obstacles are discussed in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia 3 and the disciplinary instruction of the Congregation, Redemptionis sacramentum, 4 there is a fundamental obstacle that is not discussed in these docu- ments: the lack of sensitivity to the way cultural pluralism in the church affects the interpretation, reception, and celebration of the Eucharist. While few Catholics would be totally at ease with the early 20 th century Catholic apologist Hilaire Belloc’s proclamation that “Europe is the faith and the faith is Europe,” 5 it seems to me that there remains a lingering “classicist” attitude toward culture described well by Bernard Lonergan in the introduction to his Method in Theology. 6 It would be helpful to briefly review this attitude, since I am convinced it consciously and uncon- sciously influences the so-called “new era” of liturgical renewal. 1 P. JENKINS, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (NY: Oxford University Press, 2002) 2. 2 “… immo enim doctrina pro novis Eccelsiae praesentisque societatis globalizatae, ut aiunt, postulationibus admodum evadit apta.” Benedictus XVI, Bollettino N. 0229 (20.04.2005). 3 Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Ecclesia de Euchasristia (17 April, 2003). 4 Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction, Redemptionis Sacramentum: on Certain Matters to be Observed or to be Avoided Regarding the Most Holy Eucharist (25 March, 2004). 5 H. BELLOC, Europe and the Faith (New York: Paulist Press, 1920) 261. 6 B. LONERGAN, Method in Theology (London: Dartman, Longman and Todd, 1972) xi.8 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 68 / Fall 2005 This “classicist” understanding of culture automatically pre-supposes the superiority of the Western European cultural patrimony over non-Western expressions. One is “cultured,” for example, if one is familiar with the “clas- sics” of Western Civilization: the writings of Shakespeare, Racine, and Cervantes, the paintings of Giotto, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Goya; the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Especially during the centuries of European colonialism this “classicist” view of culture was the predominant way in which Europeans and North Americans saw their relationship with the rest of the world well into the middle of the twentieth century. It was during the early 1900's, due to the influence of the birth of social sciences such as anthropology and sociology, that claims regarding the automatic superiority of all things Western were relativized. This led the Council fathers of Vatican II, in their arguably most outward-looking document, Gaudium et spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) to declare: Living in various circumstances during the course of time, the Church, too, has used in her preaching the discoveries of different cultures to spread and explain the message of Christ to all nations, to probe it and more deeply understand it, and to give it better expression in liturgical celebrations in the life of the diversified community of the faithful. But at the same time the Church, sent to all peoples of every time and place, is not bound exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation, nor to any particular way of life or any customary pattern of living, ancient or recent. Faithful to her own tradition and at the same time conscious of her universal mission, she can enter into communion with various cultural modes, to her enrichment and their too (GS 58). Have we Catholics really understood and taken this affirmation seriously? Despite all of the positive talk about cultural diversity and the crucial need for inculturation in the process of the “new evangelization” constantly voiced in the various continental Bishop’s Synods, despite the dawning realization that the majority of Christians are no longer the direct heirs of the cultural patrimony of the West, despite our rich Catholic traditions of other ancient and venerable rites in the church, have we really under- stood the relativity of the cultural expressions contained in the Roman Rite? Has the Universal Church received with joy the riches offered by non-Western cultures? I would argue that at present there is a “disconnect” between the way in the normativity of the Roman Rite is understood and what is really needed for a responsible inculturation of the liturgy in much of the Catholic world. In order to appreciate our present context, a brief overview of history is first in order. To begin I would like to review the post-Conciliar call for liturgical inculturation that was first enunciated by articles 37-40 of Sacrosanctum Concilium and subsequently enshrined in the various liturgical books and magisterial pronouncements published in the 1960's and 1970's. I will start by examining the liturgical terminus a quo—the Roman Rite as it was revised by mandate of the Council and proposed as a base model or norm for adapting to local needs. I will then offer an example of what I regard to be the Congregation’s under- standing of inculturation of the Roman Rite—moving from relative openness to a tendency that can best be described as “preservationist.” Finally, I will conclude with some positive steps that would promote a responsible and balanced inculturation of the liturgy. The Revised Roman Rite and the Normativity of the Roman Genius It has been rightly said that whenever we celebrate the Eucharist we are simultaneously in the presence of several cultures. Naturally, we cannot but help interpret the received liturgical tradition influenced by our own cultural references. It is obvious, for example, that Mass will be celebrated differently in a suburban American parish and in a South American village. While the Roman Rite still bears the marks of the Hebrew and Hellenist beginnings (the use of psalmody between the readings, expressions such as alleluia, hosanna, and maranatha, washing of the presider’s hands and adding water to the wine at the preparation of the gifts, etc.), the most dominant cultural traits—especially in the reformed Roman Rite of Vatican II, come from what has been termed by the great English Roman Catholic liturgical historian Edmund Bishop, “the genius of the Roman Rite.” In a lecture given in 1899, Bishop attempted to articulate what he called “the native spirit animating and penetrating” the Roman rite and what distinguished it from other rites such as the “Gallican or Gothic, Greek or Oriental.” He wrote: “The genius of the native Roman rite is marked by simplicity, practicality, a great sobriety and self-control, gravity and dignity.” Or again: “If I had to indicate in two or three words only the main characteristics which go to make up the genius of the Roman rite, I should say that those characteristics were essentially soberness and sense.” 7 In fact, it was precisely these characteristics of the Roman genius that the framers of the renewed liturgy sought to recapture. 8 These characteristics are enumerated in article 34 of Sacrosanctum Concilium. 7 Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918) 12. 8 In contrast to the mistaken accusation that the reformed rites were influenced by a secularizing ideology derived from the Enlightenment. See R. WEAKLAND, “Liturgy as Battlefield: What do the Restorationists Want?” Commonweal 129:1 (January 11, 2002) 10-15.N. 68 / Fall 2005Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 9 The rites should be marked by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, unencumbered by useless repetitions; they should be within the people’s pow- ers of comprehension and as a rule not require much explanation (SC 34). The purpose of insisting on a return to a more simple liturgical style was basically two-fold: theological and practical. First, many of the simplifications were based on the undeniable authority of history. They reflect how the Roman Rite was practiced during in the fourth to the sixth centuries. Most importantly, it was during this “classical” period of the liturgy that the assembly had an active role in the celebration. Finding an historical precedent for the assembly’s participation was a key concern of those charged with proposing the renewal of the Roman Rite. It also reflects the overarching goal of the liturgical reform enunciated in SC 14 as leading the faithful to “full, con- scious and active participation of the faithful called for by the very nature of the liturgy.” From a practical point of view, the Ordo Missae of the Missal of Pius V—the Missal promulgated in 1570 and in use just prior to Vatican II—was very complicated and therefore difficult to adapt. Moreover, the framers of the renewed liturgy were also very aware that this so-called Tridentine Rite was not as “Roman” as some of its enthusiastic proponents today would like to admit. In reality it was an amalgam of Gallican, Franco-Germanic and later medieval texts and gestures, added to a substrata of “late-classical” Roman elements. A return to the “noble simplicity” of the classical Roman liturgy shorn of its subsequent medieval accretions was the way the Council proposed an authoritative form of the Roman Rite that was both intelligible and adaptable to local conditions. The question of intelligibility with a view to promoting the assembly’s participation was a hallmark of the reform. SC 21 states: In this reform both texts and rites should be so drawn up that they express more clearly the holy things they signify and that the Christian people, as far as possi- ble, are able to understand them with ease and to take part in the rites fully, actively, and as befits a commu- nity (SC 21). It is in this way that the revision of the liturgical books in the 1960's and 1970's, enshrined the cultural traits of the “Roman genius” in the liturgy. It must be admitted, how- ever that “simplicity, sobriety, practicality, gravity, dignity” while characteristics of the Roman Rite, cannot be pro- posed as values universally important for all cultures for all times. It was for this reason that the Constitution on the Liturgy left open the possibility of what it termed “adapta- tion” to other cultural geniuses. The operant phrase appears in article 38. Provisions shall also be made, even in the revision of the liturgical books, for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions, and people, especially in mission lands, provided the substantial unity of the Roman Rite is preserved … (SC 38). The phrase calling for the preservation of the “substan- tial unity of the Roman Rite” was admittedly rather vague, and will not be officially defined by the Congregation for Worship until 1994 in its instruction Varietates legitimae. This “substantial unity,” according to SC is preserved as long as any changes remain within the “limits set by the standard editions of the liturgical books” (the editiones typicae). 9 Is in important, then, to discuss what these “limits” may be. The Liturgy Constitution, then, seems to find the terminus a quo in the revised liturgical books. It would be helpful at this point to note that the praenotanda and pastoral directives in all of the editiones typicae, provide for adaptations to local conditions. The Latin phrase in the rubrics, addressed to the presider which appears again and again preceding introductions, explanations, and admoni- tions in the revised liturgical books: “his vel similibis verbis” (in these or similar words) indicates the inherent pastoral flexibility of the renewed rites themselves. While there are invariable parts to the liturgy such as the Eucharistic Prayers, there was always the presupposition that the presider would adapt the celebration to local conditions. This is in dramatic contrast to the totally “scripted” nature of the Tridentine ordo Missae. The presence of directives, allowing for adaptation by the presider, the national bishops’ conferences and more radical departures from the received rite in accord with article 40 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, indicate that in the reform of the liturgy mandated by Vatican II, we did not simply exchange one set of invariable rubrics for another. Rather, a different spirit is present in the typical editions of the renewed liturgical books that encourage the presider to adapt the rites to local circumstances in order to promote participation of the assembly in the liturgical act. I have heard it said that if one celebrated the current Order of Mass without the adaptations allowed and encouraged by the reformed Rite, one would be celebrating archaeology and not liturgy. 10 The Guiding Principle of the First Translations: Com- munication Therefore, while the Roman Genius served as the basis 9 See VL 36, which, in effect echoes, SC 39. 10 This observation is reflected in the works of Fr. Anscar CHUPUNGCO, the internationally recognized authority on liturgical inculturation and former President of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’Anselmo in Rome. His major books on the topic are: Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy (New York: Paulist Press, 1982); Liturgies of the Future (New York: Paulist Press, 1989); Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Religiosity, and Catechesis (Collegeville: Liturgical Press. 1992); and Tradition and Progress, (Washington DC: The Pastoral Press, 1994).Next >