Letters

Liturgical abuses

Dennis Macdonald

Contents - Mar 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Man-made global warming: new religion? - Michael Gilchrist Tribute: B.A. Santamaria: ten years on - Cardinal George Pell News: The Church Around the World Man-made climate change: another great hoax? - Peter Finlayson Recovering the sacred in modern church architecture - Moyra Doorly 40 Years On: Vatican II at its mid-life crisis - Br Barry Coldrey Easter: The Sacred Triduum in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (1962 Missal) Crescat amor: What is the nature and purpose of theology? - Fr John O'Neill PP La Sapienza: Benedict XVI: the papacy and the university - Pope Benedict XVI Vocations: The priesthood: a special relationship with Christ - Fr Pat Stratford Vocations: Signs of hope in US diocese Letters: Christ's Church - Frank Mobbs Letters: Married clergy - Frank Bellet Letters: Canadian Lectionary - Matt Walton Letters: Language - Kevin McManus Letters: Liturgical abuses - Dennis Macdonald Letters: Response - Richard Stokes Letters: Homosexual 'marriage' - Arnold Jago Letters: Altar rails - Corinne O'Loughlin Letters: 'Re-ordered' churches - Brian Tooley Letters: Abortion laws - Robert Prinzen-Wood Letters: From India - Fr. A. Joseph Poetry: Time-Warp - Bruce Dawe Books: GOD AND CAESAR: Religion, Politics, and Society, by Cardinal George Pell - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: SEARCHING FOR AND MAINTAINING PEACE, by Father Jacques Philippe - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: JOURNEY OF A FAITH COMMUNITY, compiled by Tom Johnstone - James E. Scarlett (reviewer) DVD: NO TURNING BACK: Confessions of a Catholic priest, by Fr D. Calloway - Fr Martin Durham (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 Books Reflection: Benedict XVI on Lent: 'authentic conversion to the love of Christ' - Pope Benedict XVI

In the October and November issues of AD2000 Michael Apthorp has shown how Brisbane's bishops have failed to correct liturgical abuses reported to them, and in the December issue Brian Bibby rightly points out the difficulty of implementing a reform program when many Australian 'bishops [and] priests ... live in open defiance of the Pope ... and do so with impunity'.

Indeed, in Brisbane's Catholic Cathedral, some of the most sacred parts of the Mass depart significantly from the rules.

For example, the 2004 Vatican document Redemptionis Sacramentum, in Section 106, declares that 'the pouring of the Blood of Christ after the consecration from one vessel to another is completely to be avoided, lest anything should happen that would be to the detriment of so great a mystery', adding that in any case jugs are 'never to be used for containing the Blood of the Lord'. Both these requirements, however, are regularly flouted at the Cathedral.

Likewise, the priest is required to complete the Eucharistic Sacrifice himself by receiving the Body and Blood of Christ before distributing Communion to the Extraordinary Ministers and altar servers, and yet at the Cathedral simultaneous Communion is regularly practised. This contravenes the prescriptions of Redemptionis Sacramentum, Section 97, and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Sections 157-160.

Archbishop Bathersby needs to bring the liturgy of his own Cathedral into conformity with that of the Universal Church. By so doing he will be setting a valuable example to his parish clergy and will assume more moral authority when instructing them to do likewise.

DENNIS MACDONALD
Hill End, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 2 (March 2008), p. 14