Pilgrim's Progress or Regress: Looking at Church Law

Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian classic describing the soul's spiritual progress. Pilgrim's Regress is a title of a book by C.S. Lewis. I am borrowing the two titles to address contemporary attitudes to liturgical law and directives. What occasions my comments is the press coverage of directives issued by the Vatican on July 28th.

The directives are part of the revised General instruction of the Roman Missal, referred to as GIRM. This instruction is at the beginning of the Sacramentary, the prayer book priests use when they preside at the Eucharist. Every Sacrament has instructions that precede the ritual prayer texts and rubrics (i.e., practical directives). The 1969 GIRM indicated the rubrics that the assembly was to follow in the celebration of the parish Eucharist.

The National Catholic Reporter commented on the revised GIRM on August 25th. The headline reads: "New rules focus on role of priests. Instructions on revised Roman Missal limit the laity." The article begins: "New Vatican restrictions on the role of laity in distributing Communion signal a resurgence of a priest-centered vision of the Mass,...a step back from the emphasis on lay participation..." The article then specifies what lay people may and may not do as Eucharistic ministers.

In this column I am not going to spell out the rules or restrictions. This may frustrate you. But, at stake here is something prior to and, in my opinion, more important than following rules and rubrics. At stake is our attitude to receiving (or rejecting) and implementing liturgical law.

First, as Americans we take all law literally. Here's the law, follow it. We are unsophisticated in knowing how to interpret and implement law. The reality is that church law often passes through the bar of the regional church. The U.S. church interpreted the 1969 GIRM by means of a 1984 U.S. bishop's document. This interpretation tailored universal law for the U.S. church and was approved by the Vatican. These kinds of modifications usually appear as an appendix to the pastoral and rubric directions connected to the liturgical texts.

Second, before we judge the progressive or regressive nature of directives, those responsible for liturgical preparation need to read and study and revised General instruction in order to understand what it contains. Then it is important to understand why changes are made for the universal church. Finally, we need to wait and see if the U.S. bishops or the local bishop will make any adaptations for the country or the diocese.

Why should we proceed this way? Because some tend to react to prescriptive law. We tend to think that a directive is a command that must be implemented immediately. This is the new law. Do it. We also tend to take directives literally. This is not productive. It reveals how uncomfortable we are with change and with plurality. We want it all nailed down so that everything is covered and everything is uniform. We are tempted to implement laws rigidly. Rigidity results in rubricolatry. Liturgy planning teams become liturgical police. Malefactors get spanked. Literal-mindedness leaves the liturgy without breathing room. The goal of law, directives, and planning is to help the assembly and to foster good public prayer for the glory of God and the edification of one another.