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by Jim Holman.
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Still Ambiguous

CARDINAL'S LITURGY PASTORAL IS PUBLISHED

By Christopher Zehnder

As reported in the July 12 Los Angeles Times, Roger Cardinal Mahony dismissed critical reports in the Mission and elsewhere on the contents of a leaked second draft of his upcoming liturgy pastoral, saying that he was already on the eighth draft. Such a dismissal suggested, perhaps, that the eighth draft was substantially different from the third. However, a study of the published pastoral, Gather Faithfully Together, A Guide for Sunday Mass reveals that, while there have been changes in structure and language from the third draft, the ideas expounded and the "renewal" proposed, remain substantially the same.

"Liturgical renewal," writes His Eminence, "is a matter of passion, of catching some glimpse of the way strong Sunday Ligurgy makes strong Catholics, and of how these Catholics make their Sunday Liturgy." So passionate is the cardinal for liturgical renewal that he states it "will not be one task among many. It will be the task of these next three years." This task, says Mahony, will involve not only the Office of Worship "or the liturgy and music leaders in each parish," but the entire archdiocese.

The pastoral offers no new surprises. The "assembly" will still gather about three sides of the altar (though, unlike the draft, the pastoral does not observe that the renovation needed to bring about this new arrangement "did not go far enough"). The bread to be consecrated is still "to appear to the senses as bread" (a footnote to the text offers recipes for approved breads). Communion will be under both species, and no hosts received in communion will be taken from those reserved in the tabernacle. "The assembly is to be gathered round, if possible right around the altar," and, as in the second draft, kneeling during the consecration is not mentioned. "Horizontal inclusive language, at least to the extent encouraged by the U.S. bishops in their work of revising liturgical books, should be incorporated into all liturgical celebrations of this Archdiocese," says the text, and the clause "God is not male, but our exclusive use of male imagery risks a kind of idolatry," has been expunged. The pastoral calls, as did the draft, for the discontinuance of mass booklets to facilitate a more active participation in the liturgy.

There are positive aspects to the pastoral. As did the draft, the pastoral enjoins the laity to prepare themselves well for the Sunday liturgy: "The people at Our Lady of the Angels [the cardinal's parish of the future] let the time of liturgy be first." The pastoral is clearer, too, that the Sunday collection is not simply for the parish church, but for the poor. The cardinal also more forcefully condemns "the hurried pace, the tyranny of the clock, the inattention to the arts, the casual tone of a presider, the 'what can I get out of it?' approach of the consumer, the 'entertain me' attitude of a nation of television watchers" as "the wrong sort of inculturation." "Presiders," too, are not to treat the Mass as a show where they perform, and the assembly should not see themselves as an "audience."

The text, however, is as woefully vague as the second draft. For instance, while His Eminence states that the liturgy should "lift us in awe before the mystery of God," he goes on to say that the "liturgy is to be festive. It is about the communion and radical equality of the Baptized, their union in the Lord, their friendly sharing of ministry and life.. The vertical and the horizontal dimensions of liturgy must be held together to work for us." Too, when the cardinal treats of the "external form" of the Mass and the "internal transformation" of the people, he states: "We do not need more mechanical implementation in response to liturgical directives any more than we need a liturgy that seems to be of the presider's own making. We need a faithfulness to the official directives and common forms, but a faithfulness that is imbued with the Spirit, and that opens this Sunday assembly to the riches of Eucharistic faith." One wonders how the Spirit and the official directives will reconcile themselves, in Mahony's eyes.

Though the section on "Unity and Diversity"has been greatly expanded from the second draft, what concrete forms the new liturgy will take in regards to cultural inclusion are unclear. "Everyone of us" still needs "to know by heart some of the music, vocabulary, movement, and ways of thinking and feeling that are not of our own background"; but is this so litugies can be eclectically multicultural? His Eminence seems to be proposing liturgies as cultural mosaics: "This is no melting pot," he writes, "This is communion. Commuion means life together. Communion means we share and share alike, yet each person comes to that Communion in the full starure of his or her culture." As in the second draft he asks that "the prevalent liturgy take on the pace, sounds, and shape that other cultures bring."

The catholicity that His Eminence calls for still means that there must be a "broad catholicity in the makeup of our parishes" that excludes no one on the basis of "education level, skin color, intelligence, politics, sexual orientation, wealth or lack of it, or any other human condition." One wonders if this catholicity, like the cultural catholicity, will have its own liturgical expression beyond the mere gathering of the assembly.

As in the second draft, the unique charism of the priest "presider" is merely "to be in the local parish community as the presence of the bishop... On Sunday, the one who presides, the ordainned priest, comes not only as other ministers do, from the assembly, but comes as the one who 'orders' this assembly, who relates this assembly to the bishop and to the larger Church." It is, still, "the entire assembly" that "enacts the liturgy"--whatever that means exactly.

The body of the pastoral is still as vague regarding the nature and purpose of the Mass. When the people of Our Lady of the Angels talk about what happens at the consecration, they talk about their experience of praise, thanksgiving, of solidarity with one another; they even talk about "sacrifice and the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection that is remembered and realized here in a powerful shaping of their own lives. Above all, they can talk about the way the Holy Spirit is invoked to transform these gifts and themselves. And so they are talking about the presence of Christ in the simple gifts of bread and wine, and in the mystery that is this Church."

Since it is the assembly, as well as the gifts, that is transformed, to be with the assembly, according to Mahony is "to know deeply that we are the Body and Blood of Christ." Those "gathered around the altar", with the bread and wine "are consecrated, changed, shared." Presumably, the communion procession begins with those in the back pews so that one can behold the Body of Christ--"the consecrated bread and wine, and the Church." How does the presence of Christ differ in the "consecrated bread and wine" and in the Church? The body of the pastoral never says.

One important difference between the second draft and the finished pastoral is that, whereas the second draft often refers to the consecrated species as simply "bread" and "wine", the pastoral always adds the epithet "consecrated", at least in reference to the wine. Indeed, very often, unlike the second draft, the species are called the "Body and Blood of Christ". Does this indicate a clearer Eucharistic theology in the pastoral than in the second draft? Not when the assembly is also called the Body and Blood of Christ. Further, it is interesting to note that Mahony never calls the Eucharistic species the Body and Blood of Christ except in reference to Communion when the "Body of Christ comes forward to receive the Body of Christ." Are the the "consecrated bread and wine" the Body and Blood only from that point on?

One wonders how a liturgical renewal can be founded on such unclear teaching of the Eucharist. Perhaps the cardinal himself realized this, and so presented the traditional teaching on the Eucharist in a footnote. "For the purposes of this Pastoral letter," writes the cardinal in his footnote, "I wish to incorporate totally the full teaching of the Church on the Eucharist as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1066 to 1209, on Liturgy, and 1322 to 1419, on the Eucharist. While my focus in this Letter is on the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist, all of the teachings and understandings of the Catechism are understood as the principles upon which this Letter stands.... Given the misunderstanding that sadly exists among some Catholics about the very nature of the Eucharist, I wish to include par. 1376 from the Catechism as a foundational teaching for all..." This Successor to the Apostles then goes on to quote the Catechism, which cites the Council of Trent on the nature of Transubstantiation.

Why would His Eminence relegate such an important teaching to a footnote, especially since misunderstanding of the "very nature of the Eucharist" "sadly exists among some [others would say many, if not most] Catholics"? The footnote is very much like the disclaimer he published the Tidings last year before the Religious Education Congress, a conference known for its speakers of questionable orthodoxy. There, the cardinal wrote, "Should any doubt arise about any opinion or statement offered by any speaker or presenter at the congress, only the normative teachings contained in these sources and resources [e.g. the Cateechism] should be considered correct." An editorial in the February 21, 1997 National Catholic Reporter praised Mahony's February disclaimer: "To his credit, Mahony has largely disarmed the critics with a statement that could well be a model for other bishops and dioceses under similar circumstances."

Could His Eminence's footnote be such another attempt to disarm critics? Or is it a sincere attempt to clarify Eucharistic teaching in a document open to more than orthodox interpretation? Time, perhaps--and the course of Mahony's liturgical renewal--will tell.

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