From the editor’s desk

Divisions that must be avoided

A gathering of a family around the supper table is a moment when the bonds that are shared are reinforced, the love its members have for one another is enhanced and the very experience of coming together can strengthen them as they go out into the world. But it is also a place where old jealousies can resurface, where squabbling can break out and enmities occur. That, sadly, is also true of those called to the Lord's table. The divisions in the Church between traditionalists and progressives seem nowhere so marked as they are over the form of the Mass. No wonder  Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos felt the need during his recent visit to London to warn both liberal and conservative Catholics against making the Eucharist a cause of confrontation.

While confrontation should certainly be avoided, there is a growing danger that Catholics will be confused as to the intentions of the Vatican regarding the new rite, introduced after the Second Vatican Council. Last year, Pope Benedict issued his motu proprio enabling Catholics to attend a Mass in the Tridentine Rite should a stable group request it from a parish priest. The Tridentine Rite, he said, was the extraordinary form, while the new rite was the ordinary form. Now Cardinal Castrillón, president of the Pontifical Commission, Ecclesia Dei, has gone further, suggesting that the old rite should be celebrated in every parish in England and Wales. Some see this as a sign that the old rite is being restored step by step. Others go further, warning that if both rites become widely available the Mass could become a sign of division rather than a place of communion.

Those made anxious can take comfort from Cardinal Castrillón's exhortation to fraternal dialogue. But while dialogue is vital, and there is a need to understand the way in which Catholics of good will who loved the old rite have felt estranged from the Church for so many years, there is nevertheless a need to recognise and uphold the good that was done by the post-Vatican II liturgical renewal. It restored the liturgy to the people of God and taught that the Eucharist involves the entire gathered assembly under the leadership of the priest with the help of various lay ministers. To suggest Balkanisation of the Catholic Church is to go too far, but a situation akin to that of the Anglicans, divided along high-church and low-church lines, may not be far off if the old rite becomes widespread.

There are other significant issues which affect worship and which the Church needs to address, particularly in the West. The laity has become more mobile, more educated, and less passive about their faith. They no longer define the transcendent as distant or remote but as accessible and intimate. God is no longer away in heaven or the stars. As well as in the Eucharist, God is found in prayer, loving others, in service of the poor, in study and reflection, in psychological and scientific phenomena, in discussion. As a consequence many want liturgical celebration not only to be dignified but accessible too - and of course to be beautiful.

For bad liturgy certainly exists, sometimes in a mumbled old rite, sometimes in banalities surrounding the new. But those who seek God will find him in worship infused with poetry and beauty.