The ‘heresy’ of rubricism

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otm:
Lookout everyone, here come the “rubrics” police! :eek:
Code:
 :clapping:  :clapping:  :clapping: 

  Anna
 
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Agomemnon:
I think its shows America is in schism and the USCCB should be disbanded and a Papal Legate sent to correct the USA
I am an American. I am not in schism that I know of.
 
He is technically correct, if the rubrics were the only thing people cared about, then they would be pharasaical and starved.
While rubrics are important, they can also become obstacles to God’s grace if taken out of context or given exclusive attention. For that reason the Council also included a solemn warning: Pastors of souls must therefore realize that, when the liturgy is celebrated, more is required than the mere observance of the laws governing valid and licit celebration. It is their duty also to ensure that the faithful take part knowingly, actively and fruitfully.
I read things slightly differently (context):
Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 Dec, 1963

<<
Chapter II: The Celebration of the Memorial of the Lord
E. The Care to Be Taken by Ministers in Celebrating the Liturgy.

To encourage the active participation of the people and to insure that the celebrations are carried out as they should be, it is not sufficient for the ministers to content themselves with the exact fulfilment of their role according to the liturgical laws. It is also necessary that they should so celebrate the liturgy that by this very fact they convey an awareness of the meaning of the sacred actions. >>

An example of what is being asked for is a real Homily.
I.e. rubrics with no homily starves people!
 
Respecting rubrics is not “excessive and exclusive preoccupation” with rubrics. Rubrics are not “our actions alone”; Our Lord did not specify all details of all the sacraments: He left some up to the Church. Likening rubrics to an insinuation that we are trying to be saved by our works is total ignorance of what rubrics are. All of this is a delicious example of how the Novus Ordo writ large tends to misunderstand and misinterpret the faith. It smacks of a deliberate dialectic, apparently using the vocabulary of the Church to undermine the Church, i.e. to bring about a dereliction of the elements of faith.

The ceremonies of the Church are defined precisely because they are actions performed in obedience; when they are sloppily defined or sloppily executed, they become our expression of ourselves, and their value as worship and sacrifice is reduced. Trying to diminish the rubrics and increase the self-invented false worship that is so rampant are efforts to convert the religion into self-expression and self-celebration. All of the problems the American Church has created warrant an interdict being imposed on the Church here. Essays like the above are evidence; also the American Church has pushed and shoved the Vatican on issue after issue, and caused much mayhem.
 
The bishop’s article, while being “technically correct” with the clever use of words, is actually intended to cast aspersion upon those who desire a True Liturgy and who question Church officials when the rubrics are arbitrarily altered.

Written in the wake of Redemptionis Sacramentum, the tone of his article differs vastly from the Vatican’s Congregation for Sacred Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, who have this to say:
Certainlythe liturgical reform inaugurated by the Councilhas greatly contributed to a more conscious, active and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the faithful.”[10]** Even so, “shadows are not lacking”.[11] In this regard it is not possible to be silent about the abuses, even quite grave ones, against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and the authority of the Church, which in our day not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations in one ecclesial environment or another. In some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become almost habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease**.
 
Thank you John for printing this.

What did I miss?
I read this two or three times. I never saw this Bishop say to ignore the rubrics. I never saw where he said they were wrong.

What I saw was him warning not to focus so much on them that you miss the heart and soul of the Mass.

Seems to me Jesus gave the very same warning to folks who made “rules” their God.

Some of you need to go back and read again.
 
Redemptionis Sacramentum
[24.] It is the right of the Christian people themselves that their diocesan Bishop should take care to prevent the occurrence of abuses in ecclesiastical discipline, especially as regards the ministry of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and devotion to the Saints.[57]
But, those of the faithful who desire a True Liturgy and whose celebrants routinely and arbitrarily alter the rubrics of the Mass, can be labelled as ‘heretics’ and pharisees, because it is deemed that all they care about are the rubrics themselves.

Ok. Guess we’d all just better put up and shut up, and tolerate whatever liturgical abuses they dream up next…lest we be called names.

I love a good liturgy. I am heartbroken by repetitious liturgical abuses, particularly when committed against the Blessed Sacrament.

Call me a heretic. :rolleyes:
 
From what the Bishop said, you are only a heretic if rules have become your God.

That is not for anyone to judge, but between you and God.

I do not know how anyone can really get into worship if they are spending time making mental lists of “abuses”.

But that is just me, and I am not easily distracted.
 
I agree with the Bishop.

robertaf said:
From what the Bishop said, you are only a heretic if rules have become your God.

You took the words out of my mouth!
 
Sorry, but I am rather easily distracted. :o
I was formed by some very conservative and attentive friars who taught us from childhood all the symbolism in the Church structure and artwork, and who taught us to really get “into” the Mass.

Then, they were “re-called,” due to the priest shortage, and were replaced with diocesan priests, who seem much, much more lax about the rubrics and more tolerant of abuses in general.

It’s an offense to the senses to be really “into” the Mass, and then have something interrupt the flow. Kinda like if you were praying the rosary, and someone kept poking you in the neck with a needle. :o

When you question it, guess what? You’re the bad guy, for wanting a True Liturgy.
 
Come on now, really.

Everyone knows that the rules are not God.
To even insinuate that anyone believes that goes to show what extremes these people will go to excuse their own disobedience of those rules.
Now it isn’t the ones who break the rules who are at fault, but those who don’t want them broken.

Remember that the rubrics were laid down by God’s authority here on earth: the Magisterium. They are, therefore, to be followed obediently.

Do I worship the rules? No, certainly not. But I would like to be able to worship according to the rules.

And that is the REAL issue. (imho)

Apparently, the Magisterium would also like to see more attention (rather than less attention) being given to the rubrics. She hasn’t issued documents cautioning on rubricism, but she has been issuing Instructions for some time now trying to bring disobedient celebrants into compliance…

Does this sound like heresy?
27.] As early as the year 1970, the Apostolic See announced the cessation of all experimentation as regards the celebration of Holy Mass[62]** and reiterated the same in 1988.[63] Accordingly, individual Bishops and their Conferences do not have the faculty to permit experimentation with liturgical texts or the other matters that are prescribed in the liturgical books. In order to carry out experimentation of this kind in the future, the permission of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments is required. It must be in writing, and it is to be requested by the Conference of Bishops. In fact, it will not be granted without serious reason. As regards projects of inculturation in liturgical matters, the particular norms that have been established are strictly and comprehensively to be observed.**[64]
[28.] All liturgical norms that a Conference of Bishops will have established for its territory in accordance with the law are to be submitted to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for the recognitio, without which they lack any binding force.[65]
 
I think the whole point of this thread is what the Bishop is saying.

And yes, there are those who worship the rules.
People can worship a whole lot of things. I have known Protestants who worship the Bible.

This is what the Bishop is talking about. The rules can become so important that what is actually happening at Mass is missed.
 
I read the statement by the Bishop, and it seems very balanced to me. I don’t know if it’s actually heresy, but some folks do seem overly preoccupied with rubrics, IMO. It can become an unhealthy obsession and distract one from spiritual self reflection and Christian charity.

For those who have a great concern over rubrics, I would advise them to step back and seriously examine the motives for their scrutiny with honest self-reflection. We all have weakness, and need to be constantly vigilant.
 
For those who have a great concern over rubrics, I would advise them to step back and seriously examine the motives for their scrutiny with honest self-reflection. We all have weakness, and need to be constantly vigilant.
…and if upon reflection we find our concern justified???
 
When the Mass is celebrated according to the rubrics, it flows so beautifully that one doesn’t even think about the rubrics.

When those rules are being broken, the Mass becomes “choppy,” emphasis on important things may become displaced, attention to that which is Sacred is often given less attention. It is like a slap in the face to someone who is spiritually in tune with the Liturgy. Yes, it becomes distracting.

And Rome seems to agree.

RS isn’t a call to relax the rubrics, is it?
It isn’t a call for us to place LESS importance upon them.
It calls each and every one of us to become MORE aware of them, and more aware of their significance in the Sacred Liturgy.

The bishop implies the exact opposite in his article. He implies that placing too much emphasis on the rubrics will distract one from what is happening during Mass. This is hardly the case for those who are crying out against liturgical abuses all over the US. They desire a True Liturgy, while the bishop makes excuses and casts stones at them.

People do not WORSHIP rubrics.
We have a RIGHT to a True Liturgy. The Church establishes the rubrics.
If folks have a problem obeying the Church, obeying the rubrics, then maybe…
just mayyyyyyyyyyyybe…

they’re the 'heretics.’
 
If I read this correctly, the bishop is not saying that people WORSHIP the rubrics, the way some Protestants might seem to “worship” the Bible. It’s more subtle than that.

What he’s saying is that some people might think that the essential part of Mass, the part that makes it “work”, that makes the worship and the sacrifice pleasing and acceptable to God, is doing everything exactly right by the book. In other words, that it is our own perfection and our own holiness that is important. And that removes God from the equation. It’s all about us. And that’s not Catholic.

I doubt that very many people consciously think in exactly those terms, but he is describing an extreme which is to be avoided. Whether or not anyone here actually falls into that way of thinking is for you to decide for yourself.

I don’t take it to say that you should not speak up about problems, or settle for an imperfect liturgy. I would take it as a warning against thinking that a priest that does everything exactly by the book is, by virtue of that alone, holier than another priest who isn’t right on with everything, nor is the Eucharist more “real” or more efficacious at one parish than at another. Because no matter how perfect our actions, we all fall short, and we all need God. All holiness comes from God, not from us.
 
Bobby Jim

I just went back and read it again, and I see you are right.
It looked like a warning that we might be elevating the rules up in place of God. I was wrong. I do apologize.

I can see where this could be heresy.
I think the Bishop is right.
 
While I agree that some people can become obsessed with rules and formulas, I must confess that the defenders of this position seem to be displaying the ‘criminals defense’. That is to say that it is society that made me break the laws. Or that it is the laws that are bad. Or that it is those who respect the laws who caused them to break the laws. Etc. The people who respect the laws are now being called the very thing that those who break the laws actually are (law-breakers, which is what a heretic is). We have names for this in psychology…charity prevents me from listing them.

Your unworthy brother in Christ and by the Grace of God a future Maronite priest,

Dr. Donnchadh mag Eochadha, Psy.D.
 
No PanisAngelicas,

I think it might be me that is crazy.

First I thought the Bishop meant that some folks were worshipping rubrics, which now has been presented in a much better light by Bobby Jim, but now, it would appear from what the good Dr has said that I might be siding with folks who promote breaking these rules.

I actually didn’t see a single poster who thought the rules should be ignored or broken. I sure don’t think that is true. I don’t think the Bishop thinks that either.

Where, oh where did I go astray!
 
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