Re: Re: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
@brianq wrote:
Hi Prax
may I provide some clarification regarding Built of Living Stones’?
… B[uilt] O[f]L[iving] S[tones] succeeded E[nvironment] and A[rt] in C[atholic] W[orship]. Over the years EACW aroused much antipathy as it was considered fairly radical. I understand that it was often presented during church building renovation projects as ‘authorative’ when in fact it had the same status as the Place of Worship (POW). Also similarly to POW it was issued by the American bishop’s equivalent of our Irish Episcopal Commission on the Liturgy and not he American bishops’ conference (though validly so as the American episcopal liturgy commission were empowered to do so by the conference). As a result of rising resistance to EACW, not least of which by the some of the bishops themselves, and the fact that EACW was not voted upon by the conference, it was decided by the conference to have a new document drawn up (BOLS) and voted upon. It is ironic (for you Prax) that you consider it suspect as the main reason it came into existence was as a result of conservative lobby pressure. Many LCs consider it to be retrograde step.
BQ
(yes as you might have guessed I am a LC and i attended the CTU course).
Praxiteles would like to clarify a few small point concerning the above:
1. The term “empowered” is not a canonical term. As we have already said it cannot mean “delegate”. It could mean “authorise” in the sense of authorising the commission to prepare a draft for the plenum of the Conference. If it did, the draft should not have been published. POW is in a similar canonical limbo.
2. Built of Living Stones, hereinafter BALS, describes itself as “guidelines”. This is not a canonical category and hence the doucment, regradless of who published it, lacks the force of law and remains merely at the level of suggestion.
Although BOLS was voted on by the plenum of the United States Bishops Conference, it was not submitted to the Holy See for approval and reception into the legal corpus of the Catholic Church.
In this sense, EACW, BOLS and POW are all on the same canonical plane: they are private publications expressing private ideas.
3. I came across the following canonical commentary on BOLS which rather better explicitates my point :
The Legal Status of “Built of Living Stones”
Question:
What is the legal status of “]
