reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
- This topic has 7,926 replies, 103 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
Hi Prax.
Could you please give us a reference to the book published in Germany that you mentioned. Title, Author, etc.
Yes! the one and only.
The only Irish doctoral student to have studied under Ratzinger when Professor of Dogmatics at Regensburg.
We can safely assume that the liturgical institute he is referring to is NOT in Germany………..
Well, I would not want to give away the book’s plot. You will have to read it for your self. But one thing I can say, he did not rule out Paddy Jones liturgical hedge-school!!!
Prax. How many times do I have to tell you – I don’t read German, or French or Latin or Spanish etc etc.
Just hold on a very little while for the English translation of Professor Twomey’s book is scheduled for the Spring publication list of Ignatius Press, Sam Francisco.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Re posting 1197:
Paddy Jones of the Pastoral Liturgy Institute mentions the follwoing in his article in the September 2006 number of Intercom:
“It is a matter of grave concern that there are several different positions on liturgy adopted today, characterised by a strong element of disagreement, and some of which oppose the charter of reform given by Vatican II”.
In relation to this comment some other points must be made.
1. While it is true to say that a spectrum of theological opinion has given rise to a concomitant spectrum of liturgical positions, it has to be borne in mind that none of these positions adopted by liturgists necessarily represents the OFFICIAL position of the Catholic Church with regard to liturgy and what is required for its celebration. In effect, the spectrum of opinions mentioned by P. Jones must be classified as PRIVATE opinions.
2. The OFFICIAL position of the Church with regard to liturgy, and what is required for its celebration, is contained in the Code of Canon Law of 1983, the Praenotanda of the liturgical books, the Institutio Generalis Romani Missalis, the authentic interpretation of liturgical law given by the Holy See and the various Instructions issued for the implementation of the above mentioend corpus of liturgical law (e.g.the most recent being Ecclesiae de Mysterio, Liturgiam Authenticam, and Redemptionis Sacramentum). This, and only this, constitutes the OFFICIAL position of the Church and what is required for the celebration of the liturgy. Nothing more than what is contained in this corpus can be demanded of anyone. It is very surprising that Fr. Paddy Jones makes not even the slighest mention of this fact in his article.
3. It certainly is a move in the right direction for Fr. Jones to recognise that a range of liturgical opinion exists. The usefulmness of the various positions expressed with that range can be tested in reference to what is expressed by teh Church’s OFFICIAL position on liturgy and by reference to a long theological tradition. This exercise will quickly enough sort out what is genuinely helpful both at an academic and pastoral level.
However, our learned author is NOT engaged in any META-LITURGICAL exercise – if we can call it that – which seeks critically to examine the spectrum of private liturgical opinions expressed by any number of theologians so as to extract the positive elements that can be found in all (or nearly all) of these positions and integrate them into a new and higher liturgical synthesis. Our author does not mention that he is the promotor of a single position within the broader spectrum of liturgical opinion.
He is of course entitled to do so. But he may not represent his own view as the ONLY possible position that can be taken on the Liturgy and he may certainly not represent his view as that of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council nor as that of the Official position adopted by the Church.
4. Given that there is a spectrum of opinion with regard to liturgy, it is perhaps naive of our zealous author to have overlooked the certain fact that the general outlines of a theological consensus are gradually emerging and assuming an increasing dominance within liturgical debate. There can be doubt that one of the main players over the past thirty years in the development of that consensus has been Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. His ideas have been taken up and expanded by an ever increasing number of younger theologians. Our widely-read author seems either unaware of this movement or has chosen to ignore it and to cosset himself in the frail certitudes of another generation. Praxiteles is unaware of anything published by Fr. Paddy Jones in which he gives unqualified support to the present Pope’s liturgical agenda.
5. Let us be clear about one thing! The so called “re-ordering” of the interior of Cobh Cathedral is not the punctum stantis aut cadentis (as Luther said when referring to another matter) of the renewal of the liturgy instituted by the Second Vatican Council and given effect in the legislative enactments of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. That process will continue and is likely to evolve in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.
The so-called “re-ordering” of the interior of Cobh is, in reality, the Irish punctum stantis aut cadentis for a certain outlook that has arrogated to itself an almost total hegemony in the area of liturgy over the past thirty years. That same hegemony has been so complete that it has mistakenly assumed that the positions it holds are the only possible ones that can be held. But, more seriously, it has portrayed a private theoloogical position as an OFFICIAL position adopted by the Catholic Church. Perhaps our liberal minded author’s “disappointment” at the outcome of the Cobh saga may, at least in part, derive from a vague reliazation that things are no longer as they were?
Prax. As I said I don’t understand Latin, so can you tell me what does punctum stantis aut cadentis mean ?
Re postings 1197 and 1209 on the guff published by Fr. Paddy Jones of the Pastoral Liturgy Institute in his article of the September 2006 number of Intercom.
In the above mentioned article, our gentle scribe penned the following:
The sancturay of St. Colman’s Cathedral – like all the other cathedral sanctuaries in Ireland – was built for a very different way of worship. Keeping it unchanged would fail to respect the demands of a changed way of worship. The sanctuary designed in the 19th century is certainly inadequate…
This is quite a statement and redolent of the discontinuity historiography once fashionable among writers such as Theodore Kreuser (1894-1984) of Bonn, Josef Jungmann (1889-1975) of Innsbruck and the notorious Annibale Bugnini (1912-1982), who was eventually sent to a Mesopotamian exile by Paul VI. In case Fr. Paddy Jones might not have noticed, things have changed in relation to this way of viewing the liturgy. What I am wondering about is how Fr. Paddy Jones’ comments above can be squared with those contained in the attachment below:
@Praxiteles wrote:
It means literally: the point on which everything stands or falls. The crux of the matter.
Thanks
I have been thinking about Fr. Paddy Jones and I wonder if it is he who is leading the Bishops along the road of liturgical nonesense, or if he their willing donkey?
@MacLeinin wrote:
the poor congregation in Armagh have gone through three seperate re-orderings
Mac,
Was there a third reordering? When was it?
BQ
@MacLeinin wrote:
True Catholic teaching holds no authority for them. The pity is that they seem like nice people but like all liberals they are totally illeberal in their attitudes to anyone who disagrees with them.:(
mac,
I have to take issue with your sweeping generalisation here. I readily accept yours and anyone else’s right to disagree with my views. I readily accept when I am wrong on a factual basis and will thoughtfully consider contrary views on those issues about which contrary views can be legitimately held e.g. aesthetics etc. The authority of true Catholic teaching is accepted fully on my part. I don’t know what you mean by a liberal and therefore couldn’t say if I am one or not. I suspect it is irrelevant anyway.
BQ
@Gianlorenzo wrote:
Looking at the floor in Armagh Cathedral I can’t help thinking that all those miles of barley twist and acres of celtic squiggle can’t be too easy on anyone with a delicate constitiution – it’s all too fussy for a liturgical setting.
Gian
My design for the floor was conceived in such a way as to relate both in pattern and colour to the existing mosaic floors (seen in the foreground of the left hand image in your post) in a contemporary way.
BQ
@Praxiteles wrote:
On the question of the erection of the Cathedra in Armagh Cathedral, someone has pointed out to me the relevant text containing the rules on the height of a Cathedra and its relation to the height of the High Altar and the stalls of canons: not surprisingly, it was in J. O’Connell’s Church Building and Furnishing: The Church’s Way. As pointed out out, the Cathedra “is to be on a platform approached by three steps – so that it is higher than the canons’ stalls in the chancel, but not higher than the footpace of the High Altar”. Conveniently, he also gives the references for this rule which is found in the Cottectanea Sacrae Congregationis Rituum nn. 2049 (25) and 2231 (7). While other rules mentoned by O’COnnell have been explicitly abolished, the one concerning the height of the Cathedra in relation to the High Altar has not been explicitely abrogated.
Prax,
The Ceremonial of Bishops (CB) is the law on this point. #47 states that ‘….the chair should have enough steps leading up to it for the bishop to be clearly visible to the faithful’. That is why the Cathedra is physically higher than the altar. Nothing is said about a specific number of steps. The Cathedra is sited where it is because GIRM310 states: ‘Thus the best place for the chair is in a position facing the people at the head of the sanctuary’. The altar is sited where it is because CB #48 states: ‘It (the altar) should be so placed as to be a focal point on which the attention of the whole congregation centres naturally’. This location in my opinion is at the crossing of nave and trancepts which is the ‘architectural’ centre of the space and is the natural focus of the interior. It is presumably why the original altar i.e. the one before Liam McCormick’s reordering, was placed there too. It is also the place where those in the trancepts can see it. Again, CB makes no reference to a height relationship between Cathedra and Altar. It is reasonable to assume that the liturgical law quoted in McConnell’s book (if not formally abrogated) is de facto so. I have a copy of McConnell’s book. It’s a wonderful book and I refer to it from time to time. I find it very useful for historical / traditional purposes but it should be remembered that it and the law quoted / referred to within it has been superceded.
@Praxiteles wrote:
I may seem churlish, but I also have to point out that the colour of the cloth on the cathedra (not to mention the other chairs) is wrong. The colour “red” is reserved for a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. “Green” is reserved for all other archbishops and bishops. This oversight is also remarkable when you notice the heraldic achievement inset in the floor before the Cathedra which correctly displays a “green” galero.
Strictly speaking the colour is not wrong as those rules have been abandoned. The background is that the Cathedra in Armagh is the original one when those laws were applicable. It was retained and incorporated as it was into the new layout. You would have a point in saying why not conform to them as a traditional element and I wouldn’t have a problem on that basis. That is an example of where we can have two legitimate views. But it is simply wrong to take the view that the liturgical law quoted in McConnell has to be complied with and therefore what has been done now is illegitimate.
BQ
Brian!
That was a valiant effort but I am afraid your normae generales are not quite up to scratch when it comes to dealing with the sacred canons of the Code of Canon Law and you will find that a close and accurate study of Book I of the same text will make clear that the law is a good deal more subtle than you make it out to be. For example, where prior dispositions exist and these have not been abrogated and are not contrary to subsequent norms and no new explicit provision has been made, then they retain their force. Hence, note carefully the arrangement of the sancturay in the Cathedral of St. Andr
@brianq wrote:
Prax,
The Cathedra is sited where it is because GIRM310 states: ‘Thus the best place for the chair is in a position facing the people at the head of the sanctuary’.
BQ
Brian!
This statement, to beging with, is not accurate. Article 310 of the Institutio Generalis Romani Missalis, aka the GIRM, talks of a “sedes” and not of a “Cathedra”. I am sure that I do not have to spell out the difference between them.
Secondly, if you look at the text of 310 carefully, you will see that it simply says “locus eius magnus congruus est versus populum in vertice presbyterii, NISI aedis structura vel ALIA adiuncta id impediant”. You will notice that the text here is not prescreptive ordering that the “sedes” be facing the people or in the “vertice presbyterii”. Rather it is indicative and merely expresses a suggestion in law qualified by further considerations (NISI) to make it clear that we are not dealing with a prescriptive act.
Thirdly, the reason for the statement that the “sedes” could face the pople in the “vertice presbyterii” is to be found in the context of the architectural development of the Roman Rite, namely the Roman Basilica. But, as the Church does not canonize any architectural style, it does not canonize this arrangement either. As an example of what we are talking about we can look at the arrangement in the Lateran Basilica. In this case, the “Cathedra” is placed on steps in the “vertice presbyterii”. The High Altar is placed opposite. The Pope descends from the Cathedra to the floor of the sanctuary and ASCENDS to the High Altar – unlike in Armagh where the Archbishp merely DESCENDS to the Altar.
Fourthly, if we are going to speak of Cathedras, in the arrangement of the Lateran Basilica the Pope is not visible from the nave when seated on the Cathedra. Surely, if the Roman Pontiff is not visible from the nave when seated on his Cathdra, there is less reason for lesser mortals to be made more visible when seated on theirs.
“310. Sedes sacerdotis celebrantis debet munus eius praesidendi coetui atque orationem dirigendi significare. Proinde locus eius magis congruus est versus ad populum in vertice presbyterii, nisi aedis structura vel alia adiuncta id impediant, ex. gr. si propter nimiam distantiam communicatio inter sacerdotem et coetum congregatum difficilis evadat, aut si tabernaculum locum habeat in media parte retro altare. Omnis autem species throni vitetur. [119] Convenit ut sedes benedicatur, antequam usui liturgico destinetur, iuxta ritum in Rituali Romano descriptum. [120]”.
The English translation reads:
The Chair for the Priest Celebrant and Other Seats
310. The chair of the priest celebrant must signify his office of presiding over the gathering and
of directing the prayer. Thus the best place for the chair is in a position facing the people at the
head of the sanctuary, unless the design of the building or other circumstances impede this: for
example, if the great distance would interfere with communication between the priest and the
gathered assembly, or if the tabernacle is in the center behind the altar. Any appearance of a
throne, however, is to be avoided.119 It is appropriate that, before being put into liturgical use, the
chair be blessed according to the rite described in the Roman Ritual.120
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
