Why We Need a Pope From Africa

That's one reason I'm not interested in Cardinal Sara becoming pope. His preference for the priest to face the altar is nothing more than his own personal opinion. I fail to see why I should have to obey a Pope who is going to impose his personal opinion as the rule of church liturgy.

I get a bit sick of those who grandstand on facing the altar, the host must be placed on the tongue etc. etc.

The key concern of Christianity is how we live our Christian lives - not how we can make mountains out of molehills in liturgical practice.

Bob Crowley said:

That's one reason I'm not interested in Cardinal Sara becoming pope. His preference for the priest to face the altar is nothing more than his own personal opinion. I fail to see why I should have to obey a Pope who is going to impose his personal opinion as the rule of church liturgy.

I get a bit sick of those who grandstand on facing the altar, the host must be placed on the tongue etc. etc.

The key concern of Christianity is how we live our Christian lives - not how we can make mountains out of molehills in liturgical practice.

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I was a member of a parish that is currently like this - I'm indifferent to it but some people have issues with it.

JimR-OCDS said:

I recall the Vatican responding to Cardinal Sara when he tried to make it the norm that the celebrant
say Mass Ad Orientem. He was informed that his words were not in line with Vatican II. There
was another issue, but I forget what it was.

Vatican II officially encouraged the celebration of Mass "facing the people" (versus populum), but the historic practice of "facing East" (ad orientem) is still permitted in the reformed Mass and normative for the traditional Latin Mass.

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You say it "officially encouraged" it. Again, where did it do so?

JimR-OCDS said:

However, this option can only occur in the Novus Ordo a Mass "facing the people" is not an option for the TLM.

What the Church permits, can be done, what it prohibits, cannot be done.


It was the authority of the diocesan Bishops. As the
CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY
SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM

States;

"1) The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, must, in this matter, carefully and prudently consider which elements from the traditions and culture of individual peoples might appropriately be admitted into divine worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary should then be submitted to the Apostolic See, by whose consent they may be introduced.

2) To ensure that adaptations may be made with all the circumspection which they demand, the Apostolic See will grant power to this same territorial ecclesiastical authority to permit and to direct, as the case requires, the necessary preliminary experiments over a determined period of time among certain groups suited for the purpose.

3) Because liturgical laws often involve special difficulties with respect to adaptation, particularly in mission lands, men who are experts in these matters must be employed to formulate them. Sacrosanctum Concilium "

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This is from Vatican II, but I don't see anything there about them facing the people. Facing the people might be something the Catholic Church approved later, but it doesn't seem to be in Vatican II.

JSRG said:

You say it "officially encouraged" it. Again, where did it do so?



This is from Vatican II, but I don't see anything there about them facing the people. Facing the people might be something the Catholic Church approved later, but it doesn't seem to be in Vatican II.

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Again, the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium from Vatican II, stated that the bishops have the authority to
set the norms after a time of experimentation.

In the US, the USCCB set the norm of the Novus Ordo and the celebrant faces the people.

Here's an article which talks about the entire issue;

JimR-OCDS said:

Again, the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium from Vatican II, stated that the bishops have the authority to
set the norms after a time of experimentation.

In the US, the USCCB set the norm of the Novus Ordo and the celebrant faces the people.

Here's an article which talks about the entire issue;

Facing the People, or Facing the Altar?

‘Ad orientem’ worship at Mass is often condemned as the priest ‘turning his back to the people.’ But there are many reasons for this practice.

www.catholic.com

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Your claim was:

"He spoke out on issues that were approved in Vatican II and was called out for it.

One was the celebrant saying the Mass facing the people."

And then later:

"Vatican II officially encouraged the celebration of Mass "facing the people" (versus populum), but the historic practice of "facing East" (ad orientem) is still permitted in the reformed Mass and normative for the traditional Latin Mass."

In both cases you claim it was done by Vatican II. But Vatican II never discussed it as far as I can tell. Your own link you offer here indeed explicitly says "The orientation of worship was not discussed in the documents of the Vatican II". So if it wasn't even discussed, how could it be approved?

Now you seem to be changing to a different claim, which was that Vatican II let bishops set norms, and then the bishops later used that power to set the norm of facing the people. But to that's a rather different claim. The only sense one could say Vatican II did the things you claimed it did would be in the same sense as to say that the Constitution of the United States "approved" and "officially encouraged" the United States to enter the War of 1812, because it gave the congress the ability to declare war, and then it declared war in the War of 1812. I suppose in a certain sense it's correct, but it's a highly misleading claim to either say "the Constitution approved and officially encouraged the United States to enter the War of 1812" or "Vatican II approved and officially encouraged the facing towards the people."

However, setting that aside, could you also elaborate on your statements regarding Sarah himself in this? You said "I recall the Vatican responding to Cardinal Sara when he tried to make it the norm that the celebrant say Mass Ad Orientem. He was informed that his words were not in line with Vatican II" and "He spoke out on issues that were approved in Vatican II and was called out for it". I did a search on this, and all I found was him urging people to return to ad orientem. For example, this:

Given that while ad orientem is allowed, it is not required (to my knowledge), I have difficulty seeing how him recommending that it be followed is in violation of anything.

As for the claim of the Vatican responding to him, the only thing I find is this:

But this is not apparently a correction of Sarah, but a correction of people misinterpreting him. Now, someone could say that it's really a stealth correction of him and is phrased that way to be a face-saving measure for Sarah, but it looks to me that the misinterpretation being corrected was not that priests could or even should celebrate ad orientem, but rather a correction on the idea that Sarah was saying they had to do so. Therefore, the thing he was saying--an encouragement--is not being corrected here.

So, you disagree that Vatican II gave the authority to set norms in the Sacred Liturgy to the
bishops?

However, according to you, because the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy doesn't specify that the celebrant
faces the people when say Mass, it shouldn't be done, right?

I can't go further with this. Fact is, I never seen a Mass celebrated with the priest having his back to
the people. This is because its not the norm.

JimR-OCDS said:

So, you disagree that Vatican II gave the authority to set norms in the Sacred Liturgy to the
bishops?

However, according to you, because the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy doesn't specify that the celebrant
faces the people when say Mass, it shouldn't be done, right?

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I'm not sure how you got either of those ideas from my post.

You claimed several times that Vatican II "approved" and "officially encouraged" the priest to face the people. I asked for evidence, because there doesn't seem to be any such statement in Vatican II.

Rather than offer the statements in Vatican II that did any such thing, you instead said that Vatican II let bishops set norms, and then that they set the norms to allow for the priest to face the people. But that's a different claim than what you made. You were claiming that Vatican II itself approved and officially encouraged the priest to face the people, which isn't the case at all. If you were instead saying it did so indirectly by letting people set norms and then the norms were changed by a bunch of bishops, that's like saying that the US Constitution approved and officially encouraged the War of 1812 just because it gave congress power to declare war and then congress later used that power to declare war. It's true in a vague sense, but the phrasing is very misleading.

As for Sarah, my point is that his statements on ad orientem do not go against Vatican II (which again said nothing on the subject), nor did the Vatican appear to "respond" to him in any sense that was critical of him. The response was just a clarification that he was expressing his views and not setting out some new directive.

JSRG said:

I'm not sure how you got either of those ideas from my post.

You claimed several times that Vatican II "approved" and "officially encouraged" the priest to face the people. I asked for evidence, because there doesn't seem to be any such statement in Vatican II.

Rather than offer the statements in Vatican II that did any such thing, you instead said that Vatican II let bishops set norms, and then that they set the norms to allow for the priest to face the people. But that's a different claim than what you made. You were claiming that Vatican II itself approved and officially encouraged the priest to face the people, which isn't the case at all. If you were instead saying it did so indirectly by letting people set norms and then the norms were changed by a bunch of bishops, that's like saying that the US Constitution approved and officially encouraged the War of 1812 just because it gave congress power to declare war and then congress later used that power to declare war. It's true in a vague sense, but the phrasing is very misleading.

As for Sarah, my point is that his statements on ad orientem do not go against Vatican II (which again said nothing on the subject), nor did the Vatican appear to "respond" to him in any sense that was critical of him. The response was just a clarification that he was expressing his views and not setting out some new directive.

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Whatever you want to believe.

All priest should say Mass Ad Orientem from now on. The heck with what the bishops want.

Fr longnecker defends the need of a Pope out of Africa for many things Cardinal Sarah ISN’T.

Its the find of variety reasoning I’ve come to expect from the good Father.