THE P RTAL
August 2016 Page 24
Nor do I collect postage stamps
Such celebrations do not raise an eyebrow in the Ordinariates . So why did the Cardinal immediately circularise his priests on the matter , and – I am of course speculating here – ensure that the principal Vatican enforcers ( Frs Lombardi and Rosica ) hauled poor Cardinal Sarah over the coals .
( Cardinal Sarah is the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship , and , you will remember , had had the temerity to suggest , at a conference in London of all places , that priests might adopt the eastward position from The First Sunday of Advent next ).
Cardinals do not generally go out of their way directly to contradict Cardinal colleagues , and seldom if ever call in the Thought Police to back them up . So what is going on ?
An intelligent guess would be that Liberal Catholics are getting rattled . ACTA and the Tablet Tendency have had it their own way for so long that they think they own the place . When it emerges that a sizeable body of opinion ( perhaps even a majority in the Church ) takes a different line , they are at first startled and then outraged .
Liturgy is the litmus test , and celebration ad orientem the red rag . ‘ Turning your back on the people ’, Father , is the worst thing you could do ! You should understand that . It opens the door to the reintroduction of all that unsavoury imagery of blood and sacrifice which we rational Catholics have long put behind us .
Cardinal Nichols , interestingly , castigated a reversion to ad orientem celebration as a personal foible of the priest – a self-indulgent departure from the practice of the Church . It was , he implied , to step out of line ; to be , in at least one meaning of the term , ‘ un-catholic ’.
Thinking priests ( who , praise the Lord , are on the increase ) will have asked themselves how that could possibly be the case . How is it individualist and selfindulgent to do what the whole Church did for the
On this contentious issue , Geoffrey Kirk offers a personal view
Why , you will have been asking , has Cardinal Nichols got so hot under the collar about liturgical celebrations ad orientem ?
best part of two millennia and Catholic to do what the Latin Rite alone has done for less than fifty years ?
Those of us with an Anglican background could be excused for underestimating all this . We have tired of liturgical quibbles . We learned early on that there were more important things to be concerned about - as Northenders and Eastwardfacers joined hands to deface both doctrine and morals .
But things are obviously different in the Catholic Church . And Nichols is probably right . There is a battle beginning between traditional Catholicism and ‘ the Spirit of Vatican II ’ of which liturgical practice is a mere symbol . You need to know which way you are facing .