VATICAN, Dec 20, 02 (CWNews.com) — Cardinal Francis
Arinze, the new prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has offered his
first public comments on the state of the Catholic liturgy, in an interview
published by the Italian monthly 30 Giorni. The Nigerian cardinal, who was named
to head the Congregation for Divine Worship on October 1, took the Second
Vatican Council as his reference point, and remarked on the condition of the
liturgy 40 years after the Vatican II renewal.
The 70-year-old prelate was a participant in the
proceedings of Vatican II, having been named a coadjutor archbishop of Onitsha,
Nigeria, at the age of 33. The Council, he said, was “a great school” for those
who attended, and a turning point for the life of the Church.
However, Cardinal Arinze observed that the introduction
of the vernacular language in the liturgy “was not done without difficulty.”
Some traditional prayers, he said, “are not easy to translate.” And proper
translation is an enormous task, he continued, because “we have to be faithful
not only to the spirit of the Council, but especially to what was said and
written.” He complained that “many bishops and priests have not adequately
studied the texts of the Council,” and as a result changes in the liturgy have
often been done improperly.
Cardinal Arinze expressed a dim view of “creativity” in
the liturgy, remarking that if priests make their own changes in the ritual,
“there were will as many kinds of Masses are there are priests.” Everyone
involved in the liturgy, he said– including lectors and choir members as well
as ministers– should be careful not to “attract attention to themselves rather
than to the mysteries they celebrate.”
“The Church did not begin today, and will not end with
me,” the Nigerian cardinal said. “The Church was established by the Lord, and
her tradition of sacred rites cannot be changing from one day to the
next.”
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