Legitimate variety

Writing in The Tablet, Dr A T Kania called for legitimisation of greater variety in Catholic sacramental rites (Let other lights shine, 6 September 2008). He points to the need to balance adaptation of the liturgy with doctrinal clarity and that clarity should not be confused with uniformity.

For some years, I am told, ICEL worked on reviving the English medieval rite of marriage. This would have given us back a multistage process, separating out the troth-plighting, which could take place during the now mandatory period of instruction, and following the marriage with blessing of the matrimonial home (and/or bed). This English rite was much richer than the Roman rite, and could give a much needed signal of how seriously the Church takes the sacrament of marriage. Perhaps ICEL, or our conference of bishops, could return to this when the new Missal is out of the way.

More immediately, for nearly 40 years our bishops had the authority to approve texts in English for singing at the Introit, Offertory and Communion. Since they never acted, commercial publishers filled the gap with hymn books. Since 2005 the bishops' power is restricted to the approval of collections of psalms. As far as I know the only such collection published was The Simple Gradual (ed. J Ainslie, Geoffrey Chapman, 1969) now long out of print, which translated less than half of the Graduale Simplex. Meanwhile illicit use of hymns continues, even in metropolitan cathedrals.

45 years after Sacrosanctum Concilium there is still much work needed on our liturgy, both in legitimising variety and ensuring the soundness of the texts actually in use.