Malurgy

[Nick Baty]

Perhaps it's time to find another church

[BobHayes]

Perhaps it's time to find another church

That sounds rather ominous!

[musicus]

So do some of Cardinal Arinze's pronouncements!

[BobHayes]

So do some of Cardinal Arinze's pronouncements!

Anything in particular spring to mind?

[musicus]

Not immediately; I'd have to research the details, and it's rather late. Maybe tomorrow.

[musicus]

OK, it's tomorrow.

Having refreshed my memory, I was referring to some of Cardinal Arinze's actions when head of the CDW, especially in relation to Liturgiam Authenticam, e.g. http://www.adoremus.org/1202Arinze-ICEL.html That has been discussed at length elsewhere, so let's not rehash it again here. However, to be fair to him, in other less formal situations, his words are often characterised by a refreshing openness, including the ones that you quoted earlier.

By the way, I don't think that Arinze is the villain that landed us with the present mess of a translation. Now, there is malurgy writ large.

(Back on topic. Did you see what I did there?)

[John Ainslie]

I remember the open meeting with Cardinal Arinze at Westminster Cathedral some years back when he was in charge of CDW - why do I think it took place on April 1st? Knowing his Nigerian origin, he was asked whether dancing was appropriate in the liturgy. His good-humoured answer was 'no', but shimmying in an offertory procession (which he illustrated personally) was OK. You won't find that in GIRM or any decree from CDW. One up for inculturation.

[BobHayes]

OK, it's tomorrow.

(Back on topic. Did you see what I did there?)

[mcb]

The danger is that some people seem to think that inculturation in the liturgy encourages free and uncontrolled creativity.

Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (1945):

“The whole development of the classic liturgies is by continual liturgical experiment. Every church had its 'customary' way of doing the liturgy, which was 'customary' only because it adequately expressed that church's mind and belief as to what the eucharistic action is and means. Whenever an idea which seemed to enrich that conception was encountered, whether in the teaching or in the devotional experience of that church itself, in the rites of other churches or in the works of theologians, it could be and was incorporated into the customary rite. If, after the only trial of which such things are capable, a period of actual use at the altar, it was found that it did more fully express the eucharistic action, it was absorbed into the local eucharistic experience as something which had become that church's own, and permanently incorporated into the local eucharistic tradition. If it did not serve, then ultimately it fell out of use again.” (p. 178)

This is the Church's history; it's how we got most of the way to where we are today. The alternatives to the above are two kinds of death: one involving anarchic improvisation with no discernible grounding in the truths of our faith or the origins, history or purpose of the liturgy; the other is the iron rule of centralising authority, in which all you can do is read out the black and go through the motions of the red.

[BobHayes]

The danger is that some people seem to think that inculturation in the liturgy encourages free and uncontrolled creativity.

Just for clarity I should point out that sentence apparently by me is, in fact, the words of Francis Cardinal Arinze.

Whilst Gregory Dix's views make an interesting read it is worth recalling that his writings are steeped in the Anglican tradition; plausible historical analysis but not necessarily consistent with Catholic Tradition.

[alan29]

The fact that Dix was not a Roman Catholic doesn't per se invalidate his research.

[mcb]

Especially if there's a faint risk that consistent with Catholic Tradition is code for blasé about historical accuracy.

[Peter Jones]

Whilst Gregory Dix's views make an interesting read it is worth recalling that his writings are steeped in the Anglican tradition......

You going to judge Paul Bradshaw too with similar faint praise? Without the Anglican scholarship of the late nineteenth century, ongoing to the present day, the Liturgical Movement would be much impoverished. Dix, by the way, is certainly no fan of Cranmer in regard to the latter's Eucharistic theology.

<............... leaves thinking on the widow of Zarephath and men wanting to throw the Lord off a cliff.

[Peter Jones]

Whilst Gregory Dix's views make an interesting read it is worth recalling that his writings are steeped in the Anglican tradition; plausible historical analysis but not necessarily consistent with Catholic Tradition.

Dix always celebrated using the Roman Missal, by the way (as so many Anglo-Catholics do).

[BobHayes]

The fact that Dix was not a Roman Catholic doesn't per se invalidate his research.

Quite so. The CofE was begotten of political expedience at a time enormous challenges posed by the Reformation. Subsequently Elizabeth I made it a forceful instrument of State power. It was and remains the Established Church. The evolution of its liturgy will inevitably reflect those realities - and Gregory Dix' The Shape of the Liturgy reflects the historical realities of the Anglican liturgy.