It's important to remember
(a) that a single instance of an unusual abuse is elevated to the status of something that is happening everywhere in the mind of Rome, and therefore must be stamped out. That was the principle underlying most of Cardinal Arinze's rants when he was at the Congregation. Most people had never heard of most of the things he went on about (all he did was give them ideas!). The resulting "rant document" was RS. (Rantum ergo Sacramentum?)
(b) that this was the document which was widely talked about beforehand as being the one that would ban liturgical dance. In the event, dancing wasn't even mentioned. (I imagine that Arinze's fellow Nigerians would not have been too happy if it had been...
)(c) that a draft of this document was, unusually, circulated to Bishops' Conferences for comment ahead of promulgation. A number of them wrote back to Rome saying "You simply can't say A, B and C..... but you must say X, Y and Z....". What happened? The Romans will never admit they are wrong, so when the document finally appeared it now contained both A, B and C and X, Y and Z. This document probably has more internal contradictions in it than any other issued in recent times.
Moving swiftly back to topic, of course Sacrosanctum Concilium has its own internal contradictions, but these are much fewer in number and easily identifiable.
And as far as Peter Jones's "Good-morning,-everyone"-after-the-Sign-of-the-Cross-and-Greeting abuse is concerned, the question which Nick is trying to articulate is How do we make the Mass into a human celebration while respecting the rite itself? Some priests come out onto the sanctuary ahead of time and say "Good morning" from the ambo, then dive back into the sacristy to emerge a couple of minutes later in the entrance procession. That solves the abuse problem, but it always feels somewhat odd. Other priests solve this particular issue by being at the back of the church beforehand, or walking up and down the nave, greeting people, before diving back into the sacristy to vest rapidly and then process — in other words, saying good morning to them individually or in groups rather than all together once Mass has begun. Of course, if most people haven't arrived by that time, that solution doesn't work either.....
