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Vision: Voices from the Past
Monsignor Frederick R. McManus
First Executive Director, NCCB Secretariat for the Liturgy

Address presented at the 1995 National Meeting of
Diocesan Liturgical Commissions in Providence, Rhode Island

From National Meeting Addresses: 1990-1995. Copyright © 1995, Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions,
Washington, DC. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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 It is a welcome opportunity to present the opening contribution to this meeting. It is good to be the opening speaker, since no one has had a chance to preempt my topic, and I will not now worry about possible contradictions in later presentations. It is good also to have an appointed topic, Vision: Voices from the Past, which invites both retrospection and hope for the liturgical future. And one voice from the past, now a quarter-century old, is the cherished and invaluable Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions. It is very much alive and still highly promising; let me characterize it at once as a voice of the present and of the future.

Let me begin with a somewhat didactic outline of what I will submit:

First, something about voices from the American liturgical past, largely as a supplement to what you have heard or seen already in the very fine twin collections called How Firm a Foundation, one compiled by Kathleen Hughes, the other by Robert L. Tuzik—in the hope of hearing a further message or two;

Second, something about the beginnings of one corporate and collegial voice, namely, the Federation itself;

Third, the vision thing—as promised in the title, especially the creativity of this moment, and American hopes of much greater liturgical growth and inculturation.

Voices from the American Liturgical Past

A reviewer of Thomas Shelley’s excellent biography of Archbishop Paul Hallinan praised the book but wondered why Hallinan was worthy of a biography; it was a review that said little for the historian who wrote the review. Happily, over the years there has been a remarkable upsurge in studies of the liturgical voices of our American past: books about Virgil Michel, Godfrey Diekmann who remains a thriving and vigorous voice, Martin Hellriegel, H. A. Reinhold, Michael Mathis, Adé Bethune, Maurice Lavanoux, William Leonard, and others, including the two dozen Americans in the brief articles edited by Robert Tuzik. A few others deserve exhaustive study of their work, for example, Gerald Ellard, Mary Perkins Ryan, Reynold Hillenbrand, Robert Hovda.

In none of these reflections on the liturgical past will I seek to duplicate or reprise such writings, but I would like to add a few names to the pioneers, all the while suggesting what we can learn and where we may go.

It is not my plan, in speaking of the voices (or institutions) of our liturgical past, to stray outside the American scene, the American liturgical enterprise that has been called movement, apostolate, or renewal. This is not to diminish or denigrate the contributions from abroad, especially from Europe, by the pioneers from Lambert Beaudoin onward; admittedly, our American liturgical enterprise has often depended on European insights, pastoral examples, and scholarship. Even the great names from the English-speaking world—which shares a culture of law, language, and literature, as a certain Winston Churchill said—must be omitted, although some have influenced us greatly. The chief examples are the Jesuit Clifford Howell and J. D. Crichton, the latter recently honored by San Anselmo for decades and decades of pastoral-liturgical writings.

The first category of voices I approach from the parochial or idiosyncratic viewpoint of a New Englander and a Bostonian at that, perhaps appropriately enough in this setting. In this I only supplement what Richard Butler has written and offer my characterization of several strong Boston voices:

1. Thomas Carroll was not only the first Boston pioneer but possibly the strongest and most effective. In particular, he integrated the commonality of liturgical concerns (both interior cult and incarnate, external participation) with the broadest ecclesial and social concerns—a combination demonstrated by others throughout the twentieth century. Tom Carroll’s diocesan assignment reflects this: for many years he directed the Boston Catholic Guild for All the Blind, and his sense of duty to this special church apostolate often limited his travels and his prominence. Nevertheless he guided The Liturgical Conference as its president for four years and was a mover on or behind the national scene for a generation.

Carroll was a person of tremendous breadth of social concerns and seriousness of person, but also filled with quiet and not so quiet humor. His religious seriousness was symbolized by the simple wooden coffin in his living room, a coffin fashioned in the studios of Adé Bethune; his humor was symbolized by his using the coffin as a wine-cellar.

2. Much less well known nationally but effective through writings and action, or in today’s jargon pro-action, was Sister Mary Francille Thomas of the Boston Congregation of Saint Joseph. An alumna of the Notre Dame academic program, she was college professor, religious educator, organizer, and editor. I mention her in particular for her editing, with Shawn Sheehan, of a glossy-paper newsletter called Mediator published by the Sacramental Apostolate of Boston. The name of the group was a euphemism less threatening than liturgical commission, at least in Catholic Boston of the nineteen-forties and fifties. Mediator was a good deal more than a newsletter; any diocesan commission would be proud to sponsor its quality of work today.

Both the next two priests of the Boston group served as secretaries of The Liturgical Conference in the days of the annual Liturgical Weeks. The Weeks were pastoral, scholarly, and certainly spiritual experiences for many North American Catholics before and during Vatican II.

3. One is the late Shawn Sheehan of the Boston presbyterate, just mentioned in connection with the editing of the Sacramental Apostolate’s publication. As a church historian, he taught at seminaries in Little Rock and Boston, always specializing in pastoral liturgy. Like Carroll and many others, he demonstrated in writings and action the liturgy-and-life relationship, climaxed by his ministry in later years as a courageous and zealous pastor in an inner-city parish of Boston.

4. The other was (and is) William Leonard, who has outlived his Jesuit colleagues Gerald Ellard and Clement McNaspy. Now in his mid-eighties, he has recently produced two volumes of memoirs about his liturgical and military chaplaincy ministry. He is founder and present curator of Boston College’s invaluable collection of liturgical publications, documents, and artifacts. His service to the church, especially in liturgical studies and promotion, has been tremendous.

5. I have saved Mary Perkins Ryan for last among the Bostonians in order to say again how much her life and work deserve a full study. Nationally she became best known for her writings and talks on religious education, but she contributed directly and effectively to the American liturgical renewal. On this side of the Atlantic she was the first to point out the loss when the pastoral-liturgical praenotanda of the seventeenth-century Roman Ritual were simply omitted in contemporary rituals and thus unknown to sacramental ministers. The huge potential of such introductions was recognized (and required) by Vatican II and realized in the reform. Almost casually she once proposed what has become an ICEL policy, faithfully followed: to read aloud repeatedly or sing every text at every level and stage of the preparation process.

Along with her husband John Julian Ryan, Mary Ryan played perhaps the most significant role in the translation and preparation of the American bilingual ritual of the nineteen-fifties; at the least, the first draft, which was printed but not published, was far superior to the compromised official editions later. At the time they were at the University of Notre Dame, where they collaborated with the great Michael Mathis, under the direction of Archbishop Edwin O’Hara, to be mentioned presently.

Now we can turn to a somewhat neglected category of pioneers of the American liturgical movement, those who held the office of bishop. That these bishops were relatively few in number even at the time of Vatican II may be seen in the Yzermans collection of conciliar interventions by American bishops. The fact is that, aside from the matter of religious freedom, the impact of the huge American episcopate was rather limited at Vatican II—in matters liturgical but especially in issues of regional episcopal collegiality, to which they might well have offered their episcopate’s nineteenth-century history and of course the American political experience.

Nevertheless the leading “liturgical” bishops of the present day—James Malone, Rembert Weakland, Donald Trautman, Daniel Pilarczyk, and others—have many worthy, distinguished predecessors in the American episcopate, and I will mention a few, summarily, selectively, and reflectively. All had extra- or supra-diocesan impact on the liturgy in the American Church.

1. To begin with, Edwin V. O’Hara, Archbishop of Kansas City in Missouri during the fifties, is sometimes overlooked in the field of pastoral liturgy, possibly because he was best known as the founder of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and the organizer and guide of the Confraternity of Christian of Doctrine. His was the first and principal episcopal role in the preparation of the American bilingual ritual (1954). He died in 1956 in Milan en route to the Assisi-Rome congress of pastoral liturgy, where he was to be a speaker and the leader of the delegation from the United States. At Assisi, O’Hara’s paper, on the American observance of the reformed Holy Week, was read by Bishop Leo F. Dworshak, auxiliary to the Bishop of Fargo. Dworshak correctly characterized O’Hara: “He left an indelible impression on the liturgy of the church through his leadership in preparing a new version of the Sacred Scriptures [under the sponsorship of the Confraternity just mentioned] and in editing the Collectio Rituum. The range of his interests was truly amazing. His vision was unbounded.”

2. Dworshak himself deserves equal mention, chiefly because he was the designer, as it were, of the national episcopal liturgical commission we know as the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, the BCL. At the November 1957 general meeting of the bishops’ conference, he moved the successful resolution to set up a study committee on the possibility of a bishops’ commission. Then, as the committee’s secretary, he was the author of an extensive report, supported by a study of the other countries with such commissions, especially France and Germany.

In particular, Leo Dworshak crafted a structure that would allay the fears of individual bishops who had a long history of personal or inherited antagonism to a powerful conference of bishops. The commission or committee would be responsible to the episcopate regularly assembled in conference, not to the civilly incorporated National Catholic Welfare Conference; its recommendations would lack “any binding force” upon the bishops or any other member of the faithful.

With this sensitive issue put aside, the role of the commission was spelled out, and the conference of bishops set up the commission at its general meeting in November 1958. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of Leo Dworshak’s contribution; it was a highpoint of his own long-standing, committed pastoral-liturgical efforts.

3. Next in chronological sequence is the first chair of the Bishops’ Commission on the Liturgical Apostolate, as it was called until the canonical reorganization of the bishops’ conference in the late nineteen-sixties. This was Cardinal Joseph Ritter, Archbishop of St. Louis, who served in 1958 and 1959. At Vatican II it was said that at first the fathers thought he was German, because of his name, but then welcomed his strong and favorable remarks on the liturgy as coming from the United States—and so different from the negative interventions of his colleagues from New York and Los Angeles. Both in these statements and in his own local and national ministry, he was a strong support to liturgical renewal and reform. The support was marked by openness and faith-filled confidence—as opposed to fear and hesitancy—and he took the basic position that every possible liturgical concession or faculty should be embraced.

4. At least in passing I should mention the first secretary of the BCL, Bishop James H. Griffiths, auxiliary to the Archbishop of New York in his capacity as military vicar. Though not known as a leader of liturgical renewal, at a critical moment he served well, from 1958 to his death in 1964. From the offices of his rectory in New York City, Griffiths took on the responsibility of licensing, as it were managing, the editions of the new bilingual rituals. More important, he became a benign and open-minded liaison with The Liturgical Conference, a friend when external episcopal intervention was much feared. And, significant to the Federation, Griffiths quietly made every effort to promote the establishment of liturgical commissions by diocesan bishops.

5. Next two major figures among the bishops deserve special mention. The first is well known, but not necessarily remembered for his part in the conciliar liturgical renewal. This is Archbishop John F. Dearden of Detroit, chair of the episcopal committee in 1959-1960 and again in 1963—during the council; this second time he served until 1966 when he became president of the bishops’ conference. During these periods, and continuing through his five-year conference presidency, his national role was positive and effective.

Many, probably most, of the American bishops were deeply influenced and in fact changed by the insights of the council assembled in the Holy Spirit, but none more than John Dearden of Detroit. The breadth of his ecclesial and pastoral and theological insights was truly extraordinary. In the field of liturgy alone, he was responsible for establishing the secretariat of the BCL, for the style taken in its service to the body of bishops, for its Newsletter, for the scope of its early statements, for the first steps toward a subcommittee structure, beginning with the Music Advisory Board in 1965. And Cardinal Dearden remained faithful to the liturgical cause until his death.

6. Surely one of the very greatest voices, despite an early death in his mid-sixties, is Paul Hallinan from Ohio, bishop of Charleston and later first archbishop of Atlanta. He was indeed a bishop for all seasons, integrating his championship of liturgical reform and renewal with the deepest concerns—and activity—in social, ecumenical, interracial, educational, and other areas. Prior to episcopal ordination, his chief ministry had been as a Newman center chaplain and church historian, but his breadth of ecclesial understanding was already truly universal.

In 1962 it was almost by accident, providential accident, that Hallinan was proposed by the American metropolitans for the council’s liturgical commission—his name was suggested almost casually by the apostolic delegate of the time, himself an adversary of any liturgical reform.

When elected by the conciliar fathers, Hallinan quickly assumed a strong role: as a commission member, expressing American cultural concerns—points he made with equal force before the general congregations of the fathers; heading a subcommittee on the sacraments other than the eucharist; helping to overcome the procedural and parliamentary hindrances. Privately, he was pressing for prompt action on the constitution with the secretary of state, who chaired the central coordinating commission, with the American undersecretary of the council, and with the reluctant president and secretary of the liturgical commission itself. It was in this time period that he joined, as one of four principal episcopal planners, in founding the International Commission on English in the Liturgy; there his role was critical until his death in 1968.

The impact of Archbishop Hallinan on liturgical renewal in the United States in a period of less than six years can hardly be exaggerated, beginning with his presentations (or arguments) at the study meetings and the canonical assemblies of the American bishops in Rome. He was designated secretary of the American liturgical commission by Archbishop Dearden, his close collaborator, in 1964 and succeeded the latter as chair in 1966. In matters theoretical and practical, BCL statements, and concrete guidelines for new forms of celebration, he was the effective leader—despite the adversarial position of some bishops, despite the grave illness of his last years. Meanwhile he more than fulfilled his pastoral office as archbishop of the church of Atlanta, served faithfully and wisely as a member of the papal Consilium of liturgical implementation, and carried on his involvement with the movements of social and ecclesial renewal to the end.

7. Last, the auxiliary bishop of Newark, John J. Dougherty. He was a biblical scholar, university president, deeply committed peace advocate, and national radio preacher. He succeeded Hallinan as the American bishops’ delegate on ICEL’s governing body, the Episcopal Board. His greatest contribution nationally was successfully steering the first few English liturgical books through the BCL and, above all, on the floor of the bishops’ conference, the NCCB, which followed his recommendations with a quasi-unanimity and trust we would wish to see today.

Such encomiums only scratch the surface as we recall the voices from the past within the American episcopate. The bishops mentioned and others spoke—in word and deed—with openness to change, deep pastoral awareness, and concern for liturgical catechesis of the Christian people, as that people was guided to full and conscious sharing in the celebration of worship. They were strong and unafraid. Never mind that their will and wishes, whether in catechesis or in style of celebration, went partly unfulfilled and are with us still. The pioneers, both leaders like the so-called Boston group or members of the college of bishops, were prophets and are exemplars.

One last point before proceeding to the second part of this presentation. Besides the obvious, continuing need for solid teaching and authentic celebration, these past voices offer another lesson. It is an important but not very original point. Before the council and even before the liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII, promoters of the liturgical cause longed for the needed, radical reforms. Nonetheless they celebrated the old forms as they were, as best they could, in Latin, in the interim stages of change, even in areas of official compromise or retrogression. It is a kind of lesson for us as we now have our own vision of greater creativity and inculturation, namely, the lesson to do the best we can with what we have, not to lose heart when progress is slow.

The Founding of the FDLC

We turn next to Part Two, as promised, moving from these individual voices to corporate or institutional voices of liturgical renewal and specifically to the founding of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, the FDLC, which is a current, vital example from a not too ancient past.

As background, a symposium was held under the auspices of Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee on the twentieth anniversary of the Constitution on the Liturgy. Carl Last of that archdiocese was coordinator and edited the several papers under the fanciful title, Remembering the Future: Vatican II. Among those papers one dealt with the constitution’s context, partly within the context of the liturgical movement in the United States.

In that paper two academic and two other institutional components were remembered. A word here will give the sense of this institutional voice.

From 1948 the University of Notre Dame had a summer program at the master’s degree level founded by Michael Mathis, one later developed into a respected doctoral research program. This December the University’s Center of Pastoral Liturgy will observe its twenty-fifth anniversary with a symposium.

The Catholic University of America had the opposite academic history: in liturgical studies its doctoral programs were in several distinct academic entities, embracing theology, religion and religious education, patristic Greek and Latin, and canon law—over several decades. Only later did it consolidate its present master’s program in liturgical studies, and this too celebrated its twentieth-fifth anniversary with a symposium last September.

The other corporate voices of liturgical renewal mentioned in that paper a dozen years ago are familiar and also still thriving. One is Orate, Fratres/Worship, published since 1926; a second, The Liturgical Conference, was established in 1943, when it took over the Liturgical Weeks that had been held by the Benedictine Liturgical Conference from 1940.

It is in this category that I place the FDLC, since its establishment in 1970 makes it possible to consider it a voice from the past. It is not my intention to recite the FDLC’s history or accomplishments—from the survey of the reception of the revised Order of Mass to the lectionary for children, from its interchange of information among the individual local churches to its important representations and recommendations year after year to the liturgical commission of the NCCB. These and many more achievements deserve study and account, but the present purpose is to speak only of the early days when it was first convened by the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy.

There is a pre-history, probably long forgotten. In the years immediately following the enactment of the liturgical constitution, The Liturgical Conference provided a hospitable home for Archbishop Dearden, Archbishop Hallinan, and other bishop-members of the BCL to meet informally with diocesan commission members during afternoon workshop sessions of the Liturgical Weeks. These were useful exchanges with perhaps fifty members of diocesan commissions taking part. Soon enough the informal workshop occasions were seen as insufficient—as the number of commissions grew, as the host Conference moved to regional meetings, and as commissions recognized their legitimate and official autonomy.

In turn a broad-based and national gathering of local commission members was held in Chicago in November 1968. This too is part of the pre-history of the FDLC: A kind of BCL advisory committee from the commissions was proposed by the participants at the 1968 assembly. By this time Coadjutor Archbishop Leo C. Byrne of St. Paul-Minneapolis had succeeded Hallinan as BCL chair. Although the resolution envisioned a group parallel to the existing Music Advisory Board of the BCL, its local and collegial base was clear in this most preliminary proposal: the recommendation of a group “from the diocesan liturgical commissions, with representatives to be elected on a provincial or regional basis by the chairmen [sic] and secretaries of the commissions.”

The BCL promptly accepted the resolution and agreed to help convene a representative group—twenty-four commission chairs and secretaries elected on the regional basis of twelve districts or regions. Significantly, the parallel to the BCL’s (appointed) Music Advisory Board was not accepted: the autonomy of the federation of commissions, however much it might assist or enter into dialogue with the BCL, was scrupulously respected.

Thus the BCL Secretariat conducted an election by mail, soliciting nominations in April 1969 and following this up with a run-off election of regional delegates for a charter committee. One contribution of the BCL was the recommendation that, leaving the “exact name and character” of the projected body to the charter group, it should be “tentatively considered a federation of diocesan commissions.” “It is also hoped,” said the BCL, “that [in addition to the exchange of information among the commissions themselves and the holding of regional meetings] the federation would be able to present informal proposals to the Bishops’ Committee and to be a source of information to the Committee.”

This needs a certain stress. The purposes of the FDLC would be developed and refined, but the basic conception—not invented by the BCL but fostered by it—was clearly a distinct body, serving the commissions but equally prepared to submit its corporate recommendations to the BCL, a happy meld of subsidiarity and collegial relationships. And this dimension has been maintained for a quarter of a century—notably through the carefully crafted FDLC position statements and resolutions of immediate concern, through the participation of its chair and executive director at BCL meetings, and through BCL and FDLC co–sponsorship of the national meetings.

The seeming failure of the American bishops in the conciliar deliberations about collegiality that was mentioned earlier may have seemed extraneous or gratuitous. It has pertinence here. The American experience of the corporate activity of commission members and their elected representatives in the FDLC and its board of directors were and are crucial: to provide independent wisdom from the local and regional levels distilled by a national board, to submit well thought out positions and proposals, all honest if not always welcome, to join the give and take of discussion—all done under the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. This is communion and collegiality at their own levels, with an elective process of choosing delegates or board members—and it is a reflection of the American experience in public as well as ecclesial polity.

The next step was a working session of the twenty-four member charter committee in Pittsburgh in October 1969—during that year’s meeting of commission members. Here the name of the executive secretary of the Pittsburgh diocesan commission should be remembered. Monsignor Jacob C. Shinar was not only the local chair and organizer of the national meeting itself, but also the strongest of friends and proponents of the projected FDLC, along with the Pittsburgh and Chicago commissions.

The charter committee met repeatedly during the larger 1969 meeting. The director of the BCL Secretariat introduced the discussions with assurances that there was a “desperate need” for a good working federation with its own executive and that the BCL itself would “speak with a greater impact because of a great knowledge given by the Federation.” He shared the desire for better communications between the commissions and the BCL to be achieved by the FDLC, but added the less welcome news that the Federation could not be financially subsidized by the BCL or NCCB.

The first business of the charter committee was the election of temporary officers, whose names should now be recorded: Father James D. (Tim) Shaughnessy of Peoria was elected chair; Father John R. Beno of Pueblo was secretary. It is enough to say, without offering details, that the discussions were broad and ended in agreement to meet in El Paso in January 1970 to adopt a constitution and bylaws; these were then printed, as it were promulgated, in the BCL Newsletter. The initial officers were reelected and a third added: Father Joseph L. Cunningham of Brooklyn as vice chair. Thus in January 1970 the Federation was well and truly under way. Its accomplishments deserve careful study—like other voices from the past, one that still performs invaluable services for the church community.

Without entering into that history, a few substantive reflections are appropriate about the first two meetings of the charter committee as it properly evolved into a board of directors.

From the very beginning, the FDLC raised important questions on behalf of its constituent commissions. The equal need and desire of the BCL to receive such expressions were apparent. Some of the first issues have a familiar ring: multi-media in worship; cultural adaptation of the rites of adult initiation; the simplification of the new, cluttered introductory rites of the eucharistic celebration; liturgy of the word for children; the problems in the Roman instruction on Masses for special and small gatherings; etc.

One proposal from these initial meetings seems by hindsight to have been unrealistic—and indeed never came to pass. It was for an office or department of Christian worship located within the United States Catholic Conference, the civil instrumentality of the bishops’ conference. Reflection upon the conciliar constitution’s concept of institutes and centers would have moved the discussion in another direction, given all the alternative resources already available for liturgical catechesis and promotion—from the major diocesan commissions and centers to effective, committed publishers. It would have been tragic to have such an official entity go the way of the USCC catechetical center—not to mention the potential for rigid uniformity of materials from a national office. In any event, the FDLC had and has its own clear role, while both the BCL and the FDLC have taken their own part in liturgical promotion and education.

Almost as a secondary and perhaps unintended dimension, the nature of the FDLC helps keep our attention on the parishes or similar local communities. These are heterogeneous gatherings and congregations of diverse Christian believers as they assemble for the eucharist and the other celebrations of worship.

This is not to ignore more specialized Christian groups, perhaps more sophisticated or even esoteric: communities of religious or institutes, groups with similar interests or basis of association, very small gatherings, college or high school students, special meetings, and the like. All deserve attention in matters of liturgical participation, form, and style. But, to recall the Constitution on the Liturgy: The preeminent manifestation of the local, diocesan church is the gathered people of God headed by the bishop with his ministers. The parish is preeminent at the next level—it is a diverse people presided over by a presbyter in the bishop’s place.

Almost in the nature of things diocesan commissions—liturgical, music, and art—are chiefly concerned with parishes in all their diversity. In turn the FDLC has parish communities and celebrations as its concern, and it speaks for them effectively.

No one would pretend that the FDLC, despite its achievements, is perfect. Yet by comparison with church structures in other major countries, it is unique and invaluable. As a voluntary association of official commissions, it is ideally situated for its several purposes, perhaps above all in its readiness for national and other dialogue and for making the grass-roots recommendations, backed up by studies and surveys, for which the BCL welcomed and convened it twenty-five years ago.

Vision of the Future

Part Three of this presentation seizes the word vision from the topic, in order to say a word and more about the future which the voices from the past support.

Louis Bouyer used to insist upon the metaphor of spiral for the church year and its round of feasts and seasons, in preference to the more common metaphor of circle or cycle. His point of course was that the annual observances do not simply recur or return in circular fashion, but are instead progress toward the final times, moving forward from the now to the eschatological not as yet.

An image for our purposes is that of plateau, for which level or stage might do. The sense is that of an elevated level which liturgical renewal has reached, but with a next and superior plateau yet to come, to which the holy Church, the communion of the saints, must climb with faith and without fear.

These are fine words, but they are justified by the past hundred years of liturgical history. Before the Second Vatican Council, there were plateaus of liturgical progress: the level of recovered or restored monastic celebration and the scholarly work on the chant in the nineteenth century; then, early in this century, the beginning of official reform by Pope Pius X—along with fresh appreciation of the role of the whole Christian community in the liturgy; next, the lengthy plateau of widespread undertakings to reach the pre–conciliar plateau. That was where, in 1947, Pius XII took note of what had been happening (in the encyclical Mediator Dei) and, in 1948, set up the reform commission that laid the groundwork or, to keep the metaphor, labored at a higher plateau. Its pre–conciliar achievements in the services of Holy Week and the arrangement of rites to celebrate the stages of adult Christian initiation speak for themselves.

But for us, the climb to a much higher level of liturgical reform was achieved by the conciliar teaching and mandate of 1963. The enterprise on that plateau continued, gradually and surely, in the revision of rites and texts, first throughout the Roman rite and then country by country, region by region. We have reached that plateau and must continuing working at it—doing the best we can with what we have, as was suggested earlier.

But it is clear that the church community must not pause too long before seeking the higher plateau of cultural adaptation, now called liturgical inculturation, something to be sought in diversity and with courage.

Are there obstacles to movement to the next plateau? At this moment, one is the organized if superficial antagonism to the BCL, ICEL, and the NCCB—but actually to the very reality of the Second Vatican Council. I do not dismiss this honest and honorable, but wretchedly uninformed opposition, which would gladly move back down from today’s plateau. This opposition needs to be tested by a sincere reaffirmation of Vatican II. Yet there is a much more serious threat to the authenticity of Catholic worship and the forward movement I believe we should seek.

My reference is to the growing numbers of American parishes without a resident pastor, without the ordinary presbyteral ministry of pastoral office or leadership and, in this context, without eucharistic presidency. Curiously, Vatican II recognized the problem thirty years ago and proposed, where needed, a Sunday celebration of the word of God without a priest, without either bishop or presbyter.

This situation, certainly if it worsens, is a descent to a lower plateau, with large numbers of the Christian faithful deprived of eucharistic celebration on the Lord’s Day. There is tragic irony in the otherwise very positive ecumenical insights of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical last May. In the context of common liturgical progress of the churches, he said:

Some [ecclesial communities], on the basis of a recommendation expressed at the ecumenical level, have abandoned the custom of celebrating their liturgy of the Lord’s Supper only infrequently and have opted for a celebration every Sunday.

The pope has warmly and rightly welcomed this development, along with ecumenical biblical translations, a common lectionary list for Sundays, and more. But the sad and tragic fact is that substantial numbers of Catholic parish communities in this country cannot have a Sunday eucharist, as the number of ordained ministers diminishes. The fact is that, having moved others, we are going in the opposite direction.

This said, we need the courage of the pioneers to move to a higher level of liturgical renewal. The conciliar guide, rather general or abstract, is in the liturgical constitution under the heading of “adapting the liturgy to the culture and traditions of peoples” as well as in numerous if admittedly slight ritual possibilities listed in the reformed books of worship. But we have barely begun.

Almost two years ago the Roman department competent in matters liturgical issued a document precisely on this point, with the title, The Roman Liturgy and Inculturation: IVth Instruction for the Right Implementation of the Conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy (nn. 37-40). While it is arguable that the initiative, according to every principle of subsidiarity, belongs with the local, national, or regional churches, the long-delayed instruction was welcome and its doctrinal presentation of liturgical inculturation sound and encouraging. It is an impetus to action.

Negatively, the instruction does fail by omission. It does not mention that Vatican II explicitly and deliberately opened the door even to the creation of new rites equal in standing to the Roman or Byzantine or Armenian rites. Similarly, it passed over the council’s recognition that more profound regional changes might well go beyond the “substantial unity of the Roman liturgy.”

Positively, however, the instruction is the strongest invitation to further inculturation or variation or adaptation. And it has application in smaller countries with a single and unifying culture and in larger countries with a plurality of cultures and subcultures.

Little has happened since the completion of the revised Roman liturgical books to satisfy the conciliar invitation to the national churches. In fact little has happened since the issuance of the elaborate instruction in January 1994. Another irony: the liturgically retrogressive voices, at least in the United States, seem not to have received or accepted the instruction. They certainly do not see the organic growth of the liturgy or liturgical renewal as the work of the Holy Spirit.

The vision, then, is that—with study and care, with empirical knowledge, with awareness of liturgical word and deed, with greater feeling for the environment of worship, with commitment to the word of God and the “actualization” of its interpretation in the church—we should move on from the present plateau of Vatican II and its immediate aftermath. The vision includes as well the current needful catechesis and celebration of the liturgy as it is today.

It is generally inappropriate or even tacky to quote one’s own earlier observations, but proper to repeat one’s own quotation of what has been said by others. Here it is done by way of conclusion.

First, Josef Jungmann completed his remarks to the Assisi-Rome Congress, six years before the council, with these stirring words:

The Curtain is beginning to lift. A bright day is dawning. The Church is gathering, and gaining new strength. With confidence it faces the future—as the praying people of God.

Next, in 1982 James Burcheall succinctly summed up what we might consider our present plateau of liturgical renewal:

The sacraments are in a tongue unloosed now, and can be celebrated with an imagination and integrity that release more of their grace and power than before.

And the bold declaration of Vatican II, surely applicable to the holy liturgy, its words, and its forms:

Christ calls the church, as it goes its pilgrim way, to that continual reformation of which it always has need, so far as it is an institution of men and women here on earth.
 

New liturgical levels were reached by the Second Vatican Council, next by the initial reform of our worship’s words and deeds, and now by their aftermath. Today’s and tomorrow’s voices must have a vision of new and higher liturgical plateaus—reinforced by the past, looking to the future.