Market testing, beta sites, learning from experience and listening to the people are not part of the hierarchy's lexicon. "We know what's best. Full speed ahead!"
If that critique applies to mere revisions of the post-conciliar liturgy, it applies with much more force to the decision to implement it in the first place. Archbishop Weakland recalls, in his memoirs, the evenings of January 11, 12, and 13, 1968, when Pope Paul VI had three versions of the proposed new form of liturgy celebrated in the Capella Matilde at the Vatican.
Since the idea was to replicate a parish Sunday Mass, he asked that a small congregation be present and for each evening invited about twenty-five people. I was among them. ... On the last night, the pope, in the chapel, thanked all of those who came, stressed that this was an "historic moment", and begged for feedback. Each evening after the Mass, Pope Paul invited a small group, five to seven of us, to discuss our reactions; I attended all three evenings. (A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, p. 205)
Archbishop Weakland has elsewhere called these three evenings test marketing the revised liturgy. Unless Father Reese wants to take issue with the 1968 procedure, the U.S. Bishops need only have a couple dozen of their number attend one Mass with the latest revisions to meet his objections.
(via Diogenes at Off the Record)
No comments:
Post a Comment