Alberta Report
26 August 1996
Joe Woodard
Roman Catholicism has always obeyed the dictum, lex orandi lex credendi, “the order of prayer is the order of belief.” The church’s unity arises from its inherited rituals or liturgy as well as its common creed. Although the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) largely stymied attempts by innovative clerics to “update” doctrine, the Vatican soon promulgated a new Roman Missal with a simplified, more “participatory” mass. Throughout North America, radical pastors invoked the “spirit of Vatican II” to foist sacramental experiments like “clown masses” and “liturgical dance” upon their laity. The joke spread: “What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist?” Answer: “You can negotiate with a terrorist.”
This summer, northern Alberta Catholics were pressured to modernize their worship regarding the practice of kneeling before the Holy Eucharist. Catholic doctrine holds that the mass is a continuation of Christ’s Last Supper, and its consecrated bread and wine miraculously transform into His body and blood. For 25 years, North American clerics have encouraged the laity to receive the communion host while standing in a queue. In most parishes, however, a few devout traditionalists still briefly kneel. So on July 18, Edmonton’s St. Joseph’s Basilica issued a bulletin demanding that the faithful stand. Meanwhile, St. Paul’s Bishop Raymond Roy has decreed that his flock must not kneel at the mass’s most solemn moment, the Eucharistic Consecration.
“This is being sneaked in, against Catholic doctrine and against Rome,” says Clandonald resident Patricia O’Brien. “At bottom, they’re trying to change the theology of the Eucharist.”
According to the July 28 bulletin from St. Joseph’s Basilica, kneeling “may have been common in some countries in pre-Vatican II liturgy,” but the Council “decreed that changes were desirable and necessary.” The bulletin then engages in some creative history. “Drawing on the practice of the early Church, in which standing was the normal posture, they decreed with Papal approval to institute such a renewal.” The bulletin concludes, “as in all things, we try to be faithful to the directives given to us through the Church.” Since this decree, some still-kneeling communicants have been brusquely ordered to “Get up!” by cathedral priests before being given the host.
According to liturgist Father Stephen Somerville of Toronto, the Edmonton bulletin is “misleading” at best. “The Council did decree a renewal of the liturgy,” he says. “But it’s false to say that they ordered standing to receive communion or receiving it in the hand.” These innovations were spawned as liturgical shifts by North American clerics, and were only later sanctioned as options by the Vatican. “What’s more, the Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy says that the people must kneel for the Consecration, unless kneeling is impossible,” the priest continues. “That’s certain.”
But the Roman Church remains a church of bishops, points out canon lawyer Monsignor Vincent Foy of Scarborough, Ont. It remains unclear how far a bishop can forbid things that are encouraged (though not required) by the Papacy. When it comes to receiving the communion host, the Roman Missal simply “urges” the faithful to receive it “in the way ordinarily intended”— kneeling and upon the tongue. Kneeling for the consecration remains mandatory.
In February, St. Paul’s Bishop Raymond Roy published a decree, insisting that his flock stand for the consecration of the mass. Its first victims were some Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns led by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. They have been working in the diocese for 10 years under an agreement that requires the bishop to provide their spiritual director. Since 1994, their chaplain has been Father Antoine Tetu, living in the bishops’s residence after completing a two-year jail term and three-year probation for his 1989 conviction on six counts of pedophilia.
Elk Point resident Irene McNeilly attended mass at the sisters’ convent soon after the decree. “Just before the consecration, Father Tetu said in a loud voice, ‘Now stand! The bishop wants you to stand!’ The poor nuns just stayed kneeling, with their heads down,” she relates. “Father got louder and angrier, so I finally said, ‘Father, the rules of their order won’t allow them to stand.’ Then he really lost his temper.” Over the next few months, the priest badgered the sisters repeatedly. Ultimately, Mrs. McNeilly reports, Mother Teresa herself threatened to pull the nuns from the diocese. At that point Bishop Roy instructed his priestly ex-convict to retreat.
Bishop Roy could not be reached last week for comment. Fr. Tetu refuses to discuss an issue “outside my jurisdiction.” But Two Hills Roman Catholic Dan Muri has now begun attending the Ukrainian Catholic mass in Vegreville. “Once a bishop orders standing for the consecration or using a lectionary [missal] forbidden by Rome, I’m gone,” he explains. “The clergy are being terribly disobedient, but they expect complete obedience from the laity. Well, I won’t follow any bishop out of the Catholic Church.”
Pope John Paul II is aware of such confusions. On May 3, he bluntly told the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship that “only Rome can change the liturgy!” He also promised the imminent release of a new and authoritative edition of the Roman Missal, as a “coffer of tradition” guarding the “faith experience of the generations.” The pontiff stressed that liturgical pluralism “must respect the requirements of real unity” with Rome.
—Joe Woodard