Originally published at crisis magazine
Pope Francis sent a message February 28 to participants in a course at Rome’s Anselmianum for bishops’ masters of ceremony. The message was one of those usual ones dispatched for an event of which the Holy See somehow wants to take note, either because it likes the idea or somebody involved had a friend in the Curia.
According to the message, the nominal reason for the course is to respond to Francis’ “invitation formulated in the Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, continuing to study the liturgy, not only from a theological perspective, but also in the area of celebratory praxis.”
“Celebratory praxis” in the Francis pontificate seems primarily to mean not celebrating the liturgy in ways in which this pope disapproves—for example, in Latin, especially in the usus antiquior. Beyond that, the term is elastic enough to cover justifying rules against what particular people imagine constitute retrenchment on the supposed “vision” of Vatican II, e.g., wanting to kneel to receive Communion and/or to do so at an altar rail.
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Francis’ message, with its focus on “celebratory praxis,” raises two issues: the scope and the style of that “praxis.”
