Enrico Finotti
I am a seminarian and I really like your editorial line, which is precise and moderate. I want to ask you the following question: Didn’t the Council simplify the liturgy and many other things? Why again do we want to complicate things with a return to a ‘rubricism’ that is now past?
This is the obligatory question that is asked when we insist vehemently in re-proposing the value of liturgical norms. It is true that the Second Vatican Council ordered an appropriate simplification of the rites, according to the well-known indications of the liturgical Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium: “The rites shine with noble simplicity; are transparent due to their brevity and without unnecessary repetition; they are adapted to the understanding of the faithful nor do they generally need many explanations” (SC 34).
It must be said clearly that this provision is not against liturgical law, but in favor of it. In fact, if in certain cases it is necessary to integrate insufficient legislation or correct missing laws or update others that are no longer current, in other cases it is the dignity of the law itself and its effectiveness that require a simplification, that is to remove the ‘too much and the vain’. This procedure, however, is implemented to improve the legal complex, make it more qualified, more expeditious and more suitable for achieving the very purpose of the law.
Now the disposition of Vatican II is to be understood in this perspective: a liturgical norm that is as adequate as possible, both to faithfully express the divine mystery and to transmit it effectively to the people in order to elevate it to an encounter with the mystery. Simplifying the law to make it clearer and more effective does not mean emptying it of its mystery content or depriving it of its intent inspired by greater pastoral efficacy for the sanctification of the faithful.
Whether the liturgical reform has carried out an excessive or insufficient simplification, according to the different opinions, must be evaluated in an in-depth study of the various rites. The Church will always be able to amend what she herself has done, if there is a right motivation.
However, the simplification of liturgical law is, at the level of principle, in the mind of the Church, in favor of the law and certainly not in contrast with it. (From La spada e la Parola. Il liturgista risponde, 2018©Chorabooks. Translated by Aurelio Porfiri. Used with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved)
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