Father McManus has served as peritus on the Prepatory, Conciliar and Post-conciliar Commissions on the Sacred Liturgy. He has written and edited several books, and published scores of articles on every phase of the Liturgical movement. As past president of the Liturgical Conference and secretary to the U.S. Bishops’ Liturgical Commission, he has been responsible, as much as any one man, for the development of the renewal of worship in this country. In addition, he is secretary of the International Committee on Liturgical English.

Father McManus has addressed the clergy of the Archdiocese of Atlanta (1962) and the archdiocesan commission this year.

By Rev. Frederick R. McManus

In some ways the Church in the United States was ready for the promulgation of the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy in 1963. The liturgical apostolate had a sound and impressive history, largely represented by two important if unofficial endeavors: the four decades of the periodical Worship, formerly Orate, Fratres, and two dozen annual Liturgical Weeks, sponsored by the Liturgical Conference.

Yet these efforts had hardly touched the majority of the parish clergy, much less the whole body of the faithful. The liturgical revival -- properly at the center or summit of Christian life -- still seemed to be on the fringe of things, in spite of papal encyclicals, evening Mass and Holy Week reform. Some failure of communications stood in the way of any broad or mass effectiveness of the liturgical movement; in this there was a resemblance to the parallel renewals in biblical, ecumenical, catechetical, social, and theological fields.

The Constitution on Liturgy, and more particularly its quick implementation in concrete reforms, changed all this. Where the Roman instruction of September 3, 1958, had been as often neglected as accepted, some aspects of the new developments were inescapable, and all the clergy and laity became conscious of liturgical change and awakening. This was possible because of the already existing high level of basic eucharistic piety, namely, the fact that a very large proportion of the Catholic faithful take part in the celebration of holy Mass Sunday after Sunday.

The chronicle official steps to implement the Constitution on the Liturgy must begin with the Conference of Bishops. Largely because of the presence of Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan of Atlanta on the conciliar commission on the liturgy, the bishops as a whole had shown great interest and offered full support to the Constitution during the 1962 and 1963 sessions of Vatican Council II. After preliminary study and report by the Episcopal liturgical commission, the Conference met in Washington on April 2, 1964, to decree the introduction of the vernacular into the liturgy.

Although the American bishops had strongly supported efforts to include the presidential prayers of Mass (outside the Canon) in the vernacular concessions explicitly named in the Constitution. They decided at this meeting -- and again the following November -- not to make any petitions of this kind to the Holy See. The pattern of vernacular usage possible in the eucharistic celebration was thus limited to the biblical readings and the parts properly belonging to the congregation. For the other sacraments and for the sacramentals, the use of English was permitted throughout.

The decrees of the Conference of Bishops were confirmed on May 1 and went into effect November 24, 1964. The extension of the vernacular to the presidential prayers outside the Canon and to the prefaces of Mass was decided upon in the summer of 1965, to become effective during the winter of 1966 upon the publication of a missal supplement in the form of a sacramentary.

During this period the chairman of the Episcopal liturgical commission called the Bishops’ Commission on the Liturgical Apostolate was Archbishop John F. Dearden of Detroit, its secretary Archbishop Hallinan. The commission had been set up in 1958, but it was only with its increased responsibilities that a secretariat was established in Washington at the beginning of 1965, with Father Frederick R. McManus as director. The most promising efforts of the Commission, in addition to serving as a center of information for bishops and diocesan commissions, have centered on encouraging a better understanding of the biblical sources of liturgical forms, the effective use of the vernacular, etc.

Again on the official level, the growth and work of diocesan commissions should be mentioned. Only these groups made the liturgical renewal a mass movement, reaching into parishes untouched by the exhortations of the past decades. The means employed have been diverse: clergy meetings and seminars, bulletins and newsletters, programs of instructions and preaching, specialized meetings for commentators, musicians, architect, etc. A couple of diocesan hymnbooks have appeared, and a large variety of diocesan directories, chiefly concerned with the celebration of Mass. Of the directories, by far the most substantial and successful is the excellent Pastoral Directory of the Archdiocese of Chicago, published in March 1965 and widely adopted.

Given the American mentality, even in matters affecting piety and devotion, it is inevitable that many official efforts to stimulate liturgical renewal should be tinged with legalism -- in their acceptance if not in their proposal. In fact, the single fundamental problems met by liturgical reform in the United States seems to be observance of new norms and rubrics without full comprehension of their purpose and intent. This was expressed simply by Cardinal Joseph Ritter of St. Louis in the May 1965 issued of Notitiae: “It would seem accurate to say that no significant difficulties were encountered on these first steps in liturgical renewal within the United States. Where, in individual instances, difficulties were encountered, they could almost invariably be traced to a lack of preparation and understanding.” The educational task of preparation and study has actually been carried on at every level; only its magnitude is really responsible for the defects and limitations. In most schools and doctrine classes, the effort was already underway. In the field of publication, not only Worship but all kinds of popular magazines and the diocesan newspapers addressed themselves directly to explaining the depth and background of liturgical reform. And an impact was made for the first time through the general clerical journals which had been fearful of renewal or by and large indifferent and unaware.

On a national scale a major effort was made by the Liturgical Conference, the sponsoring society of the popular Liturgical Weeks, which had set up a headquarters and center in Washington early in 1960. The Conference held small scale but effective meetings for interested members of liturgical commissions and for those concerned with sacred architecture. Its general congress for 1964, held during August in St. Louis, was the largest in its quarter-century history; it presented a full program of talks, later-century history; it presented a full program of talks, later published, on the Liturgical Constitution, in addition practical discussions on the manner of liturgical celebration and participation.

An even larger influence -- upon priests, religious and teachers chiefly -- was achieved in 1965 by the Conference’s sponsoring three Liturgical Weeks (Chicago, Baltimore, and Portland, Oregon) with a much greater total attendance. This time the theme of major address attempted to explore more profoundly the sense of reform, and the Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, was the starting point for addresses on the topic: “Jesus Christ Reforms His Church.”

The effect of such meetings and conventions is limited by reason of the difficulties of travel, impossibility of real discussion in large groups, etc. To reach the clergy at large, the Liturgical Conference initiated a Parish Worship Program in 1964. This publication project -- in an area and style not touched by the commercial publishing houses -- offered the simplest materials for pastors, commentators, readers, musicians. The success of the program led to a further service by the Conference, a monthly bulletin. Living Worship, begun in 1965, and the announcement of an interim parish book of proper chants, psalms, and hymns, the Book of Catholic Worship.

The size of the United States, the huge number of practicing Catholics, the diversity of parishes and communities make it almost impossible to evaluate the liturgical renewal in that country as of this moment.

Acceptance by the vast majority of the laity has been complete and this even in parishes where there has been little instruction or where the introduction of reforms has been largely mechanical. The few surveys of popular opinion agree on this point, although it is spiritual benefit and a holier worship that are sought rather than mere popularity of change.

There is some indication that a certain proportion of middle-aged Catholics finds the changes in worship difficult to accept. It is possible to speculate on the reason: emotional resistance to all change, faulty instruction on the “unchanging” nature of the Church and its institutions, sincere piety without any communitarian dimensions, etc.

Unquestionably there are many who resist change, the more so if they have not been instructed or prepared. And the problem, although affecting only a minority, has been compounded by misleading clerical pronouncements that the Council will produce little or no change in the life of Catholics. Responsible leaders, both official and unofficial, insist on sympathy and patience with those who experience psychological difficulty with liturgical changes. At the same time such members of the faithful should be carefully distinguished from the so-called traditionalists, apparently a very tiny group which is almost totally disaffected by the biblical, theological, and ecumenical, as well as liturgical decisions of Vatican Council II.

The ritual reform of the Mass (March 7, 1965) has had at least a limited success in the United States. Certainly the liturgy of the word is everywhere better appreciated and distinguished from the eucharistic liturgy. The prayer of the faithful is widely and happily employed, although the preaching of homilies -- in the sense of the proclamation of the mystery -- poses great problems for the clergy.

Considerable progress has been made through the simplification of the rite and the clarification of its structure. This has been achieved wherever the presidential seat has been located at the head of the assembly, the ambo is reserved exclusively for the readings and proclamation of the word, and the tabernacle relocated in a worthy and prominent place, either at the side of the sanctuary area or in a distinct chapel. Similarly, concelebration has been widely employed and with success for special occasions and for priestly gatherings; its more significant use -- as the ordinary and regular sign of the Church’s unity for the principle Mass in parishes and community -- is only beginning to grow. Already a good proportion of the bishops has permitted Communion under both kinds to the full extent and for all cases enumerated in the new rite.

A special problem for the United States is the English vernacular. As in other matters already mentioned, the difficulties should not obscure what is in fact an overwhelming success -- nor should the complaints about translation obscure the almost universal welcome given to the use of the language of the people in sacred worship.

Some of the objections to the English versions of the liturgical texts have been sweeping generalizations, and these may be readily dismissed. Particular objections to specific phrases and expressions are of course often well founded. Nevertheless, much criticism reveals a misunderstanding. Because of the projected translation of the Roman liturgy for the English speaking world (in the care of an international Committee on English in the liturgy), the approval given to English texts in 1964 was provisional and not definitive; in most cases existing translations were chosen. Likewise, some of the specific criticisms of the biblical readings -- in a translation done by members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, the versions sponsored by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine -- are justified; other reveal an ignorance of the original biblical texts.

What broad summary can be given of liturgy renewal in the United States since December 4, 1963? First, the success of the renewal has far exceeded anyone’s expectations: the full and active participation by all the people (“the aim to be considered before all else” -- Constitution on the Liturgy, art. 14) is being achieved step by step. The Council’s hope in liturgical reform is being taken seriously: “to encourage a sense of community within the parish, above all in the common celebration of the Sunday Mass” (ibid, 42).

If there is a need at the moment, it is the recurring responsibility of teaching and preparing all the faithful for meaningful celebration. If there is a basic weakness in many parishes of the United States as they approach liturgical change, it is in the failure to instruct and to search out the underlying purposes of a reform that is vastly more than superficial. All this only suggests that the deep liturgical movement is just beginning.

Related to this is the problem of the future, in deed the danger that changes in the external form should be treated as rubrical prescriptions, grudgingly accepted because authoritatively imposed. There can be a crisis of obedience, even a chaos arising from diversity and welcome flexibility but there are far less to be feared than formalism and new-rubricism. The answer seems to be a more and more profound study and diffusion of the Constitution on the Liturgy as a doctrinal pronouncement -- proclaiming a theology of the Church’s worship, and supporting pastoral and disciplinary change with reasons and motives.

Only in this way can the liturgical renewal -- enjoying success and blessing in the United States as elsewhere -- be open to future growth and adaptation in accordance with the “genius and talents of various races and peoples” (ibid., 37) and the liturgy “impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful.” (ibid., 1).