New liturgical changes, including a new series of Biblical readings for weekday Masses, have been announced by Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy.

“The option now granted to all priests of the Archdiocese of Atlanta to use various scriptural readings in the Mass is both an immediate need, and a significant liturgical choice,” the archbishop said.

Those laymen who take part in Mass daily have had to listen to the same Sunday epistle and gospel all week. This becomes repetitious and monotonous to the point of obstructing what the Council Fathers decreed—a fresh, changing use of the riches of the Bible.

But there is another point that must not go overlooked today, the archbishop said. “We have fine new translations, like the Jerusalem Bible, appearing, and there will be more. The Church is urging its priests to adopt a flexibility that is quite unfamiliar to our generation of Catholics. That it will enrich our biblical experience can hardly be questioned.”

Responses from the postconciliar liturgical Consilium, headed by Cardianl Lercaro of Bologna, were received by Archbishop John F. Dearden of Detroit, president of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops. They permit the chanting or loud recitation of the canon of the Mass, the optional omission of the lengthy sequence, Dies Irea, in funeral Masses, the recitation of the creed (instead of chanting) in sung Masses, and similar changes.

These developments stem from decisions taken last November by the U.S. Conference of Bishops and submitted to the Holy See. No announcement was made concerning other major proposals adopted by the American bishops, in particular the request for the use of the vernacular in the eucharistic prayer or canon of the Mass. It was announced, however, that the permission to experiment with the Ordinary of the Mass, recently revised by the postconciliar liturgical Consilium, has been postponed for the present.

Archbishop Hallinan emphasized that the most important of the decisions approved and announced thus far is the weekday lectionary. It is intended to provide variety in selections from the Bible read at Mass and to promote the preaching of brief homilies at weekday Masses.

“The weekday readings may be introduced in each diocese,” the Archbishop explained, “in accord with the pastoral judgment of the individual bishop. The Bishops’ Committee will distribute booklets containing the list of readings through diocesan liturgical commissions, beginning March 20, so that the program may begin, wherever approved by the local bishop, on April 3. Over 3,500 copies of the booklet have been ordered.

For use in these weekday readings only, five translations of the Bible have been approved: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Douai-Rheims-Challoner, Knox, Revised Standard Version (Catholic Edition), Jerusalem Bible. No new liturgical book or lectionary will be needed: the reader at Mass will simply mark the text in one of the approved versions of the Bible beforehand, when he is preparing the reading.

“The liturgical changes announced at this time—or proposed by the bishops last November—do not affect books or booklets for congregational use.”

The complete list of changes includes the following:

1. supplementary optional readings for weekday Masses:
2. approval of Biblical translations listed above for weekday use only;
3. recitation of the “silent parts” of the cannon of the Mass aloud or chanting of these texts, according to the pattern already approved for concelebrated Masses;
4. prose translations of the five “sequences” from Hymns of the Roman Liturgy by J. Connelly may be used as alternatives to the metrical translations already approved;
5. the sequence Dies Irea is left to the choice of the celebrant in Masses where it must now be included;
6. the Nicene Creed may be recited without chant in Masses which are otherwise considered to be sung masses;
7. The Apostles’ Creed my be substituted for the Nicene Creed in Masses with a congregation of deaf persons (because of the difficulty of “reciting” the longer creed in the sign language).

All the concessions are effective immediately, with the exception of the supplementary weekday readings, which are prepared to begin on the Monday after Low Sunday, April 3. Only the latter, the use of the new weekday readings requires the permission of the individual diocesan bishop. Since this permission is given on an experimental basis, reports are to be sent to Bishops’ Committee, which will then report to the Holy See concerning the results of the experiment in the United States.