Rome and Liturgical Variation [Commentary on Browne: Article XXXIV]

This Article upholds the logic of Article XX—in which the normative principle of worship is affirmed—and extends it. As the church “hath power to decree rites or ceremonies,” so “every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church, ordained only by man’s authority.” Hence, “It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like.” All of this is a response, Browne tells us, to the fact that “the power and authority of the see of Rome had annihilated the distinctions of national Churches, and produced an uniformity, not only of doctrine, but also of ceremonial and discipline, throughout the West.”^[1] The Council of Trent codified the Roman Church’s pursuit of ceremonial uniformity, instructing bishops to “provide, that priests do not celebrate at other than due hours; nor employ other rites, or other ceremonies and prayers, in the celebration of masses, besides those which have been approved of by the Church, and have been received by a frequent and praiseworthy usage.”^[2] More strongly, it condemns those who say “the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones.”^[3]

However, as with liturgical vernacular and celebrating the Eucharist in both kinds, the Church of Rome has in recent years shifted its tone considerably with regard to local liturgies. At the Second Vatican Council, it was taught that “even in the liturgy, the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not implicate the faith or the good of the whole community.”^[4] Moreover, in a document devoted specifically to the Eastern Catholic churches, it is written that “all members of the Eastern Rite should know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life, and that these may not be altered except to obtain for themselves an organic improvement.”^[5] The liturgy of the Roman Church is not normative, but rather, “none of them is superior to the others as regards rite.”^[6] The same teaching is also contained in the Roman Catechism, which quotes the Second Vatican Council to this effect and enumerates the different rites “recognized…to be of equal right and dignity,” including “the Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite and Chaldean rites.”^[7] Similar to the Church’s growing openness to vernacular liturgy and Communion in both kinds, its acceptance of local liturgical variation is no doubt seen by some as growth in true catholicity (however it be reconciled to previous teaching and attempts to Latinize local liturgies) and by others as unwelcome liberalization.

The other extreme against which this Article defends is the exercise of “private judgment” so as to “break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority.” One of the reasons given for rebuking those who do so is that they “hurteth the authority of the Magistrate,” but as one commentator observes, this “does not apply in countries where the civil rulers do not uphold the laws of the Church.”^[8] Yet even in such countries, church ceremonies should be uniform for the sake of upholding “the common order of the Church.” Anglicans ought to expect and aspire to an appreciable degree of liturgical uniformity among themselves, lest the term “Anglican” be treated as a byword for having no fixed substance to speak of.

Notes

1. See also O’Donnoghue, Articles, 265–66; Waite, Articles, 490, 498; Tomline, Christian Theology, 458; Beaven, Articles, 102; Rogers, Articles, 315–16, 322; Boultbee, Articles, 172; Macbeth, Articles, 183; Maclear and Williams, Articles, 383; Gibson, Articles, 717; Kidd, Articles, 252; Middleton, Articles, 227; Tait, Articles, 218; and Thomas, Articles, 440. ↑
2. Waterworth, Trent, Twenty-second Session, “Decree Concerning the Things to Be Observed, and to Be Avoided, in the Celebration of Mass,” 161. ↑
3. Waterworth, Trent, Seventh Session, Canon XIII, 55–56. ↑
4. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 4 December 1963, Documents of the Second Vatican Council, The Holy See, Ch. I, “General Principles for the Restoration and Promotion of the Sacred Liturgy,” Art. 37, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html. ↑
5. Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 21 November 1964, Documents of the Second Vatican Council, The Holy See, “Preservation of the Spiritual Heritage of the Eastern Churches,” Art. 6, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_orientalium-ecclesiarum_en.html. ↑
6. Orientalium Ecclesiarum, “The Individual Churches or Rites,” Art. 3, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_orientalium-ecclesiarum_en.html. ↑
7. Catholic Church, Catechism, par. 1203, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3C.HTM. ↑
8. Beaven, Articles, 103. ↑