The Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has rejected claims that priests of the ordinariates have been instructed to concelebrate Mass, insisting that no such directive has been issued by Rome and describing the reports as false.
The story first circulated on April 23 on the website Rorate Caeli, which claimed that the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Arthur Roche, had “ordered” ordinariate clergy to concelebrate and had further prohibited priests from functioning as deacons or subdeacons within ordinariate liturgies.
The claims were penned by the liturgist Peter Kwasniewski, who suggested that the measures followed a meeting in Rome and reflected concerns about liturgical practice within the ordinariates.
However, Bishop David Waller told Niwa Limbu, AdVaticanum Vatican correspondent, that the reports were unfounded. “It is totally untrue,” he said. “It is a mischievous lie!”
He said that no new instructions had been issued and that recent discussions among the three ordinaries had been limited to reiterating existing norms. “What is true is that the three Ordinariate bishops had a conversation about liturgy and have reminded our priests that Divine Worship: The Missal is governed by the rubrics printed in the rite, its rubrical directory and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Nothing new there, it’s all printed in the missal. It is not permissible to introduce different rubrics from different rites – never was.”
He added: “The three bishops have simply reminded people what the rubrics of our rite require. Any rite is both words and rubrics and must be followed.”
Subsequently, Peter Kwasniewski acknowledged that Bishop David Waller had denied that a meeting with Cardinal Arthur Roche had taken place. He wrote that this “may be technically correct”, adding that his source had clarified that the meeting in question involved Bishop Steven Lopes rather than the three ordinaries together, although originally it was noted that it was the “Bishops of the Ordinariate”.
“This may be technically correct; when queried, my source specified that it was a meeting of Bishop Steven Lopes with Cardinal Roche, which makes sense if Roche perceived a problem specifically with the more traditionally minded members of the Anglican Ordinariate in the United States,” he wrote.
In a separate communication with The Pillar, Bishop David Waller reiterated that no priest would be compelled to concelebrate. The bishop said that concelebration was “permitted and encouraged” but added: “Any priest has the right to celebrate individually. That’s law, not just for the ordinariate.”
He also denied that any meeting with Cardinal Arthur Roche had taken place during a visit to Rome in March. The visit, he said, included an audience with Pope Leo and meetings with officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has oversight of the ordinariates.
In the email cited by The Pillar, he explained that he had discussed liturgical matters with Bishop Steven Lopes and Archbishop Anthony Randazzo. “The three bishops did discuss some liturgical matters and note, as a matter of fact, that, as is the case with any rite, ‘Divine Worship’ must be celebrated according to its rubrics,” he said.
“The rubrics are: those in the text of the rite itself, the rubrical directory printed in the missal, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and the Ceremonial of Bishops.”
He added: “In some places, very few in the UK, there has been a tendency to draw on rubrics from other rites, and that is not permissible.” As an example, he said that a priest might use the text of the ordinariate missal while adopting the manual actions of the older Roman Rite. “Any rite is words and rubrics, and it is a liturgical abuse to mix and match,” he said.
Rorate Caeli later amended its report, removing the reference to a meeting between the three bishops and Cardinal Arthur Roche. In a note appended to the article, it said that Bishop David Waller had denied such a meeting, while maintaining that a separate encounter involving Bishop Steven Lopes may have taken place.
A source close to Bishop Steven Lopes told AdVaticanum that a message had circulated internally within Ordinariate priestly circles in America but indicated that it was unlikely that he had met Cardinal Arthur Roche, noting that all three bishops had followed similar itineraries in Rome.
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in 2011 following the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus by Pope Benedict XVI, providing a structure for groups of former Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining elements of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony. It was followed by the establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in 2012 for North America and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross for Australia and parts of Asia.