Charles,

When liturgical discipline is an oxymoron, "when accurately followed" is a meaningless expression. If the liturgical discipline (such as it is) is constantly relaxed because the law is changed to keep up with practice, as it has been with [insert laundry list here], having an official form with multiple options such that if one attends 3 Masses in each of 3 parishes on the same weekend, the only things they will have in common are the words of consecration and the collection of recently-or-soon-to-be valid forms, the very concepts of "limitations" and "not following the forms" are emptied of meaning.

Every male without a Y-chromosome is invited to this banquet.
The rules apply on all days of the week ending in the letter z.

Chris, all the enforcement mechanisms that kept the EF from liturgical abuse have been dismantled. In a diocese with the EF if a priest should tinker with or alter the texts or rubrics, what would happen? Probably nothing. Some of the people might leave, but the local bishop would consider complaints as minor and likely do nothing. It amazes me that some of you think you are in a little world insulated and protected from all the things you criticize in the OF. The whole world has changed around you and you are no safer from abuses than the rest of us, in any practical sense. Sorry to rain on your little paradise, but you folks are seriously myopic.

It is possible to abuse the EF, and I haven't claimed otherwise. The point isn't whether abuse is possible, and you seem to be intent on obscuring this fact (since this isn't the first time you've tried this particular manoeuvre).

Sorry, Chris, I don't live in a world filled with conspiracy theories. There are no Illuminati, the Vatican hasn't been taken over by communists - just nuts. We are not in the last days since those predictions read as much worse than current realities. There is no maneuvering, just a dose of reality. The world changing around us has nothing to do with any perfectibility of man. The world has changed, but man not so much. He is not perfectible as some believe. As I said, I don't maneuver or conspire, but I don't link unrelated events that have nothing much to do with each other.

well, he did talk about adultery and sin and condemnation... making people feel ashamed and guilt ridden.

Chris, Chris, Chris... There is no battle or argument to win, this is simply discussion. Some of us can discuss any topic, and we get an almost hysterical reaction from you with the kitchen sink, although unrelated, thrown in. No, the sky is not falling.

An aside, and simply conversation, I know some of those conspiracy nuts, too. They retreat from reality, hide in early worship forms with other conspiracy nuts, and isolate their children from the world. There is nothing at all wrong with earlier rubrics and the EF, as long as your heart is in the right place.

Another aside, I spent over 4 hours talking a teenager out of killing himself. A beautiful kid with much to live for. Unfortunately, his parents were some of those isolationist conspiracy folks. They had done such a number on his mind, he couldn't cope with the world. He's fine now, happily married, and rarely darkens the door of his parents church - any wonder? Still a good kid, and pretty devout, I think.

ClergetKubisz,

Thank you. I couldn't think of the name.

Charles,

Man, since the fall, has a damaged but redeemable nature. Given that the EF (before the designation even existed) inspired generations of saints, I know that it has value of itself, not merely because of the milieu in which it existed. People who choose not to attend the EF do so for a variety of reasons, some of which include the (erroneous) belief that to attend the older form would be to put one's Catholic faith or one's loyalty to the Pope somehow in question, or the (again, I submit, erroneous) belief that only in the vernacular can one participate in the Mass. Others have never been exposed to the EF, and still others don't know it exists. Is everyone who has attended an EF Mass a saint? Of course not. When Christ said that many are called and few are chosen, or that not everyone who cries "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom, he didn't just mean now, in the era of d-I-y liturgy.

As I said in another thread, the problem with modern satire is that it looks too much like reality, too tame next to reality even. Imagine someone reading A Modest Proposal as a program of action, instead of a satire.

Keep in mind that we the folks in the pew are not responsible for the DIY liturgy. It was our shepherds who led us astray and sold us out.

After fifty years of this, can you imagine what it would take to fix it? It would mean wholesale firings of teachers, priests, bishops, seminary heads and professors, musicians, and on and on. Such reforms would result in the smaller but purer church Pope Benedict referred to. I don't see the saint in the wings ready to take over with the host of angels necessary to pull this off.

I just think it's - how can I say it? - AWKWARD.

Not only for pastoral and political reasons

And what "pastoral reasons" could you mean? I hear that particular phrase all to often from OF priests. To me, it seems to mean, "Because I want it that way."

Political reasons, no matter what they are, should never guide the celebration of the Mass. Politics exists because of man. The Mass exists because of God. The two should not be mixed.

It was our shepherds who led us astray and sold us out.

As it was in my understanding of the Protestant Reformation: clergy who had accepted Luther or Cranmer's ideas decided they would begin changing how Mass was celebrated on their own. Churches that were once Catholic began to be stripped of everything that made them distinctly Catholic. Statues were removed, the services began to be said in the vernacular, popular tunes with religious words replaced sacred singing, the altar was turned around so that the minister could face the people, etc. Sound familiar? It should: we had a repeat of this in 1969. Where are all the things that make a church distinctly Catholic? They have all been removed in modern churches.

Church discipline (feet washing) can be changed; Church Doctrine (male only priesthood) cannot.

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-it-a-doctrine-or-a-discipline

Women priests will be next.

Thanks, Ben. My bad. Words alone can be so misleading!

So the mandatum "love one another" was a directive to only love the ordained?

Luckily, we love in ways other than washing feet.

Speak for yourself, BY!

Peter Jeffery wrote an article in March 1990’s “Worship” that throws a whole mess of interesting facts up in the air in a vain attempt to argue that having women’s feet washed in the liturgy is “the authentic tradition of the Church”. As evidence he offers essentially that there are convents that observe the Mandatum and that, in one instance, we are aware of such a washing during an Eastern Maundy Thursday liturgy in the narthex of the church. As argumentation it’s rubbish, though the actual information in it is of interest.

As can be seen by the citation in threads like this, though, those who have long advocated for this apparently felt very satisfied with the article:
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=569

(Never considered in either Jeffery’s article or in the aforementioned thread is the idea that the “new” 1956 prescription of “viri” merely codified longstanding practice, particularly in the wake of an entirely new ritual that, unlike that in the Pian Missal, no one had ever seen before.)

In the same article there is also quite an interesting history of the understanding ritual’s significance. He does illustrate, I think fairly convincingly, that the imagery of Christ washing the apostles’ feet is a relatively new thing; more significant historically (and, dare I say, in the context of the liturgical texts being sung) is the example of service.

Perhaps most important here, no one is being required—or even encouraged—to wash women’s feet. The announcement is (arguably) carefully worded to give “license” to have men and women, but the word “ideally” seems given more specifically to “diversity” of other criteria: young/old, healthy/infirm, etc. Parishes where having women’s feet washed would be divisive need not do it, whether they otherwise do the Mandatum or not.

It would appear, going by the wording of what I’ve seen quoted, that bishops (“even”) still have license to forbid the practice. (?) It wouldn’t surprise me to see that happen.

to give “license”

Yes, it's giving license to women to throw a fit about yet another so-called "exclusionary" practice of our supposedly sexist Church.

I agree that it might should just be dropped. In the article I shared it specified the ritual is in no way mandatory and that it shouldn't be the main focus of the Holy Thursday Mass - which can completely be argued is the focus if people are complaining about who is or is not getting to "participate."

So something made up as a Liturgical rite in 1955... has now seemingly be said to be a mistake due to the deliberate exclusion of women. Hmm when is Rome going to admit that other changes at that time were also a mistake.

These following blog posts have an interesting take on this,
http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/i-apologise.html
and
http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/feet.html

http://www.lmschairman.org/2016/01/the-mandatum-lets-not-be-hard-on-pope.html
and
http://www.lmschairman.org/2016/01/is-pope-francis-restoring-tradition-in.html#more

http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/more-foot-washing.html

N.B. I understand that the Mandatum is an ancient practice, but this has always? taken place outside the Liturgy, and been conducted by those in authority both clerical and Secular (Kings, Queens, Lords etc)

Just let it happen and let women who are chosen for such a ceremony be aware of the things that might be a hinderance (like panty hose) that would be embarrassing for such a ceremony. It is manageable. Just do it. It has been done for decades.