My pastor is using the option where everyone is gathered in the church already and the blessing of palms takes place in the church. No gathering outside with a blessing there and then a procession into the church.

That's incredibly sad, Andrew.

We (E.F.) are going ahead as normal with minor changes for the Congregation... They are banned from processions, distribution of palms and singing. We therefore get to sing more polyphony, fortunately most members of the choir share breakfast or dining tables with other members of the choir so are exempt from antisocial distancing requirements.

Meanwhile in the O.F. they have a different regime...

We have gone back into lockdown, definitely until Easter Tuesday, looking at the numbers, I fear significantly longer.

I don't know what will happen with the palms yet, but Father will begin with the Palm Sunday Gospel from the rear of the church and process up the aisle. This is an OF parish, but fairly traditional which is fine with me. I have been wondering how the Passion will be read when the parishioners don't have missalettes, unless they bring their own from home. I also heard we will not be Venerating the Cross in the usual manner. Much better situation than last year, but not normal. I get my second Pfizer vaccination dose on Palm Sunday afternoon, thanks be to God!

I meant Good Friday for the Veneration of the Cross.

We are having Palm Sunday pretty much as normal. Cases are pretty low right now, and restrictions are raising in my area. The bishop even allowed congregational singing again. We have actually had missalettes since last fall. We will be doing the procession starting in the basement of the church and moving upstairs (don't worry, it's a wide staircase). To accommodate the livestream, we will be having a camera on a poll, probably carried by a server in the procession. Not the most asthetically pleasing option, but it's the best we can think of.

Business as usual. EF Palm Sunday with full propers according to the 1962 Calendar.

Nothing, people are sneezing out there, everything has to be closed.

Rome has repeatedly asked for this practice to be abandoned.

Can you provide a source for this? My Googling hasn't revealed anything yet.

Rome has repeatedly asked for this practice to be abandoned

Can you clarify which part you're referring to? Reading the gospel from the back? "Reading" vs singing the gospel? Having the people make public responses during the reading (I really don't care for this...).

Yeah, the reading with lay intervention as such. Cf. Paschalis Sollemnitatis nº 33 & 66. It's true that it doesn't explicitly mention dividing the parts with lay people, but it's clearly excluded, and, IMHO, this nonsense was already known to the CDW.

A strict reading would also exclude the Victoria or other polyphonic settings, but considering that those are considered immemorial custom, I think that the Holy See would frown upon excluding the choir serving as the voice of the crowd provided that the individual voices are still sung by the Synagoga.

I naturally prefer everything in Latin, but I stuck around for the principal Mass with the cardinal at Wawel Cathedral, where a polyphonic adaptation was sung in Polish along with the text sung by three deacons, also in Polish, using the melody of the traditional Gregorian books.

This Zenit article made me laugh though, having been the narrator of Good Friday. Why? Well, taking away the separate Gospel in 1955 makes the narrator's task longer, even with the elimination of at least part of the traditional text during the first three days of Holy Week (or on Palm Sunday in the NO), which was shorn of the institution narrative in 1955, partially restored in 1969.

Anyway, even the libs agree that the Passion isn't to be read by the crowd, though I think that if the Legionary of Christ priest (!) who writes the Zenit column correctly supports singing the Passion, then this ought to be pushed; however, singing the readings is far, far, far from the agenda for most people. (I know that some PrayTell folks contribute here, but I think that the gap is pretty well-entrenched at this point, sadly.)

Indeed, Serviam -
Having lectors and congregation simply read their parts of the Passion is lacking in power. Most parishes that I know of normally have a deacon/priest sing a chant adaptation of the original Latin Passion tones.
The likes of Bach and Schutz show us the way - as do any number of Catholic composers of earlier times, not to mention chant.

A good book on the subject is -
The Background of Passion Music: J.S. Bach and his predecessors
By Basil Smallman, professor of music at the University of Liverpool
Pub. Dover, 1957
(It is currently available from Amazon for about $12.)
_________________________________

Serviam -
I like your responsorial psalm and your gospel acclamations.
Very nice indeed.

Does anyone know where the practice of singing an acclamation during certain parts of the Passion reading originated? I remember my home parish used to do this when I was a kid. Usually, it was the Taize Jesus, Remember Me or something similar in length and style.

It's true that it doesn't explicitly mention dividing the parts with lay people, but it's clearly excluded

Ah, okay. I thought maybe there was something more strongly worded I could use in arguing against this practice.

As ammunition, one might suppose the Lectionary trumps the vague wordings of Paschalis Sollemnitatis and similar documents, given that they seem to take small account of historical custom that sanctioned Davy, Victoria and Lassus. This essay cites Plures locorum (1965) which I can't seem to track down.
John Bertalot offers a protestant take on turbae in a preface to his Passion … Luke "This seems unfortunate, since the faithful are being asked to sing the words of unfaithfulness. Therefore, in this setting …the congregation is invited to sing the part of Jesus- to see the story from his viewpoint. It seems appropriate that the part of Christ be taken by the Body of Christ." The allotting of Christus to the choir is found here and there in Renaissance Catholic music as well, such as Francisco Martins.
I'm now very curious about what the morning Good Friday service at Leipzig might have been and whether it was in fact the 'main' Hauptgottesdienst; Smallman and Boyd's Oxford Bach Companion shed no light, but perhaps Stiller or Melamed do?

A fascinating point of view, Richard - namely that of John Bertalot. As fresh and logical an idea as it is, I think that most if not all of us would shrink from acting the part of our Lord - at least as one in a multiplicity of people. Jesus, after all, was one Person; not a crowd.
At Walsingham we do an Englished renaissance passion on Palm Sunday and a congregational one on Good Friday. I don't understand the logic behind this, but think that a choral version should be standard everywhere - either that or an adapted chant version.

I will be attending the pre-55 rite for Palm Sunday at an Institute of Christ the King parish. As far as I know, it will be the same as usual, except that the procession will be clergy and servers only, inside the Church - the city has a mask mandate that almost no one in the parish follows, and we would likely get reported for being outside in a large, non-"socially distanced" group.