USCCB Documents and Recognitio from the Holy See
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    I recently received a phone call from a colleague who posed the following question: which documents on liturgy and music have received recognitio, or have the binding force of law for the Catholic Church?

    I had to confess that I didn't know, but that it seemed to me that very few documents promulgated by the American bishops have ever been submitted to Rome for recognitio, and the last document from Rome on music was Musicam Sacram of 1967. To my knowledge, not one of the USCCB documents on music in the liturgy ("Liturgical Music Today", "Music in Catholic Worship" and "Sing to the Lord") were ever voted upon in such a way that they would then be sent on to Rome. There was some talk of a "Directory on Music and the Liturgy" which was voted upon and sent to Rome in 2006 which apparently was dead on arrival and we've heard nothing about it since.

    That led me to remark about a passage from Redemptionis Sacramentum. Chapter I, Section 2, Paragraph 28 reads:

    All liturgical norms that a Conference of Bishops will have established for its territory in accordance with the law are to be submitted to the
    Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for the recognitio, without which they lack any binding force.

    [Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 838 sect. 3; S. Congregation of Rites, Instruction Inter Oecumenici, 26 September 1964, n. 31: AAS 56 (1964) p. 883; Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Liturgiam authenticam, nn. 79-80: AAS 93 (2001) pp. 711-713.]


    I'm wondering 1) why the USCCB has submitted very few, if any, documents on music and liturgy to Rome for recognitio and, 2) why SttL (and before it LMT and MCW) is treated as the letter of the law, and weak or seemingly manipulative interpretations by groups like NPM have never been effectively addressed to Rome and challenged?

    And, I might add, what were the contents of this "Directory" from 2006, why was it not made more commonly known, and why did Rome not grant it recognitio? I understand that portions of SttL are based on it, but which parts?
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    GIRM-2000 + USA Adaptations == GIRM-2003
    is the most recent material from USCCB to Rome that received a recognitio
    http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html

    The Pope is responsible for the liturgy in the Church.
    The Bishop is responsible for the liturgy in his Diocese.

    The Conference has no responsibility.
    The Conference members create smokescreen docs.
    People in the USA automatically think that higher-level groupings have higher-level authority.
    The Conference is happy to let them continue to think it is true, and the docs are binding.
    Parents are liars to children about Santa Claus;
    no parent seeks stamp-of-approval for such behavior,
    and they let any child promote the story to another.

    what were the contents of this "Directory" from 2006

    I somehow recall that I might have grabbed a draft Directory from the USCCB website
    years ago (onto a hard drive that is now dead), but cannot recall the URL, and search is futile.
    The only pointer I still have is ...
    http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/MUSIC FDLCnew.ppt
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,100
    Just be aware this is not quite the end of it. The diocesan bishop can make local liturgical law, too.
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    The regulation of the Roman liturgy is the province of the Pope; the diocesan bishop has authority only over those things that particular law delegates to him, such as dispensing the obligation on holy days. The conference of bishops is delegated by law to determine some things, such as which of the universal holy days of obligation will pertain in their own country.

    Surely the bishop has oversight of the liturgy in his diocese, but this concerns the fulfillment of liturgical law, not the making of it. Pope Benedict's letter accompanying the motu proprio "Summorum pontificum" expresses this in a subtle but forceful way.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,100
    Let me be clearer: just because a national conference document does not have the force of law does not necessarily end the inquiry. Some bishops adopt standards as a matter of law for their jurisdiction, and that indeed can cover a great deal of practical ground.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    Surely the bishop has oversight of the liturgy in his diocese, but this concerns the fulfillment of liturgical law, not the making of it.

    Slight and respectful modification: the Bishop has appropriate authority over "local" feast-days--really, 'calendar events' which are not usually addressed by Rome. But this, too, falls under the more general imperative that the Bishop oversee the fulfillment of the law.
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