Are we required to destroy old missalettes?
  • aquinasadmirer
    Posts: 102
    Hello all,

    This spring I learned that our parish will not be replacing our hard-bound hymnals with OCP missalettes. Since then, I've heard/read in other places that we'd need to destroy missalettes that have "expired." That is, we couldn't retain them and use them in three years, or we couldn't send them to an English-speaking country that would happily take them (e.g Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria...)

    Could anyone point me to documentation that tells me that we are required to destroy old missalettes?

    Thanks in advance.

    Cheers,

    -M
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,477
    The missalette itself, probably on the copyright page.
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 493
    Why just the old ones?
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    Right, this would be part of the contract or license you sign when you purchase the missalettes.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Mine go into the church recycle bin as soon as the new ones go into effect. They are worthless once they reach the expiration date.
  • Adam Schwend
    Posts: 203
    I would most certainly destroy them....burn them....then scatter the ashes to the four winds....then wipe the dust from your feet....
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    IMHO, they should be destroyed and not merely trashed if they contain Scripture readings. One wouldn't toss a Bible in the rubbish. Ideally, the diocese should be asked to organize this disposal service.
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    I like Adam's idea. As for donating them, they will be of no use to any other country since their Lectionaries are different than ours.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    You could bulk ship them at the lowest rate back to the publisher......
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    This kind of demand would absolutely not hold up under court challenge.
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    This kind of demand would absolutely not hold up under court challenge.

    If you sign a contract agreeing to it, yes, it would.

    I'm noticing a surprising trend here with your disparagement of the right of two independent parties to freely contract, within the context of the market, to whatever terms they mutually agree on. WWLvMD?
  • Joseph Mansfield
    Posts: 113
    their Lectionaries are different than ours

    Is that correct? I thought the whole Latin rite had a single lectionary.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    The Scripture translations in English-speaking countries vary.
  • marajoymarajoy
    Posts: 783
    @Liam- now THAT would be hilarious if a bunch of churches did that!

    @MarkThompson-- I don't quite see what you're saying (first of all, what does WWLvMD mean?) And I am not quite sure that there IS a contract signed, (I'm pretty sure that we don't for our "Liturgy of the Word" books,) so isn't what Jeffrey is saying correct?
  • Chironomo
    Posts: 29
    There is a statement in most of these resources ... In the 2011 Breaking Bread it is #938, titled "Acknowledgements" right before the Index. There is a sentence that is BOLDED (they really want to emphasize it I guess) that reads "The use of this publication is licensed only to current subscribers during the 2011 liturgical year". There is a similar statement in all such "disposable hymnals". I don't know whether a licensing claim would hold up in court...when I came to my current parish in 2005, they had been using the 2001 books since (I suppose) 2001. I pointed this out to the paster and he asked me to order new ones for the next year. I don't think that this is a widely known concept, and I wonder how many parishes have old books in their pews. I know that WLP and OCP auto-ship your new books, so you would have to specifically cancel your subscription to use the old ones and avoid paying for new ones.
  • Chironomo
    Posts: 29
    Oops... that should read "Pastor" not "paster"...
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    We only buy those for the entire congregation during Lent, so they can follow weekly Benedictions, Stations of the Cross, and also Holy Week events. The rest of the year, we buy enough for the choir and the daily mass crowd - 60 to 70 or so copies. We don't have significant cash invested in missalettes, so they get recycled when no longer useful.

    Yes, I know they contain scripture. However, considering their low quality and short lives, being overly scrupulous in disposing of them seems pointless.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    WWLvMD = What Would Ludwig Von Mises Do?
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    If a EULA in software would hold up, the missalette license would. Personally, I think it's more important to defend the right of contract than it is to be overly scrupulous about what constitutes agreement to one.
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