Vatican cracks down on 'liturgical abuses'

By Nicole Winfield
The Associated Press

	Cardinal Francis Arinze
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican insisted yesterday that lay people must not deliver sermons or preach the Gospel during Mass, issuing a new directive to crack down on practices that are becoming increasingly frequent in the United States and Europe.

The 71-page document, commissioned by Pope John Paul II, also softened a draft that had discouraged the use of altar girls and denounced such practices as applauding and dancing during Mass.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, whose Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the document, stressed the directive was not intended to be "repressive" but merely to remind Catholics of church teaching.

However, the document said some practices were "not infrequently" plaguing Masses, and that in some places "the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become almost habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease."

It paid particular attention to the role of lay people in the Mass — an issue of particular concern in places where priests are increasingly in short supply.

In the United States, for example, where more than 3,000 of the 19,000 parishes did not have a resident priest last year, lay people have taken a greater role, sometimes leading worship services and delivering homilies.

But the document said only priests and deacons may read the Gospel and priests "should ordinarily" deliver the homily, in which biblical readings are often interpreted for worshippers. The priest may occasionally delegate the homily to a deacon, "but never to a lay person."

If there is no priest to celebrate Mass, a bishop may name a lay person as an "extraordinary minister of Holy Communion" — but that should be only when necessary and for a specific time, the document said.

The document also touched on other aspects of the Mass that are likely to resonate in the United States:
 
• The gesture of exchanging the peace greeting should be done only "to those who are nearest and in a sober manner." In many U.S. parishes, the exchange can go on for some time, with the priest greeting many worshippers.

• The introduction of rites taken from other religions into Mass is forbidden, and priests may not celebrate Mass in a temple or sacred place of any non-Christian religion.

• Priests should be careful not to allow non-Catholics and non-Christians to take Communion.

• It is "altogether laudable" to use altar boys at Mass; girls and women may also be used.

• Music played or sung during the Mass should be "true and suitable sacred music."

Material from Reuters is included in this report.

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