So, here’s one big-picture observation: One of the most fractious liturgical debates in Catholicism over the last 40 years, at least in the West, has pivoted on the status and use of the pre-Vatican II rite of Mass. Yet to date, not a single participant in the synod has risen either to advocate, or to oppose, wider application of the 1988 indult from John Paul II that allowed celebration of the old Mass with permission from the local bishop.
Quite simply, the old Mass has been a non-issue.
Allen summarizes Scola’s summary of the Synod discussion so far:
In the end, Scola offered 17 questions to guide the synod’s work, which I summarize as follows:
- How to educate people in the various dimensions of the Eucharist?
- How to link the liturgy to life?
- How to offer the Eucharist in a regular way to all the faithful, and how to structure the assembly on Sunday for communities awaiting a priest?
- How to promote Eucharistic adoration that leads back to a liturgical celebration?
- How to fashion an ecclesiology that sees the Eucharist as the principle and form for organizing the church?
- How to recover the integrity of Christian initiation — baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist? How to foster the connection between Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation?
- How to promote a welcoming pastoral stance for those who live in irregular situations?
- How to educate people about the centrality of the Sunday Eucharistic celebration?
- What are the criteria for organizing multiple Eucharistic celebrations for small communities within larger parish communities?
- How can the Eucharistic celebration be brought to the sick and the old? How can psychologically ill people best participate in the Eucharist?
- How to foster the missionary dimension of the Eucharist?
- How does the Eucharistic celebration educate for social responsibility?
- How to educate people about the cosmological dimension of the Eucharist?
- How to foster "full, conscious, active and fruitful" participation in the Eucharist?
- What are the criteria for art and architecture in service to the beauty of the liturgy?
- Is it opportune to revisit certain aspects of the Roman Rite (such as the location of the kiss of peace)?
- What are the criteria for correct inculturation of the single Eucharistic mystery?
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