…and so on. There is a lot of interest coming out of the Vatican these days, what with the beautiful, accessible profundity of the Pope’s homilies and addresses during these past weeks, not to speak of (but we will!) the little signs, to those of us starving for Signs of What Is To Come of, well…signs of what is to come? The latest, as reported by Magister here, an instruction to the NeoCatechumenal Way to bring their liturgical practices in line:

In mid-December, the founders and directors of the Neocatechumenal Way – Spaniards Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernandez, and the Italian priest Mario Pezzi – received a two-page letter from cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, with a list of “decisions of the Holy Father” which they must obey.

The letter is reproduced down below. Of the six points detailing the pope’s directives, only one permits the Neocatechumenals to continue what they are doing. This regards placing the exchange of peace before the offertory, a traditional practice in the Christian liturgy which is still in use today, for example, in the Ambrosian Rite celebrated in the archdiocese of Milan.

All the other points require the Neocatechumenal Way to eliminate a large portion of its liturgical innovations.

Until recently, the founders and directors of the Way had shielded these practices by claiming they had received verbal authorization from John Paul II. But with Benedict XVI, playtime is over.

And it’s coming to an end for the liturgical abuses practiced throughout the Church. In this regard, pope Joseph Ratzinger’s document in conclusion of the synod of the Eucharist will be of great interest.

Cardinal Arinze’s letter was delivered to Argüello, Hernandez, and Pezzi under confidentiality. But on December 22, the Vatican affairs journalist Andre Tornielli broke the news of it in the newspaper “il Giornale.”

Here it is, in its entirety:

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