When I read the Magnificat texts of the papal liturgies during the Sovereign Pontiff's visit to Britain, I was very worried by the text of the Westminster Te igitur. It omits the words una cum, and goes straight from "orbe terrarum" to "me indigno famulo tuo". By omitting una cum the text leaves itself open to the interpretation that the Pope is not named in terms of his ministry within the Church (remember Leo Eizenhoeffer's magisterial demonstration that the Te igitur expresses the nodal role of the Roman Pontiff as the centre and organ of the Church's unity) but as someone who is separate from and above the Church.
I concluded that there must be in Ecclestone Square some little knot of ultraultramontane Manningite conspirators; planning perhaps by such a monstrous magnification of the papal office to frighten off potential entrants into an Ordinariate.
But, apparently, Pope Benedict was having nothing to do with their seedy little plot. Watching, courtesy of a kind daughter, a video of the actual liturgical celebration, I was reassured to find that the Holy Father said the whole text.
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ReplyDeleteYou'll find the liturgical texts for the Papal Visit here.
ReplyDeleteIt gives the words of the last part of the "Te igitur" thus:
"[...]una cum me indígno fámulo tuo
quem Ecclésiæ tuæ præesse voluísti,
et fratre meo Vincéntio,
Epíscopo huius Ecclésiæ,
et ómnibus orthodóxis atque cathólicæ
et apostólicæ fídei cultóribus."
I love the idea that there might be anyone in Eccleston Square capable of being so liturgically antipapalist. He (or she!) would have to understand both the EF and the ecclesiology implicit in it first.
ReplyDeleteNow, "liturgical dance" before the Blessed Sacrament ...
Well spotted Father. Although I had perused that booklet (with disgust I must say) I failed to spot that, the implications of which are significant - even if it was a typographical error...
ReplyDeleteThe Magnificat booklet was not the 'official' text, which is found on the Vatican website, but an excellent marketing scheme which got a great deal of background information into the hands of the Catholic faithful along with the liturgical (and paraliturgical)texts of the Pope's visit and introduced them to this excellent method of developing actual participation in the liturgy. Some of the proof reading was unavoidably very hasty.
ReplyDelete