In all the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council, is there any prescription more regularly violated than General Norm 22.3 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy? Which, in case youâ??ve forgotten, teaches that â??noâ?¦.person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.â?
If youâ??re a daily Mass attendant, the odds are that you hear that norm violated a dozen times a week. Sunday Mass people typically hear it violated two or three times a week, at least. Auto-editing or flat-out rewriting the prescribed text of the Mass is virtually epidemic among priests who attended seminary in the late Sixties, Seventies, or early Eighties; itâ??s less obvious among the younger clergy. But whether indulged by old, middle-aged, or young, itâ??s obnoxious and itâ??s an obstacle to prayer.
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