Mass Misunderstandings: The Mixed Legacy of the Vatican II Liturgical Reforms

Más información sobre el libro

"In July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI signaled that the liturgical question needed to be revisited when he issued a motu proprio that allowed, some forty-plus years after the end of the Council, a wider celebration of the unreformed pre-Vatican-II Mass in Latin as an "extraordinary" form of the Roman rite. While the pope's motu proprio was not a repudiation or cancellation of the Vatican II liturgical reforms - as some liturgists feared (and some traditionalists hoped) - it did indicate a sane and sensible papal recognition that liturgy must be developed organically, not "manufactured" by a "committee." Above all, the pope recognized that the question of the liturgy must be approached realistically in the light of how the reforms have actually worked out, not of how some have imagined that they might or should have worked out. This book by Kenneth D. Whitehead, who has written extensively both on Vatican II and on the liturgy, explains Pope Benedict's action in its proper context and describes the reactions to it, while making special reference to some of the pontiff's own extensive previous writings on the liturgy. The author then doubles back to evaluate the Vatican II liturgical reforms generally - how and why they were enacted, what has actually come about as a result of them, and how and why a "reform of the reform" is now called for."--BOOK JACKET