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Former ICEL president receives FDLC award, notes "liturgical winter"

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, former president of the Episcopal Board of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (1992-97) and of the US Conference of Catholic bishops (1989-92), and past chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy, received the McManus Award from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions [FDLC] at their annual meeting in Philadelphia in October 2001.

The archbishop is pictured (in the FDLC Newsletter October-November 2001) receiving the citation from

Father Michael Spillane

, long-time executive director of the FDLC.

The award is named for

Monsignor Frederick McManus

, a key figure in the post-conciliar liturgical reform and founding officer of ICEL, who was also the award’s first recipient.

In his acceptance speech, published in the FDLC Newsletter, Archbishop Pilarczyk said, "I am immensely grateful for my association with ICEL. Few bishops in the whole world were able to be as close to its work as I was. And few of those who were deeply involved enjoyed it more than I did".

He also expressed gratitude to the FDLC members, past and present: "You and your predecessors have not always been given the appreciation you deserve, but the Church would not be what it is today without you", he said.

"We seem to be in a sort of liturgical winter just now", Archbishop Pilarczyk told the 215 delegates from 110 dioceses. "I’m not exactly ecstatic about some aspects of what we are experiencing", he said, "But maybe that’s an occasion for gratitude also, a chance to strive to practice Abrahamic hope and to renew our trust in the Lord’s providence for the Church".

On June 30, 1997 Archbishop Pilarczyk completed an eleven-year term as representative to ICEL and five years as president. During this period ICEL produced a massive revision of the Roman Missal (Sacramentary) and proposed revisions of several other rites. In 1995 the "ICEL Psalter" was published by Liturgy Training Publications, from which the bishops’

imprimatur

was later ordered removed. (The deeply flawed Psalter’s removal from distribution was required by the Holy See in early 2000.)

The serious problems with ICEL’s work that came to light during these years, and criticism by bishops and scholars in the English-speaking world, led to the Holy See’s order for restructuring of ICEL, as well as to new translation principles that would assure fidelity and accuracy in translated liturgical texts. These translation principles appeared in May 2001 as



Liturgiam authenticam



(Authentic liturgy), the Holy See’s Fifth Instruction on the Implementation of Vatican II’s Constitution on the Liturgy,



Sacrosanctum Concilium



.

***

New Liturgy Group, "Catholic Academy of Liturgy"

Another new group of Catholic professional liturgists came into being in January, when about 80 people gathered after a meeting of the

North American Academy of Liturgy

in January.

The new organization, the

Catholic Academy of Liturgy

[CAL], is directed at parish liturgists, according to its draft constitution and by-laws dated January 3, 2002. The CAL aims to be an "association of Catholic specialists in liturgy and related arts and disciplines", whose purposes are "to promote the vision of liturgy embedded in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy for the Catholic community; in particular to promote the full, conscious and active participation of the assembly in the liturgy; to promote liturgical leadership which embraces this vision of liturgy and participation, through liturgical research, publications and charitable dialogue at a scholarly level".

Among the organizers of CAL is

Father Edward Foley

, of

Catholic Theological Union

, president and co-founder of "

We Believe!

", an effort of "liturgical progressives" begun in 1994 to promote ICEL re-translations and liturgical reforms.

The group elected Norbertine

Father Andrew Ciferni

, of Daylesford Abbey, Philadelphia, as its president.

***

New Partnership – FDLC and OCP

Oregon Catholic Press

publisher,

John Limb

, and

Father Mike Spillane

, executive director of the

Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions

, shake hands on the new publishing partnership between FDLC and OCP, as pictured in the FDLC Newsletter, October-November 2001. OCP will be the exclusive publisher for all current and future FDLC publications, including reprints.

The press, an agency of the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, is one of country’s largest publishers of Church music, "missalettes", and many other "worship aids". The only other diocesan-owned publisher of its scope is Liturgy Training Publications of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

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