Monday, February 20, 2012

Rome expected to take five years to approve Personal Ordinariate liturgy

Members of the personal ordinariate will have to wait up to five years for Rome to approve their liturgical texts definitively, it emerged this week.

It was originally thought that the Vatican would give the texts definitive approval within two or three years.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has already given interim approval to all the ordinariate’s liturgical texts, except for the rite of Mass. 

These texts include the Calendar, Divine Office, marriage rite and funeral rite.

But the CDF has now asked a commission of scholars to scrutinise the Mass text.

The commission held its first meeting last month.

Canterbury Press will publish the ordinariate’s interim approved texts later this year in a book called The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham.

As the texts are provisional rather than definitive, Mgr Keith Newton, the leader of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is expected to establish their status in a pastoral letter to members of the ordinariate.