Commenting on the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium

Sacrosanctum Concilium consists of an introduction followed by seven chapters and an appendix.

Introduction 

The introduction counts four numbers. Sacrosanctum Concilium 1 introduces to all documents of the Second Vatican Council and describes the four aims that Pope John XXIII had set out for the Council and which Pope Paul VI had approved and promulgated (Kaczynski, Reiner. 2004. “Theologischer Kommentar zur Konstitution über die heilige Liturgie Sacrosanctum Concilium.” In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, vol 2, edited by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, 1–228. 54. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder). The Council wants to serve by enhancing “the Christian life of the faithful”, to adapt “to the needs of our times those institutions which are subject to change”, “to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ”, and “to call the whole mankind” to join the ways of Jesus Christ realizing the just world of Go’d (Paul VI. 1963. “Sacrosanctum Concilium.” The Holy See. Sacrosanctum Concilium 1). From the beginning, Sacrosanctum Concilium is clear about the aim of the Second Vatican Council that is to adapt the Catholic Church to the needs of our times without touching untouchable institutions. In Sacrosanctum Concilium 2, we hear a little bit more about these unchanging institutions. During the discourse at the end of the first session of the Council, on December 8, 1962, John XXIII affirmed that beginning the work of the Council with the text on sacred liturgy is justified, because liturgy is the expression of women, men and queer relating to Go’d according to revelation and the teaching of the Church (Kaczynski 2004, 54). At the end of the second session of the Council, Paul VI promulgates on December 4, 1963, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium declaring that the celebration of the liturgy constitutes “the nature and the dignity” of the life of the Church (ibid). It is also true that nobody participating in the elaboration of the text on liturgy was aware of the fundamental importance of the document for the whole Council (ibid).

The real nature of the true Church” and “the mystery of Jesus Christ” is realized “most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 2). Very interestingly, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from the beginning describes the two aspects of the Catholic Church. One aspect is called the “divine”. Sacrosanctum Concilium does not yet speak of the Church as a communion, or as the people of Go’d as later documents of the Council will do. Lumen Gentium 9 will speak of the Church as “the messianic people” destined to bring together all human beings that is “established as a communion of life, charity and truth” (Paul VI. 1964. “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium.” The Holy See). The other aspect of the Church is called “human”. The magisterium of the Church and Canon Law speak of the Church as divine and as human. The Church at the same time is divine and human that is “the society of men who are incorporated in it and who, under the direction of the sovereign pontiff and the bishops, pursue in common the end to which they are called, communion in divine life” (Onclin, William. 1967. “Church and Church Law.” Sage Journals 28 (4): 733–748. 733). All documents of the Council will abide by defining the Catholic Church as a hierarchical society and as an invisible community that is directed “to that city yet to come, which we seek (Hebrews 13, 14)” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 2). In the last five decades, my German speaking Catholic male colleagues principally forgot to question the validity of the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. They ignored the claims to the male celibate priestly hierarchy as true and divine constitution of the Church as society in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and in the other documents of the Second Vatican Council.

It makes sense for a Constitution on Sacred Liturgy to use the Letter to the Hebrews that is a homily used in the liturgical service of the congregation of believers (Kleinig 2016, 36), as Scriptural authority and for theological argumentation. Yet, the citation of Hebrews 13, 14 is incomplete and ignorant of the social context of the homily. The Lord Christ Jesus is available and accessible to all listeners and participants of the service that “revolves around the presence of Christ Jesus as the hearers’ great High Priest and their possession of him (Hebrews 4, 14; 8, 1; 10, 21)” (ibid. 34). There are leaders, but the order of the divine and human congregation centers around the presence of Jesus Christ and there is no other priest but the High Priest Jesus Christ. Throughout Hebrews, Jesus speaks to his congregation from heaven. On earth, human leaders are allowed to speak Go’d’s Word to the congregation in the Divine Service (Hebrews 13, 7; 2, 3; 2, 5; 6, 9) (ibid. 53). In Hebrews 5, 12, the preacher expects from the women, men and queer who are participating in the congregation that they become teachers of Go’d’s Word in the Divine Service. The preacher of the homily encourages the women and men of the community to teach, not to dumbly listen and obey the words of a hierarchy of celibate men priests.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 speaks of “the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist” but fails to describe this sacrifice with Hebrews 13, 15 as a sacrifice of praise, as a eulogy. Sacrosanctum Concilium is not interested very much in Hebrews. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy refers to Hebrews only three times.

I am conscious of the fact that the use of vernacular language in Roman Catholic liturgy is the possibility condition for active participation of the laity in liturgical services. I am also conscious of the fact that the Second Vatican Council realized this possibility condition after centuries of exclusively using Latin as church language. Nevertheless, fifty years after the Council we have to recognize that Sacrosanctum Concilium and all the other precious documents of the Second Vatican Council cite the Sacred Scriptures avoiding any reference to the egalitarian relations of mutual reciprocity of love of the Christian sisters and brothers.

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, we must be conscious when using its documents that the equal dignity, freedom and rights of women, men and queer Catholics within the Roman Catholic Church was not on the mind of the council fathers. Whenever the documents of the Second Vatican Council feel the need to reassert, re-narrate and reclaim the decisive linking of masculinity and priestly presiding at the Eucharist, they assess the hierarchical structure of the Church in general. They use pieces of Bible verses and interpret them out of their social and historic context in order to maintain the status quo of clerical power and discrimination of the laity. I am not willing to accuse the council fathers. Accusation is not my point. The fact that the bishops, cardinals and popes of the Council were not aware of their abuse of powers and of their discrimination of the laity belongs to the historic horizon of the Council. Fifty years after the Council, I am determined to claim reciprocal relations of mutual love between sisters and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. I claim equal dignity, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer Catholics in the Roman Catholic Church as human and divine institution. 

Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 presents the first examples of the use of citations from the Sacred Scriptures to assess the male celibate priestly power hierarchy of the Catholic Church as evident truth and as the true nature of the Church as human society and divine community. Ephesians 2, 21-22 are misused to legitimate the absolutist powers of the pope’s hierarchy. The reference of Ephesians 2, 21–22 distorts the message of the Sacred Scripture, because the Council focuses on the divine aspect of the Church and represses the human aspect of the Church as congregation. Ephesians 2, 20 clearly speaks of the Church as built on prophets and the apostles and Jesus Christ as corner stone and Ephesians 2, 22 addresses all believers and their common vocation to build the temple of Go’d. This temple of Go’d is constructed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2, 22) and not by a pope, cardinal or bishop holding power to govern, teach and preside the liturgy.

Next, Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 refers to Ephesians 4, 13 out of the context that speaks of a plurality of functions in the community. Jesus Christ gave to some “that they should be apostles, to some prophets; to some, evangelists, to some, pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4, 11). Their common service is to “build up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4, 12) and yes, our hope is that we will “fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself” (Ephesians 4, 13). “The fullness of Christ” clearly aspires to a divine hope of the faithful, but Ephesians 4, 14 is very clear about the fact that the way of realizing this hope and the validity-condition of this way is living “by the truth and in love”. Christ fits and joins the whole Body together, “every joint adding its own strength, for each individual part to work according to its function. So, the body grows until it has built itself up in love” (Ephesians 4, 16) and not in submission to a pope with supreme governmental, juridical and teaching powers and his hierarchy.

The old prophet Isaiah claims that the Lord will “assemble the outcasts of Israel” as “a signal for the nations” (Isaiah 11, 12). Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 uses this reference to Isaiah for assessing that the faithful may teach Christ to those who are outside of the Church. This claim implies that most faithful, that is the laity of the Catholic Church, is not allowed to teach Christ inside the Catholic Church. This kind of discriminating Church will not be able to gather “the scattered children of God” as Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 claims citing John 11, 52. According to John 11, 52, it is again the Lord and not any Church who will “gather together into one the scattered children of God”. In the reference John 10, 16 it is Jesus, the good shepherd, who speaks as the one shepherd for the one humanity. The Catholic Church will not gather humanity, as the claim of Sacrosanctum Concilium 2 pretends; Jesus Christ is the good shepherd. Concerning the Council’s reference to the Gospel of John when speaking about “the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 2), we may affirm that in John 13, Jesus washes the feet of the apostles. It is clear therefore, without the service of washing the feet of each other, without the effective service of love for each other, there is no credible divine service of liturgy at all.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 3 affirms that “concerning the promotion and reform of the liturgy”, “practical norms should be established”. In Sacrosanctum Concilium 2, Jesus Christ speaks as shepherd of all humanity. Sacrosanctum Concilium 3 abandons the catholic aspect of the Gospel, abandons the aim of liturgical celebration, that is the celebration of the redemption of the faithful (Sacrosanctum Concilium 2) and prefers to concentrate on norms for the rite. There were discussions in the Liturgical Commission and some members insisted on describing the means for realizing the aim of liturgy together with the aim. In the end the wish for clear norms and practical directives for liturgical reform prevailed (Kaczynski 2004, 56). 

Claiming, “the practical norms which follow, however, should be taken as applying only to the Roman rite” restricts the attention of the Second Vatican Council to the Latin rite of the Roman Church. The Ambrosian Milanese rite and the Old Spanish rite are also valid Latin rites. Kaczynski comments that the Council behaved like a Roman synod of the Latin Church and not like an ecumenical council of the whole Church because the fathers dealt with the reform of the Roman Latin rite only (ibid. 57). This concentration on the Roman Latin rite is justified. It does not make sense to reform the rite of the Oriental Churches united with Rome if the Orthodox Churches will not reform too (ibid). Sacrosanctum Concilium 3 anticipates the later development. The Roman Curia will take over control of the reform of liturgy and restrict the participation of the regional bishops’ conferences in liturgical reform (ibid. 56).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 4 speaks of the Roman Catholic Church as the “holy Mother Church” and declares to respect those rites that are recognized by Canon Law. It is clear that the supreme legislator of Canon Law is the Roman pope who is not accountable to anybody in the Catholic Church. Rome watches new developing rites for celebrating the Eucharist and other liturgical celebrations subordinated to Rome suspiciously. When, in 1988, the episcopal conference of the Republic of Congo presented a Mass book integrating elements of local cultures, Rome insisted that the missal was called “Roman missal for the dioceses of Congo” (ibid. 59). In 1995 and in 2001, Roman instructions on liturgy and enculturation made it very clear that Rome does not want the development of new rites but allows only for an adaption of the Roman Latin rite to regional and local cultures (ibid. 58–59). In the light of this Roman centrist perspective, the propositions from bishops from the Congo and from China for the upcoming Second Vatican Council will not be received soon (ibid. 60). The bishops had asked to develop liturgies in accordance with different cultures such as a Western, a Semitic, an African, a Chinese Japanese, a Slavic and a South American liturgy (ibid).

First Chapter

The first chapter of Sacrosanctum Concilium deals with “general principles for the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy”. A first point tries to describe “the nature of the sacred liturgy and its importance in the Church’s life”. Today we rather speak of the function of liturgy and try to describe the multiple cultural forms in the life of the Christians that realize the function. The function of Christian liturgy is realizing a bit of the just world of Go’d by celebrating together the hope of salvation and praying with Jesus Christ. Kaczynski insists on the description of a liturgy’s function. The Constitution on liturgy starts describing the function of liturgy in the first chapter of Sacrosanctum Concilium 5–13 and thus confirms that form follows function (Kaczynski 2004, 60). 

Sacrosanctum Concilium 5 evoques with fragments from Isaiah 61, 1 and Luke 4, 18 Go’d’s preferential option for the poor. Referring to Ignatius of Antioch (To the Ephesians 7,2), Jesus Christ is named a “bodily and spiritual” medicine (ibid). The reference to 1 Timothy 2, 5 that claims Christ as mediator between Go’d and women, men and queer, serves to legitimize Sacrosanctum Concilium as a continuation of Pope Pius’ XII encyclical of 1947 that approved of the liturgical movement and had already used the above biblical reference (ibid).

Pointing at Christ’s mediation affirms his priesthood. This is in line with the Letter to the Hebrews. The intention of the Council fathers and of the popes is to legitimate their priestly function as vicars of Christ and this use is not doing justice to the Scripture. I am not investigating how Sacrosanctum Concilium uses the Bible, I point at the importance of the fact that the Council uses the Scripture at all (ibid. 60). The citation from the Christmas oratorio of the oldest preserved Sacramentarium of the Roman liturgy, the Sacramentarium Veronese (ed. Mohlberg, n. 1265; cf. also n. 1241, 1248), refers to the priestly salvific agency of reconciliation of Christ in the liturgy and refers to Christ’s gift and realization of the perfect cult that is “fullness of divine worship” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 5). The Council rediscovers the historic foundations of the sacred liturgy but considers the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church completed by the development of the Roman rite in the fourth to the sixth century CE. The multitude of countries in the world are not allowed to develop new rites according to their cultures. According to Sacrosanctum Concilium, all possible liturgical reform is an adaptation of the Roman rite and excludes the development of new rites in new cultures (ibid.). Citing without any explication from the Easter Preface and the Prayer before the second lesson for Holy Saturday of the Roman Missal reasserts that the Roman Missile had brought the understanding of the Christian faith to an end for liturgy. How is it possible to celebrate the Paschal Mystery, that is liturgy, if the faithful congregation is not allowed to express their understand and experience of the risen Christ?  

“Redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God” constitute the “paschal mystery” of Jesus Christ. The faith in the paschal mystery is the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Church celebrates the paschal mystery as “sacrament of the whole Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 5) by celebrating the sacraments, the sacramentals, the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the hours (ibid. 62).

Angelus A. Häußling, the Benedictine liturgist of the monastery Maria Laach, Germany, called the term “paschal mystery” the heart of Sacrosanctum Concilium (ibid. 63). From the beginning of the liturgical preparatory commission, French auxiliary bishop Henri Jenny had asked for the theological foundation of the liturgy by the explication of the term paschal mystery (ibid). We find the term in Sacrosanctum Concilium 6, 61, 104, 106, 107 and 109. The term always expresses the center of the history of salvation and of the faith of the Church and the Christians and unites the confession of the faith with the celebration of the faith (ibid).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 5 speaks of Go’d “redeeming mankind” by Jesus Christ. Go’d’s “wonderful works among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude to the work of Christ the Lord”. Painting a picture of Go’d as musician preluding wonderful in the Old Testament but presenting his masterpiece in the New Testament is theologically wrong because it contradicts the salvific faith in the One and Only and once more discriminates the chosen people of Israel as standing somewhat outside the history of salvation. The Constitution on Sacred Liturgy stands at the beginning of the Council. Only at the end of the Second Vatican Council does the Council assess Go’d’s universal will of salvation as the one economy of salvation that comprises the entire human family and not exclusively the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church (Kaczynski 2004, 61). The Council then proclaims, “The Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in the paschal mystery in a manner known to God” (Gaudium et Spes 22).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 6–13 deal with different forms of liturgically realizing the paschal mystery.

From the time the first believers in the Word were baptized, “the Church has never failed to come together to celebrate the paschal mystery”. They continued “in the teaching of the apostles and in the communion of the breaking of bread and in prayers . . . praising God and being in favor with all the people (Acts 2:41–47)” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 6).

The Church continues the work of salvation of Jesus Christ in the liturgy. The proclamation of the mystery of salvation goes together with the performance of the mystery of salvation in the liturgy (ibid. 63–64). With the references to Romans 6, 4, Ephesians 2, 6, Colossians 3,1 and to 2 Timothy 2, 11 the Council uses the Pauline concept to describe baptism as the realization of the paschal mystery (ibid. 64). With reference to 2 Corinthians 9, 15 and Ephesians 1, 12 the Council describes the Eucharist as realization of the paschal mystery (ibid. 65).

The Council fathers were not aware of the concept of realizing social choices when Christians celebrate the paschal mystery. Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez from Santiago de Chile taught the Council that the Holy Spirit is given the Christian women, men and queer as empowerment for their social choices for realizing the paschal mystery in their lives, and also in the liturgy, in the sacraments, in baptism and the Eucharist (ibid).

At the end of Sacrosanctum Concilium 6, there is a tiny reference to “the power of the Holy Spirit”. For the rest, the Second Vatican Council forgets about the Holy Spirit (ibid). The Holy Spirit is the faith empowering agent for the individual woman, man and queer Christian who is participating and realizing the liturgy and Christian life. The Council forgot the Holy Spirit because it forgot the life of the Holy Spirit of the women, men and queer.

How can Jesus Christ be present in the Church, as Sacrosanctum Concilium 7 claims, if the Holy Spirit who inspires faith in Jesus Christ, is not present in the Christians? Kaczynski sharply criticizes that Sacrosanctum Concilium 7 has no mention of the Holy Spirit at all (ibid. 71). In the Eucharist, Jesus Christ “is offering through the ministry of the priests” claims the Second Vatican Council with the Council of Trent. Sacrosanctum Concilium cannot claim the necessity of the priests with reference to the New Testament because the Christians realize the paschal mystery of baptism and the Eucharist without any priests. Their only priest is the high-priest Jesus Christ. Today we may again realize the paschal mystery of baptism and the Eucharist without the ordained ministry of priests and have a presbyter woman or man or queer offer the baptismal prayer and the Eucharistic prayers.

Christians are given the Holy Spirit; they realize sentences of faith and social choices of faith in Jesus Christ because they received the Holy Spirit. When Christians assess the experience of their integrity and their empowerment with faith by the Holy Spirit, they assess the presence of Jesus Christ. They are called assessing this presence of Jesus Christ in baptism as the one who baptizes, as St. Augustine had affirmed in his Tractatus in Ioannem, VI, n.7; Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist as the one who offers, in the Scripture as the one who speaks, and in the praying and singing Church as the one who is “in the midst of them” according to Matthew 18, 20 (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7).

Suddenly, Sacrosanctum Concilium 7 for a rare inspired moment, gets everything right, “the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ”. In addition, “in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members” and “every liturgical celebration … is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church”. The Council takes the picture of the Church as the Body of Christ from the deutero-Pauline letters Ephesians 1, 22; 4, 15; 5, 23 and Colossians 1, 18. The picture of the Church as the Bride of Christ the Council takes from John (Revelation 21, 2.9; and 22, 17) (ibid. 68). Sacrosanctum Concilium still holds the ecclesiology of the Church as a perfect society. Lumen Gentium will realize the turn to an ecclesiology that hopes for the eschatological “new heaven and new earth” (Revelation 21, 1) that will come down from Go’d (Revelation 21, 2). Go’d will prepare the Church as bride for her husband Jesus Christ at a time She will determine (ibid).

Sacrosanctum Concilium does not yet think of the individual Christian women, men and queer celebrating the liturgy that is the sacrament of the Church. The presence of Jesus Christ in the lives of the Spirit empowered women, men and queer, their prayers of thanks, praise and glory of the paschal mystery are somewhat subordinated to the hierarchy of the Church who is in control. The hierarchy watches over the spirit of the law of believing and praying, the hierarchy does not assess the law of the Spirit that is love as constitutional for the liturgy, and the hierarchy does not describe the Church as the celebration of the sacrament of salvation by all faithful. Only at the very end of the Second Vatican Council that is on December 7, 1965, the bishops were ready assessing that Go’d calls all Christians to proclaim the presence of Jesus Christ (Kaczynski 2004, 67). We read in the Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church Ad Gentes 9 “By the preaching of the word and by the celebration of the sacraments, the center and summit of which is the most holy Eucharist, He brings about the presence of Christ” (Paul VI 1965).

Sacrosanctum Concilium is not aware of the fact that Hebrews is a homily given in the congregation of the Christians. The author of Hebrews passionately implores the women, men and queer in the congregation to assess the presence of the Holy Spirit in their bodies and to teach the paschal mystery to the sisters and brothers. Sacrosanctum Concilium 5 uses Hebrews as selective reference to the Hebrew Bible where Go’d speaks to the fathers in the prophets (Hebrews 1, 1). One would expect that a Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy would embrace wholeheartedly and at length Hebrews, the only text of liturgical preaching and teaching in the New Testament. There are only three references to Hebrews in the Constitution. Sacrosanctum Concilium, as the whole Second Vatican Council is not only Spirit-forgotten, but also gender-forgotten. Go’d spoke and speaks not only to the fathers, but She also spoke and speaks to mothers, women, men, and queer.

As does Sacrosanctum Concilium 2, Sacrosanctum Concilium 8 invokes the celestial liturgy with a reference to Hebrews 8, 2. There, Jesus Christ is the High Priest, the only tent that Go’d put together, the only minister of this sanctuary. The congregation of Christians in Hebrews simply has no need for priests because they thank Jesus Christ in the Divine Service, their High Priest, for having access to Go’d and celebrate their thanks participating in the congregation of the Divine Service.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 8 praises the celestial liturgy and expresses our hope to participate one day too in that heavenly liturgy that is our hope in the second coming of Christ.

Suddenly, Sacrosanctum Concilium 9 discovers that there is need for conversion to the faith in Jesus Christ and that the faith of women, men and queer is the possibility condition for a functioning liturgy that thanks, praises and serves the paschal mystery. Yet many of the bishops are not ready to think about how liturgy functions as social realization of the presence of Jesus Christ, as a realization of the work of salvation and as the source of love, which constitutes a Christian’s life at any moment of its existence. Kaczynski diagnoses that many Council fathers regarded liturgy as a performance of rites and rituals and not as existential realization of the faith, and at the Council they continued moralizing about ceremonial rules (Kaczynski 2004, 74).

It is easy to claim, as Sacrosanctum Concilium 10 does “From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us”. Without social choices for realizing the dignity, liberty and rights of all women, men and queer, any assessment of grace or of the Eucharist as a font of grace remains hollow and empty.

It is important to assess liturgy as celebration and realization of the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. The historical context of the evolving Constitution on the Liturgy at the Council at the beginning of the second session of the Second Vatican Council in October 1963, was dominated by the debate on the text of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium. This debate on the structure of the Roman Catholic Church had no effect on the document on liturgy. The introduction and the first chapter of the scheme on the liturgy were ready for approval by the Council at the beginning of the second session and the discussion and vote on the few remaining amendments passed without difficulties (Kaczynski 1998, 214–16). To my knowledge there was no amendment claiming a discussion of the function of the celebration of the Eucharist in relation to the structures of the Church.

Looking at the development of the ecclesiological concept of communio in relation to Church structures we see, that the Second Vatican Council was not able to restrict the absolutist power of the pope and his hierarchy.

The orientation votes on the reform of some church structures that the moderators of the Council had fixed with approval and consent to the content by the pope for October 16, 1963 concerned the consecration of bishops as foundation of the three munera of a bishop (ibid. 89). The second question for a vote concerned the episcopal college, its foundation by divine right with the supreme and full podestas (power) over the universal Church and the third question concerned the diaconate (ibid). There was no vote on the three questions, and the events following October 15, 1963, traumatized the Council. The vote was obstructed by adversaries of any structural change of the Church such as Cardinal Ottaviani, the secretary of the Council Felici and other members of the Roman Curia (Melloni, Alberto. 1998. “L’inizio del secondo periodo e il grande dibattito ecclesiologico.” In Il concilio adulto. Il secondo periodo e la seconda intersessione settembre 1963 – settembre 1964. Vol. 3 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 19–133. 94. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino). Dossetti implored Cardinal Suenes and Lercaro to protest the halt of the vote and to stick to the text that previously had been supported by Paul VI (ibid. 95). Paulo VI did not act against the secretary of the Council Felici, who simply cancelled the vote from the Council’s schedule.

On October 23, 1963, Paul VI created a super-commission to further discuss and pass the orientation vote (ibid. 99). On October 30, 1963, the lightly modified questions passed the vote in the aula with approval rates of 75% (diaconate) to 95% (consecration as foundation of podestas) (ibid. 121). Paul VI, most of the Council fathers and their theologians praised this dogmatic passage assessing the powers of the episcopal college as historic (ibid. 121). The future development of the Council would rather suggest speaking of the vote of October 30, 1963, on the episcopal consecration, power and collegiality as a Pyrrhic victory. Melloni uses the term already in connection with his thoughts on Paul VI taking the center stage and mediating role of the Council (ibid. 122).

Concerning Sacrosanctum Concilium, it is clear at the end of October 1963 that it was not possible to identify the celebration of the Eucharist as the foundational element of the Church, as Luke documents in Acts. First, there was the congregation of Christians celebrating the Eucharist believing in Jesus Christ, being empowered by the Holy Spirit and thereby founding the Church in the presence of Jesus Christ. Only second, do we find further structural elements of the Church like the diaconate as the institution of the Seven (Acts 6, 1–7). Sacrosanctum Concilium 10 is right in assessing that the celebration of the paschal mystery of Christ necessarily includes the realization of social choices of love and dignity by the faithful who follow their Lord Jesus Christ.

Sacrosanctum Concilium misses the central point of connecting the Eucharist with the egalitarian pneumatological character of the celebrating congregation, due to the empowerment of every assisting faithful by the Holy Spirit. Sacrosanctum Concilium does not recognize the Eucharist as the founding element of the Church as a social structure. In the old tradition of Greek Orthodoxy, the Eucharist is the celebration of the foundation of the mystical body of Christ. Commenting on Unitatis Redintegratio, Hilberath observes “Ubi eucharistia, ibi ecclesia”, where the Eucharist is celebrated there is Church, expresses Orthodox theology and “Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia”, where there is Peter there is Church, expresses the Catholic point of view and “Ubi spiritus, ibi Ecclesia”, where there is the Holy Spirit there is Church, expresses the theology of the Reformation (Hilberath, Bernd Jochen. 2005. “Theologischer Kommentar zum Dekret über den Ökumenismus Unitatis redintegratio.” In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, vol 3, edited by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, 69–223. 116. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder).

Characteristically for Sacrosanctum Concilium and all documents of the Second Vatican Council, the form of active participation of the faithful is under the control of the clergy. Sacrosanctum Concilium 14–20 deal with the liturgical instruction, the form of the liturgical norms and regulations, and only then ask for possibilities of active participation by the laity. The Council does not dare to affirm that the law of the Spirit constitutes the function and makes the assembly of the faithful, not the law of the liturgical rubrics.

At the beginning of this second section of the first chapter of Sacrosanctum Concilium 14, the fathers rightly affirm, “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 14). Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Peter 2:9; cf. 2:4–5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 14). However, already at the end of this passage of Sacrosanctum Concilium 14 it is clear again that “not all the faithful”, not the “Christian people” but “the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 14).

With a reference to Lumen Gentium 26, Kaczynski tries a theology of the liturgy claiming that the subject of the liturgy is the Church, the congregation that assembles around the priest Jesus Christ. At the same time Sacrosanctum Concilium 14 and Kaczynski’s reference to it clearly prove that the Church, the ekklaesía, is a “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Peter 2,9; cf. 2,4–5), by reason of their baptism” (Kaczynski 2004, 79). The Scripture reveals that baptism of the faithful is the cause that constitutes a “people of God”, and we must open the minds of the theologians and bishops for this cause. The Church knows baptism of individual persons, not of a collective congregation. John the Baptist baptized individuals, he baptized Jesus Christ, and nobody baptized a Church or a congregation. The subject of liturgy therefore cannot be the congregation in the first place, only in the second place because the first place is reserved for baptism in the Holy Spirit of the individual faithful. The Second Vatican Council and the German-speaking theologians that interpreted the Council for the last 50 years did not recognize baptism as a foundational sacrament of the Holy Spirit.

What the faithful may do and not do as active participation lies in the authority of the priests to decide. Sacrosanctum Concilium does not reflect the discrimination of the faithful, does not reflect their marginalization and exclusion. The lay faithful are treated as incompetent to responsibly celebrate liturgy, although they are empowered and authorized by the Holy Spirit whom they had received in baptism. I know of laymen and women, Catholics that were formed by theological studies, who were not allowed active participation in liturgy by the priests. They were not allowed to sing the songs at celebrations that they wanted to sing. They were not allowed to live liturgy with the young according to the needs of the young and they finally were appalled and left cooperation with the parish completely.

Nevertheless, we have to read the text of Sacrosanctum Concilium in the historic context of the Council. The historian writes of the high riding wave of expectations that were raised by the news from the Council in Rome that reached the parishes. Lay women and men got excited about the possibilities of ‘active participation’ and they started pressing their priests and bishops for a change in leadership that would empower and facilitate active participation in liturgy. The bishops were not prepared for the necessary social competence. The bishops and the priests were not yet educated in the theology of liturgical participation and celebration. The bishops got frightened and feared liturgical chaos by unlimited experimentation in liturgy. By 1964, the bishops of the Council started to draw back on their enthusiasm concerning liturgical reform. They were frightened; they were exhausted by the amount of workload for reform at home and in Rome for the Council. They were tired and wanted the life of their dioceses to again enter calm waters and well-ordered routine (Theobald, Christoph. 2001. “La chiesa sotto la Parola die Di’o.” In Concilio di transizione. Il quarto period e la conclusion del concilio (1965). Vol. 5 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 285–370. 330-31. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 15 insists on training professors for liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium 16 establishes the study of liturgy as required in the curriculum of theological studies. Sacrosanctum Concilium 17 claims the liturgical formation in the seminaries and Sacrosanctum Concilium 18 proposes something like a permanent liturgical formation for priests. Sacrosanctum Concilium 19 exhorts the priest educating the laity for active participation in the liturgy, but most importantly the priests must “lead their flock”. Sacrosanctum Concilium 20 takes care that the bishops control the radio and television commentators of liturgical celebrations.

Kaczynski considers the Church the subject of the liturgy and not the individual faithful of the congregation. Yet he is conscious of the fact that women, men and queer pastoral assistants who collaborate in the parishes and all laity that realize pastoral services have to get a liturgical formation and not only the priests (Kaczynski 2004, 81). He admits that the Council forgot about the laity, the pastoral assistants, and their liturgical formation (ibid). In 2004, Kaczynski criticizes the predominant understanding of liturgy as external reading of texts and external observation of rubrics and not as celebrating the paschal mystery of Christ with his presence as source for the Christians’ lives (ibid. 82). The liturgical celebrations of the Catholic communities in this world still wait for their realization according to the experience of the paschal mystery by the faithful. All prescriptions of the Congregation of divine worship and the discipline for the Sacraments in Rome and all instructions by the bishops’ conferences all around the world still lack the courage and faith to go forward celebrating liturgy as a feast of hope, love and faith with equal and active participation of all, men, women and queer.

Liturgy is not the repetition of tradition. Why do European Catholics leave Sunday mass? It is because they cannot receive power and peace for their lives in the kind of Eucharistic liturgies that they are exposed to by overaged priests. The celebration of the Eucharist seems to be reserved to Christmas and Easter; there is at least a festive atmosphere because of the festive music and songs. The rhythm of modern life and the rhythm of Sunday mass do not match any more. In 2014, in Europe, the Catholics are still ready to celebrate important moments in their lives like marriage, the baptism of their children and the funerals of their dear ones.  They no longer participate in the daily, weekly or monthly Eucharistic celebrations of the liturgical calendar. The rituals that the Catholic Church offers their faithful do not any more serve the spiritual necessities of loading or reloading the proper spiritual sources for coping with daily life.

A third part of the first chapter of Sacrosanctum Concilium deals with “the reform of the Sacred Liturgy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 21–40). The Constitution on the Liturgy is clear about the way of realizing this reform. The Council establishes norms (Sacrosanctum Concilium 21). Paradoxically, these norms will bring about a considerable and deeply conflicting change for the Latin Roman rite of the liturgy in the aftermath of the Council (Kaczynski 2004, 86). The authority for realizing changes stays with the pope, the bishops are granted for the first time since the Codex of 1917 some small powers for changing liturgical elements (Sacrosanctum Concilium 22, 23). Sacrosanctum Concilium 23 insists on the Latin liturgical tradition as model for all change. There is no word on gender justice and peace, reconciliation, and sisterhood and brotherhood as principles for organizing liturgical life. Sacrosanctum Concilium 24 assesses “Sacred scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy”. The Liturgical Commission and the Council is not yet ready to affirm with Dei Verbum 24 that the Sacred Scriptures “are inspired, really are the word of God” and the study of the Sacred Scriptures “is the soul of sacred theology” (Hoping, Helmut. 2005. “Dei Verbum.” In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, vol 3, edited by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, 695–832. 800. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder). In 1963, at the time of the last discussion on liturgy, the Council still puts tradition and hierarchy before the word of Go’d. Nevertheless, Sacrosanctum Concilium 25 claims a revision of the liturgical books that will bring the Sacred Scriptures to the attention of the faithful. Kaczynski explains that until the second century CE the only canonically recognized liturgical book was the Bible. There were other texts that were used and that we call formulars (Kaczynski 2004, 90). Many priests that started experimenting with liturgical forms after Vatican II, again recognized only the Bible as canonical in liturgy and therefore changed the prayers of the Eucharist according to their theological tastes.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 26 makes it clear that the Church is “the holy people united and ordered under their bishop” and discriminates the faithful “according to their differing rank, office, and actual participation”. The whole liturgical congregation is the subject of the liturgy and not only the presiding priest (ibid. 93). Sacrosanctum Concilium 27 expresses the preference of communal services over quasi-private liturgical services of the priests. Sacrosanctum Concilium 28 insists on the observance of the limits of each liturgical office and affirms while the validity of the liturgical functions of lay people by themselves and not any more through co-performing by the priest (ibid. 95). For the first time since the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church allows women to realize liturgical offices (ibid). Sacrosanctum Concilium 29 affirms the lay offices of “Servers, lectors, commentators, and members of the choir”. Sacrosanctum Concilium 30 restricts the active participation of the laity to “acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence”. Rubrics and the people’s parts must be clear (Sacrosanctum Concilium 31) and “there are liturgical laws providing for due honors to be given to civil authorities” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 32). It is not that the civil authorities attending a liturgy provide due honors to Jesus Christ, or that the faithful and priests provide due honors only to Jesus Christ; no, the Church also provides honor to civil authorities. At least the Church stopped calling to honor clerical and parochial dignitaries according to their social status and rank in the liturgy (Kaczynski 2004, 98).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 33 claims with the Council of Trent the liturgy “contains much instruction for the faithful”. Evidently, the priests are left out because they “preside over the assembly in the person of Christ”. As Hebrews shows, there are no priests present or presiding over the assembly of the faithful because the only priest present is the high priest Jesus Christ and there is no necessity of another priest. There is no priest in the liturgy of the first Christians; there is no priest who says the prayers “in the name of the entire holy people and of all present” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 33), because the whole congregation celebrates the paschal mystery, the presence of Jesus Christ, and everybody is empowered to speak for herself or himself. In the beginning Sacrosanctum Concilium 33 rightly assesses - almost with the words of Martin Luther (Kaczynski 2004, 100) -, “For in the liturgy God speaks to His people and Christ is still proclaiming His gospel”. In liturgical practice, the Catholic Church privileges the priest to read the Gospel and celebrate the paschal mystery and discriminates the congregation of the faithful.

The rites should be simple, clear and understandable (Sacrosanctum Concilium 34). The intention of the liturgical movement as of the Second Vatican Council consisted in restoring the Roman liturgy of Antiquity (Kaczynski 2004, 101). The Council and the following fifty years of celebrating the paschal mystery missed the point that the churches need to focus on the development of their own tradition instead of repeating a past.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 35 claims speech acts as validity-condition for celebrating the sacraments “That the intimate connection between words and rites may be apparent in the liturgy”. Kaczynski legitimates this claim citing Augustine “Detrahe verbum, et quid est aqua nisi aqua? Accedi verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum (CCL 36, 529)” and Tractatus in evangelio Johannis 15,4 (CCL 36, 152) (Kaczynski 2004, 102). Also: “Tolle ergo verbum, panis est et vinum: adde verbum, et fiet sacramentum (Sermo Denis 6,3. Morin I, 31)” (ibid). Take the sentence away and what you have got is nothing but water, or bread and wine. If the sentence is added to the water, the sacrament happens, if you add the sentences to bread and wine the sacrament will happen. The word, the sentences, we hear in liturgy is the Gospel. Sacrosanctum Concilium 51 and 92a will describe this practice in detail. It is a revolutionary claim for Catholic liturgy to call the sermon a speech act that is an integral and effective part of the liturgy of the Mass (ibid. 103). In liturgical praxis, there are actually no speech acts as realization of the equal dignity, liberty and rights of the participants in the liturgy. Most of the speaking in liturgy is reserved for the priests presiding. Sermons and homilies that take the form of a dialogue between priest and a lay man, woman or queer are rare experiments and cannot mask the actual dominance of the priest.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 35 exhorts the priests presiding the liturgies using a greater variety of texts from the Bible. The sermon of the priest should draw “from scriptural and liturgical sources”, instructions should be given and if there is no priest available, the bishop may authorize “a deacon or some other person” for bible services on vigils of feasts and Sundays. Including again a sermon after reading from the Scripture is a progress in relation to the Roman Missal that until 1962 did not know any more sermons during Mass. If there was a sermon on Sunday, it was given before Mass (ibid. 103). Sacrosanctum Concilium 36 claims that the faithful hear the reading from the Scripture in their mother tongue, “whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy”. For more than a thousand years, uncountable generations of faithful were not able to understand the language of the liturgical prayers and readings. The sudden turn to vernacular language in liturgy was dangerous, because the faithful were now empowered to pray, meditate and interpret the Bible on their own and not according to the norms fixed by the Church. The Council therefore insists on the approval of the translations of the Bible and of the liturgical texts by Church authorities and by Rome that is by the pope (Sacrosanctum Concilium 36). The use of gendered language in Biblical translations fifty years after the Second Vatican Council is still not approved by the episcopal conferences or by Rome.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 37 promises the willingness of the Roman Catholic Church to “adapting the Liturgy to the culture and traditions of peoples”. In reality the Roman Catholic Church does not “respect and foster the genius and talents of the various races and peoples” in the sense that episcopal conferences adapt the liturgy to their cultures. In the end, every small adaptation of the liturgy has to get the approval of the Roman authority of the Apostolic Sea. The Fifth Instruction for the Right Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council – Liturgiam authenticam from May 7, 2001, officially introduces again the Roman liturgy as universal standard for any liturgical adaption (Medina Estévez 2001). This instruction ends all efforts of the Second Vatican Council to open the liturgy for an effective adaption to the culture and traditions of peoples (Kaczynski 2004, 113).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 1 had already fixed the guiding principles for the adaptation of the liturgy. The Council wants to augment the Christian lives of the faithful on a daily basis. It will accommodate to the needs of our time by changing Church institutions within the limits of the hierarchical Church and promote and encourage the men and women that believe in Christ to form a union. The actual power of the Roman pope and the Roman liturgy is the measure for judging the cultures of the world. There is no affirmation that all cultures are expressions of Go’d’s creation. Sacrosanctum Concilium 37 completely misses the point that Jesus Christ operates unity through the Holy Spirit. Not a pope pretending to be Christ’s governor on earth realizes the unity of the faithful. Roman power imposes liturgical standards and liturgically colonises the world with the Roman liturgy of past centuries. The perspective of the council fathers who approved of Sacrosanctum Concilium does not perceive the women, men and queer of the Christian communities around the world as bearers of the faith in Jesus Christ, as Christophoroi and as bearers of the Holy Spirit of love.

Speaking of women, men and queer of the Christian communities all around the world, I am not thinking of white male European and North American academics. I am thinking of the Indian tribal people who struggle to keep their tribal cultural identity and start a Christian community organization with the help of priests of the Roman Catholic Church. A doctoral thesis that I accompanied is titled “The Challenges of Catholic Mission among the Oraons of Chattisgarh Chota in Nagpur in Central India” (Tirkey, Herman. 2013. “Church and Cultural Identity. The Callenges of Catholic Mission among the Oraons of Chhattisgarh.” Doctoral thesis at the University of Innsbruck, Austria). A tribal Oraon wrote the thesis. His father was a traditional healer and the catechist of the community at the same time (ibid. 10). He gave the Christian faith to his son who still appreciates the medical skills and herbal knowledge of his tradition (ibid). Tirkey claims that the local Churches in Asia assess their multi-religious, multicultural realities, all their different traditions including their socio-political realities of poverty and suppression (ibid. 244). Only this kind of inculturation will empower the Oraons for a human life in dignity (ibid. 245). A tribe consisting of many clans in North-Eastern India are the Khasis of Megalaya. To struggle for a personal, family and social life, maintaining one’s cultural identity and living in peace and justice is a very tough challenge there today (Ottappally, Mathai. 2012. “The Khasis of Megalaya. Personal, Family and Social Life in Peace and Justice: A Contribution of Moral Theology.” 199. Doctoral thesis at the University of Innsbruck, Austria). Inter-religious violence, terrorizing Hindu nationalism and brutal state violence intoxicate future generations with “feelings of fear, tension, anxiety and insecurity within the person, in the families and in society” (ibid). A Christian response to violence among the Khasis has to be “rooted in prayer for the gift and the power of God” and demands “recognition and promotion of Human Rights and dignity and a committed effort to ensure the promotion of justice and peace” (ibid). A Christian response to violence among the Khasis consists in creating a culture of peace and justice with “the wholehearted collaboration of people in all walks of life, of all the religions and Christian denominations among the Khasis” (ibid). There is no need to mention the many problems of tribalism in the social and political organizations and religious communities in Africa. The thesis of Ahlonko Kouassi Kouanvih that was finished in Innsbruck in 2004, gives testimony of the struggle of a Catholic priest for the dignity of effective Human Rights in the traditional society of Togo in West Africa (Kouanvih 2004). To be clear: the fight is for effective Human Rights law rule. The fight is not about “superstitions and error of beliefs” that Sacrosanctum Concilium 37 condemns. The fight is about Human Rights, about the Christian belief that men and women and queer are created with dignity in Go’d’s image, with equal dignity as original divine descent. Ahlonko Kouassi Kouanvih at the beginning of his doctoral thesis honors his mam Marcelline and his dad Etienne Kouanvih corresponding to their kavod, their empowerment for creation (Kouanvih, Ahlonko Kouassi. 2004. “Zur Förderung der Würde und Rechte der Frau in der südtogolesischen Kirche. Theologisch-kirchenrechtliche Erwägungen.” 3. Doctoral thesis at the University of Innsbruck, Austria). According to the Decalogue, the power of creation empowers every parent – biological or social – that cares for the creature child, boy, girl or queer, and their identities, dignities and integrated lives. Marcellinge and Etienne were the first teachers and educators of the faith of Ahlonko, their son (ibid). Therefore, they carry their glory. Glory is not a social means for suppression. Ahlonko Kouassi Kouanvih makes public the African Synod’s claim of 1994 to realize effectively the rights and dignity of African women as an urgent task of the Catholic Church. Ahlonko speaks of the people living in South Togo and is clear about the fact that traditions, cultural customs, religious, political and social world-views institutionalized oppression of the women and left women as persons without rights (Kouanvih 2004, 187–202). For Ahlonko it is clear, the celebration of liturgy is linked to celebrate justice, peace and the dignity of the participants.

These young Christians from India and Africa are aware of the time of the Church fathers in the Antiquity and of their Christian example. Kaczynski points at the example of Hippolytus who died around 235 CE. His church order put at the disposition of the faithful models of prayers and rites that are not supposed to be simply copied but creatively used as patterns for the liturgies for the ordination of officials, for the Eucharist and for the benediction of oil, cheese and olives (Kaczynski 2004, 112). In 393 CE, Augustine still a presbyter in Hippo, at the synod of Hippo in Northern Africa, exhorts to use prayers only after a thorough discussion among the faithful brothers and sisters (ibid). Ambrosias, the bishop of Milan, advocated not to disturb the plurality of rites – for example washing the feet in the rite for baptism – and not to force a unity that kills celebrating local customs and rites (ibid. 113). Receiving Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Philippine Benedictine Anscar J. Chupungco suggested to translate the Latin liturgical texts, to adapt them and then to create new texts. He once was a consultant for the Congregation of worship but Rome’s repelling autocratic tendencies of the late 20th and beginning 21st century stopped his efforts (ibid).

The revision of the liturgical books around the world has to see that “the substantial unity of the Roman rite is preserved” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 38).

Rome sets the norms for liturgical adaptations and only “in the case of the administration of the sacraments, the sacramentals, processions, liturgical language, sacred music, and the arts” local bishops’ conferences may send suggestions to Rome (Sacrosanctum Concilium 39). Concerning the adaptations coming from regional or local episcopal conferences, Sacrosanctum Concilium 40 rules “necessary preliminary experiments” are allowed, “experts” must formulate the adaptations and “Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary should then be submitted to the Apostolic See, by whose consent they may be introduced”.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 41 considers the bishop “the high priest of his flock”. This claim contradicts the Scriptures. Hebrews often speaks of Jesus Christ as the High Priest, and nobody else of the faithful is called priest (Kleinig, John W. 2016. Hebrews. Concordia Commentary. A Theological Exposition of Sacred Scripture. 152. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House). Christians believe their trustworthy and merciful High Priest Jesus Christ. Christians thank Jesus Christ in the Divine Service, their High Priest, for having access to Go’d and they celebrate their thanks in the congregation of the Divine Service (ibid). Sacrosanctum Concilium 41 is wrong claiming that from the bishop “the life in Christ of his faithful is in some way derived and dependent”. The life in Christ comes from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit the Father has entrusted on the Christians. Sacrosanctum Concilium 41 refers to the martyr bishop Ignatius from Antioch for assessing the unity of the faithful “in a single prayer, at one altar, at which there presides the bishop”. Ignatius insists on the single prayer of all the faithful and he speaks of one altar. Apparently, Ignatius did not receive Hebrews’ claim that after Jesus Christ there is no more altar (Hebrews 13,10). Ignatius affirms that the bishop presides the Eucharist. Everybody would consent that somebody has to preside in some way the congregation of the faithful, but Ignatius does not claim that the life of the congregation is dependent on the bishop. At this point of Sacrosanctum Concilium the bishops get entangled assessing their powers and glories. They cannot claim their privileges referring to Scripture and quite significantly and sadly Sacrosanctum Conilium does not refer any more to the Bible until the end of the document. Sacrosanctum Concilium 42 claims that the priest “takes the place of the bishop” in the parishes and addresses the problem of creating a sense of community within the parish and with the bishop. Today the faithful women, men and queer realize their equal dignity, freedom and rights celebrating the Eucharist. Unity is experienced if the dignity of all is realized in the prayers. Bishops who suppress the equal dignity, freedom and rights of the faithful, suppress unity and make it impossible for the faithful to join in a single prayer.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 43 is right, the movement of the Holy Spirit for reform in the Roman Catholic Church, “promotion and restoration of the liturgy is rightly held to be a sign of the providential dispositions of God in our time”. It is a pity that the Second Vatican Council sets up “Liturgical Commissions”, “Institutes for Pastoral Liturgy”, and promotes liturgical “studies and experiments” all over the world without effective authority for realizing the reforms. The Vatican does not trust the reformation work of the Holy Spirit around the world and suffocates the reform by assessing the full authority of the Apostolic Sea concerning any adaptations of the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium 44). Sacrosanctum Concilium does not argue any more with the Scripture. From now onward, we will find only two more references to the Bible in the whole Constitution. Following the logic of control, the “commissions on the sacred liturgy” are put under the direction of the bishops (Sacrosanctum Concilium 45) and “the commissions for sacred music and sacred art” are “at best fused in one commission” with the Liturgical Commission (Sacrosanctum Concilium 46).

Second Chapter

Chapter two of Sacrosanctum Concilium is on “the most sacred mystery of the Eucharist”. I copy Sacrosanctum Concilium 47.

“At the Last Supper, on the night when He was betrayed, our Saviour instituted the eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity (St. Augustine, Tractatus in Ioannem, VI, n. 13.), a paschal banquet (Latin: convivium paschale) in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us (Roman Breviary, feast of Corpus Christi, Second Vespers, antiphon to the Magnificat).”

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, it is possible to get sense out of Sacrosanctum Concilium 47. Yet today, we insist that in order to celebrate the Eucharist, the participants need to have faith in Jesus Christ, in his life, death and resurrection. The text of Sacrosanctum Concilium does not worry about this faith but presupposes a living community of Christians. At the Last Supper, most likely this faith was not present with the Apostles, Jesus has not yet died and was not yet resurrected, faith in him was still developing with his disciples and they had not yet received the Holy Spirit and confessed the name of Jesus Christ.

The commentary of the theologian Kaczynski helps see the two different visions of the celebration of the Eucharist that are present in Sacrosanctum Concilium 47, the vision of a sacrifice and the vision of a ritual community prayer. In the antiphon for the Magnificat in the second vespers of the Feast of Corpus Christi, we read in the Roman Breviary of the Eucharist as a sacrum convivium that is a sacred banquet. The Roman Breviary is a fruit of the Council of Trent that is the 16th century. Sacrosanctum Concilium 47 renounces taking up the term sacrum convivium and other sacrificial definitions from the Council of Trent for the Eucharist and speaks of a convivium paschale, a pascal banquet (Kaczynski 2004, 121). It is innovative of Sacrosanctum Concilium to understand the Eucharist as a sacrifice of praise, as a eulogy of resurrection by the faithful in the sense of Origene.

Indeed, Jesus Christ “entrusted” or “confided” (Latin: concrederet) the Eucharist, for “perpetuating” the Eucharistic sacrifice that is the celebration of the Eucharist by the faithful to “the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 47). Jesus Christ confides the Eucarist to all Christians and not only to the ordained priests “acting in the person of Christ” as the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church Lumen Gentium 10 later claims again. Kaczynski, as many of his male colleagues, does not question for a second the mediating role of the ordained priest at the Eucharist (Kaczynski 2004, 122). Who authorized the ordained Catholic priest to speak in the name of all faithful? The whole people of Go’d, all women, men and queer believers of the congregation remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are empowered agents by the Holy Spirit, Jesus confides and entrusts the Eucharist to all. If the Christians do not celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, resurrection does not happen. In every celebration of the Eucharist, we confess and celebrate our faith in Jesus Christ, by celebrating this paschal convivium, the realization of love is a sacred sign, a sacrament of the just world of Go’d.

In the beginning, Sacrosanctum Concilium 48 silently substitutes the only high priest Jesus Christ by the priests of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Jesus Christ instructs the faithful, nourishes them and the faithful give thanks to him. The end of Sacrosanctum Concilium 48 acknowledges at least a small participative part of the faithful celebrating the Eucharist.

All the beautiful performances of love that take place in the Eucharist are the experiences of the agency of the faithful. All good wishes and prayers of the faithful are welcome. In order to experience that we have a rest to relax, to recover and refresh and the Holy Spirit to build up strength again at the table of the Lord’s Body, we certainly have to change the habitual rituals of our Eucharistic celebrations. Do the faithful “understand the rites and prayers” as Sacrosanctum Concilium 48 claims, and do the rites and prayers correspond to the needs and experiences of the Holy Spirit of the faithful? I doubt that this is the case. If I want to celebrate my life and the impact of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ on my life, and if I want to construct my policy as a Christian, I have to have the right and opportunity to express my experiences at the Eucharist. The men, women, and queer faithful are not yet used to do this in the celebration of the Eucharist. It will take a lot of grace and time of grace that men, women, and queer with the faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel will take the word and start moving in the Eucharist. There is only one priest, Jesus Christ. He is living and present in us all, by baptism we Christians all become bearers of Christ, christophroi, christophorai and christophora. We need elders, men, and women and queer not to represent Christ for others, but to lead the Christ-bearing faithful to expressions of a life that is borne along with Christ. We are born again in the Holy Spirit, and we are born along with Christ because he is responsible for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The claim is theologically coherent that all participants at the celebration of the Eucharist together pray the “memorial of his death and resurrection” and all together pray the Eucharistic prayer, all together thank Go’d for the grace to celebrate together united by love and a bond of charity (Sacrosanctum Concilium 48).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 49 forgets about Scrosanctum Concilium 47 and speaks of “the sacrifice of the Mass” as something different from the life of the faithful that has “to become pastorally efficacious” for the faithful. It is the other way round. The experiences and lives of the faithful are pastorally efficacious and the celebration of the Eucharist celebrates thanksgiving for this life and prays for the realization of further life. At the time of the Second Vatican Council, a normal celebration of the Eucharist consisted in a private Mass, that is a celebration of a lonely priest together with a server boy (Kaczynski 2004, 123). Considering this historic horizon, Sacrosanctum Concilium reformed the celebration of the Eucharist.

Nevertheless, today we do not need “devout and active participation by the faithful” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 50), but active realization of love and prayer by all the faithful celebrating the Eucharist. We do not need a “simplification of rites” we need rites that express the lives and prayers of the faithful and help realizing love. Form follows function! The essence of this reform of the ritual order of the Eucharist, the ordo Missae, consisted in concentrating on the service of the word and the service of the table as the main parts of the celebration of the Eucharist (Kaczynski 2004, 123). A polemic about liturgical reform has already started at the Council and continues to our days. Therefore, it is just and worthwhile to appreciate the enormous effort that the Council realized reforming the rite of the Mass: The introductory rites, greetings and penitential rite were shortened. The liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist were separated and celebrated at two different sites. The Offertory was to be celebrated with participation of the faithful; the Eucharistic prayer was in part to be prayed aloud. The communion rite and the concluding rites (final blessing and dismissal) were simplified (ibid).

In the 1970ties, the vast majority of Catholics in Europe deliberately decided to no longer follow the interpretative monopoly of the Catholic hierarchy on the world and its teachings on how to live their lives. They discovered liberty of conscience and freedom of thinking and doing in religious matters. Active participation in liturgy based on equality with the priests was not possible and their needs were ignored, personal experiences celebrating the paschal mysteries in the Eucharist did not interest the hierarchy. Therefore, these men, women and queer left the churches empty at Sunday Mass. In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II and the Roman Catholic hierarchy were further weakening the remaining structures of lay participation in the Church life. The consequent appointment of weak bishops instituted obedient executors of Rome’s teachings. It is very important to notice that millions of Catholic men, women and queer ignored their bishops or left the institution completely, but they did not abandon their Christian faith. In 1951 in Austria, 89 % of the population was Catholic. In 2018, about 50% remain Catholics and about 7 % of the Catholics attend Sunday Mass regularly. In 1971, the Netherlands had 40 % Catholics and 36 % Protestants. In 2010, there were 24 percent Catholics and 16 percent Protestants. Compared with the European average, the losses of Church members in Austria and the Netherlands are still smaller than the average loss of institutionalized religiousness.

It is the clergy and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that destroys the celebration of the paschal mystery. Vatileaks documents the case of Bishop William M. Morris from the diocese of Toowoomba near Brisbane in the South-East of Australia (Nuzzi, Gianluigi. 2012. Seine Heiligkeit. Die geheimen Briefe aus dem Schreibtisch von Papst Benedikt XVI. München: Piper). He asked for women’s priestly ordination, for the celebration of the Catholic Eucharist by protestant pastors and finally Morris confirms the general pardon of Go’d who is mercy. Since Go’d loves all sinners who repent, Morris practices general absolutions of sins. Not only the cardinal responsible for the Vatican congregation for the bishops, but Pope Benedict XVI himself prepares the letter convicting Bishop Morris and dismissing him from office May 11, 2011. Morris complains with Pope Benedict XVI that he was denied a due process. Benedict XVI answers that there never was a process but only a “brotherly dialogue”. Bishop Morris speaks of “a lack of care for the truth” on the side of the Vatican. Pope Ratzinger autocratically assesses a lack of knowledge of the Catholic magisterium on the part of the bishop. He further insists that the priestly ordination of women is a question of faith that had been ruled out by Pope John Paul II once and for all (ibid.). I do not know whether Pope Francis will be able to do away with this kind of distortion of Christian life and starts the priestly ordination of women. I doubt he will do this.

Another aspect to consider concerning the Catholics who stopped participating in Sunday Mass is social conditioning. Up to the 1960s, it was a self-evident cultural habit for young and old Catholics in Europe and North America to go to mass. Forty years later, the old visit mass at Christmas and Easter and some of the children accompany their parents. Their liturgical participation is a kind of nostalgic experience. In Europe and North America, the children of the generation of the Second Vatican Council in reality do not have many emotional ties to the Church. Celebrating the paschal mysteries in the Eucharist was not part of their religious socialization. Their compromise consists in assisting the liturgical services for baptism, marriage and funerals. They do not want to celebrate Mass in connection with baptism, marriage and funerals. They celebrate the birth of children, their marriages and attend funerals, asking for some prayers and blessings. They want a priest or a lay professional to perform some rite and some prayers that make them feel good and in peace. The loss of the traditional practice of prayers or rites by all members of a Christian community is real. The traditional practice of the liturgy is not any more an experience of the presence of inner peace, rest and spiritual devotion. Prayer is private, and not any more a resource for fostering social identity. The loss of experience and practice of memorized prayers in the daily routine is a fact. Modern cities around the world show a pluralism of forms of life and offer unprecedented opportunities of freedom and liberty for information, education, and formation. Women find jobs in the cities and realize their emancipation, liberty and social choices. When the parents of my mother moved from the rural village to the city before World War II, they kept the practice of regularly visiting Sunday Mass. Individual prayer was already private and my grandparents did not pass the empowerment for personal prayer to my mother. My mother got the empowerment to pray personally through the routine of her nanny Maly praying with her and thereby teaching my mother to pray. Maly was the daughter of poor peasants who sent her to town for work. Maly got married, but her husband died soon. She suffered the death of her sons in the war and all her life suffered the grief of this merciless loss. She was a poor woman all her life, she shed seas of tears out of her desperation and yet, when she visited my mother, my brother and me, she blessed us with her empathic smile. She travelled by public transport to visit us. I received warm comfort from her mild face folded with sun-colored wrinkles that won the blows of her life. Recalling Maly’s presence, I still feel ashamed of my own life that was protected and without poverty. Maly visited us still feeling attached to my mother. Her visits comforted my mother, who all her life did not overcome the death of her firstborn son John. I remember now, that Maly already fifty years ago claimed that the male priests marry women and lead normal family lives in order to give testimony of Jesus Christ. Maly was barely literate but a critique of the Catholic Church’s inhumane truths and teachings. Her argument was clear as the water in a baptismal font. Jesus was living and teaching love, she used to say. May Maly be blessed for the faith she brought to my family.

In post-modern Europe, the practice of individual spirituality has not vanished. Women, men and queer consider themselves religious in an individual and authentic way. Small objects express desires for protection. Rings, tattoos, piercings, necklaces with saints or a cross give testimony of lived religious hopes. Religion turns into a private thing because the officials of public religion do not take seriously the transcendental experiences of men, women and queer. They experience Go’d in many ways, and these ways are unknown and hidden for outsiders. Women, men and queer struggle for their dignity, the individual acknowledges her or his empowerment for the existential struggle for identity and integrity. An important part of personal integrity is gender identity. The job and a good working social environment, the feeling of having and belonging to a family are important aspects of personal integrity. Respect from the partners, confidence, fidelity and exchange of emotions are appreciated and claimed values. The personal belief systems correspond with modern science, global communication networks provide information about the world, about all that is the case. Worries about peace and the concerns about destroyed nature are basic concerns. Nevertheless, in Europe and North America, Christians do not really sense the needs of the billions of poor people suffering in the world. The rich do not share their world with the women, men and queer who live in conditions lacking a life in dignity. Reconciliation of the poor and the rich in this world is waiting for justice and peace. Catholic men, women and queer scientists and theologians claim to include the gender dimension in the work on Christian justice.  It is vital to incorporate an understanding of gender into any response to social injustice. Roman authorities convict to silence these Christians and ban them from Catholic universities and Catholic academic institutions. The same is true for Catholic scientists studying and documenting that the gender dimension was evident in ancient Christian times. If the Churches of Africa, Asia and Latin America do not respond to poverty as agents of their dignity, freedom and rights, their churches will empty as in Europe or North America.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 51 opens liturgy for the “treasures of the bible”. After centuries without readings from the Old Testament on Sunday Mass and Feasts, the Old Testament will now again be an integral part of the lectionaries (Kaczynski 2004, 127). Nevertheless, the interpretation of the Bible was for the priests and not the faithful. The Decree on the training of the priests Optatam totius 16 claims for the priests and not for every faithful “Students are to be trained most diligently in the study of scripture, which ought to be the very soul of all theology. After a suitable introduction, let them be carefully initiated into exegetical method, study closely the main themes of divine revelation and find inspiration and nourishment in daily reading of the sacred books and meditation on them.”

Sacrosanctum Concilium 52 insists on the importance of the homily as “a part of the liturgy”. The Council silently supposes as evident and natural that giving a homily is the privilege of the priest and the deacon. The new 1983 Canon Law provides this privilege in canon 767 § 1 (John Paul II. 1983. “Code of Canon Law.” The Holy See). Concerning the Bible and the faith of the Christians, the Holy Spirit and formation empower everybody to give a homily and teach the faithful. Encouraging Christians, men, women and queer to prepare and give homilies is a very good way to educate these Christians in their faith, to form their faith by discussing the feedback on their homilies and to be proud of their empowerment and capacity to effectively speak out about their faith and belief. The preacher of Hebrews, who is not a priest in the liturgy, is somewhat disappointed with his congregation of women, men and queer. They really should already teach other and not behave like students who need instruction (Hebrews 5, 12). What is true for Hebrews is true for today too, women, men and queer Christians are supposed to be teachers in the Divine Service; they are not supposed to be just listeners.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 53 restores “the common prayer” or “prayer of the faithful”, says “the people are to take part” in it and refers to 1 Timothy 2,1–2. Sacrosanctum Concilium 54 concedes an “appropriate use” of the vernacular for the celebration of the Eucharist. Only on May 4, 1967, the use of the vernacular was allowed by Rome for the whole canon of the Mass (Kaczynski 2004, 132). Sacrosanctum Concilium 55 in order of “a more perfect participation at Mass” recommend warmly that the faithful receive the Lord’s body “from the same sacrifice”, that is receiving wafers from a former celebration of Mass should not happen. Only in 2002, the Roman Missile delegated authority to the bishop allowing communion under both kinds, if the celebrating priest judged this as appropriate (ibid. 135). Since “the liturgy of the word and the Eucharistic liturgy” are “closely connected with each other” Sacrosanctum Concilium 56 wants the faithful to “take part in the entire Mass”. Sacrosanctum Concilium 57 encourages concelebrating as “a convenient way of manifesting the unity of the priesthood”. Today concelebrating is common if there is more than one priest present at Mass. Sacrosacntum Concilium 58 announces a new rite for concelebrating. The Missale Romanum of 2002 described this new rite and there were no more restrictions for concelebrating (ibid. 138).

Third Chapter

Sacrosanctum Concilium 59–82 is “on the other sacraments and the sacramentals”.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 59 is the first and only assessment of the Second Vatican Council that the sacraments “presuppose faith”. The celebration of the sacraments “instructs”, the sacraments “nourish, strengthen and express” faith, they have “the purpose to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 59).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 59 speaks of foundational Christian convictions. Faith is a grace, a gift of Go’d to the individual woman, man and queer. The celebration of this faith by the faithful in liturgy realizes the three munera that all documents of the Second Vatican Council reserve for the pope and the bishops. The munus of sanctifying women, men and queer, the munus of governing the body of Christ and the munus of worship to Go’d. Evidently, the Council fathers did not recognize the theological power of their assessment. Otherwise, the documents on ecclesiology, on the bishop and the priests and on the laity would not speak of the hierarchical privileges of the Catholic Church that reserve the munera for the pope. The commentary of Kaczinsky recognizes Go’d’s initiative in founding faith and empowering women, men and queer celebrating the sacraments (Kaczynski 2004, 142) but falls short of assessing the responsibility of the faithful for realizing the sacraments as social choices of equal dignity, freedom and rights.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 60 assesses the sacramentals as instituted signs that resemble the sacraments. Sacrosanctum Concilium 61 finally relates the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals to the “paschal mystery”. The individual faithful turn away from the prefabricated celebrations of past generations. The faithful do not universally experience the sacraments and sacramentals as an absolute perfect manner and unchangeable form for expressing their existential and spiritual needs, hopes, and prayers. Sacrosanctum Concilium 62 very prudently assesses that “some changes have become necessary to adapt the sacraments and sacramentals to the needs of our own times” but does not expect at all the exodus of the faithful from fixed liturgical forms and rites to a private form of spiritual dignity and freedom of liturgical expression.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 63 does not open the Catholic liturgy to the development of proper rites and celebrations according to the cultures of the faithful but rather assures the Roman translating authority for the antique Roman rituals into vernacular languages of the world’s cultures. Sacrosanctum Concilium 64 calls for a lived introduction of adult catechumens into Christian life.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 65 prudently allows the integration of elements of initiation rites in mission countries, Sacrosanctum Concilium 66 asks for a new rite for the baptism of adults. It will take almost forty years till the first new rites are approved in Germany (Kaczynski 2004, 150). Since the Roman Missile of Trent presented the rite for baptism of infants like a rite of adults, Sacrosanctum Concilium 67 calls for a baptismal rite for infants. Sacrosanctum Concilium 68 concedes that “especially in mission countries” the catechists or even lay men and women may baptize “when there is danger of death” and “neither priest nor deacon is available”. The 1983 Code of Canon Law – Canon 230 § 3 and Canon 861 §2 – confirms the legality of this administration of the sacrament by the lay. Sacrosanctum Concilium 69 calls for new rites for children and adults that were already baptized in a “short rite” and afterwards receive a formal welcome in the community that must not repeat baptism. Sacrosanctum Concilium 70 indirectly assesses that the benediction, the words, make “baptismal water” and not the water itself. Sacrosanctum Concilium 71 calls for reforming the rite of confirmation. Sacrosanctum Concilium 72 asks for a revision of the rite of penance.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 73–75 speak of reforming the rite for “extreme unction”. The term has to be replaced by the term “anointing of the sick” as it was used and practiced by the early Christians in case of sickness and not only when death was imminent. In 2019, the reformed rite for the anointing of the sick is not of help. When I celebrate this sacrament in the hospice of Innsbruck, Austria, the Roman rite does not touch the dying person and her family members. The rite is considered strange and empty of sense. To celebrate the farewell of a parting husband, mother or father, I need to adapt the rite to the needs of the participants. I have to assure the possibility for their giving expression of their thankfulness and hopes for the beloved. Carefully, I have to respect the existential level of the celebration. The letter of James 5, 15 reads, “The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven”. In the University Clinics of Innsbruck, the women pastors preferentially are asked by the sick to pray with them and celebrate the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with one’s life. Scripture does not say that an ordained priest is necessary to celebrate the sacrament of penitence with the sick; the Catholic Church reserves the right to minister the sacraments to ordained male celibate priests. Sacrosanctum Concilium 76 speaks of a reformation of the ordination rites and silently keeps the ordination privilege for male celibates only. Sacrosanctum Concilium 77 and 78 claim reforming the rite of the sacrament of marriage. Sacrosanctum Concilium 79 is on sacramentals. The ordination of a bishop, a priest and deacon is a sacrament. The consecration of a virgin is a sacramental celebration, also the dedication of a church or altars. Sacrosanctum Concilium 80 concerns the rite of the consecration of virgins, but also the vows of religious and their review. Sacrosanctum Concilium 81 claims “funeral rites should express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death” and Sacrosanctum Concilium 82 wants to reform the rite for the burial of infants.

How do Christians celebrate the paschal mystery?

How do we Christians perpetuate and celebrate a memorial of the paschal mysteries, how do men, women and queer on this world celebrate the mystery that the world is?  Sacrosanctum Concilium still centres pretty much on the priest for realizing the liturgy. Late in 1965, The Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church Ad Gentes 9 discovers, with reference to Luke 10, the claim that all Christians and not only the Twelve Apostles speak with the words of Christ and that Christ speaks to their listeners. “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself would be visiting” (Luke 10,1). “Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me” (Luke 10, 16). When do we start taking this claim of Jesus seriously that he calls all Christians speaking the just world of Go’d? When do we start to allow women to read and preach the Gospel and take a lead in celebrating the liturgy, especially the sacraments and first the Eucharist?

Chapter three of Sacrosanctum Concilium repeatedly assesses that all celebrations of the paschal mystery – that is especially the celebration of the sacraments but also the sacramentals – have the Eucharist as center and summit and are celebrated in Mass or together with a Eucharist (Sacrosanctum Concilium 2, 6, 10, 66, 71, 78, 80, 82). In 1965, Ad Gentes 9 confirms, “Through preaching and the celebration of the sacraments, of which the holy Eucharist is the center and summit, missionary activity makes Christ present, who is the author of salvation”. The believers are speaking with Holy Spirit who is present in them as promised by Jesus Christ. Christians will celebrate the Eucharist until all men, women and queer in this world will live in peace and justice.

The Lutheran Theologian Hoefer describes mission based on his missionary work in Madras (Hoefer 1979). The term mission describes the empowerment of all men, women and queer by the Holy Spirit for an effective and active participation and interaction with every-body who forms the communion of the community (ibid. 22). At the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez from Santiago de Chile insisted on the empowering of all Christians by the Holy Spirit who is at work in their lives, in their celebrating the paschal mystery and in their mission preaching Jesus Christ (Kaczynski 2004, 65). Go’d equips each member of His Body fully for His mission (Hoefer, H. 1979. “Mission in India.” In: Ishvani Kendra series (7), Pune India. 1–33. 22.). Yes, it is Go’d who equips everybody to effectively participate in the celebration of the Paschal mystery and we are called to take part in this mission. We Christians have to empower each other to be able to take part in the celebration of the Paschal mystery and to consider this participation as our mission. It does not correspond with the reign of the Lord that the Church hierarchy excludes women and queer and married men by canon law and in the name of the Lord from fully participating in the celebration of the paschal mystery. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all Christians, and all Christians confess with the oldest Christian kerygma in Acts 10, 38 “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, as God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and as He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him”.

Still in 1989, the Benedictine liturgist Anscar J. Chupungco of the Philippines desperately insists “flexibility in the liturgy is the undercurrent of Sacrosanctum Concilium 37–40” (Chupungco 1989, 8).

It was a claim of Chupungco that liturgical adaptation to the cultures of this world demands creativity that is the creation of new prayers, songs, symbols, rituals, etc. (Chupungco, Anscar J. 1992.. 52. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press). Sometimes this creativity is called indigenization. The term indigenization is “coined from the word indigenous; this term refers to the process of conferring on Christian liturgy a cultural form that is native to the local community” (ibid. 14). Philippine liturgists tried to integrate “the existing Western form of worship with the indigenous elements that made up the Filipino culture” (ibid. 15). “Indigenous rhythms and melodies of the Ifugao, Kalinga, and Maranaw tribes” were used for the music for the ordinary of the Mass (ibid). Yet Chupungco documents that “from the start the question that vexed liturgists in the Philippines was whether the concept and understanding of culture should be confined to what is indigenous. Would not the retrieval of an indigenous form of music alienate the liturgy from contemporary cultural expression? We know that culture is incessantly subjected to evolution because of its inner dynamism and that it is continually enriched, and perhaps impoverished, because of interaction with other cultures. At any rate, should not the contemporary phase of culture be the cutoff point and hence the point of departure for the process of liturgical renewal in the country” (ibid. 15–16)? In my judgment Chupungco is right criticizing the concentration on the use of traditional indigenous elements and not taking into consideration the creative participation in contemporary cultural expression. The relationship between liturgy and culture is not described in depth in Sacrosanctum Concilium and there is no systematic analysis of the many factors that contribute to a liturgical renewal. Part of this renewal are the revision of the typical editions of liturgical books, the translation and adaption of these to local situations, the rediscovery of the theological and spiritual dimensions of liturgical rites, the active role of laypersons as liturgical ministers, and the renewed interest in liturgical catechesis. Yet there remains the tension between these reform efforts for renewing the liturgy and the necessary creation of new prayers, songs, symbols, rituals. The churches need to focus on the development of traditions instead of focusing on their repetition. Faith rediscovers itself in the debate with tradition, and this debate ought to be a reworking of tradition in the context of contemporary questions and problems.      

In India, the first phase of indigenization of the liturgy concerned the Indian atmosphere of worship: postures, forms of homage, objects and elements, silence and interiority (Amalorpavadass, D. S. 1976. Statement in non/biblical Scriptures. Theological understanding, liturgical role and pastoral use. 27. National Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre: Bangalore, India). On April 25, 1969, in Rome, A. Bugnini signs the document of the Commission for Liturgy of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Cardinal Benno Gut, president of the Congregation for Divine worship had accepted the proposals of the Indian bishops for certain adaptations in the liturgy according to the Liturgical Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium 37–40 (ibid. 30). Amalorpavadass is happy: “India will have an authentic Indian Liturgy; India will be able to worship the Father through Christ in the Spirit by means of signs and forms handed down from generation to generation in the long cultural and religious history of India” (ibid. 31). He is clear that this is but a first, modest step “to give our Liturgy a more Indian setting and complexion” (ibid). Concerning postures there are the important examples “that when sitting, people sit on the floor in accordance with the Indian mode of sitting when at worship; secondly, that the same posture be used instead of kneeling” (ibid. 37). It really gives me relief to read that the European mode of sitting and kneeling on wooden benches during worship is replaced by a more suitable mode. Personally, I have profited from sitting on my heels in yoga style for my morning mediation on the floor for 30 years. It was a shock for me to learn in the Jesuit novitiate in northern Germany in the town of Muenster in 1980 that kneeling to receive the Holy Communion does not correspond with an active participation of a self-responsible and free Catholic. I learned to receive the Holy Communion standing.

The second phase of indigenization of liturgy in India concerns the word (ibid. 44). The vernacular translation of the Scriptures is important. Amalorpavadass is right “By a major reform Vatican II has restored Scripture to its due place and provided for the nourishment of Go’d’s people with this Word” (ibid. 45). The songs and recitation of prayers were no longer in Latin, and the faithful could participate in liturgy in their own language. “Liturgical translation was an altogether new venture, with no tradition in the preceding centuries” and the first attempts at translation of liturgical texts were “timid, scrupulous, literal, slavish and verbatim” (ibid. 46).

The third phase of indigenization concerns the use of Scriptures of other Religions in the Christian Liturgy (ibid. 51). Reading Hindu Scriptures and other Holy Scriptures at liturgical services and at para-liturgical celebrations for the bishops’ conference of India is a very delicate matter (ibid). I do not want to comment much on the Indian situation. All I can testify is the bright proud eyes of my Indian doctorate students who tell me that they are reading from the Baghavad Gita during celebration of mass in India. Vatican II speaks of the “seeds of the word” in the holy scriptures of the Hindu, but what does the expression “seeds of the word” mean (ibid)? Amalorparvadass asks many questions. “How are the Hindu texts related to the Word of Go’d? Are they inspired? If so, what is the relation between the inspiration of the Bible and that of the Hindu scriptures? It is an important question too, how to relate them with the Old Testament and the New Testament” (ibid)? The fourth phase of indigenization concerns relevance to the present context and special groups (ibid. 52). “What has our liturgy to say on development, welfare, war and peace, world justice, liberation movements? How is liturgy related to the burning problems of the day, concern for the world and temporal realities and day-to-day life of men in the street” (ibid)? Amalorpavadass is very conscientious of “the widespread dichotomy between liturgy and commitment to the world” and claims to overcome this dichotomy (ibid. 175). He observes with pain “that our liturgy often fails to transform the lives of our Christian communities” and desperately calls for “hearing Go’d’s speaking in the Word announced in the liturgy” as “hearing him calling us in the agony, the anxieties, the struggles, the joys, hopes and aspirations of men around us” (ibid). “The glaring injustices, inequalities and disorders of society are insults to Go’d in the responsibility which we share” not only when participating in the liturgy but as Christians living and working for the just world of Go’d (ibid).

While Amalorpavadass writes on India, the Steyler Missionary Engelbert Zeitler affirms the challenges posed by the Asian world to the Asian Churches (Zeitler, Engelbert. 1977. “The Signs of the Times for the Religious in Asia.” In Ishvani Kendra series (3), Pune India. 1–34). In 2019, we acknowledge China as a new world power, an economic and political world player and we observe the rising economic opportunities and military powers of India. In 1977, Zeitler writes that Asia “holds the key for war and peace for vast parts of the world and will play a vital role for the next fifty years to build up the new world or to destroy it” (ibid. 3). Zeitler assesses that the Youth is the decisive challenge for the Asian Churches. The Youth is “the power that will shape Asia’s future” and protests the fact that the Catholic Church neglects this youth, predicting that “we are heading for disaster if we do not devote much more of our efforts to shaping the youth of Asia” (ibid. 28–29). Zeitler does not forget that “half of Asia is part of the Red Empire” of Communist China (ibid.7) and “that Christianity in Asia is today called to create an alternative for the future of Asia, an alternative to Asian Communism” (ibid. 25). Facing the tremendous economic, social, political and cultural challenges of Asia, Christians “have to open up to the great religious traditions of Asia in inter-religious dialogue” and join in the common constructive efforts “for the total human development of our peoples” (ibid. 8).

Amalorpavadass organized meetings of three to five days with Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims and Catholics living together and sharing their lives (Amalorpavadass 1977, 13). He is convinced that the Christians must develop “a deeper understanding of Go’d’s revelation to men” that takes the teaching of the Second Vatican Council seriously that “from the beginning, through His Word, God revealed Himself to all men in various ways, calling them to share in His love” (ibid). Amalorpavadass does not cite the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to non-Christian Religons Nostra Aetate verbally. He cites in a way that opens the dialogue with other religions on an equal base and at the same time, he tries to confess his faith that Go’d “gave the final revelation of Himself in Christ” (ibid). Amalorpavadass makes it clear, “that dialogue is good in itself” and has nothing to do with evangelization, although he admits to the tension between dialogue and evangelization as “two aspects of his Christian existence” (ibid). The rise of Hindu nationalism in the last fifty years and the growing violence and hate have considerably strained the living together of Hindus, Muslims and Christians in India and elsewhere. In this sad and difficult and despairing situation, it is an important guide to peace to remember the many meetings of Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians living together in “a great experience of joy and goodwill” (ibid. 20). “They came together in prayer, meditation and shared reflections and spent much time in songs called bhajans, sharing of thoughts and insights, readings from different religious scriptures and prayer” (ibid).

It is logical that before being capable of dialoguing with other religions, Christians have to assess their own understanding of the Holy Scriptures. The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum 7 says “Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing”. Dei Verbum 11 defines the way the Sacred Scriptures “have God as their author”. Go’d “committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” the sacred books in a way that He “chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted”. After this assessment, we can claim with Amalorpavadass. “The Christian community can speak meaningfully of the inspiration of the Scriptures of other religions only in so far as its experience of itself is no longer that of a closed group but of a community that is open and moving toward the formation of a new, wider community that would be as wide as Go’d’s economy of salvation” (Amalorpavadass 1976, 24). Amalorpavadass is clear about the fact that speaking of inspiration “can have a meaning only within the context of a faith-experience” of the persons involved in the dialogue with persons of the same faith, culture and religion as with persons from different faiths, cultures and religions (ibid).

The personal faith-experience of the individual woman, man and queer is necessary for dialoguing about faith. The personal faith-experience of the individual woman, man and queer is also necessary for celebrating together the faith of the congregation. Sacrosanctum Concilium 37–40 opened the way for realizing the “dream of enriched and truly meaningful rites” of the sacraments (Chupungco 1989, 147). The cultural adaptation for the rite of marriage, for example, is “a challenge to the local churches” (ibid). I strongly agree on this point. Nevertheless, delegating “this demanding task” to “the conviction and support of church leaders, the expertise of local linguists, and the professional assistance of experts in the related sciences”, is insufficient (ibid). Meaningful rites require the individual woman, man and queer who shares her or his faith-experience with the community and participates in the creation of a rite that expresses these experiences and structures the celebrations. This is true in all cultures of the world; in a globalized world all Christians of the local Christian communities are empowered to join in creating and shaping the liturgy. Liturgy is the service of Go’d and all Christians are called into this service. To celebrate Go’d’s love for women, men and queer we do not need experts and leaders, we need all faithful. It is not true that women, men and queer that are barely literate are unable to express their convictions, faiths, hopes, desires, sufferings and prayers. Denying them expression of their sentences suppresses the equal dignity, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer (Leher, Stephan P. 2018. Dignity and Human Rights. 164-66. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group: New York and London).

Celebrating the sacrament of marriage is a very personal matter of the men, women or queer involved. The couple wants to take an active part in the liturgy and in adapting the liturgy to their wishes, prayers and aspirations. Faith-experiences are very different, and the liturgical experts are not capable of describing their contents. Deacons, priests and presbyters preparing the celebration of a marriage have to pass time together with the couple and future spouses. Usually, the couple presents texts that are of no obvious religious content at all but that express faith-experiences of the love of the couple that they want to share with each other and with the congregation celebrating their marriage. There are also personal statements from the couple or from the families and friends that celebrate the liturgy. Usually, the congregation is much moved and happy to learn something about what is important for the couple that is getting married. Non-biblical texts, personal prayers of the couple, of the family, of children and friends express the faith in the future life of the couple and make up the celebration of marriage as a sacrament, as a sign of the realization of the just world of Go’d. It is not easy and takes a lot of patience and empathy to construct these personalized liturgies.

Celebrating Sunday Mass together with the congregation is a real celebration of the paschal mystery, if the congregation expresses prayers, thanks, and thoughts and personally contributes to enriching the liturgy. It is true that personal participation and personal formulation of prayers by the faithful do not spell out the correct grammar of the Christian faith. Often these prayers are the first personal articulation of one’s faith in public and these tries are shy, imperfect and unusual. Nevertheless, the authenticity of expressing from a personal faith-experience is unmatched and enriches the congregation. For me as presiding celebrations of the Eucharist in Austria, the most delicate point and the point of most caution concerns the Eucharistic prayer and the original composition of texts. To maintain continuity with the essential elements of a genuine Judeo-Christian tradition of liturgy is a valid claim. This claim is valid in Europe as in India or elsewhere. Expressing the Christian thanksgiving in liturgical forms used in the Indian culture is a valid claim. The principle of the Indian bishops’ conference, and certainly the principle of the Catholic Magisterium in Rome, to “maintain the structure of the new Roman Eucharistic prayers” according to Sacrosanctum Concilium 23, in my eyes does not help to empower the participating Christians to celebrate the Paschal mystery in their cultural contexts. It is ok and important that, in 1968, Rome published three new Eucharistic prayers and made several changes in the Roman canon itself and thus opened the way for composing new Eucharistic prayers (Kaczynski 2004, 139). If the Eucharistic prayers express the faith of the participating congregation, everything is ok. If the faithful do not understand the prayers because they are not informed and were not involved in the creative process of their making, liturgy is not celebrating the paschal mystery.

Fourth Chapter

Sacrosanctum Concilium 83–101 deal with the Divine office. Sacrosanctum Concilium 83 recalls Jesus Christ, the high priest, continuing his priestly work by praying the canticle; the language turns pathetical. Jesus prayed the Psalms; he prayed to the Father, and we pray the canticle and sing hymns of praise. We may pray because Jesus Christ called us to prayer. Jesus Christ brought salvation that is love, forgiveness of sins and prayer to the world and invites us to follow and forgive sins, love and pray. If I pray with Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, I would like to use the words and language games of my Umwelt. Yes, incessant prayer is a grace and Jesus told us to do so but in the sense that all aspects of our life in the existence of time be brought up before Go’d. We should praise the Lord, when we make love and enjoy sex as the example of Tobit and Sarah teach us. The Second Vatican Council does not speak of sex because talking about sex is a taboo. Let us exclude exclusion, let us stop splitting off experiences and realities that belong to our lives but are still held as being something dirty and not human. Without sex, there would be no humanity. We pray with Jesus Christ. We also pray to Jesus Christ as our Lord, and we pray through Jesus Christ to the father.

Despite all the descriptions of the Divine Office in Sacrosanctum Concilium 83–86, I ask, what is the divine office realizing? Is it a celebration or a recitation (Sacrosanctum Concilium 95)? Does it “perform the public prayer of the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 98)? Sacrosanctum Concilium 99 claims, “The divine office is the voice of the Church that is of the whole mystical body publicly praising God”, but in reality, it constantly addresses clerics and priests with their duties performing the divine office. The clerics and priests do not constitute “the whole mystical body” of the Church. Where is the laity? Sacrosanctum Concilium 84 timidly allows the laity to pray with the divine office on condition that “the faithful pray together with the priest in the approved form”.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 85 speaks of standing “before Go’d’s throne” when we pray with the Divine office. In 2011 I am thinking of the men, women and queer who in this moment get tortured and killed in some place in Syria and I am thinking of the young girls that in this moment get violated, that are forced into marriage or killed by members of Boko Haram in the Sub-Saharan desert. They rather feel annihilated and in despair like Jesus at the cross and they do not feel like standing “before a throne”. Liturgists, as theologians in general, easily escape reality and do not think about the fragility of the suffering and the poor on this earth.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 87–90 speak of a reform of the Divine office, and Sacrosanctum Concilium 91–93 speak of the parts of the Divine office. Reforming the hours of the prayers, shortening the readings and concentrating on the “Lauds as morning prayer and Vespers as evening prayer” did not change the fact that the divine office today is experienced as an element of a lifestyle that is bygone. Kaczynski laments the Council’s inability to create a divine office for stressed clerics that are absorbed by their pastoral duties and desire a rest for spiritual regeneration and time for personal prayer (Kaczynski 2004, 173). The Council kept treating the priests like monks in monasteries and not as pastors in a noisy, busy, and demanding world. The Divine office does not function any more as “a source of nourishment for personal prayer” as Sacrosanctum Concilium 90 claims. The social reality of modern priests and pastors and the recitation of Psalms, the prophets and Moses, the Gospel and Church fathers and saints does not match with the needs of distressed priests. Less prescribed reading and more individual meditation would lead to renewal of spiritual strength and regeneration of energy.

Kaczynski describes the stubbornness of the Jesuit Josef Andreas Jungmann from the University of Innsbruck, who insisted in the Liturgical Commission of the Second Vatican Council on the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours. He pleaded for an adaptation of the Divine office and suggested a prayer in the morning and a prayer in the evening but most important of all, half an hour of daily personal prayer and meditation (ibid). The Liturgical Commission did not consider the needs of priests living the rhythms of modern life. In the pre-industrial ages of a predominantly agricultural economy, living without electricity and machines, there was plenty of time for prayers, when it was physically impossible to continue the hard labor routine. Neither the Liturgical Commission nor the Council understood these deep and fundamental changes in the lifestyle of the priests. Adaptation to these new conditions of life failed.

Fifth Chapter, Sixth Chapter and Seventh Chapter

Sacrosanctum Concilium 102–111 is on the liturgical year. The Church celebrates “every week, on the day which she has called the Lord’s Day”, “the memory of the Lord’s resurrection, which she also celebrates once in the year, together with His blessed passion, in the most solemn festival of Easter. Within the cycle of a year, moreover, she unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the incarnation and birth until the ascension, the day of Pentecost, and the expectation of blessed hope and of the coming of the Lord” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 102). In this “annual cycle of Christ’s mysteries”, the Church “honors the Blessed Mary” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 103), “proclaims the paschal mystery achieved in the saints” and martyrs (Sacrosanctum Concilium 104), and “completes the formation of the faithful by means of pious practices for soul and body, by instruction, prayer, and works of penance and of mercy” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 105).

The paschal mystery was recognized as the center of the mystery of Christ from the beginning of the Christian communities. From the second century on, the celebration of the paschal mystery at Easter is documented (Kaczynski 2004, 181). From the third century on, the celebrations of incarnation, nativity, ascension, Pentecost and more high feasts were institutionalized in the liturgical year (ibid). They unfold the mystery of Christ. Due to many cultural factors, circumstances and an understanding of the events of salvation as given historic facts, the celebration of the paschal mystery as a celebration of faith was covered up by celebrating historic facts of salvation. Kaczynski speaks of these celebrations of the high feasts as holy memorials realized by the liturgy (ibid). He does not insist on the faith of the individual faithful as foundation of the celebration of the liturgy. Kaczynski does not dispute the faith of Jesus Christ in his Father and the realization of this faith through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by the salvific will of Go’d. It is also clear for the liturgist that the Second Vatican Council tries to come back to an understanding of liturgy as celebrations of the faith by the faithful. Yet the faith of the individual woman, man and queer does not receive the attention as a social choice of the individual and as a realization by the individual.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 103 honors the “Blessed Mary” as a model of faith in Go’d and service of Jesus Christ. The mystery of incarnation joins her with Christ (ibid). The “martyrs and other saints” are joined to Christ by the paschal mystery; they have suffered with Christ and are glorified with him (ibid). In my eyes our times testify to a multitude of women, men and queer martyrs and saints who suffer and suffered with Christ realizing with him the just world of Go’d despite persecution, torture and death. Not documenting, honoring and memorizing these bearers of Christ in our contemporary world discriminates their dignity, freedom and rights as women, men and queer who are created images of Go’d. The national bishops’ conferences are free to establish the names of women, men and queer who are testimonies of Christ but not officially canonized as saints or beatified and who may receive liturgical veneration (Kaczynski 2004, 187). Some men and women who have been testimonies of Christ and martyrs during the Nazi terror regime in Austria over fifty years after the end of World War II have finally received this recognition by the bishops and a few were also officially beatified by Rome.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 106 once again claims that the celebration of the Paschal mystery on Sunday “is the foundation and kernel of the whole liturgical year” and other celebrations (of the sacraments for example), “shall not have precedence over the Sunday”. The Council announces a revision of the liturgical year according to the principles of Sacrosanctum Concilium 37–40 (Sacrosanctum Concilium 107). The feasts of the Lord have prevalence over the feasts of saints and martyrs (Sacrosanctum Concilium 108). “The season of Lent” prepares for baptism and recalls penance (Sacrosanctum Concilium 109), during Lent penance should be encouraged (Sacrosanctum Concilium 110) and the local Churches should celebrate the feasts of the saints that are of special importance to a particular region, nation or religious family (Sacrosanctum Concilium 111). The realization of this principle earned the Church after the Council much confusion, anger and trouble (Kaczynski 2004, 187). Many Catholics experienced the reduction of obligatory feasts of the saints as an outright abolition of the honoring of saints and even as the deprivation of sainthood at all (ibid). The intention of the Council is to “extend to the universal Church” only those feasts “which commemorate saints who are truly of universal importance” (Sacrosanctum Conclium 111).

Sacrosanctum Concilium 112–121 are on sacred music. Sacred music is holy to the Church. Sacrosanctum Concilium 119 encourages the mission countries to use their music traditions in liturgy, overcome the traditional euro centrism also in music, but “the texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 121). There is no word of attention for contemporary music for the liturgy, be it pop, rock, classic, folk or traditional. The problem that the Roman Catholic Church till the beginning of the 20th century cultured castrates as celebrated singers in the liturgies for example in the Sistine Chapel is neither remembered or commented on by Sacrosanctum Concilium nor by Kazcysnki.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 122–130 are on sacred art and furnishings. Sacrosanctum Concilium 122 provides for the insurance “that sacred furnishings should be dignified and beautiful”. There is no critique of the pomp of Rome’s golden furnishings. I suppose that there were no bishops from Japan and Asia in the commission to point again at the modesty in their culture’s worship rites and modest wooden temples. Sacrosanctum Concilium 123 praises the “great men” who produced sacred art. There is no word and no wish to have great women artists in the Church. Sacrosanctum Concilium 124–25 institutes the censoring of the artists by the bishops. Sacrosanctum Concilium 130 restricts the use of “pontifical insignia” and we hear from Kaczynski that in 1986 politicians and cardinals intervened with success in Rome for an exception of this article 130 (Kaczynski 2004, 197). They demanded that the provost of the Cathedral Altötting in Bavaria, Germany and his successors have the right to wear a miter on their head again (ibid). Other articles of desire are the crook, the pectoral cross, the ring and the pileolus, that is the skull cap and reserved for the pope and the bishops. It is an absurd and surrealistic spectacle to see these bishops and prelates insist on ritual insignias, colors and dressings for strutting around in liturgical celebrations that turn the paschal mystery into a catwalk of rutting peacocks.