SIR.—In his review of Mr. Anson's recent book (Spectator, April
22) Mr. Waugh has sounded a note of warning. There is, it seems, 'a fashion among Catholics, particularly in France and the USA, to ape the external austerities of Calvinism—vernacular prayers, evening communions, relaxed fasting, the emphasis on congregational corporate participation in the mysteries . . . etc.'
Most of us know this fashion as the liturgical movement and we know that some of the features enumerated by Mr. Waugh have become so fashion- able as to be taken up by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in the decree of September 3, 1958.
It is fairly funny that Mr. Waugh should regard relaxed fasting as a Calvinist austerity, but not so strange as his suggestion that the idea of saying Mass facing the congregation is due to television. The Eastern rites on the whole have eschewed this custom but according to the Roman Missal (Rims servandi, V.3) the priest may either stand in the same direction as the people or he may face them across the altar (as he does in the Roman basilicas). This Missal was authorised w' • 'iardly any thought of television by St. Pius V. Urnan VIII and Clement VIM—Yours faithfully,
HERBERT MCCABE
Previous page
