The following is a guest post by Dante Figueroa, Senior Legal Information Analyst.
Recently this blog highlighted various religious law materials in the Law Library’s collections, including our extensive canon law collection. There have been some important developments in the canon law area this year. These developments relate to the implementation of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum concerning the use of the Roman Liturgy by the Catholic Church.
On April 30, 2011, the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (Church of God) at the Vatican issued an “Instruction” containing guidelines on the application of the Apostolic Letter “Summorum Pontificum” issued by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. This Apostolic Letter aimed to clarify matters relating to the use of a Roman Liturgy that was published in 1962.
The main pillars of the Catholic Church are: the Creed, Sacraments/Liturgy, Christian Life, and Prayer. The liturgy of the Catholic Church is called “the Roman Liturgy” (also called “the Roman Rite”) and is “the whole complex of official services, all the rites, ceremonies, prayers, and sacraments of the Church, as opposed to private devotions.” At the center of the Roman Liturgy is the Holy Eucharist (Mass), which is regulated in canons 897 through 958 of the Corpus Juris Canonici (or Code of Canon Law).
The Roman Liturgy is contained in the sacred liturgical books, of which the ancient Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) “has enjoyed a particular prominence in history.” This book contains the prayers said by the priest at the altar as well as “all that is officially read or sung in connection with the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the