Arinze warns against Mass liturgical dance

THE former Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship has warned
Asia’s bishops against liturgical dance which he said distracts from
the purpose of Mass – worship, thanksgiving and forgiveness.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, who served as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002 to 2008, warned the bishops of Asia in an August 16 homily against liturgical “idiosyncracies” and false conceptions of inculturation.
Preaching in Manila at the closing Mass of the plenary assembly of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), Cardinal Arinze – Pope Benedict XVI’s special envoy to the meeting – exhorted the continent’s bishops to follow the Church’s norms for liturgical inculturation.
He urged this to be done so that “the local Church will be spared questionable or downright mistaken innovations and idiosyncracies of some enthusiastic cleric whose fertile imaginations invents something on Saturday night and whose uninformed zeal forces this innovation on the innocent congregation on Sunday morning”.
“Dance in particular needs to be critically examined because most dances draw attention to the performers and offer enjoyment,” he said. “People come to Mass, not for recreation but, to adore God, to praise and thank him, to ask pardon for their sins, and to request other spiritual and temporal needs. The monasteries may be of help in how graceful body movements can become prayer.”
Encouraging bishops to foster Eucharistic adoration and reverence, he said: “Adoration manifests itself in such gestures in genuflection, deep bow, kneeling, prostration and silence in the presence of the Lord. “Asian cultures have a deep sense of the sacred and transcendent. Reverence in Asia to civil authorities sometimes shows itself in clasped hands, kneeling, bows, prostration and walking away while facing a dignitary,”  he said. “It should not be too difficult to bring and elevate this cultural value to honour our Eucharistic Jesus. The fashion in some parts of the world of not installing kneelers in churches should not be copied by the Church in Asia.”
After praising Asian cultures’ sense of the sacred, Cardinal urged observance of liturgical norms.
He said the way in which Holy Communion is distributed should be clearly indicated and monitored and individual idiosyncracies should not be allowed.
“In the Latin Rite, only concelebrating priests take Holy Communion. Everyone else is given, be the person cleric or lay,” he said. “It is not right that the priest discard any of the vestments just because the climate is hot or humid. If necessary, the Bishop can arrange the use of lighter cloth.
“It is altogether unacceptable that the celebrant will opt for local dress in the place of universally approved Mass vestments, or use baskets, or wine glasses to distribute the Holy Eucharist. This is inculturation wrongly understood.It is the tradition of the Church that during the Mass the readings are taken only from Holy Scriptures. Not even the writings of the Saints or Founders of Religious Orders are admitted. It is clear that the books of other religions are excluded, no matter how inspiring a particular text may be.”
The conference also discussed the Church’s problems in Asia, including inter-religious marriages where the Catholic converts to the spouse’s religion, smaller seminary numbers and violence against Christians.
Philippine Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, FABC secretary general, said Asian bishops had reported difficulty in recruiting young men to the priesthood due to poverty and the secularization of society.
He said that the FABC was also preparing a document on the “endemic corruption in countries in Asia, not just the Philippines but corruption in most of the governments of Asia”, AFP reported.
The FABC represents Asian dioceses in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.