Paix liturgique

Pope Leo XIV dedicated his catechesis of August 26 to the unprecedented benefits of the liturgical reform: it is almost unbelievable to hear the same speeches from 60 years ago praising an inconsistent, flat and flattening reform. And a reform that goes on and on...

Because, as we saw two weeks ago, the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council, by its very nature, cannot be completed. It continues to advance, because its principle of adaptation to the people of our time demands it. And yet, to prevent it from getting out of hand, warnings are issued regularly. Warnings that do not impede always more advancements…

Today, the most radical extreme group, from an ecclesiological, and therefore liturgical, point of view, is German Catholicism. Contrary to what many commentators repeat, on this front, there is no real risk of an open “schism”, an old term reserved exclusively for the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Rome does not want it, and the Church in Germany even less so. As in similar cases, a power struggle is being waged, or rather, in other terms, a particularly energic negotiation. A complex game is thus unfolding between the Holy See and the German bishops, most of whom support the Synodal Way.

On July 7, Rome made a gesture by appointing Bishop Würtz, auxiliary bishop of Freiburg im Breisgau, a decidedly progressive figure, as the successor to Bishop Hanke of Eichstätt, who had reached retirement age and was one of the few bishops opposing the Synodal Way.

This appointment came at an opportune moment to mitigate the impact. In fact, on June 17, the Dicastery for Divine Worship, headed by Cardinal Roche, had rejected a request from Bishop Heiner Wilmer, president of the German Bishops' Conference, for an indult that would allow designated lay people, under certain circumstances, to deliver the homily, thus replacing the priest or deacon. Rome responded that the homily was reserved to ordained ministers: bishops, priests, and deacons. The homily constitutes an exercise of the munus docendi entrusted to ministers ordained by the sacrament of Holy Orders.

However, one might ask why lay people have the right to distribute Communion but not to deliver the homily. First, we must agree on what constitutes a homily. And it is a point of fact that many speeches during the celebration bear a striking resemblance to a homily. One may even grant that the speech given by transvestite Murray Ramirez during a "gay Eucharist" on July 13 at St. John the Evangelist Church in the Diocese of San Diego, USA, was not exactly a homily. The Mass was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Ramon Bejarano and its theme was "All Are Welcome." However, the speeches given by lay people in charge of funerals in many dioceses are, in fact, very similar to sermons. And it must be said that there is little distinction between the addresses made by lay people, men or women, responsible for organizing the liturgy, and those of a permanent deacon.

Furthermore, in Germany, the paid pastoral agents who play an increasingly important role in the liturgy due to the shortage of priests are not about to be silenced. A pastoral agent in Cologne warned against—an admirable expression—any “hasty obedience” (Golias, July 9, 2026, p. 4). May God deliver us from “hasty obedience”!

Likewise, in Switzerland, the Bishops’ Conference immediately indicated that preaching by “lay people with a mandate to serve the Church” is possible during the Liturgy of the Word, and that during the Eucharistic liturgy, these lay people may offer “meditations.”

In the United States, Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington authorized lay people, often women, to offer a monthly “commentary” during the Eucharist at the Jesuit parish of Holy Trinity in Georgetown.

Furthermore, the president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Wilmer, plans to travel to Rome soon to discuss the issue of lay homilies. It will be pointed out that they were permitted in Germany between 1974 and 1983, and that the withdrawal of this permission during the pontificates of John Paul II and Ratzinger did not significantly alter the situation.

In short, nothing is definitive. Didn't Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State, declare to Civiltà Cattolica on March 13, 2023: “The synodal path is making decisions that do not correspond exactly to the current doctrine of the Church”? “Not exactly” orthodox, no less, and of course “currently”…

A homily delivered by laypeople is certainly not the gravest of the disorders going on nowadays. But we see how this element of the liturgy is treated as a variable susceptible to adjustment, elastic enough to preserve more important doctrinal points.

Might we therefore conclude that today the liturgy is seen as adjustable, but not orthodoxy? Not quite, perhaps… The Pope himself, on July 30, 2025, told journalist Elise Allen: “People want the Church doctrine to change, [they] want attitudes to change.” However, he said, “attitudes and mindsets must shift before any consideration of changing the Church's formal teachings. I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the church's doctrine in terms of what the church teaches about sexuality, what the Church teaches about marriage, [will change]”(See Catholic Renaissance, “Quo vadis Domine?”, July 16, 2026). It is “highly unlikely” that the Church’s doctrine on marriage will change “in the near future”…

How important, then, is our vigilant prayer in these times of extreme crisis, in which we are represented by the Parisian Catholics who pray the rosary, 10 rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame, Monday to Friday, from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Saint-Georges de La Villette, 114 avenue Simon Bolivar, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:00 p.m., in front of Notre-Dame du Travail, on Sundays at 6:15 p.m.