Old rite return ‘only a first step'

Old rite return ‘only a first step'

THE TABLET

3 February 2012

The President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, said last week that Pope Benedict XVI's readmission of the celebration of the Mass in the pre-conciliar "extraordinary form" was only a "first step" in liturgical renewal.
Speaking at a conference on Joseph Ratzinger's theology at Freiburg im Breisgau, Cardinal Koch said the time for further steps was "not yet ripe" as liturgical issues were still fraught with "ideology", particularly in Germany.
But he said accusations that Pope Benedict wanted to go back to pre-conciliar liturgical practice "cause the Pope suffering," he said, as the opposite was in fact the case.
He also added that not everything that was liturgical practice today was based on council texts.