How’s that? “We believe” for the liturgical assembly?

Pope Benedict just released the motu proprio Porta fidei. These lines are found in it at no. 10:

Profession of faith is an act both personal and communitarian. It is the Church that is the primary subject of faith. In the faith of the Christian community, each individual receives baptism, an effective sign of entry into the people of believers in order to obtain salvation. As we read in theย Catechism of the Catholic Church: ” โ€˜I believeโ€™ is the faith of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during baptism. โ€˜We believeโ€™ is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers. โ€˜I believeโ€™ is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both โ€˜I believeโ€™ and โ€˜we believeโ€™.”

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Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., edits the blog, Pray Tell: Worship, Wit & Wisdom.

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25 responses to “How’s that? “We believe” for the liturgical assembly?”

  1. Alan Griffiths

    Well, well, well.

    It’s reassuring to know that the competent (sic) dicasteries of the Holy See are so successful in communicating with one another.

    Alan Griffiths.

    Reply
  2. Jack Rakosky

    With all the emphasis upon the Creed, my hope is that sometime during this โ€œeventโ€ at a local parish I will be able to sing the Creed.

    Does not matter if it is Latin or English, โ€œWeโ€ or โ€œI.

    I have not been able to recall any occasion at any parish since the Novus Ordo where I have heard the Creed sung.

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  3. Carl R. Opat

    Well maybe because it should be said by all not listened to.

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    1. Jack Rakosky

      Personally I prefer to sing the Creed rather than listening to others sing it; however I would prefer listening to others sing it rather than just saying it.

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      1. M. Jackson Osborn

        JR is right about singing the creed. It becomes very much more powerful as proclamation, and prayerful as act of faith. There is hardly a syllable of the mass (other than maybe the homily) which should not be sung or chanted.
        Those who don’t wish to/won’t sing may indulge themselves and remain silent. Their choice should not be forced on those who wish legitimately to express themselves in appropriately joyful song and chant. It is clearer than ever in the new missal that the Church’s wish is that the sung mass (all of it!) be normative.

  4. Ben Story

    When I was in High School and College I experienced the Creed sung and sung as a complete congregation. Singing is praying twice to me and the sung Creed is even more powerful than the recited one.

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  5. James Barrett

    It’s nice to know that we can say “I believe” and “We believe.”

    It’s also nice to know that we have our dear mother church, who knows best, to tell us when we should say “I” and when we should say “We”.

    Pray, Pay, and Obey!

    Reply
  6. Gregg Smith

    He probably doesn’t know it’s been changed.

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  7. Jeffrey Pinyan

    He’s quoting the Catechism, paragraph 167:

    ยซ Credo ยป: {Symbolum Apostolicum: DS 30} est fides Ecclesiae quam unusquisque credens personaliter profitetur, praesertim cum baptizatur. ยซ Credimus ยป: {Symbolum Nicaenum-Constantinopolitanum: DS 150 (in textu originali graeco)} est fides Ecclesiae quam Episcopi in Concilio profitentur congregati vel generalius quam liturgica credentium profitetur congregatio. ยซ Credo ยป: est etiam Ecclesia, Mater nostra quae Deo fide respondet sua nosque docet dicere: ยซ Credo ยป, ยซ Credimus ยป.

    “I believe” (Apostles’ Creed) is the faith of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during Baptism. “We believe” (Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers. “I believe” is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both “I believe” and “We believe”.

    The quote “Credimus” is quoting the Latin translation of the original Greek text of the Nicene Creed. The Latin text of the Nicene Creed used liturgically has “Credo”, not “Credimus”, so when the Catechism says that “‘We believe’ is the faith of the Church confessed […] more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers” it doesn’t seem to be saying that the Nicene Creed used at Mass begins with “We believe”, but that the assembly of believers saying “I believe” is in effect a “We believe.”

    Reply
    1. Jack Rakosky

      When โ€œmanyโ€ = โ€œallโ€ and โ€œIโ€ = โ€œWe,โ€ no wonder people think the Vatican follows its own rules and therefore make up their own minds about things.

      Reply
    2. Christian Cosas

      So, when we say, “I believe,” we really mean “We believe”; and when we stumble over “consubstantial,” we really mean “one in being with/of the same substance/one in essence with/homoouisian”; and when we sing the Creed, we imagine that all the people just standing and listening are reciting it out loud in their minds.

      Well, as they say, “lex orandi, lex pretendi.”

      Reply
    3. Jordan Zarembo

      Re: #9 by Jeffrey Pinyan on October 17, 2011 – 10:36 am

      I apologize Jeffrey for posting my later summary of the “I – We” distinction between the original Constantinoplian symbol and the liturgical creed. You did a better job of explaining the distinction.

      Still, I must again wonder: is the Catechism’s understanding of the “I – We” distinction a retrospective means to bridge the gap between different textual and liturgical traditions? The post-conciliar Catechism is predicated upon, and not contributory towards, the latter developments.

      Reply
      1. Jeffrey Pinyan

        Are there translations of the Pauline Missal where the Nicene Creed begins “I believe” (apart from the upcoming English translation)? Or was there a universal shift to the first person plural in the translation of “Credo” in the Nicene (but not Apostles’) Creed?

        If the former, I think the Catechism was attempting to bridge the gap between the two ways in which “Credo” was translated in the Nicene Creed. The fact that “credo” was translated as “we believe” in some languages served the Catechism well in that regard, providing an opportunity to look at the faith as “I believe” / “we believe”.

  8. Bill deHaas

    Think it is time for CCD class in the Vatican. Vox Clara should be required to attend.

    Reply
  9. Ralph Bremigan

    My pastor has been doing the Hard Sell on the new translation for several weeks. In discussing “I” vs “we” in the creed, the main revelation was the fact that he is unaware that many protestant churches use the Nicene Creed!

    I have also realized that from the congregation’s point of view, the “I” versus “we” is moot. The priest initiates recitation of the creed, and we are two or three words past the initial “I” or “we” before the congregation joins in.

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  10. Hugh Farey

    a propos of nothing much, I have been listening to Monsignor Wadsworth’s lecture on the new translation to Christendom College, available via http://christendom.edu/news/itunesu.php. It is a straightforward account of the affair, and not at all sensational either for what it reveals or conceals, but does contain the startling information that there are only three people in the world who have the nihil obstat to be Base Translators. Does anyone know their names? Or qualifications…

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    1. Karl Liam Saur

      St Jerome, St Gregory the Great and St Pius V?

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    2. Graham Wilson

      Whoever they are, they may wish to remain anonymous collaborators in a disedifying, obdurate process that produced an ecclesiastical, foreign “Butler” English that sounds insincere.

      Reply
  11. Jordan Zarembo

    The Nicene symbol of AD 381 begins with the first person plural ฯ€ฮนฯƒฯ„ฮตฯฮฟฮผฮตฮฝ (we believe), while the current recension of the Byzantine liturgy begins the Creed with the first person singular ฯ€ฮนฯƒฯ„ฮตฯฯ‰ (I believe). While the Mozabaric rite (at least in its early modern Latin recension) began the creed with the first person plural credimus, the Romans, like the (more recent?) Byzantines, have long begun the Creed with the first person singular, credo.

    Is not the 1st person plural “we” in the original Nicean symbol more consonant with at least the Roman eucharistic prayer tradition? After all, all of the verbs of the Roman Canon are pronounced by the priest in the first person plural, as if on behalf of the server or congregation.

    I would be interested to read secondary research on the interlace between the first person singular and first person plural in the Creed. I suspect that the wavering shifts over time are indicative of liturgical trends that cannot be discerned merely from comparing source texts.

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  12. Mark Hoggard

    (Sigh) I often wonder if Rome or the bishops even read what they write anymore.

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  13. Jack Feehily

    Surely I have misunderstood Jordan when he refers to the priest using the first person plural on behalf of the server or the congregation. The we refers to the church (and more particularly all who gathered for worship)which, united with Christ, is offering this Sacrifice of Praise.

    Reply
    1. Jeffrey Pinyan

      But the “we” of the Eucharistic Prayer, the Church united to Christ in the offering of the Eucharist, also refers to the particular manifestation of the whole Church in the gathered assembly.

      That’s what virtually every commentary (old and new) on the Eucharistic Prayer I’ve read has said.

      Reply
    2. Jordan Zarembo

      Re: #21 by Jack Feehily on October 17, 2011 – 3:50 pm

      When I wrote, “as if”, I meant “as if”.

      The breadth of human immersion in the Holy Sacrifice is entirely multiplex in comparison with a mere proletarian view of the divine Participation with the material world.

      Reply
  14. Martin Wallace OP

    Both the Apostles Creed (so-called) and the Nicene Creed (also so-called) were probably originally baptismal creeds. the lattrer was touched-up at Nicea and Constantinople, but as a baptismal creed probably began its life in the singular and was changed to the plural for its purpose of representing the faith of the bishops at the Council.

    There is a liturgical case for both singular and plural, and both are found even in the Western liturgical tradition (“Credimus” in the Mozarabic Rite, for example), but “our” liturgical tradition (Roman Rite) is to use the singular, “Credo in unum Deum.”) I think it’s as simple as that!

    Reply
  15. Jim McKay

    Liturgical tradition includes baptism, where ‘I believe’ is memorized by the elect as part of their preparation. Since that is a part of every Christian’s experience, except those baptized as infants, it is odd to use a different form at other liturgies.

    This passage from the catechism is not a stray thought that slipped in. It is fundamental to Part One Section One, which is entitled “I believe”—- “We believe”

    Reply

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