On August 15, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria published a letter On Abuses in Liturgical Celebrations. The letter is addressed to “all Catholic priests in Nigeria” and is signed by Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, the Conference President, Bishop Augustine Ndubueze Echema, chairman of the liturgy committee and Bishop Donatus Aihmiosion Ogun general secretary of the Conference.
The letter lists a series of abuses that priests are admonished to avoid. These include general abuses, such as “deviations from the prescribed prayers and rubrics of the Mass” and some that seem to be more local, such as “walking down the aisle while carrying the monstrance during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and blessing the people, using gestures akin to sprinkling of holy water.”
The letter reminded me of the Redemptionis Sacramentum, the 2004 Instruction, which the Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze published when he was Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. However, this new letter is much shorter, has no footnotes and fits on both sides of a single page.
I have no real experience of practical liturgical matters in the African context, and, to be honest, I would be surprised if a letter of a similar tone was to be published in a US or Irish context. I cannot see priests in these countries appreciating the style of the correction. Additionally, I found it quite unusual that in this letter from the Bishops Conference, went so far as to address the bishops themselves in paragraph 4 exhorting them to “take immediate and decisive action” to correct the mentioned liturgical abuses.
Yet while the tone of the letter might not be accepted in the context of other nations, it is good to see an example of care for the liturgy and it should encourage all of us to take more care of the liturgy and endeavor to root out any improper practices that may have crept into our celebrations.
Cover art: Igbo Roman Catholics in Our Lady of Angels Cathedral, Los Angeles, California, from Wikimedia Commons
