Roman Missal is Now Approved

Cardinal Francis George, OMI, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB], announced today the United States Bishops have received the final text of the Roman Missal. While the Order of Mass was approved in 2008, this marks the completion of the entire Roman Missal for the dioceses of the United States.

The approved text, previously available online, has some slight changes, according to a letter from the Bishops' Committee on Divine Worship Secretariat. These changes are:

• the words of absolution in the Penitential Act have been modified (so that the text of the current Sacramentary is maintained);
• the addition of "I believe" at three points in the Profession of faith;
• several slight modifications to the texts of the Eucharistic Prayers;
• the final doxology of the Eucharistic Prayer has been slightly altered.

In addition, it has been announced that the popular Memorial Acclamation, "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again," is no longer an option in the Order of Mass. This had been an American adaptation to the 1985 Roman Missal and the inclusion of this acclamation had been in doubt since it was not in the Latin typical edition.

The Missal will be available for use in Advent 2011. The study text will be posted on the USCCB website soon at www.usccb.org/romanmissal.

A more complete article from Catholic News Service is available here.

Our own diocesan workshops for priests and parish leaders will begin next week and discuss the Roman Missal in detail. Go to www.madisondiocese.org/romanmissal for more information.