✣ Vatican intervenes in ad orientem debate
What happened?
The Vatican has downplayed Cardinal Robert Sarah’s calls for ad orientem worship.
Cardinal Sarah, the Vatican’s liturgy chief, had invited priests to celebrate ad orientem, that is, facing eastwards rather than towards the congregation. The cardinal suggested priests begin doing so from the first Sunday in Advent. But after Cardinal Sarah had an audience with the Pope, a Vatican statement said that the cardinal’s remarks did not signify any “new, different indications” on liturgy.
