This collection of papers given at the 2016 Sacra Liturgia Conference offers an important glimpse into the thinking of those who support a “reform of the reform” for the Roman Catholic liturgy. Evident in each contribution is care about and reverence for the liturgy of the church. Contributors raise good questions about excessive verbalization in the current liturgy (Charbal Pazat de Lys 43) and about how the principles enunciated in Sacrosanctum Concilium §1 themselves support the idea that the reformed liturgy should not be regarded as eternally written in stone (Stephen Bullivant 104).

In other places, however, writers offer claims that run counter to the facts. For example, in his essay Cardinal Robert Sarah (as of this writing the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments) avers, regarding liturgical translations in the 1970s, that “we know that some of this work was done too quickly, meaning that today we have to revise the translations to render them more faithful to the original Latin” (13). Sarah says nothing about the well-known fact that these translations were never intended to be permanent, nor does he say anything about the ill-fated 1998 ICEL Sacramentary, which was more than a decade in the making and which was rejected by the Vatican prior to the promulgation of Liturgiam Authenticam. As an aside, it is worth noting that on the subject of translation of the Liturgy of the Hours, Alan Hopes writes that “complicated, convoluted phrases should, whenever possible, be avoided” (149). One wonders why convoluted or awkward translations should ever be deemed acceptable.

In places, writers offer claims that are not well substantiated. Pazat de Lys writes approvingly of a directive issued by the president of the Philippines Bishops’ Conference reminding Catholics to kneel after the Sanctus; Pazat de Lys contends that this directive promotes piety in the hearts of the faithful (50). This may well be true, but standing can also connote and express piety and reverence. Helmut Hoping argues that celebrating the liturgy ad orientem highlights the sense of eschatological expectation (30). This may or may not be true but, in any case, just three pages earlier Hoping writes that the memorial acclamations of the reformed Mass draw attention to the Parousia. That observation clashes with the general tenor of this volume in favor of the unreformed liturgy. There are problems as well concerning the question of liturgical inculturation. Sarah downplays the use of the vernacular in inculturation (8), and Pazat de Lys writes about the “preoccupation” with inculturation (41–42).

David Fagerberg provides a fine essay on liturgy and social justice, but the essay by Michael Cullinan (“The Ethical Character of the Mysteries: Observations of a Moral Theologian”) directs attention to the sacrament of marriage in a way that sidesteps any treatment of poverty, social justice, or racism. Curiously, Cullinan states that it is in this sacrament that one sees “the main intersection between the moral and the liturgical” (60). He also states that there are only a few Catholic ethicists addressing liturgical concerns (63), but he names none and seems only somewhat familiar with the fact that the Society of Christian Ethics has a “Liturgy and Ethics” group.

Alcuin Reid provides a careful reading of the original intentions of those who approved Sacrosanctum Concilium, but his analysis fails to mention the papal endorsement of the work of the commission that subsequently interpreted and implemented the liturgy constitution in an address by Paul VI on November 19, 1969.

Finally, there is the matter of ecumenism. Sarah writes that the fathers at the Second Vatican Council were not intent on “authorizing the protestantization of the sacred liturgy” (7), and in a homily included in this volume, Keith Newton speaks quite disparagingly of Anglicanism (196). Neither of these writers expresses sentiments conducive to church unity.

I recommend this work to those who are interested in learning about the reform of the reform. I also recommend that this book be read in tandem with a work such as John Baldovin's Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008).