Rubrics

RUBRICS. - I. NOTION. - By "rubrics," in the liturgical sense, are meant the prescriptions that regulate the conduct of the Church's worship. They are found either gathered together in special books (e.g., the Caeremoniale episcoporum and the Memoriale rituum), or grouped at the beginning of the liturgical books (as in the Missal, the Breviary and the Martyrology), or at the beginning of the individual parts or tituli (as in the Ritual, before the rite of each Sacrament and of the blessings), or, finally, inserted between one formula and another. To distinguish the texts better from the norms that regulated their use, in the codices the norms began to be written in red; hence rubricae.

In classical Rome, "rubrica" was the name of an earth which, mixed with water, served carpenters for drawing lines or making marks at the point where the wood had to be cut with the saw (cf. Horace, Sat., 2, 7, 98). The copyists of legislative collections used it to write the titles of the laws in red. From the titles the name passed to designating the law itself. Juvenal recalls this when he writes: Perlege rubras maiorum leges (Sat. 14). In the field of ecclesiastical law too, "rubrica" later indicated the title and the brief summary prefixed to the individual canons. From canon law the term passed to the liturgy, probably when, for greater practicality, the formulas of the Sacramentaries, Lectionaries, Graduals, etc. were gathered into one and the same volume, the directive norms were written in red and the text in black, and the name "rubric" ended up indicating liturgical laws in general, even when they were regularly written in black.

II. FORMATION

The first rubrics (or rather ritual norms), very simple, as the rites themselves were very simple, must have been transmitted orally. The Sacramentaries already contain some rubrical indications in embryonic form. In fact the Gelasian has 67 of them, the Gregorian, in its primitive core, 26, while the Leonine has none. The Roman Ordines (v.), which are the first systematic rubrical collections of the Latin Church, constitute true and proper ceremonials. In the Ordo of Haymo of Faversham (d. 1244), minister general of the Franciscans, well known in liturgical history, the expression rubrica Ordinarii is found six times. The word had by then passed from the juridical field to the liturgical one. More frequent is the use of rubrica for Ordo or Ordinarium: for example, Incipit Rubrica sive Ordo per circulum anni secundum consuetudinem Ecclesiae civitatis Austriae... And again: Hec Rubrica sive Ordo est qualiter et quo tempore episcopi...

The Friars Minor used the term in this sense. Thus the Rubrica Parisiensis is a true Ordo for the special antiphons before Christmas, published in 1263 by order of the General Chapter of Pisa (Arch. franc. hist., 4 [1911], p. 69). Three years later the Chapter of Paris recommended observance of the Ordo of Haymo: Uniformiter se habeant (fratres) secundum Ordinationem et rubricam illum... Indutus planeta. This sense persisted until after the middle of the fourteenth century, when we are informed that Haymo fecit illum rubricam de agendis in massa (Anal. Franc., 3 [1887], p. 247). But certain Franciscan statutes of Aquitaine at the end of the thirteenth century still say, even more generically: In divino officio servetur rubrica et cantus Ecclesiae Romanae (Arch. franc. hist., 7 [1914], p. 475). So the two meanings, generic and specific, were used interchangeably in the second half of the fourteenth century (against the opinion of Vykoukal, s. v. Rubriben, in I.T.M. VIII, coll. 1032-33, according to whom the term r. would not appear before the fourteenth century). It may be added that St. Bonaventure, minister general of the Franciscans from 1260 to 1272, refers various times to the rubrics, understood in the twofold sense. Haymo himself in the Ordo Breviarii knows the term in the modern sense.

In conclusion, the double terminology goes back at least to the first half of the thirteenth century. Erroneous too is the opinion, frequent among modern authors, of assigning to St. Pius V the general collections of rubrics (rubricae generale). Already the Oxford codex (Bodleian Library, shelfmark Can. miscell. 75) in the second half of the fourteenth century calls the Franciscan Ordinationes: Rubricae de modo officii ecclesiastici. In 1481 Philip of Rotingo published the Rubricae ad informandos pusillos. In the same year, at Venice, Francesco Ranner printed a Roman Breviary with the Rubricae declaratoriae seu correctoriae. Not to mention the Rubricae novae, pointed out by G. Mercati (v. op. cit. in bibl.). From this period matters move swiftly toward the meaning, afterward retained, of the term and toward the official general and particular collections of the unified liturgy. The typical editions of the ritual books of the Latin liturgy, that is the Breviary (1568), Missal (1570), Martyrology (1583), Pontifical (1598), Ceremonial of Bishops (1600), Ritual (1614), were corrected with abundant general and particular rubrics. Their interpretation and updating were entrusted by Sixtus V to the S. Congr. of Rites (1587). In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries the rubrics of the liturgical books were the object of careful and extensive studies by good liturgists such as Gavanti, Merati, Quarti, Cavalieri, Bauldry (then A Carpo, de Herdt, Martinucci, Menghini, Baldeschi, Moretti, Le Vasasseur-Haegy), who laid the foundations of liturgical law.

III. DIVISION

1. On the basis of their object, the rubrics are divided into: a) essential, which are those that belong to the essence of a rite and on whose observance the validity of the act performed depends; b) accidental, which are the rubrics concerning ceremonies introduced by the Church, generally not required for validity, but for the lawfulness of the act, as in Baptism the exorcisms, the renunciations, the white garment, the burning lamp.

2. According to their extent, the rubrics are: a) general, and they constitute, as it were, the fundamental principles, to be applied to all the ceremonies contained in a given liturgical book; b) special, those that regulate the performance of a particular ceremony or rite.

3. On the basis of their obligatory character, the rubrics are: a) preceptive, if they strictly prescribe something or are indispensable for the performance of a rite; b) directive, if they propose something per modum consilii or leave the freedom to choose between two ways of acting or between performing and not performing an action. Directive rubrics are also called optional.

IV. OBLIGATORY NATURE

For centuries moralists and liturgists (rubricists) have debated the question whether all the rubrics bind in conscience, and to what extent.

For an objective examination of the question it must be premised: the rubrics are true laws and as such they bind (CIC, can. 818); consequently they necessarily fall within the sphere of morality, like every human act, and they admit of a gradation of goodness and of responsibility. The question can therefore be put in these terms: a) the essential rubrics are evidently preceptive. What is at stake is the essence and therefore the validity of the liturgical act, which cannot be frustrated (the gravity must be computed according to moral principles, regarding the matter, the moral imputability of the fault, etc.). When an accidental rubric does not state openly whether or not it is optional, nor can this be inferred from other elements, then the presumption stands on the side of the law, and it must be held that the rubric binds in conscience. This is proved: a) from the mind of the Church: the Council of Trent (sess. VII, c. 13) says: « Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbatos Ecclesiae Catholicae ritus... sine peccato a ministro pro libito suo omitti, aut contemni, aut in novos alios per quemcumque ecclesiarum pastorem mutari posse: anathema sit » (cf. Rituale romanum, tit. I, 1, 2). The pontifical constitutions placed at the beginning of the liturgical books: « districte », « in virtute sanctae obedientiae praecipium », « auctoritate apostolica decernunt », « iubent » « mandant », etc. are expressions that manifest the evident will of the Church that those norms and those formulas be observed for the unity and purity of worship. The Sacred Congregation of Rites itself has repeatedly reaffirmed and continues to reaffirm the same mind, serventur rubricae, iuxta Caeremoniale [Episcoporum], standum Rituali, mandat... in omnibus et per omnia servari rubrica Missalis. The Cathechismus ad parochos (II, 1, 18) states: « Caeremoniae... praetermitti sine peccato non possunt »; and the Roman Council of 1725 (tit. 15, c. 1): « Ritus qui in minimis etiam sine peccato negligi, omitti vel mutari haud possunt, peculiari studio ac diligentia serventur »; b) from the nature of the rubrics, fixed so that no doubt may remain about the validity of the Sacrament and so that the door may not be opened to arbitrariness and laxism. Only if the rite (ceremonies and formulas) of the Church is observed does the liturgy constitute her official worship; c) from the common opinion of the Doctors, who with St. Alphonsus say that the rubrics are preceptive.

These reasons lead one to hold that the rubrics, even if accidental, taken as a whole are preceptive and bind; but it cannot be asserted that taken individually they have the same force; indeed some of them cannot in any way admit of fault (such as the rubric of the Missal Rit. serv. I, 3 which prescribes that the celebrant put his right arm first and then his left into the alb when vesting). It may even happen that in matters of lesser account, with the passage of time, some custom has been introduced which the authority approves either directly or indirectly, and thus the new fact, having become legitimate, changes the obligatory nature of the rubric.

V. INTERPRETATION

To know whether a rubric is preceptive or not, it is necessary to examine: a) the terms in which it is formulated; b) the matter, that is, whether it belongs to the essence or integrity of the Sacrament or of the function, whether it touches the fundamental principles of the liturgy or is basic for the doctrinal sense or the symbolic meaning; c) the declarations, if any exist, given by the Sacred Congregation of Rites; d) the opinions of the probati auctores of liturgy and of moral theology.

Annibale Bugnini