HEADWORD. – RUBRICS
I. Notion
By *rubrics*, in a liturgical sense, are meant the prescriptions that regulate the conduct of the Church’s worship. They are found either gathered in special books (e.g., the *Caeremoniale episcoporum* and the *Memoriale rituum*), or grouped at the beginning of liturgical books (as in the Missal, the Breviary, and the Martyrology), or at the beginning of individual parts or titles (as in the Ritual, before the rite of each Sacrament and of the blessings), or, finally, inscribed between one formula and another. To distinguish the texts from the norms that regulated their use more clearly, in manuscripts it was customary to write the norms in red; hence the term *rubrica*.In classical Rome, *rubrica* was the name given to a red earth which, when mixed with water, served carpenters to trace lines or make marks at the point where the wood had to be cut with a saw (cf. Horace, *Sat.*, 2, 7, 98). The compilers of legal collections used it to write the titles of laws in red. From the titles the name passed to designate the law itself. Juvenal recalls this when he writes: *Perlegre rubras maiorum leges* (*Sat.* 14). Even in ecclesiastical canon law, *rubrica* later indicated the title and the brief summary prefixed to individual canons. From canon law the term passed into liturgy, probably when, for greater practicality, the formulas of Sacramentaries, Lectionaries, Graduals, etc. were gathered into a single volume, the directive norms were written in red and the text in black, and the name *rubrica* ended up designating liturgical laws in general, even when they were regularly written in black.
II. Formation
The earliest *rubrics* (or rather ritual norms), as simple as the rites themselves, must have been transmitted orally. The Sacramentaries already contain, in embryonic form, some rubrical indications. Indeed, the Gelasian has 67, the Gregorian, in its primitive form, 26, while the Leonian has none. The Roman *Ordines* (v.), which are the first systematic rubrical collections of the Latin Church, constitute true ceremonial books. In the *Ordo* of Aymo 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 then passed from the juridical to the liturgical field. The use of *rubrica* for *Ordo ordinarium* is even more frequent: 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 Aymo: *Uniformiter se habeant (fratres) secundum Ordinationem et rubricam illam... Indutus planeta*. This sense persisted until after the mid-fourteenth century, when it is recorded that *Aymo fecit illam rubricam de agendis in missa* (*Anal. Franc.*, 3 [1887], p. 247). Yet certain Franciscan statutes of Aquitaine at the end of the 1200s still say more generally: *In divino officio servetur rubrica et cantus Ecclesiae Romanae* (*Arch. franc. hist.*, 7 [1914], p. 475). Thus in the second half of the 1300s the two meanings, generic and specific, were used indiscriminately (contrary to the opinion of Vykoukal, s.V. *Rubriken*, in *LThK*, VIII, cols. 1032-33, according to whom the term *rubrica* would not appear before 1300). It may be added that St. Bonaventure, Minister General of the Franciscans from 1260 to 1272, repeatedly refers to *rubrics* understood in both senses. Aymo himself in the *Ordo Breviarii* knows the term in the modern sense.
In conclusion, the double terminology dates back at least to the first half of the 13th century. Erroneous too is the opinion, common among modern authors, of assigning to St. Pius V the general collections of the *rubricae generales*. Already the Oxford codex (Bodleian Library, ms. Can. misc. 75) in the second half of the 14th century calls the Franciscan *Ordinationes*: *Rubricae de modo officii ecclesiastici*. In 1481 Philip of Rotting published the *Rubricae ad informandos pusillos*. In the same year, in Venice, Francesco Ranner printed a Roman Breviary with the *Rubricae declaratoriae seu correctoriae*. Not to mention the *Rubricae novae*, noted by G. Mercati (v. BIBLICA). From this period the term rapidly evolved toward the meaning it later retained and toward the official general and particular collections of unified liturgy. The typical editions of the ritual books of the Latin liturgy, namely the Breviary (1568), the Missal (1570), the Martyrology (1583), the Pontifical (1598), the Ceremonial of Bishops (1600), the Ritual (1614), were furnished with abundant general and particular *rubrics*. Interpretation and updating were entrusted by Sixtus V to the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1587). In the 16th–17th 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 (later Carpo, de Herdt, Martinucci, Menghini, Baldeschi, Moretti, Le Vasseur-Haegy), who laid the foundations of liturgical law.
III. Division
1. According to their object, *rubrics* are divided into: a) essential, namely those belonging to the essence of a rite and on whose observance the validity of the act depends; b) accidental, those concerning ceremonies introduced by the Church, generally not required for validity but for the liceity of the act, such as in Baptism the exorcisms, the renunciations, the white garment, the burning lamp.2. According to their scope, *rubrics* are: a) general, constituting as it were the fundamental principles to be applied to all the ceremonies contained in a given liturgical book; b) special, those regulating the performance of a particular ceremony or rite.
3. According to their obligatoriness, *rubrics* are: a) preceptive, if they prescribe something categorically or are indispensable for the performance of a rite; b) directive, if they propose something *modo consilii* or leave a choice between two modes of action or between performing or not performing an action. Directive *rubrics* are also called optional.
IV. Obligatoriness
For centuries moralists and liturgists (rubricists) have debated the question whether all *rubrics* bind in conscience, and to what extent.For an objective examination of the question it must be premised that *rubrics* are true laws and as such bind (CIC, can. 818); consequently they necessarily fall within the scope of moral theology, as does every human act.
They admit of degrees of goodness and responsibility. The question can therefore be framed in these terms: a) essential rites are evidently obligatory. These concern the essence and hence the validity of the liturgical act, which cannot be frustrated (the gravity is to be assessed according to moral principles regarding matter, moral imputability of fault, etc.). When an accidental rite does not clearly indicate whether it is or is not optional, nor can this be inferred from other elements, then the presumption lies in favor of the law and it must be held that the rite binds in conscience. This is proved: a) by 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 liturgical books: «districte», «in virtute sanctae obedientiae praecipiunt», «auctoritate apostolicae decernunt», «iubent», «mandant», etc. These expressions manifest the evident will of the Church that these norms and formulae be observed for the unity and purity of worship. The same Sacred Congregation of Rites has repeatedly reaffirmed this same mind: serventur rubricae, iuxta Caeremoniale (Episcoporum), standum Rituali, mandat... in omnibus et per omnia servari rubricas Missalis». The Catechismus 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 diligente serventur»; b) by the nature of the rites, fixed so that there may be no doubt about the validity of the sacrament and so that the door may not be opened to arbitrariness and laxity. Only if the rite (ceremony and formulae) of the Church is observed does the liturgy constitute its official worship; c) by the common opinion of the Doctors, who with St. Alphonsus say that the rites are obligatory.
These reasons lead to the conclusion that the rites, even if accidental, taken as a whole are obligatory and bind; but it cannot be affirmed that taken individually they have the same force; indeed some cannot in any way admit of fault (such as the rite of the Roman Missal, Rit. serv. I, 3, which prescribes that the celebrant should first put his right arm and then his left into the alb).
It may even happen that in matters of lesser importance, with the passage of time, some custom has been introduced which the authority either directly or indirectly approves, and thus the new practice, having become legitimate, alters the obligatory nature of the rite.