RUBRICS. -
I. NOTION
By r., in the liturgical sense, are meant the prescriptions governing the conduct of the Church’s worship. They are found either collected in special books (for example, 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 tituli (as in the Rituale, before the rite of each Sacrament and the blessings), or finally inserted between one formula and another. In order to distinguish more clearly the texts from the rules governing their use, scribes began to write the rules in red; hence rubricae.In classical Rome, r. was the name given to a kind of earth which, mixed with water, was used by carpenters to draw lines or make marks at the point where the wood was to be cut with the saw (cf. Horace, Sat., 2, 7, 98). The copyists of legislative collections used it to write the titles of laws in red. From the titles the name came to designate the law itself. Juvenal recalls this when he writes: Perlege rubras maiorum leges (Sat. 14). In the field of ecclesiastical law as well, r. subsequently denoted the title and brief summary prefixed to individual canons. From canon law the term passed into the liturgy, probably when, for greater convenience, the formulas of Sacramentaries, Lectionaries, Graduals, etc., were gathered into a single volume: the directives were written in red and the text in black, and the name r. ultimately came to denote liturgical laws in general, even when they were regularly written in black.
II. FORMATION
The earliest r. (or rather, ritual norms), as simple as the rites themselves were, 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 layer, 26, while the Leonine has none. KOINÉ (v.), which are the first systematic rubrical collections of the Latin Church, constitute genuine ceremonial books. In the Ordo of Aimone da Faversham (d. 1244), the renowned general of the Franciscans, the expression rubrica Ordinarii is found six times. The word had by then passed from the juridical sphere to the liturgical one. More frequent is the use of rubrica for Ordo or Ordinarium: e.g., Incipit Rubrica sive Ordo per circulumanni 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 genuine 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 Aimone’s Ordo: Uniformiter se habeant (fratres) secundum Ordinationem et rubricam illum... Indutus planeta. This meaning remained current until after the middle of the fourteenth century, when we are told that Aimone 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, say still more generally: In divino officio servetur rubrica et cantus Ecclesiae Romanae (Arch. franc. hist., 7 [1914], p. 475). Thus the two meanings, generic and specific, were used indiscriminately in the second half of the fourteenth century (contrary to Vykoukal’s opinion, s. V. Rubriben, in I.T.M. VIII, cols. 1032-33, according to which the term r. would not have appeared before the fourteenth century). It may be added that s. Bonaventura, general of the Franciscans from 1260 to 1272, refers several times to the r., understood in both senses. Aimone himself, in the Ordo Breviarii, knows the term in its modern sense.
In conclusion, the twofold terminology dates back at least to the first half of the thirteenth century. Equally erroneous is the opinion, frequent among modern authors, that the general collections of the r. (rubricae generale) should be attributed to s. Pio V. As early as the second half of the fourteenth century, the Oxford codex (Bibl. Bodley, shelfmark Can. miscell. 75) calls the Franciscan Ordinationes: Rubricae de modo officii ecclesiastici. In 1481 Filippo di Rotingo published the Rubricae ad infornandos 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 onward, the term moved rapidly toward the meaning it subsequently retained, 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), and Ritual (1614)—were corrected by abundant general and particular r. Their interpretation and updating were entrusted by Sisto V to the S. Congr. dei Riti (1587). In the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, the r. of the liturgical books were the subject of careful and extensive studies by able liturgists such as Gavanti, Merati, Quarti, Cavalieri, Bauldry (later 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, r. are divided into: a) essential, namely those that belong to the essence of a rite, and upon whose observance the validity of the act being performed depends; b) accidental, namely r. concerning ceremonies introduced by the Church, generally not required for the validity but for the liceity of the act, such as in Baptism the exorcisms, renunciations, white garment, and burning lamp.2. According to their scope, r. are: a) general, and constitute the fundamental principles to be applied to all the ceremonies contained in that particular liturgical book; b) special, namely those regulating the performance of a particular ceremony or rite.
3. On the basis of their obligatory character, r. are: a) prescriptive, if they categorically prescribe something or are indispensable for the performance of a rite; b) directive, if they propose something per modum consilii or leave the choice between two ways of acting, or between performing and not performing an action. Directive r. are also called optional.
IV. OBLIGATORY FORCE
For centuries moral theologians and liturgists (rubricists) disputed the question whether all the r. bind in conscience, and to what extent.For an objective examination of the question, it must first be stated that the r. are genuine laws and, as such, bind (CIC, can. 818); consequently, they necessarily fall within the sphere of morality, like every human act,
and admit of degrees of goodness and responsibility. The question may therefore be formulated as follows: a) the essential r. are evidently preceptive. What is at issue is the essence and therefore the validity of the liturgical act, which cannot be frustrated (the gravity is to be assessed according to moral principles, with regard to the matter, the moral imputability of the fault, etc.). When an accidental r. does not openly state whether or not it is optional, nor can this be inferred from other elements, then the presumption favors the law, and it must be held that the r. 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 papal constitutions placed at the beginning of 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 formulas be observed for the unity and purity of worship. The S. Congr. of Rites itself has repeatedly reaffirmed and continues to reaffirm the same view: 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) by the nature of the r., established so that no doubt may remain regarding the validity of the Sacrament and so that the door may not be opened to arbitrariness and laxism. Only when the rite (ceremonies and formulas) of the Church is observed does the liturgy constitute its official worship; c) by the common opinion of the Doctors, who, with s. Alfonso, call the r. preceptive.
These reasons lead to the conclusion that the r., even when accidental, taken as a whole are preceptive and binding; but it cannot be asserted that, taken individually, they all have the same force; indeed, some cannot in any way involve guilt (such as the r. of the Missal Rit. serv. I, 3, which prescribes that the celebrant insert his right arm first and then his left when putting on the alb). It may also happen that, in matters of lesser importance, some custom has been introduced over time which the authority either directly or indirectly approves; thus the new practice, having become legitimate, alters the obligatory force of the r.