The Vatican has approved a series of liturgical adaptations for Indigenous communities in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Source: CNA.
According to Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, bishop emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas, this decision transforms certain Indigenous expressions into “liturgy of the Church”, eliminating the perception that they were simply “uses and customs that were viewed with suspicion.”
The Vatican Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments granted confirmatio on November 8, endorsing the “adaptations to the Ordinary of the Mass in Spanish” for the Tseltal, Tsotsil, Ch’ol, Tojolabal, and Zoque ethnic groups.
It also granted recognitio for the translation into Tseltal of key magisterial documents, such as the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum and the motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis.
Cardinal Arizmendi, who led the efforts of the Mexican episcopate to promote these adaptations, said these practices are a form of “incarnation of faith in expressions specific to these cultures”.
Their acceptance by the Holy See represents a sign that “if in some Indigenous customs there are deviations, we can help them reach their fullness in Christ and in his Church”.
The cardinal expressed his hope that this approval “will encourage the process to promote similar adaptations in other Indigenous groups.”
To this end, he invited his brother bishops and pastoral workers to “have an interest in giving liturgical value to many Catholic expressions of our native groups and not see them as simple folklore.”
The cardinal explained that “ritual dances were approved for the offertory, the prayer of the faithful, or the thanksgiving after Communion,” pointing out that these “are not folklore but simple movements of the entire assembly … which express the same thing as the Roman rite, but in a different cultural form.”
“The content of the Mass is not changed but the way of expressing it,” the cardinal said.
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Vatican approves liturgical adaptations for Indigenous communities in Mexico (By Diego López Colín, CNA)
