Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Bishops Approve Mass for Life at Their Spring Meeting

By CLAUDIA McDONNELL

Nearly 20 years after Cardinal O'Connor suggested it, the U.S.
bishops approved a Mass in Thanksgiving for the Gift of Human Life June
18 during their spring meeting in San Antonio.

The Mass was approved 183-2, with three abstentions. A second
vote to add the text to the missal was 179-1, with one abstention. It
now goes to the Vatican for "recognitio," or confirmation.

The Mass requested by Cardinal O'Connor, who died in 2000, was
first prepared in 1990 to be included in the Roman Missal. The text was
approved by the Committee on the Liturgy and the bishops as a whole in
1992 and sent on to the Vatican for review the following year.

The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments
soon after expressed interest in the subject matter but said it was "a
matter of universal concern" that required further study.

As Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., noted in his
June 17 presentation of the text of the Mass, "no further response on
the subject was ever received" from the congregation and there is no
such text in the Latin version of the Roman Missal.

In response to a request by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of
Santa Fe, N.M., in January 2008, the idea was resurrected and the
original material was retrieved from the Congregation for Divine
Worship.

In one comment before the vote Archbishop Sheehan noted that
various Masses exist for various purposes and "the peace and justice
Mass we presently have just doesn't do it" for the life issue. He urged
the bishops' conference to zealously pursue "recognitio" from the
Vatican, because "last time it sat on someone's desk or in someone's
drawer."-CNS