Shrines Urged: Balance Popular Piety with Liturgy, encourage Confessions
August 13.2011) In a message to the rectors of Catholic shrines throughout the world,
the Vatican has emphasized that popular piety must not supersede the Church's official
liturgy. The message from the Congregation for Clergy also strongly encourages the
rectors of shrines to place a heavy emphasis on the sacrament of Penance. The Vatican
letter—signed by Cardinal Mauro Piacenza and Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta, the
prefect and secretary, respectively, of the Congregation for Clergy—strongly affirms
the importance of shrines as oases of spiritual strength and renewal. The letter welcomes
the various forms of popular piety that are found at shrines, but calls for a proper
balance. "The personal practice of expressions of popular piety cannot replace participation
in liturgical worship. The Vatican document urges officials to make the sacrament
of reconciliation readily available. For that purpose, the letter notes, "it is necessary
to bring about and to intensify, where possible, the constant presence of priests
who, with a humble and welcoming soul, give themselves generously to the hearing of
sacramental confessions." While encouraging pious devotions of all sorts, the shrines
should always ensure that the Eucharist is recognized as the "source and summit of
the Christian life". The Congregation for Clergy urges clerics working at shrines
to welcome those who come looking for direction in life and especially those who are
thinking about entering or re-entering the Catholic Church. The letter from the Congregation
for Clergy is dated August 15: the feast of the Assumption. But it was released by
the Vatican on August 12.