Well it turns out that the approval of the Neocatechumenal rites was not exactly what everyone thought. Not even close.

VATICAN CITY, January 23, 2012 – Before the audience with Benedict XVI three days ago, the rumor within the Neocatechumenal Way was that this occasion would bring the definitive approval of the “liturgies” of the ecclesial movement founded by Francisco “Kiko” Argüello and Carmen Hernández:

These rumors even said the document of approval had been prepared.

In reality, this provision was absolutely not on the day’s agenda for the Vatican, as was seen in the course of the audience with the pope on January 20.

At the beginning of the audience, in fact, a decree from the pontifical council for the laity was read which, with “the agreement of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments,” simply “grants approval to those celebrations contained in the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way which do not appear by their nature to be regulated already by the liturgical books of the Church.”

More clearly, in his address the pope reiterated that the aforementioned decree simply “gives approval to the celebrations” present in the Catechetical Directory which “are not strictly liturgical.”

The article sums it up this way…“This means that the rituals approved on this occasion do not in any way concern the liturgy of the Mass or the administration of the sacraments, but only the celebrations within the Way that mark the principal stages of the long catechumenate of each of its members.”

That is quite different than what we have been hearing.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight except this. Anything that upsets the hippies at the NC Reporter make me happy and I am sure this will upset them. I know this may seem a strange way on which to judge things, but I assure you it is 99.9% accurate.