Active participation in Catholic school-based liturgy

Abstract

In England and Wales, diocesan inspectors are charged with assessing the overall quality of Catholic education provided by Catholic schools. As part of this assessment, inspectors are required to give an account of the liturgical life of the school. Often the reports which result from these inspections refer to the degree of students’ ‘active participation’ in liturgy. This terminology has its roots in Biblical and patristic theological literature. Its meaning has evolved over time and has been used to describe a wide range of seemingly diffuse human behaviours. This article casts light on the meaning of ‘active participation’ in the context of Diocesan inspectors and offers some reflections on how this term could be refined in order to make diocesan inspections more informative.

Keywords:

• Liturgy
• participation
• inspection
• Catholic schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Under the terms of section 48 of the 2005 Education Act, all faith schools in England are required to undergo inspection by an independent body to assess the standard of their provision of religious education. Catholic schools are assessed by inspectors who are appointed by their diocese in compliance with this regulation.

2 The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican was announced in 1959. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods between 1962 and 1965. The council was precipitated by the perceived need to – in Pope John XXIII's terms – ‘update’ the Church and respond to the challenges of secularisation in the twentieth century.

3 The Council of Trent was the nineteenth ecumenical council in the history of the Catholic Church. It was convened in 1545 in response to the emergence of Protestantism in Europe. The documents produced by the Council defined the Churches position on a number of theological issues and it also standardised the liturgy used by the Catholic Church, paving the way for the codification of the Tridentine mass.

4 Thomas P. Rausch is an American Jesuit priest and theologian. His most recent work engages critically with the theology of Pope Benedict XVI [see Thomas P. Rausch, Pope Benedict XVI: His Theological Vision (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2009)].

5 Mystagogy is defined as the process through which Christians are initiated into the sacred mysteries of sacramental worship.

6 Romano Guardini was a German Benedictine priest and theologian. His work had a profound influence on the leaders of the Liturgy Movement in Germany in the twentieth century. His thoughts on the subject of liturgy are exemplified in a work of 1918 entitled The Spirit of the Liturgy.

7 Johan Huizinga was a Dutch cultural historian. His influential work posits that play is a fundamental aspect of human culture [see Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, trans. R.F.C Hull (London: Routledge, 1949)].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Dell

Matthew Dell is a senior lecturer and course lead at St Mary's University (Twickenham), for MA Education: Religious Education. Prior to taking up this post he worked for twenty-five years as an RE teacher in three different schools. Alongside experience of being Head of RE he has been a Catholic Schools Inspector for over twenty years.

Aidan Cottrell-Boyce

Aidan Cottrell-Boyce is the author of Israelism in Modern Britain (Routledge, 2020) and Jewish Christians in Puritan England (Pickwick, 2021). He is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at St Mary's University.