A Sacred Action Surpassing All Others: The Theological and Pastoral Factors behind American Episcopal Support of the Twentieth-Century Liturgical Reforms

ABSTRACT: In the 1960s, the Holy See made significant revisions to the Roman Rite of the Mass. This study traces the background of the American Liturgical Movement and examines the contributions made by American participants in the Second Vatican Council in order to explain the reasons why the majority of American bishops supported this liturgical reform, and what they were trying to accomplish. Additionally, this article looks at the initial implementation of the reform in the United States, concluding that the implementation in some ways departed from the initial vision of the council fathers, and that the reform is necessarily still ongoing.