Liturgical Historian to Speak About Vatican Reform

Rev. John F. Baldovin, S.J., ’69, professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and a member of the Board of Trustees at the College of the Holy Cross will give a talk titled “Vatican II and the Reform of the Liturgy: Where do we Stand 50 Years Later” on Tuesday, March 12 at 4:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at Holy Cross. The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the College’s Jesuit Heritage celebration, a series of ongoing events and discussions, to honor the College’s Jesuit tradition.  

In his talk, Fr. Baldovin will address the challenges facing the ongoing reform of the liturgy as well was the liturgical agenda for the future. “It's no secret that there is a contest going on in the Catholic church over interpreting the meaning of Vatican II,” says Fr. Baldovin. “At the forefront is a battle over the meaning of the liturgy.”

Fr. Baldovin, a priest of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, received his B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross, his M.Div. from the Weston School of Theology, and his M.A., M.Phil., and his Ph.D. from Yale University.

Fr. Baldovin has taught at Fordham University, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and the Weston School of Theology. He has also been visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and St. John Vianney National Seminary in Pretoria, South Africa. He served on the advisory committee for the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy for the United States Conference on Catholic Bishops and the advisory committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) from 1994-2002. He is former president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and the international ecumenical Societas Liturgica. He received the Berakah Award for distinguished achievement from the North American Academy of Liturgy in 2007.

He is the author of “Living Bread, Saving Cup: Understanding the Mass” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) and “Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics” (Liturgical Press, 2008), he has been published in numerous journals including Worship, Theological Studies, America and Commonweal. His writings have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Albanian.

Fr. Baldovin assists on weekends at the Catholic parishes in Lexington, Mass., as well as St. Paul’s in Cambridge, Mass.