GIRM warfare

The things priests do are often exasperating to the faithful. Some practices are contrary to the script of the liturgy; some are neither permitted nor forbidden explicitly. So, for example, it doesn't say in the General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM) that you can't have acrobats performing circus routines behind the altar during the consecration or elephants leading the processions in and out of the Church. I guess we're stuck in a situation of GIRM warfare. The frustrated faithful want to find rules and regulations to control the imprudent enthusiasms of the pastors; the pastors want to realize their dream of a revitalized church (for good or for ill).

How strict are the norms?

Classical dichotomy:

• "Everything not expressly mandated is forbidden."
• "Anything not expressly forbidden is legitimate."

Ad orientem vs. Versus populum

Ad orientem is Latin for "toward the East." Every sunrise reminds us of the day when the Son rose from the dead. There was an ancient tradition that churches should be oriented (literally, "Easted") toward the rising sun, and that both priests and people would face in that direction while praying. More importantly, the entire congregation was spiritually turned towards God, seeking His face and making a joint offering through the priest to Him.

Versus populum is Latin for "against the people," which means that the priest faces against the direction in which the people are facing.

GIRM, Chapter 5. [Emphasis added.]

299. The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. Moreover, the altar should occupy a place where it is truly the center toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns.[115] The altar should usually be fixed and dedicated.

303. In building new churches, it is preferable for a single altar to be erected, one that in the gathering of the faithful will signify the one Christ and the one Eucharist of the Church.

In already existing churches, however, when the old altar is so positioned that it makes the people’s participation difficult but cannot be moved without damage to artistic value, another fixed altar, skillfully made and properly dedicated, should be erected and the sacred rites celebrated on it alone. In order that the attention of the faithful not be distracted from the new altar, the old altar should not be decorated in any special way.

Wikipedia, "Ad orientem." [Emphasis added.]

A letter of 25 September 2000 from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments treats the phrase "which is desirable wherever possible" as referring to the requirement that altars be built apart from the wall, not to the celebration of Mass facing the people, while "it reaffirms that the position toward the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier ... without excluding, however, the other possibility."