The Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium (1963), envisaged an extensive episcopal liturgical governance role. With the local episcopal conference, the bishop was to regulate the use of language in the liturgy and prepare and translate liturgical prayers into ‘living languages’ and oversee the implementation of liturgical change. These were key conciliar expressions of episcopal governance, which represented a deeper theology of the episcopacy. In subsequent years, the Council's reform agenda was challenged and resisted by the Roman Curia and others. The Curia aimed at protecting its pre-Vatican II position of governance and was not inclined to receive the Council's collegial and synodal ecclesiology. The most recent development, Magnum principium (2017), may be viewed as an opportunity yet to be grasped.
