Is your parish a desert? Diocese of Scranton

And by desert, I mean has some goofy liturgist or "innovative" priest removed the holy water from the stoups at your church during this Lenten season?

If so, print this letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship and be sure it gets into their hands. 

    March 14, 2000

    Dear Father:

    This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.

    This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted, in particular, for two reasons:

    1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.

    2. The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of the [sic] of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. The "fast" and "abstinence" which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).

    Hoping that this resolves the question and with every good wish and kind regard, I am,

    Sincerely yours in Christ,
    Mons. Mario Marini 
    Undersecretary

So what have we learned, gentle readers? 

The practice is not permitted.

As Catholics we are called to catechise, sometimes, we are called to gently correct. And sometimes those we must catechise and correct are clergy that have forgotten, or who choose to ignore the proper way to do things. 

Be active and deny innovation what it needs to succeed - inactivity by the faithful.

Pax.