NOTE:
I include the piece below by Dr. Pamela Dettman because I am uncertain about whether the 1962 Latin Mass can be validly used instead of the Novus Ordo Missae. I would prefer that the St. Pius V Mass be used instead--based on what seems to be unequivocal language in Quo Primum Tempore--that it remain forever the official Latin Rite Mass.
I hope the arguments provided here are helpful in way of providing an opportunity to air this issue in more detail. There are apparently not an insignificant number of Catholic Traditionalists who see nothing wrong with the 1962 Latin Mass of John XXIII. Unfortunately, to date I have been unable to obtain a copy of the Roman Missal of Pope St. Pius V in order to compare the two. My understanding is that there are some significant differences between it and that of John XXIII's 1962 Roman Missal. It would be important I think to do a side by side comparison/analysis in order to evaluate the significance of the changes.
Ideally of course, it would be nice to eliminate all the confusion and guess-work by simply reverting to the Roman Missal of St. Pius V since it was established in perpetuity by Quo Primum. Unfortunately, we do not live in anything near an ideal world and the current situation in which we find ourselves is extremely disturbing and difficult to understand.
If anyone has a copy of the St. Pius V Roman Missal or anything prior to roughly 1950 I would be appreciative of knowing about it. I would be more than willing to buy it.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Traditionalists Should Not Use the 1962 Missal
Dr. Pamela Dettman,
Tradition in Action, original HERE...
It was very fortunate for TIA to provide its readers with the review of the 1962 Missal. I would like to remind those who might have difficulty with that review of a powerful yet often overlooked aspect of St. Pius V's Quo primum. In it he irrevocably denied the use of any other missal for anyone, save those who have had in place the "custom followed continuously for a period of not less than 200 years." How can anyone who claims to be traditionalist be irreparably attached to anything taking root in the '60s? For reorientation, St. Pius V has already provided this lesson for us.
I would like to focus on some important points concerning this 200-year corruption-buffer:
1. The 200-year safety period acknowledges the many troubles that beset the Church long before their culmination as clerical corruption and Luther's grand plan: Tolle Missam, tolle Ecclesiam (destroy the Mass, destroy the Church). Looking at the 200 years preceding Pope Pius V's decree, we can note that none of the Popes in that period have been canonized. The Holy See had abandoned Rome and the Renaissance was planting its seeds of vanity and lust for pleasure. The Church had been weakened and symptoms of this corruption surfaced in the Mass. St. Pius V certainly recognized the gradual development of Church troubles and their long-standing impact on liturgical function.
2. Clearly, St. Pius V also shows us that the liturgical corruptions themselves did not appear overnight. He demonstrates not only that corrections were needed, but also that they may have been present or developing for some two centuries. He not only removed the full expression of the deviations in existence during his pontificate, but eliminated them at their very source, two centuries earlier.
A question for the 1962 Missal proponents: How is it that we Catholics today must feel compelled to acknowledge a liturgical revolution taking over nearly the entire Catholic Hierarchy in the latter 1960s, yet at the same time believe that no evidence of what was just about to surface existed less than one decade prior? This is inconceivable! Perhaps very few can be blamed for not seeing in advance exactly what was coming. Now, however, is different. Certainly we cannot be excused after the facts have been clearly demonstrated and we have realized what could only have been a terrible nightmare less than 50 years ago.
3. Concerning all those Catholics who had been following a liturgical rite in place for more than 200 years, St. Pius V also makes the important statement that he would "in no wise rescind" their prerogatives. This concisely implements several important Catholic truths. First, it does acknowledge papal authority to rescind a prior papal pronouncement. Second, it draws a distinction between a law that can be repealed and this at hand, the immutable traditions in Divine Worship. Third, it establishes his intention to require this decree to be obeyed for all time to come, to prevent forever any future troubles in the Church from corrupting Divine Worship.
4. Lastly, let me note St. Pius V's inclusion of the word "continuously" when applying to the legitimate claim to use a particular rite. He excluded broken usage. As pointed out by Fr. Patrick Perez in his review of the 1962 Missal, the first modernist change to Catholic worship was this "broken usage" made via the error of archeologism, returning (as was claimed) to a "primitive usage." I am referring to the change in the Holy Week liturgy that was approved by Pius XII in the 1950s. This, of course, missed the “continuous” designation by about 13 centuries. As explained by Fr. Perez, this claim to a primitive usage was false anyway, and it was the same Pius XII who practiced archeologism after having condemned it.
The counterfeit argument of being a valid Missal
Again, I question the proponents of the 1962 Missal: If the 1962 Missal (or God forbid the Novus Ordo) is valid, does this validity guarantee us spiritual benefit? May we all consider the following:
The only sacrifice that is acceptable to God is that which is provided by God. God is under no obligation to accept anything else we humans may offer. But will He? Will God be pleased with a valid sacrifice, made by a valid priest, but offered outside the confines of His proscriptions? We have some reason to doubt. How can this be? Let me propose the "Orthodox" as an example, to use as a template for assessing similar circumstances.
The schismatic Eastern churches, who like many clergy and laity of our day, reject the true Catholic papacy as defined at Vatican Council I. Yet thus far, the Catholic Church recognizes as valid the apostolic succession and sacraments offered in this separated and heretical "Orthodox" church (in as much as they have not altered their rites as did the Anglicans).
Their actual condition, though illicit, may still be "valid." Would not, then, the followers of this false church benefit spiritually from these valid orders and sacraments? The answer is: no. Let us listen to Abbot Gueranger describe the state of the "Orthodox" schismatic church:
"She is motionless and sterile as a branch severed from the trunk. She retains, like so many withered leaves, the ancient forms of her liturgy ... the lifeless schism of the East, so scrupulously keeping up the ancient forms which are its condemnation, and making a parade of vestments which sits so awkwardly on rebels. What life can the members of such a Church derive from these dead forms of worship?"
Let us Catholics all remember with fear and humility what preceded the first murder: God's rejection of Cain's deficient sacrifice. It is far better to be the prodigal son, who admits the error of abandoning his father's house and returns home to his brother's side than to be Cain, who hates his brother and in a jealous rage displays the murder in his heart.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Iota Unum and the Conciliar Church by Romano Amerio
I am currently reading a fascinating book entitled Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century by Roman Amerio a Roman Catholic scholar who participated in the preparations for the Second Vatican Council. His perspective is unique in that he directly witnessed the events as they happened. Amerio is amazingly forthright in his appraisal of the uncharacteristic way in which the Council was called, the inexplicable abandonment of over 3 years of preparatory work by the Commission, the paradoxical outcome of the Council compared with what had been promised and the bizarre innovations which followed the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Iota Unum is a treasure trove of information for all Catholics who wish to come to a better understanding of what happened to the Roman Catholic Church of record which existed for almost 2000 years prior to 1962.
Some short quotations from Iota Unum are provided for the interest of readers who wish to experience a flavor of the book:
“A distinctive feature of Vatican II is its paradoxical outcome.” P. 82
“Fr, Congar repeatedly states that the Church of Pius IX and Pius XII is finished.” P. 114
“The change (Conciliar teaching) can be described as more or less all-embracing in its extent…Faith has been changed from an act of the intellect into an act of the person…Hope lowers its object, becoming an aspiration and a belief about a purely earthly liberation and transformation. Charity, which like faith and hope has a formally supernatural object, similarly lowers its object and turns toward man…” P. 108
“The primary characteristic of the post-conciliar period is an all-embracing change affecting every aspect of the Church whether internal or external.” “…The question arises as to whether a change from one kind of religion to another is not underway, as many in both lay and clerical circles do not hesitate to assert.” P. 107
"It is impossible to deny that the shift from a still largely Christian culture to an entirely anthropocentric one happened during Pope Paul's reign and immediately thereafter." P. 738
"Vatican II represents a massive series of innovations that have marked every aspect of ecclesial life, whether theoretical or practical..." P. 751
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Some short quotations from Iota Unum are provided for the interest of readers who wish to experience a flavor of the book:
“A distinctive feature of Vatican II is its paradoxical outcome.” P. 82
“Fr, Congar repeatedly states that the Church of Pius IX and Pius XII is finished.” P. 114
“The change (Conciliar teaching) can be described as more or less all-embracing in its extent…Faith has been changed from an act of the intellect into an act of the person…Hope lowers its object, becoming an aspiration and a belief about a purely earthly liberation and transformation. Charity, which like faith and hope has a formally supernatural object, similarly lowers its object and turns toward man…” P. 108
“The primary characteristic of the post-conciliar period is an all-embracing change affecting every aspect of the Church whether internal or external.” “…The question arises as to whether a change from one kind of religion to another is not underway, as many in both lay and clerical circles do not hesitate to assert.” P. 107
"It is impossible to deny that the shift from a still largely Christian culture to an entirely anthropocentric one happened during Pope Paul's reign and immediately thereafter." P. 738
"Vatican II represents a massive series of innovations that have marked every aspect of ecclesial life, whether theoretical or practical..." P. 751
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Thursday, July 30, 2009
CANONS ON THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
Session 22 of the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, held on Monday, September 17, 1562, A.D
CANON I If any one saith, that in the Mass a true and real Sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.
CANON II If any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the Apostles Priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other Priests should offer His own Body and Blood; let him be anathema.
CANON III If any one saith, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the Sacrifice consummated on the Cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
CANON IV If any one saith, that, by the Sacrifice of the Mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most Holy Sacrifice of Christ consummated on the Cross; or, that it is thereby derogated from; let him be anathema.
CANON V If any one saith, that it is an imposture to celebrate Masses in honour of the saints, and for obtaining their intercession with God, as the Church intends; let him be anathema.
CANON VI If any one saith, that the Canon of the Mass contains errors, and is therefore to be abrogated [abolished]; let him be anathema.
CANON VII If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema.
CANON VIII If any one saith, that Masses, wherein the Priest alone communicates Sacramentally, are unlawful, and are, therefore, to be abrogated [abolished; let him be anathema.
CANON IX If any one saith, that the Rite of the Roman Church, according to which a part of the Canon and the words of Consecration are pronounced in a low tone, is to be condemned; or, that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only; or, that water ought not to be mixed with the wine that is to be offered in the chalice, for that it is contrary to the institution of Christ; let him be anathema.
CANON I If any one saith, that in the Mass a true and real Sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.
CANON II If any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the Apostles Priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other Priests should offer His own Body and Blood; let him be anathema.
CANON III If any one saith, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the Sacrifice consummated on the Cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
CANON IV If any one saith, that, by the Sacrifice of the Mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most Holy Sacrifice of Christ consummated on the Cross; or, that it is thereby derogated from; let him be anathema.
CANON V If any one saith, that it is an imposture to celebrate Masses in honour of the saints, and for obtaining their intercession with God, as the Church intends; let him be anathema.
CANON VI If any one saith, that the Canon of the Mass contains errors, and is therefore to be abrogated [abolished]; let him be anathema.
CANON VII If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema.
CANON VIII If any one saith, that Masses, wherein the Priest alone communicates Sacramentally, are unlawful, and are, therefore, to be abrogated [abolished; let him be anathema.
CANON IX If any one saith, that the Rite of the Roman Church, according to which a part of the Canon and the words of Consecration are pronounced in a low tone, is to be condemned; or, that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only; or, that water ought not to be mixed with the wine that is to be offered in the chalice, for that it is contrary to the institution of Christ; let him be anathema.
QUO PRIMUM TEMPORE: Never Abrogated
Saint Pius V, Antonio-Michele Ghislieri
[Friday, January 7, 1566 - Monday, May 1, 1572]
AN INFALLIBLE DOCUMENT OF SAINT PIUS V
For ALL ROMAN Catholics!
PIUS EPISCOPUS
Pius Bishop
SERVUS SERVORUM DEI
Servant of the Servants of God
AD PERPETUAM REI MEMORIAM
For a Perpetual Memorial of the Matter
Where the first, upon Our elevation to the Apostolic throne, We gladly turned Our mind and energies, and directed all Our thoughts, to the matter of preserving incorrupt the public worship of the Church; and We have striven, with God's help, by every means in Our power to achieve that purpose.
Whereas amongst other decrees of the holy Council of Trent, We were charged with revision and re-issue of the sacred books, to wit, the Catechism, the Missal and the Breviary; and whereas We have with God's consent published a Catechism for the instruction of the faithful and thoroughly revised the Breviary for the due performance of the Divine Office, We next, in order that the Missal and Breviary might be in perfect harmony, as is right and proper (considering that it is altogether fitting that there should be in the Church only one appropriate manner of Psalmody and one sole rite of celebrating Mass), deemed it necessary to give Our immediate attention to what still remained to be done, namely the re-editing of the Missal with the least possible delay.
We resolved accordingly to delegate this task to a select committee of scholars; and they, having at every stage of their work and with the utmost care collated the ancient codices in Our Vatican Library and reliable, original or amended, codices from elsewhere, and having also consulted the writing of ancient and approved authors who have bequeathed to us records relating to the said sacred rites, thus restored the Missal [of the Ancient Roman Rite] itself to the pristine form and rite of the holy Fathers.
When this production had been subjected to close scrutiny and further amended We, after mature consideration, ordered that the final result be forthwith printed and published in Rome, so that all may enjoy the fruit of this labor; that priests may know what prayers to use, and what rites and ceremonies they are to observe henceforward in the celebration of Masses.
Now therefore, in order that all everywhere may adopt and observe what has been delivered to them by the Holy Roman Church, Mother and Mistress of the other churches, it shall be unlawful henceforth and forever throughout the Christian world to sing or to read Masses according to any formula other than that of this Missal published by Us.
This ordinance to apply to all churches and chapels, with or without care of souls, patriarchal, collegiate, and parochial, be they secular or belonging to any religious Order, whether of men, including the military Orders, or of women, in which conventual Masses are or ought to be sung aloud in choir or read privately according to the rites and customs of the Roman Church.
To apply, moreover, even if the said churches have been in any way exempted, whether by indult of the Apostolic See, by custom, by privilege, or even by oath or Apostolic confirmation, or have their rights and faculties guaranteed to them in any other way whatsoever, saving only those in which the practice of saying Mass differently was granted over 200 years ago simultaneously with the Apostolic See's institution and confirmation of the church, and those in which there has prevailed a similar custom followed continuously for a period of not less than 200 years; in which cases We in no wise rescind their prerogatives or customs aforesaid.
Nevertheless, if this Missal which We have seen fit to publish be more agreeable to these last, We hereby permit them to celebrate Mass according to its rite, subject to the consent of their bishop or prelate, and of their whole Chapter, all else to the contrary notwithstanding.
All other churches aforesaid are hereby denied the use of other missals, which are to be wholly and entirely rejected; and by this present Constitution, which shall have the force of law in perpetuity, We order and enjoin under pain of Our displeasure that nothing be added to Our newly published Missal, nothing omitted therefrom, and nothing whatsoever altered therein.
We specifically command each and every Patriarch, administrator and all other persons of whatsoever ecclesiastical dignity, be they even Cardinals of the Holy ROMAN Church or possessed of any other rank or preeminence, and We order them by virtue of holy obedience to sing or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herein laid down by Us, and henceforward to discontinue and utterly discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals, howsoever ancient, which they have been accustomed to follow, and not to presume in celebrating Mass to introduce any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.
Furthermore, by these presents and by virtue of Our Apostolic authority We give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal must be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used.
Nor shall bishops, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious of whatsoever Order or by whatsoever title designated, be obliged to celebrate Mass otherwise than enjoined by Us.
We likewise order and declare that no one whosoever shall be forced or coerced into altering this Missal and that this present Constitution can never be revoked or modified, but shall forever remain valid and have the force of law, notwithstanding previous constitutions or edicts of provincial or synodal councils, and notwithstanding the usage of the churches aforesaid, established by very long and even immemorial prescription, saving only usage of more than 200 years.
Consequently it is Our will, and by the same authority We decree, that one month after publication of this Our constitution and Missal, priests of the Roman Curia shall be obliged to sing or to read the Mass in accordance therewith; others south of the Alps, after three months; those who live beyond the Alps, after six months or as soon as the Missal becomes available for purchase.
Furthermore, in order that the said Missal may be preserved incorrupt and kept free from defects and errors, the penalty for non-observance in the case of all printers resident in territory directly or indirectly subject to Ourselves and the Holy Roman Church shall be forfeiture of their books and a fine of 100 gold ducats payable by that very fact to the Apostolic Treasury.
In the case of those resident in other parts of the world, it shall be automatic excommunication and other penalties at Our discretion; and by Our Apostolic authority and the tenor of these presents, We also decree that they must not dare or presume either to print or to publish or to sell, or in any way to take delivery of such books without Our approval and consent, or without express permission of the Apostolic Commissary in the said parts appointed by Us for that purpose. Each of the said printers must receive from the aforementioned Commissary a standard Missal to serve as an exemplar and agree faithfully therewith, varying in no wise from the first impression printed in Rome.
But, since it would be difficult for this present Constitution to be transmitted to all parts of the world and to come to the notice of all concerned simultaneously, We direct that it be, as usual, posted and published at the doors of the Basilica of the Prince of Apostles, at those of the Apostolic Chancery, and at the end of the Campo dei Fiori.
Moreover, We direct that printed copies of the same, signed by a notary public and authenticated with the seal of an ecclesiastical dignitary, shall possess the same unqualified and indubitable validity everywhere and in every country that would attend the display there of Our present text.
Accordingly, no one whosoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, direction, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree and prohibition.
Should any person venture to do so, let him understand that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. (Editor's emphasis throughout)
Given at St. Peter's, Rome, in the year of Our Lord's Incarnation one thousand five hundred and seventy, on the fourteenth day of July in the fifth year of Our Pontificate.
Caesar Glorierus
H. Cumin.
Anno a Nativitate Domini 1570, Indict. 13, die vero 19 mensis Julii, Pontificatus sanctissimi in Christo Patris et D. N. Pii divina providentia Papae V anno ejus quinto, retroscriptae litterae Principis Apostolorum, ac Cancellariae Apostolicae, et in acie Campi Flore, ut moris est, per nos Joannem Andream Rogerium et Philibertum Cappuis Cursores.
Scipio De Octavianis, Magister Cursorum
NOTE:
This papal bull is characteristic of the kind of documents which were promulgated by the Holy See prior to Vatican II. There is absolutely no obfuscation, no prevarication, no attempt to allow more than one and only one interpretation to be made. The Conciliar documents unfortunately are filled with "doublespeak" and have been constructed in such a way as to provide for maximum variation of interpretation.
It is inconceivable after reading Quo Primum Tempore that anyone would think that the Roman Catholic Mass of Pope St. Pius V could be changed. The penalty for doing so is as serious as can be imagined.
Dr. J. P. Hubert
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
No-Fault Divorce Laws: Bad for Everyone, What Role the Conciliar Church
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Numerous credible studies now document the tragedy that follows divorce. The sociological data confirm what already is known from the Natural (moral) Law and Divine Revelation that life-long marriage is in the interest of the marital partners, the children thereof and society in general. Please
see THIS... THIS... and THIS…for example.
No-fault divorce is contrary to the Natural Law, right reason individual/social justice as well as being incompatible with charity. It would be better if people never married and did not have children than to do so and then divorce. If this means maintaining a single life of sexual continence and chastity instead (as taught in Traditional Roman Catholicism), the individual and common good of society would be appreciably enhanced. In the secular neo-pagan West this would no doubt mean instead that single adults would continue to engage in contraceptive sex in order to avoid a more rigorous form of marital union in which morally licit sexual expression is part of a life-long total commitment on the part of the spouses.
Ultimately, it is not in society's interest to allow civil contract marriage which is subject to divorce, whether on the basis of no-fault laws or for just-cause. The former (no-fault divorce) virtually guarantees that over half of all marriages will end in divorce--a situation which is extremely destructive of and costly to society. The latter (divorce for just-cause or grounds only) while historically associated with a much lower overall rate of divorce (at least in the West) is inherently defective because it preserves the fiction that divorce is a reasonable (personal and societal) option if only one of the partners wishes to end the marriage and is able to demonstrate just-cause. It almost never is salutary (e.g. severe abuse perhaps being the only exception) when all of the costs--personal, economic, health and societal) are tabulated.
Covenant or life-long marriage as is characteristic of sacramental marriage (in which the marriage itself is recognized as a metaphysical reality) is the ideal (as well as statistically most successful long-term) and would be far easier to normalize and codify into law in Roman Catholic nation-states or other more traditional forms of government where Natural law and Divine Revelation serve as models for the civil law. Unfortunately, the world is almost totally bereft of any remaining Roman Catholic countries--perhaps Lichtenstein being the only example. I leave it to others to provide further potential examples.
In this day of almost deification of "science", the scientistic mentality and the "worship of empirical evidence, it would be logically consistent for all governments to reform their marriage and divorce laws by making them compatible with the now indisputable evidence that no-fault divorce and civil contract marriage are harmful. Given that the requisite empirical data is now available, logic dictates that this should mandate a return to or institution of legally binding covenant/sacramental marriage in which divorce is allowed only for serious "just-cause" (if allowed by mutual consent of the partners in the case where there are no children involved, the adverse health effects for the individuals and society including the cost to the health care system persist).
Under a system of covenant/sacramental marriage, permission would be granted by the appropriate civil authorities only after couples were properly educated about the benefits and responsibilities of the marital state. It should be made impossible to argue after the fact that the couple was 1) not given adequate warning as to their obligations or 2) not supplied with proper and legally binding informed consent. To do otherwise is to engage in a suicidal form of social engineering in the name of a rabid form of individual freedom/liberty absent the required personal and societal responsibility commensurate with the seriousness of the marital state.
The Traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on Sacramental marriage and the proper use of the sexual faculty is born out by the sociological data on divorce including its negative impact on the former marital partners, the children involved and society in general. This further proves that the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church taught the immutable truth which Our Lord desired man to have. In His transcendent position beyond the confines of the space/time dimensions of the known universe, God being omnipotent is/was well aware of what we mortal human beings are only now beginning to document through experience and empirical/retrospective analysis.
Unfortunately, the Conciliar Church has undermined the 2000 year old teaching on marriage, divorce/remarriage and the meaning of human sexuality through a variety of destructive innovations including the plethora of annulments being granted. A list of some of the negative effects include: the homosexualization of the Catholic clergy, the practice of artificial contraception among professed “Catholics” which now equals the non-Catholic population as does the overall incidence of divorce and abortion. There has been a total denial (e.g. through a failure to preach) of sexually related sin including sodomy, fornication, masturbation, abortion and the normalization of sins against chastity--in behavior, language and provocative dress. These are only some of the areas in which the Conciliar Church has contributed to the moral depravity of contemporary society.
Credible estimates suggest that almost half of the living Roman Catholic clergy is homosexual in proclivity and or practice. Absolutely nothing has been done by the Conciliar Church to rectify this abhorrent situation, one which is well-known to the Holy See and the world-wide Episcopal Conferences. Some so-called seminaries are known to be nothing but homosexual palaces of debauchery and yet they are allowed to remain in existence. For example see Good Bye Good Men by Michael Rose.
Empirical evidence clearly establishes quite apart from other available evidence (e.g gross incompatibilities between Traditional and Conciliar Church teaching on faith and morals including the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass) that the post-Vatican II Church is the cause of a marked decrease in morality among Catholics in particular and Western society in general through its rejection of Traditional Roman Catholic teaching and the adoption of heterodox innovations. Retrospective empirical Social Science data now support the conclusion as well.
For these and numerous other reasons too extensive to catalogue, Rome should reinstitute the Tridentine Mass of Pope St. Pius V establishing that it is henceforth the only valid and licit Catholic Mass to be offered throughout the world, declare the Novus Ordo Missae to be a tragic experiment which will be placed on the trash-heap of history never again to reappear and either completely repudiate or radically correct the documents of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar reforms so as to be harmonious with the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church--before it is too late. Perhaps only in this way (barring Divine intervention) will a faithful remnant survive through which the authentic Gospel of Christ can continue to be preached throughout the world. “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)
Numerous credible studies now document the tragedy that follows divorce. The sociological data confirm what already is known from the Natural (moral) Law and Divine Revelation that life-long marriage is in the interest of the marital partners, the children thereof and society in general. Please
see THIS... THIS... and THIS…for example.
No-fault divorce is contrary to the Natural Law, right reason individual/social justice as well as being incompatible with charity. It would be better if people never married and did not have children than to do so and then divorce. If this means maintaining a single life of sexual continence and chastity instead (as taught in Traditional Roman Catholicism), the individual and common good of society would be appreciably enhanced. In the secular neo-pagan West this would no doubt mean instead that single adults would continue to engage in contraceptive sex in order to avoid a more rigorous form of marital union in which morally licit sexual expression is part of a life-long total commitment on the part of the spouses.
Ultimately, it is not in society's interest to allow civil contract marriage which is subject to divorce, whether on the basis of no-fault laws or for just-cause. The former (no-fault divorce) virtually guarantees that over half of all marriages will end in divorce--a situation which is extremely destructive of and costly to society. The latter (divorce for just-cause or grounds only) while historically associated with a much lower overall rate of divorce (at least in the West) is inherently defective because it preserves the fiction that divorce is a reasonable (personal and societal) option if only one of the partners wishes to end the marriage and is able to demonstrate just-cause. It almost never is salutary (e.g. severe abuse perhaps being the only exception) when all of the costs--personal, economic, health and societal) are tabulated.
Covenant or life-long marriage as is characteristic of sacramental marriage (in which the marriage itself is recognized as a metaphysical reality) is the ideal (as well as statistically most successful long-term) and would be far easier to normalize and codify into law in Roman Catholic nation-states or other more traditional forms of government where Natural law and Divine Revelation serve as models for the civil law. Unfortunately, the world is almost totally bereft of any remaining Roman Catholic countries--perhaps Lichtenstein being the only example. I leave it to others to provide further potential examples.
In this day of almost deification of "science", the scientistic mentality and the "worship of empirical evidence, it would be logically consistent for all governments to reform their marriage and divorce laws by making them compatible with the now indisputable evidence that no-fault divorce and civil contract marriage are harmful. Given that the requisite empirical data is now available, logic dictates that this should mandate a return to or institution of legally binding covenant/sacramental marriage in which divorce is allowed only for serious "just-cause" (if allowed by mutual consent of the partners in the case where there are no children involved, the adverse health effects for the individuals and society including the cost to the health care system persist).
Under a system of covenant/sacramental marriage, permission would be granted by the appropriate civil authorities only after couples were properly educated about the benefits and responsibilities of the marital state. It should be made impossible to argue after the fact that the couple was 1) not given adequate warning as to their obligations or 2) not supplied with proper and legally binding informed consent. To do otherwise is to engage in a suicidal form of social engineering in the name of a rabid form of individual freedom/liberty absent the required personal and societal responsibility commensurate with the seriousness of the marital state.
The Traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on Sacramental marriage and the proper use of the sexual faculty is born out by the sociological data on divorce including its negative impact on the former marital partners, the children involved and society in general. This further proves that the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church taught the immutable truth which Our Lord desired man to have. In His transcendent position beyond the confines of the space/time dimensions of the known universe, God being omnipotent is/was well aware of what we mortal human beings are only now beginning to document through experience and empirical/retrospective analysis.
Unfortunately, the Conciliar Church has undermined the 2000 year old teaching on marriage, divorce/remarriage and the meaning of human sexuality through a variety of destructive innovations including the plethora of annulments being granted. A list of some of the negative effects include: the homosexualization of the Catholic clergy, the practice of artificial contraception among professed “Catholics” which now equals the non-Catholic population as does the overall incidence of divorce and abortion. There has been a total denial (e.g. through a failure to preach) of sexually related sin including sodomy, fornication, masturbation, abortion and the normalization of sins against chastity--in behavior, language and provocative dress. These are only some of the areas in which the Conciliar Church has contributed to the moral depravity of contemporary society.
Credible estimates suggest that almost half of the living Roman Catholic clergy is homosexual in proclivity and or practice. Absolutely nothing has been done by the Conciliar Church to rectify this abhorrent situation, one which is well-known to the Holy See and the world-wide Episcopal Conferences. Some so-called seminaries are known to be nothing but homosexual palaces of debauchery and yet they are allowed to remain in existence. For example see Good Bye Good Men by Michael Rose.
Empirical evidence clearly establishes quite apart from other available evidence (e.g gross incompatibilities between Traditional and Conciliar Church teaching on faith and morals including the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass) that the post-Vatican II Church is the cause of a marked decrease in morality among Catholics in particular and Western society in general through its rejection of Traditional Roman Catholic teaching and the adoption of heterodox innovations. Retrospective empirical Social Science data now support the conclusion as well.
For these and numerous other reasons too extensive to catalogue, Rome should reinstitute the Tridentine Mass of Pope St. Pius V establishing that it is henceforth the only valid and licit Catholic Mass to be offered throughout the world, declare the Novus Ordo Missae to be a tragic experiment which will be placed on the trash-heap of history never again to reappear and either completely repudiate or radically correct the documents of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar reforms so as to be harmonious with the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church--before it is too late. Perhaps only in this way (barring Divine intervention) will a faithful remnant survive through which the authentic Gospel of Christ can continue to be preached throughout the world. “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Missal Crisis of '62
Fr. Patrick Perez
Tradition in Action original HERE...
Whatever else may be said about modern Rome, at least one thing hasn’t changed: In its official documents, Rome chooses its language carefully and deliberately, and what is not stated can often be as important as what is. Bearing in mind this fact, and the fact that those writing Roman documents these days are thoroughly imbued with the post-conciliar mentality, one condition of all the recent indults granted for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass should arouse immediate suspicions on the part of any Catholic who still retains his ability to reason.
The Roman Missal (in Latin, Missale Romanum) is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite
Beginning with Quattuor Abhinc Annos (1984) and Ecclesia Dei (1988) of John Paul II, and culminating with the recent motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) of Benedict XVI, in which permission is so graciously granted by the respective Holy Fathers for a Mass that no priest needs anyone’s permission, including the pope’s, to offer any time he so chooses, the authors of these documents specify that these permissions are to celebrate Mass using the 1962 Missal, and only the 1962 Missal. Considering that between those documents, and the letter to the bishops which accompanies the latest motu proprio, this requirement is specified no fewer than 15 times.
“Methinks”, as Shakespeare says through the mouth of Hamlet, “she doth protest too much”. If permission is being given for the use of the liturgy promulgated by the Council of Trent, then why should it matter if the Missal were from 1962 or 1662? The stated reason is that the 1962 Missal was the last “typical edition”, the implication being that it is, therefore, the most “authentic”, as if the Missale Romanum were a sort of encyclopedia, the most reliable edition of which naturally being the one that is most current.
I contend that there is more to this condition than most Catholics suspect, which is a polite way of repeating what I immediately said to myself upon first reading Quattuor Abhinc Annos in 1984: “There‘s something fishy going on here”. When I began to compare the 1962 typical edition with previous editions of the Missale, the nature of the “fish” soon became evident. I will explain as briefly as I am able without doing violence to the subject matter.
First signs of a Reform
Doing a comparison of the various editions of the Missale from my own collection, including even one pre-Tridentine edition (1558), the first thing I concluded is that they are substantially identical, save for a few small details (the first post-Tridentine edition of 1570 adds a few rubrical specifications that its predecessors lacked) and for the addition of some feast propers, which is to be expected. This holds true until the typical editions of 1955-56, issued under Pius XII. Beginning in 1955 there were unprecedented changes made to the Missale, the first of many to come. These changes resulted in the Missale of 1962, but culminated in the Missale Romanum of Paul VI in 1969, the Novus Ordo Missae.
Pope Pius XII appointed Bugnini secretary of the Liturgical Reform Commission. Above, with his successor Angelo Roncali
The changes to the Missal decreed on November 16th, 1955, and becoming obligatory on March 25th, 1956, had their immediate origins several years previous. Shortly after commenting (on the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima in 1917) “This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith in Her liturgy…”
This same Pacelli, now Pope Pius XII, established in 1948 the Commission for Liturgical Reform, appointing one Fr. Annibale Bugnini as its secretary. Remember that name, for Father, later Archbishop Bugnini, would eventually be revealed as a Freemason and denounced to Paul VI, who immediately removed him from his positions of authority on Vatican commissions and sent him away, eventually to die in exile in Iran. All this, unfortunately, not before he had authored and instigated alteration after alteration of the Church’s liturgy, even finally the Novus Ordo Missae itself.
How the reform of Holy Week in 1955 was made
Shortly after the Commission for Liturgical Reform was founded there came a request from the bishops of France through their spokesperson Cardinal Lienart for permission to restore the Paschal Vigil to the evening rather than its morning celebration. Fair enough. It does seem a bit out-of-place to light a new fire and carry in the triple candle to chants of Lumen Christi in broad daylight. This permission was granted in 1951.
Bugnini and company, though, had only just begun. The magnitude of what came next can hardly be overstated. They went far beyond simply changing the hour of the Paschal Vigil. They had somehow convinced the pope that the whole of Holy Week needed to be restored to a more primitive usage, and so they had basically scrapped the traditional Holy Week (unchanged from the earliest pre-Tridentine Missale I could find, but, more importantly, re-promulgated in the Tridentine Missale of 1570 as well by order of the Council of Trent and Pope Saint Pius V) in favor of what they told Pius XII was the form of Holy Week in use around the time of Saints Wilfred (b. 634) and Bede (b. 672).
The first changes by Bugnini were introduced in Holy Week ceremonies in 1955
Now how the pope accepted this after issuing warnings specifically against this practice of returning to primitive liturgical uses in his encyclical Mediator Dei (1947), and calling those who desired to do so “wicked” in that same document is astounding. Furthermore, the claim that their “restored” Holy Week rites existed at the time of Saints Wilfred and Bede, or at any other time in history seems to have been an utter, complete, and blatant fabrication. They rightly reasoned that neither Pius XII nor anyone else for that matter was capable of verifying the veracity of this claim, and the pope seems to have trusted Bugnini et al implicitly.
Thus in 1955 this fabricated Holy Week was officially promulgated by Pius XII with the document Maxima Redemptionis under the ironic title “The Order of Holy Week Restored”. It is interesting to note that the document Maxima Redemptionis of November 16th, 1955, speaks mainly of restoring the Paschal Vigil to its proper time, with only a footnote at the end mentioning that the ceremonies had been modified a little to restore them to “what was known in the days of St. Wilfred and St. Bede”. Also interesting to note is the fact that, save for some very minor modifications, these new rites of Holy Week “qualified” to be placed into the new Missal of Paul VI virtually intact.
In reality the introduction of new rites was a test to see if anyone would react negatively; whether or not Bugnini and the Commission would be caught in their lies, or whether it would just be accepted on the weight of the enormously popular Pius XII without question. If there were no objections raised, and if the bait were taken, Bugnini knew that there would be little serious opposition to altering the Mass itself.
From there on, one change after another ...
In spite of being a glaring violation of Quo Primum of Pope St. Pius V, the bull promulgating the Tridentine Missale as the only acceptable one in the Latin Rite and forbidding the changing of the rites therein, or addition of new rites into said Missale “in perpetuity”, the consequence for doing so being no less than incurring the “wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, this new Order of Holy Week was everywhere published and accepted without any hesitation whatsoever. The green light had been given to “Brother Buan” (Bugnini’s Masonic codename) to continue implementing their plan of destroying the Faith by destroying the liturgy.
Bugnini continued with the changes after the Council
From that time one change followed another so quickly that the clergy could scarcely keep abreast of them. As Gertrude says in Hamlet, “One woe doth tread upon another’s heels, so fast they follow”. The additional Collects said at Mass were abolished, along with most of the vigils of feast days. Twelve of fifteen octaves (some dating to the time of Saints Wilfred and Bede!), as well as the proper Last Gospels were also abolished, and so was the Feast of the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, this being replaced with the feast of “Saint Joseph the Worker”, a kind of Catholic May Day. All this (and more) in 1955!
1958 saw the resuscitation of the “dialogue Mass” with Pius XII’s “Instruction on Sacred Music”, issued on September 3rd, just one month before his death. One is entitled to imagine that Pius XII was little aware of what was going on at that time as he had been gravely ill for some time.
Though this “dialogue Mass”, in which the congregation makes the responses formerly reserved to the altar boys, and even reciting some parts of the Mass formerly reserved to the priest had been allowed on at least one occasion that we know of, and under duress, by Pope Benedict XV in 1922, it nonetheless represented a significant violation of the traditional practice of the Church and theology of the Mass which holds that the right to make the Mass responses and serve at the altar is technically one enjoyed by clerics alone. Hence altar boys are to wear cassocks and surplices which are clerical dress, to indicate that although lay males could serve Mass when required to do so, this was by way of exception and they are substituting by indult for clerics when such could not be had. One of the obvious implications of allowing all of the faithful, females included, to make those responses traditionally reserved to men in Orders, is that females could, in fact, receive Orders as well, even the Priesthood!
Following the death of Pius XII and the election of John XXIII in 1958, the changes continued unabated. In 1960 Pope John named Fr. Bugnini secretary of the Preparatory Liturgical Commission for the upcoming council that he had invoked. From then until 1962 more feasts were abolished, the unchangeable Canon of the Mass (the word “canon” means “unchangeable”), was changed by the insertion of the name of St. Joseph, as if to redress some oversight committed by the early Church, which apparently had insufficient devotion to St. Joseph as they failed to place his name in the Canon. Other rubrical changes were made as well, including the elimination of the Confiteor prior to the reception of Holy Communion by the Faithful during Mass. These changes had the effect of numbing the sensibilities of Catholics, clergy and laity alike, and to habituate them to the novel idea that nothing was exempt from change. They were, of course, designed to pave the way for the eventual introduction and acceptance of the Novus Ordo Missae.
One example of those baseless changes, the abolition of the Confiteor
Just as one example, let us consider the already-mentioned elimination of the 2nd Confiteor, as it is commonly referred to. This was done with the excuse that the Confiteor had already been said at the beginning of Mass, so to recite it again in the middle of Mass would qualify as a “useless repetition”. Not so, however. You see, the Communion of the Faithful is neither necessary, nor, properly speaking, a part of the Mass at all. When there are faithful who are to communicate at a Mass, this is accomplished by the insertion of a Communion rite, if you will, into the Mass, similar to that which one would use when bringing Holy Communion to the sick. This rite of receiving Holy Communion necessarily begins with a Confiteor. Such is the proper order of things. The priest doesn’t just go in and jump straight to giving the person or people the Eucharist without some sort of penitential rite preceding it.
The recitation of the Confiteor during the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar is only for the priest and the other sacred ministers, or altar boys as the case may be. To eliminate the “2nd Confiteor” would imply either that the faithful had no need of it, or that the Communion of the faithful were actually a part of Mass rather than being what it is, something outside of Mass but done within the context of Mass, as are the readings in the vernacular and the sermon. There were other changes made during this period, but I believe that these examples suffice to illustrate my point.
The right not to accept the 1962 Missal
In conclusion I wish to note that, with the possible exception of the new rites of Holy Week, none of these changes are heretical or contrary to the powers of the papacy to accomplish. Pius XII and John XXIII undoubtedly possessed the juridical, if not the moral, right to make them. (Editor's note: the preceding statement does not appear to be consistent with what follows) This being so, would it not, then, be an act of disobedience to reject the 1962 Missale for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass as its advocates claim? I claim that not only is it not an act of disobedience to reject this Missal and, indeed, every version of the Missale going back to when the new rite of Holy Week was first introduced into it, but that it is, in fact, what reason would dictate that one must do if one is indeed serious about returning to and/or upholding the liturgical tradition of the Church.
A 1962 Roman Catholic Missal compiled from the Missale Romanum for the use of the faithful
Look at it this way: All of these changes were masterminded by Annibale Bugnini, a proven Freemason, whose intention as a member of that secret society planted within the very highest echelons of the Vatican was to do as much damage as possible to the Church, Her Faith, and the faith of Her members. Although he would accomplish this most effectively later on with the advent of the Novus Ordo Missae, the changes already introduced into the 1962 Missale were nonetheless intended for that same purpose. The 1962 Missale is corrupted, and substantially discordant with the Missale Romanum as promulgated in fulfillment of the commands of the Council of Trent by Pope Saint Pius V. Neither can the claim that none of these changes is heretical in content be used as an argument in favor of its use, for neither is the employment of hula girls, fireworks, and mariachis strictly speaking heretical in itself, but they belong to that class of novel and profane things that do not belong in the Mass.
I might add that the fact that the 1962 Missale was either accepted and/or used by one or another prelate or priest who were in themselves good men of virtue does not excuse its use now in light of the facts I have just presented.
When it comes down to it, if one can justify the use of the 1962 Missal to oneself in spite of all this, then one has no good and valid reason left to proffer for not accepting and using the Missale Romanum of Paul VI, which, it is claimed, likewise contains no specific heresy (since the original introduction, which did in fact contain an heretical definition of the Mass, was corrected), and was introduced by a validly reigning pope. (Editor's note: The Novus Ordo Missae is fundamentally a Protestant communion [meal] service which implicitly denies the "Real Presence" of Christ in the Eucharist. It was specifically designed that way).
This, I believe, is the reasoning behind the recent Roman documents insisting on the use of the 1962 Missale and no other. Celebration of the immemorial Liturgy of Rome as codified by the Council of Trent ought properly to be done using an edition of the Missale which does not vary substantially from that codified on the orders of that same council. The Missale Romanum of 1962 contains not only changes, but important and substantial ones which violate the injunctions of Quo Primum and the whole of the Church’s liturgical tradition.
One further difficulty is presented by the fact that at the time of the writing of this article, nobody has had the funding, or perhaps even the interest, to reprint an editon of the Missale which antedates the inclusion of these changes. Reproductions of the 1962 version are, on the other hand, relatively cheap and plentiful. Should this plea reach a benefactor with the means to undertake the costly task of reprinting one of the later but incorrupt editions, I would gladly offer one of my older Missals, some of which are still in the box, for the project.(editor's emphasis throughout)
NOTE:
The implications of Fr. Perez's article is that the Summorum Pontificum of Benedict XVI which now allows the Latin Mass of 1962 to be used is unfortunately not the Mass which should be restored. Rather, the Tridentine Latin Mass of Pope St. Pius V should be brought back as Quo Primum directed; the Mass which in virtue of Pope St. Pius V's Ex-Cathedra directive could never be licitly eliminated.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Tradition in Action original HERE...
Whatever else may be said about modern Rome, at least one thing hasn’t changed: In its official documents, Rome chooses its language carefully and deliberately, and what is not stated can often be as important as what is. Bearing in mind this fact, and the fact that those writing Roman documents these days are thoroughly imbued with the post-conciliar mentality, one condition of all the recent indults granted for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass should arouse immediate suspicions on the part of any Catholic who still retains his ability to reason.
The Roman Missal (in Latin, Missale Romanum) is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite
Beginning with Quattuor Abhinc Annos (1984) and Ecclesia Dei (1988) of John Paul II, and culminating with the recent motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) of Benedict XVI, in which permission is so graciously granted by the respective Holy Fathers for a Mass that no priest needs anyone’s permission, including the pope’s, to offer any time he so chooses, the authors of these documents specify that these permissions are to celebrate Mass using the 1962 Missal, and only the 1962 Missal. Considering that between those documents, and the letter to the bishops which accompanies the latest motu proprio, this requirement is specified no fewer than 15 times.
“Methinks”, as Shakespeare says through the mouth of Hamlet, “she doth protest too much”. If permission is being given for the use of the liturgy promulgated by the Council of Trent, then why should it matter if the Missal were from 1962 or 1662? The stated reason is that the 1962 Missal was the last “typical edition”, the implication being that it is, therefore, the most “authentic”, as if the Missale Romanum were a sort of encyclopedia, the most reliable edition of which naturally being the one that is most current.
I contend that there is more to this condition than most Catholics suspect, which is a polite way of repeating what I immediately said to myself upon first reading Quattuor Abhinc Annos in 1984: “There‘s something fishy going on here”. When I began to compare the 1962 typical edition with previous editions of the Missale, the nature of the “fish” soon became evident. I will explain as briefly as I am able without doing violence to the subject matter.
First signs of a Reform
Doing a comparison of the various editions of the Missale from my own collection, including even one pre-Tridentine edition (1558), the first thing I concluded is that they are substantially identical, save for a few small details (the first post-Tridentine edition of 1570 adds a few rubrical specifications that its predecessors lacked) and for the addition of some feast propers, which is to be expected. This holds true until the typical editions of 1955-56, issued under Pius XII. Beginning in 1955 there were unprecedented changes made to the Missale, the first of many to come. These changes resulted in the Missale of 1962, but culminated in the Missale Romanum of Paul VI in 1969, the Novus Ordo Missae.
Pope Pius XII appointed Bugnini secretary of the Liturgical Reform Commission. Above, with his successor Angelo Roncali
The changes to the Missal decreed on November 16th, 1955, and becoming obligatory on March 25th, 1956, had their immediate origins several years previous. Shortly after commenting (on the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima in 1917) “This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith in Her liturgy…”
This same Pacelli, now Pope Pius XII, established in 1948 the Commission for Liturgical Reform, appointing one Fr. Annibale Bugnini as its secretary. Remember that name, for Father, later Archbishop Bugnini, would eventually be revealed as a Freemason and denounced to Paul VI, who immediately removed him from his positions of authority on Vatican commissions and sent him away, eventually to die in exile in Iran. All this, unfortunately, not before he had authored and instigated alteration after alteration of the Church’s liturgy, even finally the Novus Ordo Missae itself.
How the reform of Holy Week in 1955 was made
Shortly after the Commission for Liturgical Reform was founded there came a request from the bishops of France through their spokesperson Cardinal Lienart for permission to restore the Paschal Vigil to the evening rather than its morning celebration. Fair enough. It does seem a bit out-of-place to light a new fire and carry in the triple candle to chants of Lumen Christi in broad daylight. This permission was granted in 1951.
Bugnini and company, though, had only just begun. The magnitude of what came next can hardly be overstated. They went far beyond simply changing the hour of the Paschal Vigil. They had somehow convinced the pope that the whole of Holy Week needed to be restored to a more primitive usage, and so they had basically scrapped the traditional Holy Week (unchanged from the earliest pre-Tridentine Missale I could find, but, more importantly, re-promulgated in the Tridentine Missale of 1570 as well by order of the Council of Trent and Pope Saint Pius V) in favor of what they told Pius XII was the form of Holy Week in use around the time of Saints Wilfred (b. 634) and Bede (b. 672).
The first changes by Bugnini were introduced in Holy Week ceremonies in 1955
Now how the pope accepted this after issuing warnings specifically against this practice of returning to primitive liturgical uses in his encyclical Mediator Dei (1947), and calling those who desired to do so “wicked” in that same document is astounding. Furthermore, the claim that their “restored” Holy Week rites existed at the time of Saints Wilfred and Bede, or at any other time in history seems to have been an utter, complete, and blatant fabrication. They rightly reasoned that neither Pius XII nor anyone else for that matter was capable of verifying the veracity of this claim, and the pope seems to have trusted Bugnini et al implicitly.
Thus in 1955 this fabricated Holy Week was officially promulgated by Pius XII with the document Maxima Redemptionis under the ironic title “The Order of Holy Week Restored”. It is interesting to note that the document Maxima Redemptionis of November 16th, 1955, speaks mainly of restoring the Paschal Vigil to its proper time, with only a footnote at the end mentioning that the ceremonies had been modified a little to restore them to “what was known in the days of St. Wilfred and St. Bede”. Also interesting to note is the fact that, save for some very minor modifications, these new rites of Holy Week “qualified” to be placed into the new Missal of Paul VI virtually intact.
In reality the introduction of new rites was a test to see if anyone would react negatively; whether or not Bugnini and the Commission would be caught in their lies, or whether it would just be accepted on the weight of the enormously popular Pius XII without question. If there were no objections raised, and if the bait were taken, Bugnini knew that there would be little serious opposition to altering the Mass itself.
From there on, one change after another ...
In spite of being a glaring violation of Quo Primum of Pope St. Pius V, the bull promulgating the Tridentine Missale as the only acceptable one in the Latin Rite and forbidding the changing of the rites therein, or addition of new rites into said Missale “in perpetuity”, the consequence for doing so being no less than incurring the “wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, this new Order of Holy Week was everywhere published and accepted without any hesitation whatsoever. The green light had been given to “Brother Buan” (Bugnini’s Masonic codename) to continue implementing their plan of destroying the Faith by destroying the liturgy.
Bugnini continued with the changes after the Council
From that time one change followed another so quickly that the clergy could scarcely keep abreast of them. As Gertrude says in Hamlet, “One woe doth tread upon another’s heels, so fast they follow”. The additional Collects said at Mass were abolished, along with most of the vigils of feast days. Twelve of fifteen octaves (some dating to the time of Saints Wilfred and Bede!), as well as the proper Last Gospels were also abolished, and so was the Feast of the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, this being replaced with the feast of “Saint Joseph the Worker”, a kind of Catholic May Day. All this (and more) in 1955!
1958 saw the resuscitation of the “dialogue Mass” with Pius XII’s “Instruction on Sacred Music”, issued on September 3rd, just one month before his death. One is entitled to imagine that Pius XII was little aware of what was going on at that time as he had been gravely ill for some time.
Though this “dialogue Mass”, in which the congregation makes the responses formerly reserved to the altar boys, and even reciting some parts of the Mass formerly reserved to the priest had been allowed on at least one occasion that we know of, and under duress, by Pope Benedict XV in 1922, it nonetheless represented a significant violation of the traditional practice of the Church and theology of the Mass which holds that the right to make the Mass responses and serve at the altar is technically one enjoyed by clerics alone. Hence altar boys are to wear cassocks and surplices which are clerical dress, to indicate that although lay males could serve Mass when required to do so, this was by way of exception and they are substituting by indult for clerics when such could not be had. One of the obvious implications of allowing all of the faithful, females included, to make those responses traditionally reserved to men in Orders, is that females could, in fact, receive Orders as well, even the Priesthood!
Following the death of Pius XII and the election of John XXIII in 1958, the changes continued unabated. In 1960 Pope John named Fr. Bugnini secretary of the Preparatory Liturgical Commission for the upcoming council that he had invoked. From then until 1962 more feasts were abolished, the unchangeable Canon of the Mass (the word “canon” means “unchangeable”), was changed by the insertion of the name of St. Joseph, as if to redress some oversight committed by the early Church, which apparently had insufficient devotion to St. Joseph as they failed to place his name in the Canon. Other rubrical changes were made as well, including the elimination of the Confiteor prior to the reception of Holy Communion by the Faithful during Mass. These changes had the effect of numbing the sensibilities of Catholics, clergy and laity alike, and to habituate them to the novel idea that nothing was exempt from change. They were, of course, designed to pave the way for the eventual introduction and acceptance of the Novus Ordo Missae.
One example of those baseless changes, the abolition of the Confiteor
Just as one example, let us consider the already-mentioned elimination of the 2nd Confiteor, as it is commonly referred to. This was done with the excuse that the Confiteor had already been said at the beginning of Mass, so to recite it again in the middle of Mass would qualify as a “useless repetition”. Not so, however. You see, the Communion of the Faithful is neither necessary, nor, properly speaking, a part of the Mass at all. When there are faithful who are to communicate at a Mass, this is accomplished by the insertion of a Communion rite, if you will, into the Mass, similar to that which one would use when bringing Holy Communion to the sick. This rite of receiving Holy Communion necessarily begins with a Confiteor. Such is the proper order of things. The priest doesn’t just go in and jump straight to giving the person or people the Eucharist without some sort of penitential rite preceding it.
The recitation of the Confiteor during the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar is only for the priest and the other sacred ministers, or altar boys as the case may be. To eliminate the “2nd Confiteor” would imply either that the faithful had no need of it, or that the Communion of the faithful were actually a part of Mass rather than being what it is, something outside of Mass but done within the context of Mass, as are the readings in the vernacular and the sermon. There were other changes made during this period, but I believe that these examples suffice to illustrate my point.
The right not to accept the 1962 Missal
In conclusion I wish to note that, with the possible exception of the new rites of Holy Week, none of these changes are heretical or contrary to the powers of the papacy to accomplish. Pius XII and John XXIII undoubtedly possessed the juridical, if not the moral, right to make them. (Editor's note: the preceding statement does not appear to be consistent with what follows) This being so, would it not, then, be an act of disobedience to reject the 1962 Missale for the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass as its advocates claim? I claim that not only is it not an act of disobedience to reject this Missal and, indeed, every version of the Missale going back to when the new rite of Holy Week was first introduced into it, but that it is, in fact, what reason would dictate that one must do if one is indeed serious about returning to and/or upholding the liturgical tradition of the Church.
A 1962 Roman Catholic Missal compiled from the Missale Romanum for the use of the faithful
Look at it this way: All of these changes were masterminded by Annibale Bugnini, a proven Freemason, whose intention as a member of that secret society planted within the very highest echelons of the Vatican was to do as much damage as possible to the Church, Her Faith, and the faith of Her members. Although he would accomplish this most effectively later on with the advent of the Novus Ordo Missae, the changes already introduced into the 1962 Missale were nonetheless intended for that same purpose. The 1962 Missale is corrupted, and substantially discordant with the Missale Romanum as promulgated in fulfillment of the commands of the Council of Trent by Pope Saint Pius V. Neither can the claim that none of these changes is heretical in content be used as an argument in favor of its use, for neither is the employment of hula girls, fireworks, and mariachis strictly speaking heretical in itself, but they belong to that class of novel and profane things that do not belong in the Mass.
I might add that the fact that the 1962 Missale was either accepted and/or used by one or another prelate or priest who were in themselves good men of virtue does not excuse its use now in light of the facts I have just presented.
When it comes down to it, if one can justify the use of the 1962 Missal to oneself in spite of all this, then one has no good and valid reason left to proffer for not accepting and using the Missale Romanum of Paul VI, which, it is claimed, likewise contains no specific heresy (since the original introduction, which did in fact contain an heretical definition of the Mass, was corrected), and was introduced by a validly reigning pope. (Editor's note: The Novus Ordo Missae is fundamentally a Protestant communion [meal] service which implicitly denies the "Real Presence" of Christ in the Eucharist. It was specifically designed that way).
This, I believe, is the reasoning behind the recent Roman documents insisting on the use of the 1962 Missale and no other. Celebration of the immemorial Liturgy of Rome as codified by the Council of Trent ought properly to be done using an edition of the Missale which does not vary substantially from that codified on the orders of that same council. The Missale Romanum of 1962 contains not only changes, but important and substantial ones which violate the injunctions of Quo Primum and the whole of the Church’s liturgical tradition.
One further difficulty is presented by the fact that at the time of the writing of this article, nobody has had the funding, or perhaps even the interest, to reprint an editon of the Missale which antedates the inclusion of these changes. Reproductions of the 1962 version are, on the other hand, relatively cheap and plentiful. Should this plea reach a benefactor with the means to undertake the costly task of reprinting one of the later but incorrupt editions, I would gladly offer one of my older Missals, some of which are still in the box, for the project.(editor's emphasis throughout)
NOTE:
The implications of Fr. Perez's article is that the Summorum Pontificum of Benedict XVI which now allows the Latin Mass of 1962 to be used is unfortunately not the Mass which should be restored. Rather, the Tridentine Latin Mass of Pope St. Pius V should be brought back as Quo Primum directed; the Mass which in virtue of Pope St. Pius V's Ex-Cathedra directive could never be licitly eliminated.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Modern Philosophy Poisoned the Roman Catholic Church
It seems undeniable if one is willing to consider the evidence that the Roman Catholic Church has been poisoned by the acceptance (among the hierarchy) of modern philosophy especially the logically bankrupt concept of "Historicism.” Pope Pius IX (Syllabus of Errors) HERE... and Pope St. Pius X tried valiantly (Pascendi Dominici gregis HERE) to extinguish the virus that is modern philosophy and the Modernist theological heresy that followed in its wake. Unfortunately, instead of being totally eliminated, the Modernists went to ground in order to fight another day. They appear to have re-emerged in a more virulent form as the neo-Modernist (Progressivist) Periti who gained control of the Second Vatican Council after it was called unnecessarily by John XXIII(1) and promulgated by Paul VI. These men were and are still heavily represented among the European (especially German and French) episcopacy and in the wake of Vatican II have largely replaced the more orthodox/conservative Roman episcopacy. Thus, the current Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is influenced if not controlled by modernists/progressives/heretics. That unfortunately appears to be the sad truth of the matter. Put another way, traditional Roman Catholic theology has been placed in the service of a nefarious yet over-arching set of philosophical/theological beliefs by the neo-modernists who now control the Vatican including the Cardinalate and the world-wide episcopacy. There are of course a few traditional/orthodox exceptions although none appear prepared to follow to an ultimate logical conclusion the heterodox trail which has been laid out by the "reformers."(3) In apparent fear and paralyzing indecision they fail to act as neo-Modernist Progressvies continue to express support for Vatican II and all the post-Conciliar "reforms" in total denial of the negative fruit(4) that is now universally apparent (40+ years later).
Recall: Martin Luther hated the Roman Catholic Mass. He objected to the Mass understood as the unbloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross of Calvary re-enacted by the Priest in persona Christi (in the person of Jesus Christ). He taught that it was a memorial of the Last Supper only that is, a communal meal service of believers done in memory of what Christ did on Holy Thursday (The Last Supper) not an actual sacrifice in which Christ's passion and crucifixion is offered to God the Father for the remission of sin. This difference is monumental! Roman Catholic teaching is clear that Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday commanded the Apostles to do what He did--offer the only sacrifice which is acceptable to God the Father--the life and propitiatory death of His Son Jesus Christ. That is what every Priest did at each and every Mass throughout the world until Paul VI delivered the Novus Ordo Missae to an unsuspecting global faithful. Since then the universal belief and practice of the Roman Catholic Church particularly as concerns the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been continually undermined.(4)
Luther's view is totally consistent with the fact that the so-called Protestant "observer's" at Vatican II functioned as actual participants in constructing the new "reformed mass." It is logically impossible that these Protestant participants desired to help create a new and updated Roman Catholic Mass--faithful to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. After all, they were Protestant and not Catholic in large part because they did not accept the traditional concept of the Mass as an extra-space/time dimensional re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. That is, they all inherently rejected transubstantiation and the "Real Presence" of Jesus Christ (body, blood, soul and divinity) under the species of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.
Even more outrageously, Luther made the inherently ridiculous claim that Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross "covered" all of the believer's sins such that one could sin with impunity as long as one believed through faith even more--an obvious afront to the Holiness of God and a clear contradiction of the words of Christ--"if you love me, obey my commandments" (Jn. 14:15).
The perennial Roman Catholic doctrine in contradistinction is that Christ's propitiatory sacrifice is applied only to those who are truly sorry for their sins, repent (turn away) from their sinful transgressions and amend their lives in such a way as to become truly transformed by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. The hollowness of the Lutheran view is readily apparent in that it allows the sinner to persist in their sinful habits without a fundamental transformation. Luther ignores so much of the Gospel it is difficult to believe that anyone would have accepted his teaching.
As is true of so many things in life, the change in philosophical orientation preceeded the change in Roman Catholic ecclesiology/praxis. In this case, the devolution was from the perennial philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas to the amalgam of contradictory philosophical concepts which Pope St. Pius X correctly labeled the synthesis of all errors (heresies). In Pascendi Dominici gregis he taught that Modernism leads to the annihilation of religion and ultimately to atheism (where the demonic influence is obvious).
NOTES:
(1) There was no dogmatic/doctrinal heresy posed which required that a Council be called to refute it. Moreover, Vatican II was specifically termed a "pastoral" council not one intended to address doctrinal/dogmatic issues despite the fact that it did so.
(2) At the very least, there should exist some Bishop or Cardinal who is prepared to formally charge the Conciliar Church including the Novus Ordo Missae with the promulgation of inexcusable heterodoxy and to demand that the Holy See defend the charge.
(3) “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
(4) The Roman Catholic Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice is a dogma believed always and everywhere by Catholics up until then--ala the Vincentian Canon.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Recall: Martin Luther hated the Roman Catholic Mass. He objected to the Mass understood as the unbloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross of Calvary re-enacted by the Priest in persona Christi (in the person of Jesus Christ). He taught that it was a memorial of the Last Supper only that is, a communal meal service of believers done in memory of what Christ did on Holy Thursday (The Last Supper) not an actual sacrifice in which Christ's passion and crucifixion is offered to God the Father for the remission of sin. This difference is monumental! Roman Catholic teaching is clear that Jesus Christ on Holy Thursday commanded the Apostles to do what He did--offer the only sacrifice which is acceptable to God the Father--the life and propitiatory death of His Son Jesus Christ. That is what every Priest did at each and every Mass throughout the world until Paul VI delivered the Novus Ordo Missae to an unsuspecting global faithful. Since then the universal belief and practice of the Roman Catholic Church particularly as concerns the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been continually undermined.(4)
Luther's view is totally consistent with the fact that the so-called Protestant "observer's" at Vatican II functioned as actual participants in constructing the new "reformed mass." It is logically impossible that these Protestant participants desired to help create a new and updated Roman Catholic Mass--faithful to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. After all, they were Protestant and not Catholic in large part because they did not accept the traditional concept of the Mass as an extra-space/time dimensional re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. That is, they all inherently rejected transubstantiation and the "Real Presence" of Jesus Christ (body, blood, soul and divinity) under the species of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.
Even more outrageously, Luther made the inherently ridiculous claim that Christ's sacrificial death on the Cross "covered" all of the believer's sins such that one could sin with impunity as long as one believed through faith even more--an obvious afront to the Holiness of God and a clear contradiction of the words of Christ--"if you love me, obey my commandments" (Jn. 14:15).
The perennial Roman Catholic doctrine in contradistinction is that Christ's propitiatory sacrifice is applied only to those who are truly sorry for their sins, repent (turn away) from their sinful transgressions and amend their lives in such a way as to become truly transformed by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. The hollowness of the Lutheran view is readily apparent in that it allows the sinner to persist in their sinful habits without a fundamental transformation. Luther ignores so much of the Gospel it is difficult to believe that anyone would have accepted his teaching.
As is true of so many things in life, the change in philosophical orientation preceeded the change in Roman Catholic ecclesiology/praxis. In this case, the devolution was from the perennial philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas to the amalgam of contradictory philosophical concepts which Pope St. Pius X correctly labeled the synthesis of all errors (heresies). In Pascendi Dominici gregis he taught that Modernism leads to the annihilation of religion and ultimately to atheism (where the demonic influence is obvious).
NOTES:
(1) There was no dogmatic/doctrinal heresy posed which required that a Council be called to refute it. Moreover, Vatican II was specifically termed a "pastoral" council not one intended to address doctrinal/dogmatic issues despite the fact that it did so.
(2) At the very least, there should exist some Bishop or Cardinal who is prepared to formally charge the Conciliar Church including the Novus Ordo Missae with the promulgation of inexcusable heterodoxy and to demand that the Holy See defend the charge.
(3) “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
(4) The Roman Catholic Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice is a dogma believed always and everywhere by Catholics up until then--ala the Vincentian Canon.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Friday, July 24, 2009
Traditionalist Cardinals Warned Pope Paul VI: Novus Ordo Missae Incompatible with Roman Catholic Faith
"The Ottaviani Intervention"
Letter from Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci to His Holiness Pope Paul VI
September 25th, 1969
Most Holy Father, Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.
Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonising crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come tour notice daily.
3. We are certain that these considerations, which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law.
Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the church, lamented by You our common Father, not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world.
A. Card. Ottaviani
A. Card. Bacci
Brief Summary
I History of the Change
The new form of Mass was substantially rejected by the Episcopal Synod, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences and was never asked for by the people. It has every possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants.
II Definition of the Mass
By a series of equivocations the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the 'supper' and the 'memorial' instead of on the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
III Presentation of the Ends
The three ends of the Mass are altered:- no distinction is allowed to remain between Divine and human sacrifice; bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
IV The Essence
The Real Presence of Christ is never alluded to and belief in it is implicitly repudiated.
V The Elements of the Sacrifice
The position of both priest and people is falsified and the Celebrant appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister, while the true nature of the Church is intolerably misrepresented.
VI The Destruction of Unity
The abandonment of Latin sweeps away for good and all unity of worship. This may have its effect on unity of belief and the New Order has no intention of standing for the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent to which the Catholic conscience is bound.
VII The Alienation of the Orthodox
While pleasing various dissenting groups, the New Order will alienate the East.
VIII The Abandonment of Defences
The New Order teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion and dismantles all defences of the deposit of Faith.
I History of the Change
In October 1967, the Episcopal Synod called in Rome was required to pass judgement on the experimental celebration of a so-called "normative Mass" (New Mass), devised by the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. This Mass aroused the most serious misgivings. The voting showed considerable opposition (43 non placet), very many substantial reservations (62 juxta modum), and 4 abstentions out of 187 voters. The international press spoke of a "refusal" of the proposed "normative Mass" (New Mass) on the part of the Synod. Progressively-inclined papers made no mention of it. In the Novus Ordo Missae lately promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, we once again find this "normative Mass" (New Mass), identical in substance, nor does it appear that in the intervening period the Episcopal Conference, at least as such, were ever asked to give their views about it.
In the Apostolic Constitution, it is stated that the ancient Missal promulgated by St. Pius V, 13th July 1570, but going back in great part to St. Gregory the Great and still remoter antiquity, was for four centuries the norm for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice for priests of the Latin rite, and that, taken to every part of the world, "it has moreover been an abundant source of spiritual nourishment to many holy people in their devotion to God". Yet, the present reform, putting it definitely out of use, was claimed to be necessary since "from that time the study of the Sacred Liturgy has become more widespread and intensive among Christians".
This assertion seems to us to embody a serious equivocation. For the desire of the people was expressed, if at all, when - thanks to Pius X - they began to discover the true and everlasting treasures of the liturgy. The people never on any account asked for the liturgy to be changed, or mutilated so as to understand it better. They asked for a better understanding of the changeless liturgy, and one which they would never have wanted changed.
The Roman Missal of St. Pius V was religiously venerated and most dear to Catholics, both priests and laity. One fails to see how its use, together with suitable catechesis, could have hindered a fuller participation in, and great knowledge of the Sacred Liturgy, nor why, when its many outstanding virtues are recognised, this should not have been considered worthy to continue to foster the liturgical piety of Christians.
Rejected by Synod
Since the "normative" Mass (New Mass), now reintroduced and imposed as the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of the Mass), was in substance rejected by the Synod of Bishops, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences, nor have the people - least of all in mission lands - ever asked for any reform of Holy Mass whatsoever, one fails to comprehend the motives behind the new legislation which overthrows a tradition unchanged in the Church since the 4th and 5th centuries, as the Apostolic Constitution itself acknowledges. As no popular demand exists to support this reform, it appears devoid of any logical grounds to justify it and makes it acceptable to the Catholic people.
The Vatican Council did indeed express a desire (para. 50 Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium) for the various parts of the Mass to be reordered "ut singularum partium propria ratio nec non mutua connexio clarius pateant." We shall see how the Ordo recently promulgated corresponds with this original intention.
An attentive examination of the Novus Ordo reveals changes of such magnitude as to justify in themselves the judgement already made with regard to the "normative" Mass. Both have in many points every possibility of satisfying the most Modernist of Protestants.
II Definition of the Mass
Let us begin with the definition of the Mass given in No. 7 of the "Institutio Generalis" at the beginning of the second chapter on the Novus Ordo: "De structura Missae":
"The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. Thus the promise of Christ, 'where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them', is eminently true of the local community in the Church (Mt. XVIII, 20)".
The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of the "supper", and this term is found constantly repeated (nos. 8, 48, 55d, 56). This supper is further characterised as an assembly presided over by the priest and held as a memorial of the Lord, recalling what He did on the first Maundy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people's presence. It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition. Here, the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts to their having been superseded and therefore, at least in practice, to their denial.
In the second part of this paragraph 7 it is asserted, aggravating the already serious equivocation, that there holds good, "eminently", for this assembly Christ's promise that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. XVIII, 20). This promise which refers only to the spiritual presence of Christ with His grace, is thus put on the same qualitative plane, save for the greater intensity, as the substantial and physical reality of the Sacramental Eucharistic Presence.
In no. 8 a subdivision of the Mass into "liturgy of the word" and Eucharistic liturgy immediately follows, with the affirmation that in the Mass is made ready "the table of the God's word" as of "the Body of Christ", so that the faithful "may be built up and refreshed"; an altogether improper assimilation of the two parts of the liturgy, as though between two points of equal symbol value. More will be said about this point later.
This Mass is designed by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed, as they are, separately in an absolute sense.
We cite a few: The Action of the People of God; The Lord's Supper or Mass, the Pascal Banquet; The Common Participation of the Lord's Table; The Eucharistic Prayer; The Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic Liturgy.
As is only too evident, the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the supper and the memorial instead of upon the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary. (Editor's emphasis) The formula "The Memorial of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord", besides, is inexact, the Mass being the memorial of the Sacrifice alone, in itself redemptive, while the Resurrection is the consequent fruit of it.
We shall later see how, in the very consecratory formula, and throughout the Novus Ordo, such equivocations are renewed and reiterated.
III Presentation of the Ends
We now come to the ends of the Mass.
1. Ultimate End. This is that of the Sacrifice of praise to the Most Holy Trinity according to the explicit declaration of Christ in the primary purpose of His very Incarnation: "Coming into the world he saith: 'sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not but a body thou hast fitted me' ". (Ps. XXXIX, 7-9 in Heb. X, 5).
This end has disappeared: from the Offertory, with the disappearance of the prayer "Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas", from the end of the Mass with the omission of the "Placet tibi Sancta Trinitas", and from the Preface, which on Sunday will no longer be that of the Most Holy Trinity, as this Preface will be reserved only to the Feast of the Trinity, and so in future will be heard but once a year.
2. Ordinary End. This is the propitiatory Sacrifice. It too has been deviated from; for instead of putting the stress on the remission of sins of the living and the dead, it lays emphasis on the nourishment and sanctification of those present (No. 54). Christ certainly instituted the Sacrament of the Last Supper putting Himself in the state of Victim in order that we might be united to Him in this state but his self- immolation precedes the eating of the Victim, and has an antecedent and full redemptive value (the application of the bloody immolation). This is borne out by the fact that the faithful present are not bound to communicate, sacramentally.
3. Immanent End. Whatever the nature of the Sacrifice, it is absolutely necessary that it be pleasing and acceptable to God. After the Fall no sacrifice can claim to be acceptable in its own right other than the Sacrifice of Christ. The Novus Ordo changes the nature of the offering turning it into a sort of exchange of gifts between man and God: man brings the bread, and God turns it into the "bread of life"; man brings the wine, and God turns it into a "spiritual drink". (Editor's emphasis)
"Thou are blessed Lord God of the Universe because from thy generosity we have received the bread (or wine) which we offer thee, the fruit of the earth (or vine) and of man's labour. May it become for us the bread of life (or spiritual drink)".
There is no need to comment on the utter indeterminateness of the formulae "bread of life" and "spiritual drink", which might mean anything. The same capital equivocation is repeated here, as in the definition of the Mass: there, Christ is present only spiritually among His own: here, bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
Suppression of Great Prayers
In the preparation of the offering, a similar equivocation results from the suppression of two great prayers. The "Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti" was a reference to man's former condition of innocence and to his present one of being ransomed by the Blood of Christ: a recapitulation of the whole economy of the Sacrifice, from Adam to the present moment. The final propitiatory offering of the chalice, that it might ascend "cum adore suavitatis", into the presence of the divine majesty, whose clemency was implored, admirably reaffirmed this plan. By suppressing the continual reference of the Eucharistic prayers to God, there is no longer any clear distinction between divine and human sacrifice.
Having removed the keystone, the reformers have had to put up scaffolding; suppressing real ends, they had to substitute fictitious ends of their own; leading to gestures intended to stress to union of priest and faithful, and of the faithful among themselves; offerings for the poor and for the church superimposed upon the Offering of the Host to be immolated. There is a danger that the uniqueness of this offer will become blurred, so that participation in the immolation of the Victim comes to resemble a philanthropical meeting, or a charity banquet.
IV The Essence
We now pass on to the essence of the Sacrifice.
The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed. It is only there obscurely, veiled, imperceptible for the people. And for these reasons:
1. The sense given in the Novus Ordo to the so-called "prex Eucharistica" is: "that the whole congregation of the faithful may be united to Christ in proclaiming the great wonders of God and in offering sacrifice" (No. 54. the end)
Which sacrifice is referred to? Who is the offerer? No answer is given to either of these questions. The initial definition of the "prex Eucharistica" is as follows: "The centre and culminating point of the whole celebration now has a beginning, namely the Eucharistic Prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving and of sanctification" (No. 54, pr.). The effects thus replace the causes, of which not one single word is said. The explicit mention of the object of the offering, which was found in the "Suscipe", has not been replaced by anything. The change in formulation reveals the change in doctrine. (Editor's emphasis)
2. The reason for this non-explicitness concerning the Sacrifice is quite simply that the Real Presence has been removed from the central position which it occupied so resplendently in the former Eucharistic liturgy. There is but a single reference to the Real Presence, (a quotation - a footnote - from the Council of Trent) and again the context is that of "nourishment" (no. 241, note 63)
The Real and permanent Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the transubstantiated Species is never alluded to. The very word transubstantiation is totally ignored. (Editor's emphasis)
The suppression of the invocation to the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity ("Veni Sanctificator") that He may descend upon the oblations, as once before into the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin to accomplish the miracle of the divine Presence, is yet one more instance of the systematic and tacit negation of the Real Presence.
Note, too, the suppressions:
* of the genuflections (no more than three remain to the priest, and one, with certain exceptions, to the people, at the Consecration;
* of the purification of the priest's fingers in the chalice;
* of the preservation from all profane contact of the priest's fingers after the Consecration; of the purification of the vessels, which need not be immediate, nor made on the corporal;
* of the pall protecting the chalice;
* of the internal gilding of sacred vessels;
* of the consecration of movable altars;
* of the sacred stone and relics in the movable altar or upon the "table" - "when celebration does not occur in sacred precincts" (this distinction leads straight to "Eucharistic suppers" in private houses);
* of the three altar-cloths, reduced to one only;
* of thanksgiving kneeling (replaced by a thanksgiving, seated, on the part of the priest and people, a logical enough complement to Communion standing);
* of all the former prescriptions in the case of the consecrated Host falling, which are now reduced to a single, casual direction: "reventur accipiatur" (no. 239)
All these things only serve to emphasise how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated. (Editor's Emphasis)
3. The function assigned to the altar (no. 262). The altar is almost always called 'table', "The altar or table of the Lord, which is the centre of the whole Eucharistic liturgy" (no. 49, cf. 262). It is laid down that the altar must be detached from the walls so that it is possible to walk round it and celebration may be facing the people (no. 262); also that the altar must be the centre of the assembly of the faithful so that their attention is drawn spontaneously towards it (ibid). But a comparison of no. 262 and 276 would seem to suggest that the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament on this altar is excluded. This will mark an irreparable dichotomy between the presence, in the celebrant, of the eternal High Priest and that same presence brought about sacramentally. Before, they were 'one and the same presence'.
Separation of Altar and Tabernacle
Now it is recommended that the Blessed Sacrament be kept in a place apart for the private devotion of the people (almost as though it were a question of devotion to a relic of some kind) so that, on going into a church, attention will no longer be focused upon the Tabernacle but upon a stripped, bare table. (Editor's emphasis) Once again the contrast is made between 'private' piety and 'liturgical' piety: altar is set up against altar.
In the insistent recommendation to distribute in Communion the Species consecrated during the same Mass, indeed to consecrate a loaf for the priest to distribute to at least some of the faithful, we find reasserted a disparaging attitude towards the Tabernacle, as towards every form of Eucharistic piety outside of the Mass. This constitutes yet another violent blow to faith in the Real Presence as long as the consecrated Species remain.
The formula of Consecration. The ancient formula of consecration was properly a sacramental not a narrative one. (Editor's emphasis) This was shown above all by three things:
a) The Scriptural text not taken up word for word: the Pauline insertion "mysterium fidei" was an immediate confession of the priest's faith in the mystery realised by the Church through the hierarchical priesthood.
b) The punctuation and typographical lay-out: the full stop and new paragraph marking the passage from the narrative mode to the sacramental and affirmative one, the sacramental words in larger characters at the centre of the page and often in a different colour, clearly detached from the historical context. All combined to give the formula a proper and autonomous value.
"To separate the Tabernacle from the Altar is tantamount to separating two things which, of their very nature, must remain together". (PIUS XII, Allocution to the International Liturgy Congress, Assisi-Rome, Sept. 18-23, 1956). cf. also Mediator Dei, 1.5, note 28.
c) The anamnesis ("Haec quotiescompque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis"), which in Greek is "eis emou anamnesin" (directed to my memory.) This referred to Christ operating and not to mere memory of Him, or of the event: an invitation to recall what He did ("Haec . . . in mei memoriam facietis") in the way He did it, not only His Person, or the Supper. The Pauline formula ("Hoc facite in meam commemorationem") which will now take the place of the old - proclaimed as it will be daily in vernacular languages will irremediably cause the hearers to concentrate on the memory of Christ as the 'end' of the Eucharistic action, whilst it is really the 'beginning'. The concluding idea of 'commemoration' will certainly once again take the place of the idea of sacramental action.
The narrative mode is now emphasised by the formula "narratio institutionis" (no. 55d) and repeated by the definition of the anamnesis, in which it is said that "The Church recalls the memory of Himself" (no. 556).
In short: the theory put forward by the epiclesis, the modification of the words of Consecration and of the anamnesis, have the effect of modifying the modus significandi of the words of Consecration. The consecratory formulae are here pronounced by the priest as the constituents of a historical narrative and no longer enunciated as expressing the categorical affirmation uttered by Him in whole Person the priest acts: (Editor's emphasis) "Hoc est Corpus meum" (not, "Hoc est Corpus Christi").
Furthermore the acclamation assigned to the people immediately after the Consecration: ("We announce thy death, O Lord, until Thou comest") introduces yet again, under cover of eschatology, the same ambiguity concerning the Real Presence. Without interval or distinction, the expectation of Christ's Second Coming at the end of time is proclaimed just at the moment when He is substantially present on the altar, almost as though the former, and not the latter, were the true Coming. (Editor's emphasis)
This is brought out even more strongly in the formula of optional acclamation no. 2 (Appendix): "As often as we eat of this bread and drink of this chalice we announce thy death, O Lord, until thou comest", where the juxtaposition of the different realities of immolation and eating, of the Real Presence and of Christ's Second Coming, reaches the height of ambiguity.
V The Elements of Sacrifice
We come now to the realisation of the Sacrifice, the four elements of which were: 1) Christ, 2) the priest, 3) the Church, 4) the faithful present.
In the Novus Ordo, the position attributed to the faithful is autonomous (absoluta), hence totally false - from the opening definition: "Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi" to the priest's salutation to the people which is meant to convey to the assembled community the "presence" of the Lord (no. 48). "Qua salutatione et populi responsione manifestatur ecclesiae congregatae mysterium".
A true presence, certainly of Christ but only a spiritual one, and a mystery of the Church, but solely as an assembly manifesting and soliciting such a presence.
This interpretation is constantly underlined: by the obsessive references to the communal character of the Mass (nos. 74-152); by the unheard of distinction between "Mass with congregation" and "Mass without congregation" (nos. 203-231); by the definition of the "oratio universalis seu fidelium" (no. 45) where once more we find stressed the "sacerdotal office" of the people (populus sui sacerdotii munus excercens") presented in an equivocal way because its subordination to that of the priest is not mentioned, and all the more since the priest, as consecrated mediator, makes himself the interpreter of all the intentions of the people in the Te igitur and the two Memento.
In "Eucharistic Prayer III" ("Vere sanctus", p. 123) the following words are addressed to the Lord: "from age to age you gather a people to yourself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name", the 'in order that' making it appear that the people rather than the priest are the indispensable element in the celebration; and since not even here is it made clear who the offerer is, the people themselves appear to be invested with autonomous priestly powers. (Editor's emphasis) From this step it would not be surprising if, before long, the people were authorised to join the priest in pronouncing the consecrating formulae (which actually seems here and there to have already occurred).
Priest as Mere President
2) The priest's position is minimised, changed and falsified. Firstly in relation to the people for whom he is, for the most part, a mere president, or brother, instead of the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi. (Editor's emphasis) Secondly in relation to the Church, as a "quidam de populo". In the definition of the epiclesis (no. 55), the invocations are attributed anonymously to the Church: the part of the priest has vanished.
In the Confiteor which has now become collective, he is no longer judge, witness and intercessor with God; so it is logical that his is no longer empowered to give the absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres. Even the server address him as such in the Confiteor of the "Missa sine populo".
Already, prior to this latest reform, the significant distinction between the Communion of the priest - the moment in which the Eternal High Priest and the one acting in His Person were brought together in the closest union - and the Communion of the faithful has been suppressed. (Editor's emphasis)
Not a word do we now find as to the priest's power to sacrifice, or about his act of consecration, the bringing about through him of the Eucharistic Presence. He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister.
(Editor's emphasis)
The disappearance, or optional use, of many sacred vestments (in certain cases the alb and stole are sufficient - no. 298) obliterate even more the original conformity with Christ: the priest is no more clothed with all His virtues, become merely a "non-commissioned officer" whom one or two signs may distinguish from the mass of the people: "a little more a man than the rest", to quite the involuntarily humorous definition of a modern preacher. Again, as with the "table" and the Altar, there is separated what God has united: the sole Priesthood and the Word of God.
3) Finally, there is the Church's position in relation to Christ. In one case only, namely the "Mass without congregation", is the Mass acknowledged to be "Actio Christi et Ecclesiae" (no. 4, cf. Presb. Ord. no. 13), whereas in the case of the "Mass with congregation" this is not referred to except for the purpose of "remembering Christ" and sanctifying those present. The words used are: "In offering the sacrifice through Christ in the Holy Ghost to God the Father, the priest associates the people with himself" (no. 60), instead one ones which would associate the people with Christ Who offers Himself "per Spiritum Sanctum Deo Patri".
In this context the following are to be noted:
1) the very serious omission of the phrase "Through Christ Our Lord", the guarantee of being heard given to the Church in every age (John, XIV, 13-14; 15; 16; 23; 24);
2) the all pervading "paschalism", almost as though there were no other, quite different and equally important, aspects of the communication of grace;
3) the very strange and dubious eschatologism whereby the communication of supernatural grace, a reality which is permanent and eternal, is brought down to the dimensions of time: we hear of a people on the march, a pilgrim Church - no longer militant - against the Powers of Darkness - looking towards a future which having lost its line with eternity is conceived in purely temporal terms.
The Church - One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic - is diminished as such in the formula that, in the "Eucharistic Prayer No. 4", has taken the place of the prayer of the Roman Cannon "on behalf of all orthodox believers of the Catholic and apostolic faith". Now we have merely: "all who seek you with a sincere heart".
Again, in the Memento for the dead, these have no longer passed on "with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace" but only "who have died in the peace of thy Christ", and to them are added, with further obvious detriment to the concept of visible unity, the host "of all the dead whose faith is known to you alone".
Furthermore, in none of three new Eucharistic prayers, is there any reference, as has already been said, to that state of suffering of those who have died, in none the possibility of a particular Memento: all of this again, must undermine faith in the propitiatory and redemptive nature of the Sacrifice. (Editor's emphasis)
Desacralizing the Church
Desacralising omissions everywhere debase the mystery of the Church. Above all she is not presented as a sacred hierarchy: Angels and Saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor: they have disappeared, as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael, for the first.
The various hierarchies of angels have also disappeared (and this is without precedent) from the new Preface of "Prayer II". In the Communicantes, reminder of the Pontiffs and holy martyrs on whom the Church of Rome is founded and who were, without doubt, the transmitters of the apostolic traditions, destined to be completed in what became, with St. Gregory, the Roman Mass, has been suppressed. In the Libera nos the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints are no longer mentioned: her and their intercession is thus no longer asked, even in time of peril.
The unity of the Church is gravely compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new Prayers, of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Founders of the Church of Rome, and the names of the other Apostles, foundation and mark of the one and universal Church, the only remaining mention being in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon.
A clear attack upon the dogma of the Communion of Saints is the omission, when the priest is celebrating without a server, of all the salutations, and the final Blessing, not to speak of the 'Ite, missa est' now not even said in Masses celebrated with a server.
The double Confiteor showed how the priest, in his capacity of Christ's Minister, bowing down deeply and acknowledging himself unworthy of his sublime mission, of the "tremendum mysterium", about to be accomplished by him and even (in the Aufer a nobis) entering into the Holy of Holies, invoked the intercession (in the Oramus te, Domine) of the merits of the martyrs whose relics were sealed in the altar. Both these prayers have been suppressed; what has been said previously in respect of the double Confiteor and the double Communion is equally relevant here.
The outward setting of the Sacrifice, evidence of its sacred character, has been profaned. See, for example, what is laid down for celebration outside sacred precincts, in which the altar may be replaced by a simple "table" without consecrated stone or relics, and with a single cloth (nos. 260, 265). Here too all that has been previously said with regard to the Real Presence applies, the disassociation of the "convivium" and of the sacrifice of the supper from the Real Presence Itself.
The process of desacralisation is completed thanks to the new procedures for the offering: (Editor's emphasis) the reference to ordinary not unleavened bread; altar-servers (and lay people at Communion sub utraque specie) being allowed to handle sacred vessels (no. 244d); the distracting atmosphere created by the ceaseless coming and going of the priest, deacon, subdeacon, psalmist, commentator (the priest becomes commentator himself from his constantly being required to 'explain' what he is about to accomplish) - of readings (men and women), of servers or laymen welcoming people at the door and escorting them to their places whilst others carry and sort offerings. And in the midst of all this prescribed activity, the 'mulier idonea' (anti-Scriptural and anti-Pauline) who for the first time in the tradition of the Church will be authorised to read the lessons and also perform other "ministeria quae extra presbyterium peraguntur" (no. 70).
Finally, there is the concelebration mania, which will end by destroying Eucharistic piety in the priest, by overshadowing the central figure of Christ, sole Priest and Victim, in a collective presence of concelebrants.
VI The Destruction of Unity
We have limited ourselves to a summary evaluation of the new Ordo where it deviates most seriously from the theology of the Catholic Mass and our observations touch only those deviations that are typical. A complete evaluation of all the pitfalls, the dangers, and spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the document - whether in text, rubrics or instructions - would be a vast undertaking.
By Priest or Parson
No more than a passing glance has been taken at the three new Canons, since these have already come in for repeated and authoritative criticism, both as to form and substance. The second of them gave immediate scandal to the faithful on account of its brevity. Of Canon II it has been well said, among other things, that it could be recited with perfect tranquillity of conscience by a priest who no longer believes either in Transubstantiation or in the sacrificial character of the Mass - hence even by a Protestant minister.
The new Missal was introduced in Rome as "a text of ample pastoral matter", and "more pastoral than juridical", which the Episcopal Conferences would be able to utilise according to the varying circumstances and genius of different peoples. In the same Apostolic Constitution we read: "we have introduced into the New Missal legitimate variations and adaptations". Besides, Section I of the new Congregation for Divine Worship will be responsible "for the publication and 'constant revision' of the liturgical books". The last official bulletin of the Liturgical Institutes of Germany, Switzerland and Austria says: "The Latin texts will now have to be translated into the languages of the various peoples; the 'Roman' style will have to be adapted to the individuality of the local Churches: that which was conceived beyond time must be transposed into the changing context of concrete situations in the constant flux of the Universal Church and of its myriad congregations."
The Apostolic Constitution itself gives the coup de grace to the Church's universal language (contrary to the express will of Vatican Council II) with the bland affirmation that "in such a variety of tongues one (?) and the same prayer of all . . . may ascend more fragrant than any incense".
Council of Trent Rejected
The demise of Latin may therefore be taken for granted; that of Gregorian Chant, which even the Council recognised as "liturgiae romanae proprium" (Sacros Conc. no 116), ordering that "principem locum obtineat" (ibid.) will logically follow, with the freedom of choice, amongst other things, of the texts of the Introit and Gradual.
From the outset therefore the New Rite is launched as pluralistic and experimental, bound to time and place. Unity of worship, thus swept away for good and all, what will become of that unity of faith that went with it, and which, we were always told, was to be defended without compromise? (Editor's emphasis)
It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever. With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus faced with a most tragic alternative.
(Editor's emphasis)
VII The Alienation of the Orthodox
The Apostolic Constitution makes explicit reference to a wealth of piety and teaching in the Novus Ordo borrowed from Eastern Churches. The result - utterly remote from and even opposed to the inspiration of the oriental Liturgies - can only repel the faithful of the Eastern Rites. What, in truth, do these ecumenical options amount to? Basically to the multiplicity of anaphora (but nothing approaching their beauty and complexity), to the presence of deacons, to Communion sub utraque specie.
Against this, the Novus Ordo would appear to have been deliberately shorn of everything which in the Liturgy of Rome came close to those of the East.
Moreover in abandoning its unmistakable and immemorial Roman character, the Novus Ordo lost what was spiritually precious of its own. Its place has been taken by elements which bring it closer only to certain other reformed liturgies (not even those closest to Catholicism) and which debase it at the same time. The East will be ever more alienated, as it already has been by the preceding liturgical reforms.
By the way of compensation the new Liturgy will be the delight of the various groups who, hovering on the verge of apostasy, are wreaking havoc in the Church of God, poisoning her organism and undermining her unity of doctrine, worship, morals and discipline in a spiritual crisis without precedent.
VIII The Abandonment of Defences
St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution itself recalls) so that it might be an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent it was to exclude all danger, in liturgical worship, of errors against the Faith, then threatened by the Protestant Reformation. The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly Pontiff's solemn warning given at the end of the Bull promulgating his Missal "should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Quo Primum, July 13, 1570)
When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was asserted with great audacity that the reasons which prompted the Tridentine decrees are no longer valid. Not only do they still apply, but there also exist, as we do not hesitate to affirm, very much more serious ones today. (Editor's emphasis)
It was precisely in order to ward off the dangers which in every century threaten the purity of the deposit of faith (depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitates" Tim. VI, 20) the Church has had to erect under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the defences of her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements.
These were immediately reflected in her worship, which became the most complete monument of her faith. To try to bring the Church's worship back at all cost to ancient practices by refashioning, artificially and with that "unhealthy archeologism" so roundly condemned by Pius XII, what in earlier times had the grace of original spontaneity means as we see today only too clearly - to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the Rite and to take away all the beauty by which it was enriched over the centuries.
And all this at one of the most critical moments - if not the most critical moment - of the Church's history!
Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside of but within the Church. Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised. Errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition.
To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorised, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.
(Editor's emphasis)
Special note about the above document:
When studying the issues involved in the new liturgy, you may come across the assertion that Cardinal Ottaviani signed a document retracting his words above. But here is what happened, as recounted at www.tradition.com:
A purported letter of February 17, 1970, supposedly with the Cardinal's signature, was adduced to prove the story. However, by that date it is known that the Cardinal, then 80, was totally blind and would not have known what he was signing when presented with the purposed letter by his secretary, Msgr. Gilberto Agustoni. [Ed. Agustoni was later made Bishop, then Cardinal, by John Paul II]
Now it has come to light that this Agustoni [Ed. along with his brother, Fr. Luigi Agustoni] was a member of the Consilium which that fabricated the "New Mass" and which the Arch-Architect of the New Order service, Hannibal Bugnini, led. At the time, Jean Madiran, the editor of the respected French journal Itineraires, publicly accused Agustoni of obtaining the Cardinal's signature by fraud. As a result, Agustoni was fired as the Cardinal's secretary.
So, it seems that Agustoni insinuated his way into becoming the Cardinal's secretary and in that position created a fraud in an attempt to undermine the Cardinal's public document, which questioned the validity of the New Order service, by a phony "retraction," which Agustoni had himself written with others. In any case, co-author Antonio Cardinal Bacci and the Roman theologians never "retracted," in any manner, shape, or form the devastating document, which they courageously published.
Letter from Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci to His Holiness Pope Paul VI
September 25th, 1969
Most Holy Father, Having carefully examined, and presented for the scrutiny of others, the Novus Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, and after lengthy prayer and reflection, we feel it to be our bounden duty in the sight of God and towards Your Holiness, to put before you the following considerations:
1. The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The "canons" of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
2. The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition, even if such reasons could be regarded as holding good in the face of doctrinal considerations, do not seem to us sufficient. The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place, if it subsists at all, could well turn into a certainty the suspicions already prevalent, alas, in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people, can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for ever. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith.
Amongst the best of the clergy the practical result is an agonising crisis of conscience of which innumerable instances come tour notice daily.
3. We are certain that these considerations, which can only reach Your Holiness by the living voice of both shepherds and flock, cannot but find an echo in Your paternal heart, always so profoundly solicitous for the spiritual needs of the children of the Church. It has always been the case that when a law meant for the good of subjects proves to be on the contrary harmful, those subjects have the right, nay the duty of asking with filial trust for the abrogation of that law.
Therefore we most earnestly beseech Your Holiness, at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the church, lamented by You our common Father, not to deprive us of the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world.
A. Card. Ottaviani
A. Card. Bacci
Brief Summary
I History of the Change
The new form of Mass was substantially rejected by the Episcopal Synod, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences and was never asked for by the people. It has every possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants.
II Definition of the Mass
By a series of equivocations the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the 'supper' and the 'memorial' instead of on the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
III Presentation of the Ends
The three ends of the Mass are altered:- no distinction is allowed to remain between Divine and human sacrifice; bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
IV The Essence
The Real Presence of Christ is never alluded to and belief in it is implicitly repudiated.
V The Elements of the Sacrifice
The position of both priest and people is falsified and the Celebrant appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister, while the true nature of the Church is intolerably misrepresented.
VI The Destruction of Unity
The abandonment of Latin sweeps away for good and all unity of worship. This may have its effect on unity of belief and the New Order has no intention of standing for the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent to which the Catholic conscience is bound.
VII The Alienation of the Orthodox
While pleasing various dissenting groups, the New Order will alienate the East.
VIII The Abandonment of Defences
The New Order teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion and dismantles all defences of the deposit of Faith.
I History of the Change
In October 1967, the Episcopal Synod called in Rome was required to pass judgement on the experimental celebration of a so-called "normative Mass" (New Mass), devised by the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. This Mass aroused the most serious misgivings. The voting showed considerable opposition (43 non placet), very many substantial reservations (62 juxta modum), and 4 abstentions out of 187 voters. The international press spoke of a "refusal" of the proposed "normative Mass" (New Mass) on the part of the Synod. Progressively-inclined papers made no mention of it. In the Novus Ordo Missae lately promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, we once again find this "normative Mass" (New Mass), identical in substance, nor does it appear that in the intervening period the Episcopal Conference, at least as such, were ever asked to give their views about it.
In the Apostolic Constitution, it is stated that the ancient Missal promulgated by St. Pius V, 13th July 1570, but going back in great part to St. Gregory the Great and still remoter antiquity, was for four centuries the norm for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice for priests of the Latin rite, and that, taken to every part of the world, "it has moreover been an abundant source of spiritual nourishment to many holy people in their devotion to God". Yet, the present reform, putting it definitely out of use, was claimed to be necessary since "from that time the study of the Sacred Liturgy has become more widespread and intensive among Christians".
This assertion seems to us to embody a serious equivocation. For the desire of the people was expressed, if at all, when - thanks to Pius X - they began to discover the true and everlasting treasures of the liturgy. The people never on any account asked for the liturgy to be changed, or mutilated so as to understand it better. They asked for a better understanding of the changeless liturgy, and one which they would never have wanted changed.
The Roman Missal of St. Pius V was religiously venerated and most dear to Catholics, both priests and laity. One fails to see how its use, together with suitable catechesis, could have hindered a fuller participation in, and great knowledge of the Sacred Liturgy, nor why, when its many outstanding virtues are recognised, this should not have been considered worthy to continue to foster the liturgical piety of Christians.
Rejected by Synod
Since the "normative" Mass (New Mass), now reintroduced and imposed as the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of the Mass), was in substance rejected by the Synod of Bishops, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences, nor have the people - least of all in mission lands - ever asked for any reform of Holy Mass whatsoever, one fails to comprehend the motives behind the new legislation which overthrows a tradition unchanged in the Church since the 4th and 5th centuries, as the Apostolic Constitution itself acknowledges. As no popular demand exists to support this reform, it appears devoid of any logical grounds to justify it and makes it acceptable to the Catholic people.
The Vatican Council did indeed express a desire (para. 50 Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium) for the various parts of the Mass to be reordered "ut singularum partium propria ratio nec non mutua connexio clarius pateant." We shall see how the Ordo recently promulgated corresponds with this original intention.
An attentive examination of the Novus Ordo reveals changes of such magnitude as to justify in themselves the judgement already made with regard to the "normative" Mass. Both have in many points every possibility of satisfying the most Modernist of Protestants.
II Definition of the Mass
Let us begin with the definition of the Mass given in No. 7 of the "Institutio Generalis" at the beginning of the second chapter on the Novus Ordo: "De structura Missae":
"The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred meeting or assembly of the People of God, met together under the presidency of the priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. Thus the promise of Christ, 'where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them', is eminently true of the local community in the Church (Mt. XVIII, 20)".
The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of the "supper", and this term is found constantly repeated (nos. 8, 48, 55d, 56). This supper is further characterised as an assembly presided over by the priest and held as a memorial of the Lord, recalling what He did on the first Maundy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies either the Real Presence, or the reality of sacrifice, or the Sacramental function of the consecrating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the people's presence. It does not, in a word, imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass which together provide its true definition. Here, the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts to their having been superseded and therefore, at least in practice, to their denial.
In the second part of this paragraph 7 it is asserted, aggravating the already serious equivocation, that there holds good, "eminently", for this assembly Christ's promise that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. XVIII, 20). This promise which refers only to the spiritual presence of Christ with His grace, is thus put on the same qualitative plane, save for the greater intensity, as the substantial and physical reality of the Sacramental Eucharistic Presence.
In no. 8 a subdivision of the Mass into "liturgy of the word" and Eucharistic liturgy immediately follows, with the affirmation that in the Mass is made ready "the table of the God's word" as of "the Body of Christ", so that the faithful "may be built up and refreshed"; an altogether improper assimilation of the two parts of the liturgy, as though between two points of equal symbol value. More will be said about this point later.
This Mass is designed by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed, as they are, separately in an absolute sense.
We cite a few: The Action of the People of God; The Lord's Supper or Mass, the Pascal Banquet; The Common Participation of the Lord's Table; The Eucharistic Prayer; The Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic Liturgy.
As is only too evident, the emphasis is obsessively placed upon the supper and the memorial instead of upon the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary. (Editor's emphasis) The formula "The Memorial of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord", besides, is inexact, the Mass being the memorial of the Sacrifice alone, in itself redemptive, while the Resurrection is the consequent fruit of it.
We shall later see how, in the very consecratory formula, and throughout the Novus Ordo, such equivocations are renewed and reiterated.
III Presentation of the Ends
We now come to the ends of the Mass.
1. Ultimate End. This is that of the Sacrifice of praise to the Most Holy Trinity according to the explicit declaration of Christ in the primary purpose of His very Incarnation: "Coming into the world he saith: 'sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not but a body thou hast fitted me' ". (Ps. XXXIX, 7-9 in Heb. X, 5).
This end has disappeared: from the Offertory, with the disappearance of the prayer "Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas", from the end of the Mass with the omission of the "Placet tibi Sancta Trinitas", and from the Preface, which on Sunday will no longer be that of the Most Holy Trinity, as this Preface will be reserved only to the Feast of the Trinity, and so in future will be heard but once a year.
2. Ordinary End. This is the propitiatory Sacrifice. It too has been deviated from; for instead of putting the stress on the remission of sins of the living and the dead, it lays emphasis on the nourishment and sanctification of those present (No. 54). Christ certainly instituted the Sacrament of the Last Supper putting Himself in the state of Victim in order that we might be united to Him in this state but his self- immolation precedes the eating of the Victim, and has an antecedent and full redemptive value (the application of the bloody immolation). This is borne out by the fact that the faithful present are not bound to communicate, sacramentally.
3. Immanent End. Whatever the nature of the Sacrifice, it is absolutely necessary that it be pleasing and acceptable to God. After the Fall no sacrifice can claim to be acceptable in its own right other than the Sacrifice of Christ. The Novus Ordo changes the nature of the offering turning it into a sort of exchange of gifts between man and God: man brings the bread, and God turns it into the "bread of life"; man brings the wine, and God turns it into a "spiritual drink". (Editor's emphasis)
"Thou are blessed Lord God of the Universe because from thy generosity we have received the bread (or wine) which we offer thee, the fruit of the earth (or vine) and of man's labour. May it become for us the bread of life (or spiritual drink)".
There is no need to comment on the utter indeterminateness of the formulae "bread of life" and "spiritual drink", which might mean anything. The same capital equivocation is repeated here, as in the definition of the Mass: there, Christ is present only spiritually among His own: here, bread and wine are only "spiritually" (not substantially) changed.
Suppression of Great Prayers
In the preparation of the offering, a similar equivocation results from the suppression of two great prayers. The "Deus qui humanae substantiae dignitatem mirabiliter condidisti et mirabilius reformasti" was a reference to man's former condition of innocence and to his present one of being ransomed by the Blood of Christ: a recapitulation of the whole economy of the Sacrifice, from Adam to the present moment. The final propitiatory offering of the chalice, that it might ascend "cum adore suavitatis", into the presence of the divine majesty, whose clemency was implored, admirably reaffirmed this plan. By suppressing the continual reference of the Eucharistic prayers to God, there is no longer any clear distinction between divine and human sacrifice.
Having removed the keystone, the reformers have had to put up scaffolding; suppressing real ends, they had to substitute fictitious ends of their own; leading to gestures intended to stress to union of priest and faithful, and of the faithful among themselves; offerings for the poor and for the church superimposed upon the Offering of the Host to be immolated. There is a danger that the uniqueness of this offer will become blurred, so that participation in the immolation of the Victim comes to resemble a philanthropical meeting, or a charity banquet.
IV The Essence
We now pass on to the essence of the Sacrifice.
The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed. It is only there obscurely, veiled, imperceptible for the people. And for these reasons:
1. The sense given in the Novus Ordo to the so-called "prex Eucharistica" is: "that the whole congregation of the faithful may be united to Christ in proclaiming the great wonders of God and in offering sacrifice" (No. 54. the end)
Which sacrifice is referred to? Who is the offerer? No answer is given to either of these questions. The initial definition of the "prex Eucharistica" is as follows: "The centre and culminating point of the whole celebration now has a beginning, namely the Eucharistic Prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving and of sanctification" (No. 54, pr.). The effects thus replace the causes, of which not one single word is said. The explicit mention of the object of the offering, which was found in the "Suscipe", has not been replaced by anything. The change in formulation reveals the change in doctrine. (Editor's emphasis)
2. The reason for this non-explicitness concerning the Sacrifice is quite simply that the Real Presence has been removed from the central position which it occupied so resplendently in the former Eucharistic liturgy. There is but a single reference to the Real Presence, (a quotation - a footnote - from the Council of Trent) and again the context is that of "nourishment" (no. 241, note 63)
The Real and permanent Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the transubstantiated Species is never alluded to. The very word transubstantiation is totally ignored. (Editor's emphasis)
The suppression of the invocation to the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity ("Veni Sanctificator") that He may descend upon the oblations, as once before into the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin to accomplish the miracle of the divine Presence, is yet one more instance of the systematic and tacit negation of the Real Presence.
Note, too, the suppressions:
* of the genuflections (no more than three remain to the priest, and one, with certain exceptions, to the people, at the Consecration;
* of the purification of the priest's fingers in the chalice;
* of the preservation from all profane contact of the priest's fingers after the Consecration; of the purification of the vessels, which need not be immediate, nor made on the corporal;
* of the pall protecting the chalice;
* of the internal gilding of sacred vessels;
* of the consecration of movable altars;
* of the sacred stone and relics in the movable altar or upon the "table" - "when celebration does not occur in sacred precincts" (this distinction leads straight to "Eucharistic suppers" in private houses);
* of the three altar-cloths, reduced to one only;
* of thanksgiving kneeling (replaced by a thanksgiving, seated, on the part of the priest and people, a logical enough complement to Communion standing);
* of all the former prescriptions in the case of the consecrated Host falling, which are now reduced to a single, casual direction: "reventur accipiatur" (no. 239)
All these things only serve to emphasise how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated. (Editor's Emphasis)
3. The function assigned to the altar (no. 262). The altar is almost always called 'table', "The altar or table of the Lord, which is the centre of the whole Eucharistic liturgy" (no. 49, cf. 262). It is laid down that the altar must be detached from the walls so that it is possible to walk round it and celebration may be facing the people (no. 262); also that the altar must be the centre of the assembly of the faithful so that their attention is drawn spontaneously towards it (ibid). But a comparison of no. 262 and 276 would seem to suggest that the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament on this altar is excluded. This will mark an irreparable dichotomy between the presence, in the celebrant, of the eternal High Priest and that same presence brought about sacramentally. Before, they were 'one and the same presence'.
Separation of Altar and Tabernacle
Now it is recommended that the Blessed Sacrament be kept in a place apart for the private devotion of the people (almost as though it were a question of devotion to a relic of some kind) so that, on going into a church, attention will no longer be focused upon the Tabernacle but upon a stripped, bare table. (Editor's emphasis) Once again the contrast is made between 'private' piety and 'liturgical' piety: altar is set up against altar.
In the insistent recommendation to distribute in Communion the Species consecrated during the same Mass, indeed to consecrate a loaf for the priest to distribute to at least some of the faithful, we find reasserted a disparaging attitude towards the Tabernacle, as towards every form of Eucharistic piety outside of the Mass. This constitutes yet another violent blow to faith in the Real Presence as long as the consecrated Species remain.
The formula of Consecration. The ancient formula of consecration was properly a sacramental not a narrative one. (Editor's emphasis) This was shown above all by three things:
a) The Scriptural text not taken up word for word: the Pauline insertion "mysterium fidei" was an immediate confession of the priest's faith in the mystery realised by the Church through the hierarchical priesthood.
b) The punctuation and typographical lay-out: the full stop and new paragraph marking the passage from the narrative mode to the sacramental and affirmative one, the sacramental words in larger characters at the centre of the page and often in a different colour, clearly detached from the historical context. All combined to give the formula a proper and autonomous value.
"To separate the Tabernacle from the Altar is tantamount to separating two things which, of their very nature, must remain together". (PIUS XII, Allocution to the International Liturgy Congress, Assisi-Rome, Sept. 18-23, 1956). cf. also Mediator Dei, 1.5, note 28.
c) The anamnesis ("Haec quotiescompque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis"), which in Greek is "eis emou anamnesin" (directed to my memory.) This referred to Christ operating and not to mere memory of Him, or of the event: an invitation to recall what He did ("Haec . . . in mei memoriam facietis") in the way He did it, not only His Person, or the Supper. The Pauline formula ("Hoc facite in meam commemorationem") which will now take the place of the old - proclaimed as it will be daily in vernacular languages will irremediably cause the hearers to concentrate on the memory of Christ as the 'end' of the Eucharistic action, whilst it is really the 'beginning'. The concluding idea of 'commemoration' will certainly once again take the place of the idea of sacramental action.
The narrative mode is now emphasised by the formula "narratio institutionis" (no. 55d) and repeated by the definition of the anamnesis, in which it is said that "The Church recalls the memory of Himself" (no. 556).
In short: the theory put forward by the epiclesis, the modification of the words of Consecration and of the anamnesis, have the effect of modifying the modus significandi of the words of Consecration. The consecratory formulae are here pronounced by the priest as the constituents of a historical narrative and no longer enunciated as expressing the categorical affirmation uttered by Him in whole Person the priest acts: (Editor's emphasis) "Hoc est Corpus meum" (not, "Hoc est Corpus Christi").
Furthermore the acclamation assigned to the people immediately after the Consecration: ("We announce thy death, O Lord, until Thou comest") introduces yet again, under cover of eschatology, the same ambiguity concerning the Real Presence. Without interval or distinction, the expectation of Christ's Second Coming at the end of time is proclaimed just at the moment when He is substantially present on the altar, almost as though the former, and not the latter, were the true Coming. (Editor's emphasis)
This is brought out even more strongly in the formula of optional acclamation no. 2 (Appendix): "As often as we eat of this bread and drink of this chalice we announce thy death, O Lord, until thou comest", where the juxtaposition of the different realities of immolation and eating, of the Real Presence and of Christ's Second Coming, reaches the height of ambiguity.
V The Elements of Sacrifice
We come now to the realisation of the Sacrifice, the four elements of which were: 1) Christ, 2) the priest, 3) the Church, 4) the faithful present.
In the Novus Ordo, the position attributed to the faithful is autonomous (absoluta), hence totally false - from the opening definition: "Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi" to the priest's salutation to the people which is meant to convey to the assembled community the "presence" of the Lord (no. 48). "Qua salutatione et populi responsione manifestatur ecclesiae congregatae mysterium".
A true presence, certainly of Christ but only a spiritual one, and a mystery of the Church, but solely as an assembly manifesting and soliciting such a presence.
This interpretation is constantly underlined: by the obsessive references to the communal character of the Mass (nos. 74-152); by the unheard of distinction between "Mass with congregation" and "Mass without congregation" (nos. 203-231); by the definition of the "oratio universalis seu fidelium" (no. 45) where once more we find stressed the "sacerdotal office" of the people (populus sui sacerdotii munus excercens") presented in an equivocal way because its subordination to that of the priest is not mentioned, and all the more since the priest, as consecrated mediator, makes himself the interpreter of all the intentions of the people in the Te igitur and the two Memento.
In "Eucharistic Prayer III" ("Vere sanctus", p. 123) the following words are addressed to the Lord: "from age to age you gather a people to yourself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name", the 'in order that' making it appear that the people rather than the priest are the indispensable element in the celebration; and since not even here is it made clear who the offerer is, the people themselves appear to be invested with autonomous priestly powers. (Editor's emphasis) From this step it would not be surprising if, before long, the people were authorised to join the priest in pronouncing the consecrating formulae (which actually seems here and there to have already occurred).
Priest as Mere President
2) The priest's position is minimised, changed and falsified. Firstly in relation to the people for whom he is, for the most part, a mere president, or brother, instead of the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi. (Editor's emphasis) Secondly in relation to the Church, as a "quidam de populo". In the definition of the epiclesis (no. 55), the invocations are attributed anonymously to the Church: the part of the priest has vanished.
In the Confiteor which has now become collective, he is no longer judge, witness and intercessor with God; so it is logical that his is no longer empowered to give the absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres. Even the server address him as such in the Confiteor of the "Missa sine populo".
Already, prior to this latest reform, the significant distinction between the Communion of the priest - the moment in which the Eternal High Priest and the one acting in His Person were brought together in the closest union - and the Communion of the faithful has been suppressed. (Editor's emphasis)
Not a word do we now find as to the priest's power to sacrifice, or about his act of consecration, the bringing about through him of the Eucharistic Presence. He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister.
(Editor's emphasis)
The disappearance, or optional use, of many sacred vestments (in certain cases the alb and stole are sufficient - no. 298) obliterate even more the original conformity with Christ: the priest is no more clothed with all His virtues, become merely a "non-commissioned officer" whom one or two signs may distinguish from the mass of the people: "a little more a man than the rest", to quite the involuntarily humorous definition of a modern preacher. Again, as with the "table" and the Altar, there is separated what God has united: the sole Priesthood and the Word of God.
3) Finally, there is the Church's position in relation to Christ. In one case only, namely the "Mass without congregation", is the Mass acknowledged to be "Actio Christi et Ecclesiae" (no. 4, cf. Presb. Ord. no. 13), whereas in the case of the "Mass with congregation" this is not referred to except for the purpose of "remembering Christ" and sanctifying those present. The words used are: "In offering the sacrifice through Christ in the Holy Ghost to God the Father, the priest associates the people with himself" (no. 60), instead one ones which would associate the people with Christ Who offers Himself "per Spiritum Sanctum Deo Patri".
In this context the following are to be noted:
1) the very serious omission of the phrase "Through Christ Our Lord", the guarantee of being heard given to the Church in every age (John, XIV, 13-14; 15; 16; 23; 24);
2) the all pervading "paschalism", almost as though there were no other, quite different and equally important, aspects of the communication of grace;
3) the very strange and dubious eschatologism whereby the communication of supernatural grace, a reality which is permanent and eternal, is brought down to the dimensions of time: we hear of a people on the march, a pilgrim Church - no longer militant - against the Powers of Darkness - looking towards a future which having lost its line with eternity is conceived in purely temporal terms.
The Church - One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic - is diminished as such in the formula that, in the "Eucharistic Prayer No. 4", has taken the place of the prayer of the Roman Cannon "on behalf of all orthodox believers of the Catholic and apostolic faith". Now we have merely: "all who seek you with a sincere heart".
Again, in the Memento for the dead, these have no longer passed on "with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace" but only "who have died in the peace of thy Christ", and to them are added, with further obvious detriment to the concept of visible unity, the host "of all the dead whose faith is known to you alone".
Furthermore, in none of three new Eucharistic prayers, is there any reference, as has already been said, to that state of suffering of those who have died, in none the possibility of a particular Memento: all of this again, must undermine faith in the propitiatory and redemptive nature of the Sacrifice. (Editor's emphasis)
Desacralizing the Church
Desacralising omissions everywhere debase the mystery of the Church. Above all she is not presented as a sacred hierarchy: Angels and Saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor: they have disappeared, as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael, for the first.
The various hierarchies of angels have also disappeared (and this is without precedent) from the new Preface of "Prayer II". In the Communicantes, reminder of the Pontiffs and holy martyrs on whom the Church of Rome is founded and who were, without doubt, the transmitters of the apostolic traditions, destined to be completed in what became, with St. Gregory, the Roman Mass, has been suppressed. In the Libera nos the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints are no longer mentioned: her and their intercession is thus no longer asked, even in time of peril.
The unity of the Church is gravely compromised by the wholly intolerable omission from the entire Ordo, including the three new Prayers, of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Founders of the Church of Rome, and the names of the other Apostles, foundation and mark of the one and universal Church, the only remaining mention being in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon.
A clear attack upon the dogma of the Communion of Saints is the omission, when the priest is celebrating without a server, of all the salutations, and the final Blessing, not to speak of the 'Ite, missa est' now not even said in Masses celebrated with a server.
The double Confiteor showed how the priest, in his capacity of Christ's Minister, bowing down deeply and acknowledging himself unworthy of his sublime mission, of the "tremendum mysterium", about to be accomplished by him and even (in the Aufer a nobis) entering into the Holy of Holies, invoked the intercession (in the Oramus te, Domine) of the merits of the martyrs whose relics were sealed in the altar. Both these prayers have been suppressed; what has been said previously in respect of the double Confiteor and the double Communion is equally relevant here.
The outward setting of the Sacrifice, evidence of its sacred character, has been profaned. See, for example, what is laid down for celebration outside sacred precincts, in which the altar may be replaced by a simple "table" without consecrated stone or relics, and with a single cloth (nos. 260, 265). Here too all that has been previously said with regard to the Real Presence applies, the disassociation of the "convivium" and of the sacrifice of the supper from the Real Presence Itself.
The process of desacralisation is completed thanks to the new procedures for the offering: (Editor's emphasis) the reference to ordinary not unleavened bread; altar-servers (and lay people at Communion sub utraque specie) being allowed to handle sacred vessels (no. 244d); the distracting atmosphere created by the ceaseless coming and going of the priest, deacon, subdeacon, psalmist, commentator (the priest becomes commentator himself from his constantly being required to 'explain' what he is about to accomplish) - of readings (men and women), of servers or laymen welcoming people at the door and escorting them to their places whilst others carry and sort offerings. And in the midst of all this prescribed activity, the 'mulier idonea' (anti-Scriptural and anti-Pauline) who for the first time in the tradition of the Church will be authorised to read the lessons and also perform other "ministeria quae extra presbyterium peraguntur" (no. 70).
Finally, there is the concelebration mania, which will end by destroying Eucharistic piety in the priest, by overshadowing the central figure of Christ, sole Priest and Victim, in a collective presence of concelebrants.
VI The Destruction of Unity
We have limited ourselves to a summary evaluation of the new Ordo where it deviates most seriously from the theology of the Catholic Mass and our observations touch only those deviations that are typical. A complete evaluation of all the pitfalls, the dangers, and spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the document - whether in text, rubrics or instructions - would be a vast undertaking.
By Priest or Parson
No more than a passing glance has been taken at the three new Canons, since these have already come in for repeated and authoritative criticism, both as to form and substance. The second of them gave immediate scandal to the faithful on account of its brevity. Of Canon II it has been well said, among other things, that it could be recited with perfect tranquillity of conscience by a priest who no longer believes either in Transubstantiation or in the sacrificial character of the Mass - hence even by a Protestant minister.
The new Missal was introduced in Rome as "a text of ample pastoral matter", and "more pastoral than juridical", which the Episcopal Conferences would be able to utilise according to the varying circumstances and genius of different peoples. In the same Apostolic Constitution we read: "we have introduced into the New Missal legitimate variations and adaptations". Besides, Section I of the new Congregation for Divine Worship will be responsible "for the publication and 'constant revision' of the liturgical books". The last official bulletin of the Liturgical Institutes of Germany, Switzerland and Austria says: "The Latin texts will now have to be translated into the languages of the various peoples; the 'Roman' style will have to be adapted to the individuality of the local Churches: that which was conceived beyond time must be transposed into the changing context of concrete situations in the constant flux of the Universal Church and of its myriad congregations."
The Apostolic Constitution itself gives the coup de grace to the Church's universal language (contrary to the express will of Vatican Council II) with the bland affirmation that "in such a variety of tongues one (?) and the same prayer of all . . . may ascend more fragrant than any incense".
Council of Trent Rejected
The demise of Latin may therefore be taken for granted; that of Gregorian Chant, which even the Council recognised as "liturgiae romanae proprium" (Sacros Conc. no 116), ordering that "principem locum obtineat" (ibid.) will logically follow, with the freedom of choice, amongst other things, of the texts of the Introit and Gradual.
From the outset therefore the New Rite is launched as pluralistic and experimental, bound to time and place. Unity of worship, thus swept away for good and all, what will become of that unity of faith that went with it, and which, we were always told, was to be defended without compromise? (Editor's emphasis)
It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the Faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever. With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus faced with a most tragic alternative.
(Editor's emphasis)
VII The Alienation of the Orthodox
The Apostolic Constitution makes explicit reference to a wealth of piety and teaching in the Novus Ordo borrowed from Eastern Churches. The result - utterly remote from and even opposed to the inspiration of the oriental Liturgies - can only repel the faithful of the Eastern Rites. What, in truth, do these ecumenical options amount to? Basically to the multiplicity of anaphora (but nothing approaching their beauty and complexity), to the presence of deacons, to Communion sub utraque specie.
Against this, the Novus Ordo would appear to have been deliberately shorn of everything which in the Liturgy of Rome came close to those of the East.
Moreover in abandoning its unmistakable and immemorial Roman character, the Novus Ordo lost what was spiritually precious of its own. Its place has been taken by elements which bring it closer only to certain other reformed liturgies (not even those closest to Catholicism) and which debase it at the same time. The East will be ever more alienated, as it already has been by the preceding liturgical reforms.
By the way of compensation the new Liturgy will be the delight of the various groups who, hovering on the verge of apostasy, are wreaking havoc in the Church of God, poisoning her organism and undermining her unity of doctrine, worship, morals and discipline in a spiritual crisis without precedent.
VIII The Abandonment of Defences
St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution itself recalls) so that it might be an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent it was to exclude all danger, in liturgical worship, of errors against the Faith, then threatened by the Protestant Reformation. The gravity of the situation fully justified, and even rendered prophetic, the saintly Pontiff's solemn warning given at the end of the Bull promulgating his Missal "should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and his blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Quo Primum, July 13, 1570)
When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was asserted with great audacity that the reasons which prompted the Tridentine decrees are no longer valid. Not only do they still apply, but there also exist, as we do not hesitate to affirm, very much more serious ones today. (Editor's emphasis)
It was precisely in order to ward off the dangers which in every century threaten the purity of the deposit of faith (depositum custodi, devitans profanas vocum novitates" Tim. VI, 20) the Church has had to erect under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the defences of her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements.
These were immediately reflected in her worship, which became the most complete monument of her faith. To try to bring the Church's worship back at all cost to ancient practices by refashioning, artificially and with that "unhealthy archeologism" so roundly condemned by Pius XII, what in earlier times had the grace of original spontaneity means as we see today only too clearly - to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the Rite and to take away all the beauty by which it was enriched over the centuries.
And all this at one of the most critical moments - if not the most critical moment - of the Church's history!
Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside of but within the Church. Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised. Errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition.
To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorised, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.
(Editor's emphasis)
Special note about the above document:
When studying the issues involved in the new liturgy, you may come across the assertion that Cardinal Ottaviani signed a document retracting his words above. But here is what happened, as recounted at www.tradition.com:
A purported letter of February 17, 1970, supposedly with the Cardinal's signature, was adduced to prove the story. However, by that date it is known that the Cardinal, then 80, was totally blind and would not have known what he was signing when presented with the purposed letter by his secretary, Msgr. Gilberto Agustoni. [Ed. Agustoni was later made Bishop, then Cardinal, by John Paul II]
Now it has come to light that this Agustoni [Ed. along with his brother, Fr. Luigi Agustoni] was a member of the Consilium which that fabricated the "New Mass" and which the Arch-Architect of the New Order service, Hannibal Bugnini, led. At the time, Jean Madiran, the editor of the respected French journal Itineraires, publicly accused Agustoni of obtaining the Cardinal's signature by fraud. As a result, Agustoni was fired as the Cardinal's secretary.
So, it seems that Agustoni insinuated his way into becoming the Cardinal's secretary and in that position created a fraud in an attempt to undermine the Cardinal's public document, which questioned the validity of the New Order service, by a phony "retraction," which Agustoni had himself written with others. In any case, co-author Antonio Cardinal Bacci and the Roman theologians never "retracted," in any manner, shape, or form the devastating document, which they courageously published.
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What/Where is the Roman Catholic Church?
In light of Traditional Catholic dogma/doctrine, how should the Second Vatican Council be viewed ? Is it consistent with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and prior Magisterial teaching?What explains the tremendous amount of "bad fruit" which has been forthcoming since the close of the Council in 1965? “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matt. 7:16)
This site explores these questions and more in an attempt to place the Second Vatican Council in proper perspective.