Our editor, Mary, will be taking a leave of absence for the next month or so. While she is gone, my good friend Kermit (no relation to the frog of the same name) has graciously agreed to take her place.
Over the past few months on this blog, I have described the sacred liturgy according to its traditional form, the form that has been used by the Church for centuries. This liturgical tradition, especially the traditional Latin Mass, has nourished Holy Mother Church and kept her strong even through the worst times of war, persecution, and hatred. It has kindled the faith of thousands of holy saints and inspired some of the greatest acts of faith, hope, and charity. As Jesus promised, the gates of hell can never overcome the Church of God (Matthew 16:18). The sacred liturgy is one of the Church's most powerful weapons against the gates of hell.
Over the past few months on this blog, I have described the sacred liturgy according to its traditional form, the form that has been used by the Church for centuries. This liturgical tradition, especially the traditional Latin Mass, has nourished Holy Mother Church and kept her strong even through the worst times of war, persecution, and hatred. It has kindled the faith of thousands of holy saints and inspired some of the greatest acts of faith, hope, and charity. As Jesus promised, the gates of hell can never overcome the Church of God (Matthew 16:18). The sacred liturgy is one of the Church's most powerful weapons against the gates of hell.
However,
the traditional forms of the Mass, Divine Office, and sacraments are
not what most Catholic parishes use today. Instead, they use revised
forms that were written in the 1960s and 1970s as part of a major
liturgical reform in the Church. These revised forms are collectively
known as the Novus Ordo,
which means “New Order.”
This comes from the original
title of the revised form of the Mass, Novus
Ordo Missae
(“New Order of the Mass”). Over
this next series of articles, I will be describing the Novus Ordo and
how it differs
from the traditional liturgies. Although the Novus Ordo Mass, Divine
Office, and sacraments are completely
valid
and established by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, they are
inferior in form to the traditional liturgies. I will begin with a
brief history.
Modernism
is a heresy that
became widespread around the end of the nineteenth century and
beginning of the twentieth century. It
is, in a nutshell, the
belief that there is no absolute truth. Modernists suggest that we
cannot truly know God, because we can only know what we can perceive.
Instead of acknowledging eternal and divinely revealed truth, they
rely on their own religious feelings and sentiments. The Church
dogmas, they
say,
should freely change and evolve to match people's religious
sentiments, instead of being infallible and unchangeable truths.
Anytime
you hear someone say, “The Church needs to get with the times,”
you know you are speaking with a Modernist.
The idea
of infallibility is reviled and mocked. Intellectualism
is considered
outdated and no longer relevant. In
short, Modernism is the idea
of liberation from the Church's infallible teachings.
In
1907, Pope St. Pius X issued an encyclical letter (a formal letter
from the Pope to the bishops of the world) entitled Pascendi
Dominici Gregis,
which formally condemned the heresy of Modernism. (You
can read the full text here.)
St.
Pius X called Modernism the “synthesis of all heresies,” because
whereas other heresies attack specific dogmas, Modernism attacks the
concept of dogma itself.
In the Modernist world, anything goes. In the Modernist world,
Protestantism is just as acceptable as Catholicism. St.
Pius X published an Oath
Against Modernism,
which all clergy, members of religious orders, and teachers at
Catholic schools were required to profess. (You can read the oath
here.)
Because
Modernism was so pervasive and so damaging to the Catholic faith, St.
Pius X did everything he could to fight against it. Unfortunately,
Modernism kept spreading, and it remains
extremely common amongst Catholics today, even amongst priests.
Throughout
his papacy, St. Pius X worked to encourage
the
laity to unite themselves with Christ through a meaningful
participation in the sacred liturgy. His
motto was Instaurare
Omnia in Christo
(“Restore All Things in Christ”).
He
encouraged daily reception of Communion, and in 1911 he
issued the decree Divino
Afflatu,
reforming
the Divine Office to restore the tradition of singing all 150 psalms
in one week. A
few decades later, Pope Pius XII also
strove
to help the faithful through liturgical reform.
For example, he allowed Mass to be said in the evening so
that more people could attend Mass, and he restored the Easter Vigil
to its more logical place in the evening.
However,
mixed in with these positive reforms was a complete overhaul of the
Holy Week liturgies in
1955.
The primary author of these new Holy Week liturgies was Father
Annibale Bugnini, an
Italian priest
whom Pius XII appointed in 1948 to be Secretary to the Commission for
Liturgical Reform. Bugnini
became
one of the most prominent figures in the twentieth century liturgical
reform. Under
Bugnini's authorship, Modernism began to influence the sacred liturgy
by
taking focus away from God and placing it on the people, making the
sacred liturgy less reflective of the true Catholic doctrine, and
generally taking away much of the beauty of the sacred liturgy.
Bugnini's changes to Holy Week included
were having the priest face the people while blessing palms on Palm
Sunday and removing eight of the twelve prophecies from the Easter
Vigil.
On
October
11, 1962, Pope St. John XXIII opened the Second
Vatican Council,
also
called Vatican II.
It
was the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, the
first being the Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15. More than
two thousand bishops and priests from all over the world came to
Vatican City for
the council. St.
John XXIII intended the council to continue the work of St. Pius X in
helping the faithful devote themselves to God. In
his opening address, St. John XXIII said, “What
is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and
serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire
Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in
its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council
of Trent and the First Vatican Council.” He
explicitly condemned creativity in the sacred liturgy.
It
is clear that he was strong in faith, well-intentioned, and totally
opposed to the Modernist heresy.
Unfortunately,
the Second Vatican Council did not go according to St. John XXIII's
plan. The schemata that he
and his advisors had
prepared were thrown out in the first session. As
St. John XXIII was dying in 1963, he cried, “Stop the council! Stop
the council!”
Bugnini
served as an advisor to the Conciliar Commission on the Sacred
Liturgy, which,
in 1963, produced the document Sacrosanctum
Concilium.
Although
Sacrosanctum
Concilium
is never explicitly damaging or heretical, its critical
fault
is being extremely vague and allowing itself to be interpreted in
wildly different ways. For
example, it
opens with a statement that the liturgy needs to “adapt more
suitably to the needs of our own times.” In
paragraph 50, it calls for liturgical reform, saying, “The rite of
the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and
purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them,
may be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active
participation by the faithful may be more easily achieved.” What
does “active participation” mean?
In
paragraph 116, it says, “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as
specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being
equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”
What things being equal? What does “pride of place” mean?
Vatican
II was closed by Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. In the few years
following Vatican II, the Mass was changed to accommodate the
recommendations
made by Sacrosanctum
Concilium.
It was said mostly in the vernacular, Psalm 42 was omitted at the
foot of the altar, new “prayers of the faithful” were added after
the Gospel and Credo,
and the Last Gospel was omitted. Around 1967, it became common for
the priest to face the people across the altar. However,
despite all of the changes, it was still fundamentally the same
liturgy.
Those
accustomed to the traditional Latin Mass would still be able to
follow along just fine. In addition, it is interesting to note that,
of these changes, only
the use of the vernacular was mentioned in any document of Vatican
II. Already,
liturgical reform had
begun
to take advantage of the vagueness of Sacrosanctum
Concilium
and to
alter
more than it was supposed to.
The
liturgical reform of the twentieth century reached its climax in
1969, when
Pope
Paul VI published the Novus
Ordo Missae.
The Novus Ordo Mass was composed by Bugnini, assisted by a committee
that
included six Protestants. Bugnini and his committee completely
rewrote the Mass from the ground up, leaving very
little
resemblance to the traditional Mass. They interpreted
Sacrosanctum
Concilium
very
broadly and added
significant Modernist influences.
The
Novus Ordo Mass
was published in the 1970 Roman Missal. New
editions with slight revisions
were published
in 1975 and 2002. (As
an interesting side note, the 1970 and 1975 editions make Paul VI the
only Pope to ever publish two editions of the Roman Missal.)
The 2002 Roman Missal is the one currently in force in most Catholic
parishes. The
currently used English translations took effect in 2011.
The
Novus Ordo Mass intends
to place greater emphasis on the people and make the Mass
more similar to Protestant liturgies. The
faithful's sentimentality becomes more important than infallible
doctrine. Although it would be slander for me to suggest that Church
authorities espoused the heresy of Modernism, there is clear
Modernist influence in the Novus Ordo Mass.
Another
stated goal of the Novus Ordo is to imitate the Mass of the early
Christians. However, the Novus Ordo Mass does not in any way resemble
the Mass of the early Christians, and even if it did, Pope Pius XII
explicitly condemned the idea of reverting to ancient practices and
disregarding the organic development of the sacred liturgy guided by
the Holy Spirit.
In
summary, genuine efforts to reform the liturgy by Popes St. Pius X
and Pius XII got tangled up with Modernist influence, a lot of which
came from Fr. Annibale Bugnini. The Second Vatican Council issued a
very vague document on the sacred liturgy, which Bugnini took
advantage of to write
the Novus Ordo Mass, which has strong Modernist influence
in its focus on the people and its intentional similarity to
Protestant liturgies.
I
want to make it extremely clear that St. John XXIII, Paul VI, and
their successors, up to and including our current Holy Father, Pope
Francis, are valid Popes with legitimate ecclesiastical authority.
Although I believe that
some of their decisions, especially regarding liturgical reform, are
misguided and even damaging, this does not mean that they do not have
the authority to make such decisions. I attend
a parish of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, which, by the grace
of God, offers the traditional forms of the Mass, Divine Office, and
sacraments with full approval of the Holy See. Additionally,
the
views expressed here are my own.
I do not claim to speak on behalf of my parish, the FSSP, or any
Church authorities.
New
terms
-
Novus Ordo – The revised forms of the Mass, Divine Office, and sacraments that were published around 1970.
-
Modernism – A heresy condemned by St. Pius X that suggests, among other things, that there is no absolute truth and that Church teachings are changeable.
-
Second Vatican Council or Vatican II – An ecumenical council of the Church held in Vatican City from 1962 to 1965, addressing the reform of the liturgy, the devotion of the faithful, and the response of the Church to contemporary developments.
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