The Ottaviani Intervention

A BRIEF CRITICAL STUDY OF THE NEW ORDER OF MASS

Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani

Antonio Cardinal Bacci

A Group of Roman Theologians

With an Introduction by Peter Chojnowski, Ph.D.

Translated by Rev. Christopher Danel

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Cover: Pope Paul VI presiding over the Second Vatican Council with Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani on his right. Photograph by Lothar Wolleh.

The New Order of Mass. Photograph by James Gose.

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INTRODUCTION

“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.”

This statement, made with absolute and definitive clarity, from Section VI of the Ottaviani Intervention, was made in response to what might be considered one of the most critical moments in the history of the Catholic Church since the original Pentecost Sunday, the traditional worship of the Roman Church was about to be replaced.

The issue of the ongoing liturgical revolution in the Catholic Church became critical on April 28, 1969, when Paul VI announced the Novus Ordo Missae. It was the last chance for action within the traditional channels of ecclesiastical authority. Somehow the pope had to be dissuaded from implementing this substitute for the traditional Catholic Mass of the Roman Rite. This attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, was done in A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass (in the original Italian—Breve Esame Critico del Novus Ordo Missae) or what has become known as the “Ottaviani Intervention.” In a story little known even within traditional Catholic circles, it all began on account of the initiative of two Italian women, Cristina Campo, a writer, poet, and instigator of Una Voce Roma, and Emilia Pediconi, her friend, who gathered together five or six priests, including Msgr. Renato Pozzi (a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education and a former peritus at the Council), Msgr. Gerrino Milani (a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education), and Msgr. Domenico Celada (a renowned liturgist). The compilation of their findings was entrusted to Fr. Michel Louis Guérard des Lauriers, a Dominican, professor at the Lateran University in Rome and former confessor of Pope Pius XII (1954-1955).[1] It was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre who had brought Fr. Guérard des Lauriers into the project.[2]

Rightly gaining the title of “author” of the Critical Study, Fr. Guérard des Lauriers dictated a text to Cristina Campo, who put it into the final Italian. It was dated June 5, 1969. Advanced with the encouragement of Archbishop Lefebvre,[3] the two ladies from Una Voce attempted to gain some prestigious signatures for this document. At one point fifteen cardinals had indicated that they would sign the introductory letter to the Critical Study. Dr. Elizabeth Gerstner from Germany and Msgr. Pozzi played the most active part in the effort to obtain these signatures between May and September 1969. Cardinal Larraona, Prefect for the Congregation of Rites, even said that he would sign the Intervention if Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci signed first.[4] Apparently this was the attitude that characterized the other potential signers. Cardinal Ottaviani, himself often thought to be author of the Critical Study, finally provided the critical first signature on the introductory letter on September 13, 1969. Cardinal Ottaviani had spent several days examining the Critical Study before he would sign it. After his reading of the Study, he had a long conversation with Msgr. Pozzi during which he stated, “It is rather strong to claim that the New Mass is contrary to Trent but, displeasing as it is (per quanto dispiace), it is true (è vero).”[5]

Disaster struck on October 15, 1969, when the French traditionalist priest Abbé Georges de Nantes published the Critical Study in his journal without consulting anyone. De Nantes had been provided with the text by Dr. Gerstner with the proviso that it not be published for at least a month after Paul VI had received it so as to give Paul time to have a change of heart without making it appear that he was giving way to pressure. With the text being published before Paul VI had even seen it, the position of the signature organizers was completely undermined. Courageously enough, Cardinal Bacci added his signature to that of Cardinal Ottaviani and the Study was presented to Paul VI on October 21, 1969.[6]

When the official presentation of the Critical Study was made, rather than consider the theological arguments involved, Paul VI took it as a personal attack on his own prestige and an attack on a liturgical revolution that he had invested his entire reputation in. On account of the authority behind the two cardinals’ signatures, Paul sent the General Instruction—meant merely to introduce the New Mass—back for minor revisions. The Novus Ordo Missae itself, however, was not revised; it was rather vehemently defended. In two addresses, given in November 1969, Paul VI defended his new revolutionary liturgy by justifying it in the name of “obedience to the Council.” This “orthodox” liturgy would be made “obligatory” in Italy in ten days. It was in his second address, on November 26, 1969, that he expressed his true feelings for the liturgical revolution he was personally sanctioning. He said that substituting a New Mass for the venerable Old Mass was “a very great sacrifice” but “understanding the prayers is more important than the worn-out silk vestments with which [the old liturgy] was bedecked; what is also more important is that people nowadays take part: they want to be spoken to clearly and in a way that is understandable and can be translated into their everyday language.” So the liturgy is now a speaking to man. What about liturgy being a speaking to God? But Paul insisted on conformity to his will.[7] The force of the Ottaviani Intervention was thus thrust aside as the sentiments of those who liked “worn-out silk vestments” and a mumbled, unintelligible language. Language, vestments, but not doctrine were involved in the substitution of new for old.

When we consider the introductory letter—the part which bears the signatures of both Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci—it is clear that it is precisely the doctrinal issues which are at the heart of the concern of the two cardinals, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Fr. Guérard des Lauriers, and the Roman theologians who considered the question of the New Mass. The term “striking departure” is not used for a case of mild reservations. Yet, it was exactly the term that the Cardinals used in their final judgment on the Novus Ordo Missae: “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 definitely fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.”[8] It was the theology behind the Novus Ordo as articulated by that new liturgy which presented such a “grave break” with the dogmatically defined doctrine on the Mass canonized by the Council of Trent. The change in the composition and structure of the Mass was an attack on the “insurmountable barriers” to any heresy that would threaten the integrity of the Holy Sacrifice itself. In other words, the Church, and the Holy Ghost inspiring the Church, had structured the Holy Sacrifice in such a way that the intention of the priest could not but be in accordance with the traditional mind of the Church. The purity of doctrine exhibited by the prayers of the traditional Roman Rite and the priestly intention attendant upon those prayers ensured that the faithful were worshipping the true God in the true way which He had ordained. Since the theology expressed by the Novus Ordo Missae is compromised and, yet, since the Catholic soul is “bound forever” by the theology defined by the Council of Trent, the Cardinals beseech Paul VI to ensure that the faithful are not subject to a crisis of conscience, by allowing them continued recourse to the “fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V.”[9]

If the Catholic Church was to tear down the barriers to heresy and corruption that existed in the traditional Roman Mass, this unprecedented action must have been prompted by an overwhelming outcry of the Catholic hierarchy, clergy, and people shouting to Rome that the Old Mass was no longer intelligible to Modern Man and must be changed if Catholic worship in our Age was to continue. What the Roman Theologians bluntly state, however, at the very beginning of the official text of the Critical Study is that absolutely no such outcry and demand existed—especially in mission countries where some such demand might be expected;[10] all the evidence points to the very opposite being the case. With regard to the laity, most of whom, as opposed to the clergy, would not have studied Latin, the authors’ state, “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 a 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 priest and laity. One fails to see how its use, together with suitable catechesis, could have hindered a fuller participation in, and greater knowledge of, the Sacred Liturgy.”[11]

Whereas the people and the common clergy were never consulted at all concerning the substitution of another fabricated ritual for the traditional Catholic Mass, the Critical Study points out that when the “normative Mass” was presented to the Episcopal Synod called in Rome in October 1967, it was rejected explicitly. The Novus Ordo Missae, being “identical in substance” with the “Normative Mass,” was never submitted in the two intervening years to the consideration of the National Episcopal Conferences. Neither Vatican II, the bishops, the priests, nor the clergy asked for this change. As the Critical Study states, “As no popular demand exists to support this reform, it appears devoid of logical grounds to justify it and make it acceptable to the Catholic people.”[12] What we have here is truly a revolution in papal tiara and cope.

It is in Section II of the Critical Study that we find an analysis of the Institutio Generalis (General Instruction) of the Novus Ordo Missae. In this “general instruction” there was inserted a definition of the Mass itself. Now a definition, by its very nature, is meant to both express the essential nature of something—what it is in its core nature and meaning—and distinguish it from what it is not. As the Critical Study clearly points out, the definition given of the “Mass” does not in any way express the essential elements of what the Church has taken the Mass to be as these elements were clearly expressed at the Council of Trent. In fact, rather than the definition expressing the essential core of what the Catholic Mass is, the definition given in the Institutio Generalis (General Instruction) rather seems to identify the Catholic Mass with the Protestant liturgies that the dogmatic definitions of Trent were precisely trying to distinguish the Catholic Mass from. In response to the Institutio Generalis giving the definition of the Mass as, “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,” the Critical Study states, “The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of a ‘supper,’ and this term is found constantly repeated. This ‘supper’ is further characterized 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 least implies either the Real Presence or the reality of the 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 provided its true definition.”[13] Drawing the necessary, but stark, conclusion, the Critical Study states, “Here, the deliberate omission of these dogmatic values amounts . . . to their denial.”[14]

What is missing from the Novus Ordo’s presentation of “the Lord’s Supper” is a clear mention of the character of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, the Real and Permanent Presence of Christ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, along with the Mass as an act of transubstantiation. Without these referenced, the Mass, in its essence, cannot be understood by either officiating clergy or participating laity. Instead of putting emphasis on the remission of sins produced by the sacrifice, the New Mass lays the emphasis on the “nourishment” of those present. This revaluation of the Eucharist is an inversion of the proper order of the ends of the Mass itself. As the Critical Study recalls, the self-immolation of the Victim happens antecedent to the eating of the Victim. By emphasizing the “nourishment” of the faithful, the full redemptive value of the immolation of the Victim, in the Consecration, renders superfluous the intrinsic value of the sacrifice along with the value of Private Masses said without the Faithful’s attendance. Again, the authors of the Critical Study are crystal clear as to the motive behind these revolutionary innovations, “The reason for this non-explicitness concerning the Sacrifice is quite simply that the Real Presence had been removed from the central position which it occupied so resplendently in the former Eucharistic liturgy. The Real and Permanent Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the transubstantiated Species is never alluded to. The word ‘transubstantiation’ is totally ignored.”[15]

Since the primary purpose of the priest is to offer sacrifice for the living and the dead, any attack on or expunging of the centrality of the act of sacrifice will both trivialize the position of the priest and cause him to merge with the general body of the faithful. The Critical Study puts it thus: “The priest’s position is minimized, 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.”[16]

The ways in which the Novus Ordo Missae “levels” the priest to the position of the laity are multiple and doctrinally significant. In the “penitential rite,” there is no longer a double Confiteor for priest and people respectively: “In the Confiteor he is no longer judge, witness, and intercessor with God; so it is logical that he is no longer empowered to give absolution, which has been suppressed. He is integrated with the fratres. Even the server addresses him as such in the Confiteor of the Missa sine populo. 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.” Conclusion: “He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister.”[17] “Appears” is a fitting word here since, “The disappearance . . . of many sacred vestments—in certain cases the alb and the stole are sufficient—obliterates even more the original conformity with Christ: the priest is no more clothed with all His virtues, becoming merely a ‘non-commissioned officer’ whom one or two signs may distinguish from the mass of people.”[18]

Perhaps what is most troubling about the Ottaviani Intervention is not only the stark choice that it presents to the Catholic conscience, but the fact that it was endorsed by only two cardinals, had to be initiated by a few Italian laywomen, and ultimately did not move Paul VI to halt the imposition of the New Mass nor even delay the action. What could have been the state of things in the Catholic Church in the 1960s that would so mute the response to the replacement of the perfect expression of the Catholic Faith and the “most beautiful thing this side of Heaven” with a ceremony which induced boredom and near disgust from the moment that it was introduced? Let us also recall the fact that the Ottaviani Intervention treated the New Mass in its original form and in the Latin. It is true that the Catholic clergy and populace had become accustomed to liturgical change during the Vatican Council. But what was missed by the Catholic World was precisely the point emphasized by the Critical Study: What was being attacked by the Novus Ordo Missae was the very Faith itself. The Faith was under attack, threatened to be replaced by a Modernist creed. This is what we must remember when we reread the Ottaviani Intervention again or, perhaps, read it for the first time. The rally for the traditional rites of the Church which happened after, and to a great extent because of, the Intervention is part and parcel of the Catholic People’s perennial warfare to preserve the Faith and to defeat its intellectual and spiritual enemies. Let this much needed new edition of the Ottaviani Intervention be a mighty weapon in the Catholic Arsenal against the New Religion.

Dr. Peter E. Chojnowski

[1] “A Fertile Soil: Catholic Tradition in France Prior to the SSPX (1958-1976),” published in Cor Unum, the internal bulletin of the Society of St. Pius X. Reprinted in The Angelus (September 2008) with permission from Bishop Bernard Fellay.

[2] Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, trans. Brian Sudlow (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2004), pp. 396-397.

[3] Letter from Fr. Guérard des Lauriers to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, December 1978, on traditioninaction.org.

[4] Michael Davies, Pope Paul’s New Mass, Part III of Liturgical Revolution (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 1980), p. 483.

[5] Ibid., pp. 483-484.

[6] Ibid., p. 484. Michael Davies indicates that an account of the series of events leading up to the publication of the Critical Study was provided to him by Dr. Elizabeth Gerstner herself. Cf. Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, p. 397 for these corrections of dating errors found in Davies’s text.

[7] Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, pp. 401-402.

[8] A Critical Study of the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) (Brisbane, Australia: Toowoomba Catholic Research Center, n.d.), Introductory Letter.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., Section I.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid., Section II.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., Section IV.

[16] Ibid., Section V.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

PREFACE

Letter to Paul VI

by Cardinals Ottaviani

and Bacci

Rome

September 25, 1969

Most Holy Father,

After we and others have examined the Novus Ordo Mass prepared by the experts of the “Commission for Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” [the Consilium], and after long deliberation and prayer, we are aware of the duty we have before God and before Your Holiness to express the following considerations:

1. The attached brief critical study is the work of a select group of theologians, liturgists, and pastors of souls, and however brief it may be, it examines the novel elements implicit in the Novus Ordo Mass, which may be given different interpretations. In doing so, this study demonstrates sufficiently that the Novus Ordo Mass represents, overall and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was elaborated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent, which, by permanently fixing the “canons” of the rite, erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which could undermine the integrity of the Mystery.

2. The pastoral reasons advanced to justify such a serious rupture do not seem sufficient, even if doctrinal reasons are given to support them. The eternal elements of the Mass, when they are even present, are reduced to a lesser prominence or even moved out of place altogether. So many novelties appear in the Novus Ordo Mass that it strengthens and even makes certain the doubt, which unfortunately pervades many circles, that those truths which have always been believed by the Christian people can be changed or ignored without betraying the sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound for eternity. Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that new changes in the liturgy cannot be made without scandalizing the faithful, who are already showing that these changes are unbearable and will undoubtedly diminish their faith. In consequence, the greater part of the clergy is now undergoing an agonizing crisis of conscience, which we see daily and in countless numbers.

3. We are certain that these considerations which are directly inspired by the vibrant voice of both the pastors and the flock will find their echo in the paternal heart of Your Holiness, who is always so deeply attentive to the spiritual needs of the sons of the Church. Nevertheless, those for whom laws are made have the right and even the duty to ask the legislator to abrogate such laws when they prove to be harmful.

Therefore, at a time when the purity of the faith and unity of the Church suffer such cruel lacerations and still greater dangers, which every day find an afflicted echo in the words of the common Father, we strongly beseech Your Holiness not to prohibit the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the integral and fruitful Roman Missal of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your Holiness and so deeply revered and loved by the whole Catholic world.

Cardinal Ottaviani,

Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Cardinal Bacci

A BRIEF CRITICAL STUDY OF THE NEW ORDER OF MASS

I

In October 1967, the Synod of Bishops was convoked in Rome and was asked for a judgment on the experimental celebration of a so-called “Normative Mass” created by the Consilium (Commission for Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy).

This Mass aroused the most serious misgivings among those present at the Synod, with a strong opposition (43 non placet), scores of substantial reservations (62 juxta modum), and 4 abstentions, out of 187 voters. The international press spoke of its “refusal” by the Synod, while the more progressive media kept silent. A noteworthy periodical which is directed to bishops and publishes their teaching summed up the new rite as follows: “It intends to wipe out the whole theology of the Mass. Basically it resembles the Protestant theology that has destroyed the sacrifice of the Mass.”

In the Novus Ordo Mass, promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, we find substantially that very same “Normative Mass.” It does not appear that the Episcopal Conferences as such have even been consulted about it in the meantime.

The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum states that the ancient Missal promulgated by St. Pius V (Bull Quo Primum, 19 July 1570), and which dates back in great part to St. Gregory the Great and to even more remote antiquity,[1] was for four centuries the norm of the celebration of the Sacrifice by the priests of the Latin rite. The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum adds that this Missal was carried to almost all the world, and “innumerable saints found in it abundant nourishment for their piety towards God.”

Yet this reform, which puts it definitively out of use, is said to be necessary according to the same Constitution because “for some time, a desire to cultivate the sacred liturgy has developed and spread among the Christian people.”

It is clear that there is a grave error in this statement.

If the Christian people expressed such a desire, it was when they began to rediscover the true and eternal treasures of the liturgy, mainly due to the encouragement of Saint Pius X. Absolutely never did the Christian people ask for the liturgy to be changed or mutilated in order to better understand it. Their desire has been to better appreciate the unique and unchangeable liturgy, and not for it to be changed.

The Roman Missal of St. Pius V is religiously venerated and dear to the hearts of Catholics, priests and laity alike. We cannot see how the use of it, with appropriate instruction, could prevent a fuller participation and a greater knowledge of the sacred liturgy; we cannot see why this Missal, whose many sublime qualities are well recognized in the Constitution Missale Romanum, would not be worthy to continue to nourish the liturgical piety of the Christian people.

The “Normative Mass” which was essentially rejected by the Synod of Bishops now reappears and is imposed as the Novus Ordo Mass. This Mass was never submitted to the collegial judgment of the Bishops’ Conferences. No reform of the Holy Mass has ever been wanted by the faithful, least of all in the missions. Therefore we are unable to understand the reasons for the new legislation, which destroys a tradition in the Church that has remained unchanged from the fourth and fifth centuries, as the same Constitution Missale Romanum recognizes.

Since there is no reason to support this reform, the reform itself appears to lack a rational foundation which would justify it or make it acceptable to the Catholic people.

On the contrary, the Council expressed the desire for the various parts of the Mass to be restored, “so that the reason for each part and the connection between them would be made more evident” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 50). We will demonstrate below in what way the newly-promulgated Novus Ordo Mass ignores these wishes, which we can say remain only a faint memory.

A detailed examination of the Novus Ordo Mass reveals changes of sufficient magnitude to justify a judgment of it identical to that of the “Normative Mass.”

In many of their elements, both the “Normative Mass” and this Novus Ordo Mass would gratify even the most modernist of Protestants.

II: THE DEFINITION OF THE MASS

We begin with the definition of the Mass given at the beginning of the second chapter of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal: “On the Structure of the Mass” (no. 7).

“The Lord’s Supper, or Mass, is the sacred gathering (synaxis)[2] of the congregation of the people of God in one assembly, presided over by a priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.[3] Thus, the Lord’s promise—‘where two or three are gathered in My name, I am in their midst’ (Mt. 18:20)—applies in its highest form to these congregations of the holy local church.”

The definition of the Mass is thus limited to that of a “supper,” which is continuously repeated (nos. 8, 48, 55, 56).

That “supper” is furthermore characterized by the congregation presided over by the priest, and of the assembly gathered to celebrate the memorial of the Lord by recalling what He did on Holy Thursday.

None of this indicates the Real Presence, nor does it indicate the reality of the Sacrifice, nor the sacramental character of the consecrating priest, nor the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independent of the congregation’s presence.[4]

In a word, this new definition does not contain any of the essential dogmatic principles of the Mass which make up its true definition. The omission of these dogmatic principles in such a definition cannot be involuntary. Purposely omitting these dogmatic principles is equivalent to “surpassing” them, and then to denying them, at least in practice.[5]

The second part of that paragraph makes the grave error even worse by stating that the Lord’s promise, “where two or three are gathered in My name, I am in their midst (Mt. 18:20),” applies in its highest form to the congregation. This promise refers only to the spiritual presence of Christ with His grace.

The presentation of these ideas in Article 7 of the General Instruction leads one to believe that the spiritual presence of Christ is being placed on the same qualitative level as His substantial presence proper to the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The new definition of Article 7 is followed immediately, in Article 8, by a subdivision of the Mass into two parts: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This division is accompanied by the affirmation that the Mass involves the preparation of the “table of the word of God” and the “table of the Body of Christ” so that the faithful are “instructed and fed.”

This is a completely illegitimate comparison of the two parts of the Liturgy, as if they were two elements with an equal and merely symbolic value. We will return to this point further on.

The General Instruction, which is the introduction to the Novus Ordo Mass, uses countless names for the Mass, all acceptable in a relative sense, but all to be rejected if used, as they are, as separate and absolute terms. We mention just a few: the Action of Christ and the People of God, the Lord’s Supper, the Easter Banquet, the Common Participation at the Lord’s Table, the Eucharistic Prayer, the Liturgy of the Word and of the Eucharist, etc.

As is all too evident, the authors of the Novus Ordo Mass have put the emphasis obsessively on a supper and a memorial rather than on the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross.

Even the phrase “Memorial of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection” is inaccurate, since the Mass formally refers only to the Sacrifice, which is redemptive in itself, while the Resurrection is the resulting fruit of it.[6] We will see further on how such errors are systematically reintroduced and repeated in general throughout the Novus Ordo Mass and even in the very formula of consecration.

III: THE OBJECTIVES OF THE MASS

This brings us to the objectives of the Mass, that is, its highest objective, its proximate objective, and its essential objective.

1. THE HIGHEST OBJECTIVE

The highest objective of the Mass is to offer a sacrifice of praise to the Holy Trinity, according to the fundamental intention of the Incarnation as declared by Christ Himself, “When he cometh into the world, he saith: ‘Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to me’ (Ps. 40:7-9, in Heb. 10: 5).”

This highest and essential objective has disappeared in the Novus Ordo Mass:

- firstly, from the Offertory, with the omission of the prayer Suscipe Sancta Trinitas (and Suscipe Sancte Pater);

- secondly, from the conclusion of the Mass with the omission of the Placeat tibi, Sancta Trinitas;

- thirdly, from the Preface, since the Preface of the Holy Trinity will no longer be used except once a year.

2. THE PROXIMATE OBJECTIVE

The Mass is a propitiatory Sacrifice, and this is its proximate objective.[7] This objective is distorted as well because, while the Mass remits the sins of the living as well as the dead, the Novus Ordo Mass puts emphasis only on the nourishment and sanctification of those present (no. 54).

Of course Christ instituted the Sacrament during the Last Supper and made of Himself a victim to unite us to His state of victimhood; that is why the immolation precedes the consumption (manducatio[8]) of the Sacrifice and it fully applies the redemptive value which comes from the bloody sacrifice. The proof of this is that one can attend Mass without communicating sacramentally.[9]

3. THE ESSENTIAL OBJECTIVE

The Mass is fundamentally a Sacrifice, and this is its essential objective.

It is essential to the nature of sacrifice that it be pleasing to God and accepted by Him as a sacrifice.

In the state of original sin, no sacrifice would have the right to be acceptable to God. The only sacrifice that has the right to be accepted is that of Christ, which is why the Offertory immediately identifies the Sacrifice of the Mass with the Sacrifice of Christ.

However, the Novus Ordo Mass distorts and degrades the Offertory, making it into a kind 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: “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received this bread (or wine) which we offer you, fruit of the earth (or of the vine) and work of human hands, which will become for us the bread of life (or spiritual drink).”[10]

It is needless to point out the absolute ambiguity of the two formulas “bread of life” (panis vitae) and “spiritual drink” (potus spiritualis), which could mean anything. Here we find again the same grave error as seen in the definition of the Mass: there it involved Christ present only spiritually among His own; here it involves bread and wine “spiritually” (but not substantially) changed.[11]

In the preparation of the oblations,[12] a similar game of ambiguities is played with the suppression of two stupendous prayers: Deus qui humanae substantiae and Offerimus tibi, Domine.

The first of these two prayers declares: “O God, Who wondrously created the dignity of human nature and even more wondrously restored it, etc.” It is a reference to man’s primordial state of innocence and his current state as one redeemed by the blood of Christ; it is a discreet and brief recapitulation of the entire economy[13] of Sacrifice from Adam to the present moment.

The second of these two prayers, which is the conclusion of the Offertory, expresses the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice. It requests that the chalice might ascend “with a sweet fragrance” (cum odore suavitatis) before the Divine Majesty, and imploring His clemency it marvelously underscores the same sacrificial economy.

These two prayers are suppressed in the Novus Ordo Mass.

By suppressing the constant reference to God in the Eucharistic Prayer, there is no longer any distinction at all between a sacrifice that comes from God and one that comes from man.

If the keystone of an arch is removed, a scaffold has to be built to prop up the arch; by suppressing these true objectives of the Mass, fictitious ones are invented instead. Thus we see the trite gestures intended to emphasize the unity between the priest and the faithful, and of the faithful among themselves; there is an overlapping which immediately becomes ridiculous: the offering collected for the poor and for the church is overlapped with the offering of the Host which is destined for the Sacrifice.

Through this confusion, the fundamental distinctiveness of the Host is completely lost, and participation in the immolation of this Victim thus becomes nothing more than a gathering of philanthropists or a charity banquet.

IV: THE ESSENCE OF THE SACRIFICE

We now move on to the essence of the Sacrifice in the Novus Ordo Mass.

The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed, but appears in an obscure and veiled way, imperceptible by the people.[14] This is due to multiple reasons, among which these are the principal ones:

1. THE MEANING OF THE SO-CALLED “EUCHARISTIC PRAYER”

The General Instruction declares (no. 54, end): “The Eucharistic prayer consists in the whole congregation of faithful joining Christ in professing the wonders of God and in offering the sacrifice.” What kind of sacrifice is meant? Who is offering it? No answer is given to these questions.

The definition at the outset of the “Eucharistic Prayer” is this: “Now the center and high point of the whole celebration begins: the Eucharistic Prayer, that is, a prayer of thanksgiving and sanctification” (no. 54, beginning).

The causes are therefore replaced by the effects, and not a word is said about the causes. The explicit mention of the highest objective of the Mass, which is found in the suppressed Suscipe, is not replaced by anything. The change in wording reveals the change of doctrine.

2. THE OBLITERATION IN THE SACRIFICIAL ECONOMY OF THE REAL PRESENCE

The reason that the Sacrifice is no longer explicitly mentioned is because the central role of the Real Presence has been suppressed.

This role was so resplendent in the entire Eucharistic liturgy of the Roman Missal of St. Pius V. In the General Instruction, however, the Real Presence is mentioned only once, and in a footnote (no. 241, note 63), which is incidentally the only citation from the Council of Trent! That reference only refers to the Real Presence as nourishment. There is never any mention of the Real and permanent Presence of Christ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the transubstantiated Species. The very word “transubstantiation” is totally ignored.

Also part of this system of tacit negations and progressive devaluation of the Real Presence is the suppression of the invocation of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity to descend upon the sacrificial offering (in the Veni Sanctificator) as He also descended into the womb of the Virgin to accomplish the miracle of the Divine Presence.

Finally, it is impossible to pass over the abolition or the alteration of the gestures which express faith in the Real Presence. The Novus Ordo Mass eliminates:

- The genuflections, of which only three remain for the priest and one for the people, with exceptions, at the Consecration;

- The purification of the priest’s fingers over and in the chalice;

- The preservation of the priest’s fingers from all profane contact after the Consecration;

- The purification of the sacred vessels, which can be done later and not upon the corporal;

- The pall to protect the chalice;

- The internal gilding of the sacred vessels;

- The consecration of portable altars;

- The use of altar stones and relics for portable altars, which are reduced to a simple table when the celebration does not occur in a sacred place (this distinction leads directly to “Eucharistic dinners” in private homes);

- The three altar cloths, reduced to just one;

- Thanksgiving made kneeling (replaced by a ridiculous thanksgiving of both priest and people sitting down, which is a bizarre paradox to receiving Communion standing);

- The procedures used if a consecrated Host should fall, which is reduced to an almost sarcastic rubric, “It is reverently picked up” (no. 239).

3. THE ROLE ASSIGNED TO THE MAIN ALTAR

The altar is almost constantly referred to as a table.[15] “The altar, or the table of the Lord . . . is the center of the whole Eucharistic liturgy” (cf. nos. 49 and 262). It is specified that the altar should be detached from the wall so that it can be walked around and so that the celebration can be carried out facing the people (no. 262). It is supposed to be the center of the congregation of the faithful so that their attention spontaneously turns to it (ibid.). But a comparison between Articles 262 and 276 clearly prevents the Most Blessed Sacrament from being reserved on the altar, because that would supposedly signify an irreparable separation between the presence of the Eternal High Priest in the celebrant and that same Presence realized sacramentally. Before, these were considered to be the same Presence.[16]

Now it is recommended to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in another place, where it can receive the private devotion of the faithful, as if it were some sort of relic. That way, when one enters a church it will no longer be the Tabernacle to immediately attract one’s attention but rather a table stripped bare. Once again, private piety is opposed to liturgical piety, and altar is set against altar.

The contemptuous attitude towards the Tabernacle, as well as to all Eucharistic devotion outside of Mass surfaces in the insistent recommendation to distribute in Communion the Consecrated Species from the same Mass, or even to consecrate a large host[17] so that the priest can share it with at least some of the faithful. This is another violent blow to faith in the Real Presence, which endures as long as the consecrated Species themselves endure.[18]

4. THE FORMULAS OF CONSECRATION

The ancient formula of Consecration was a proper sacramental formula, which is declarative and not narrative, which is indicated primarily by three factors:

a) The text of Scripture is not recounted word by word, but with the Pauline insertion “Mysterium Fidei,” which is an immediate profession of Faith by the priest in the mystery realized by the Church through its hierarchical priesthood;

b) The punctuation and typeface differentiate the sacramental words of Consecration in the Roman Missal of St. Pius V. The HOC EST ENIM is in effect separated by a period from the preceding line, “take and eat ye all of this (manducate ex hoc omnes).” This period marks the passage from the narrative to the declarative which is proper to the sacramental act.

The words of Consecration in the Roman Missal are printed in capital letters in the center of the page and often with a distinct color.

All of this shows that these words are unique and independent from the rest.

c) The Anamnesis[19] in the Roman Canon is a formula which refers to Christ Himself operating and not merely to the memory of Christ or of the Last Supper as an historical event. The text reads, “As often as ye shall do these things, ye shall do them in memory of Me” (Haec quotiescumque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis, which in Greek reads as eis ten emou anamnesin, i.e., directed toward my memory). It is an invitation to do what Christ did, in the same manner as He did it, and not simply to remember Christ or the Last Supper.

The traditional formula of the Roman Missal is replaced in the new rite by a formula of St. Paul, “Do this in memory of Me (Hoc facite in meam commemorationem),” which will be proclaimed daily in the vernacular, and in the minds of those who hear it, it will permanently transfer the emphasis to the mere memory of Christ as the end of the Eucharistic action, whereas it is in fact its beginning. “Remembering Christ” will be nothing more than a human recollection. The idea of a simple “commemoration” will very soon take the place of the real act in the sacramental order.[20]

In the Novus Ordo Mass, the narrative form (no longer the sacramental form) is explicitly proposed in the description of the “Eucharistic prayer” with the term “institution narrative” (no. 55), and is confirmed by the definition of the Anamnesis: “The Church remembers Christ Himself (memoriam agit).”

The consequence of this is in effect a change of the specific meaning of the Consecration. In the Novus Ordo Mass, the formulas of Consecration will now be pronounced by the priest as an historical narrative, and no longer pronounced as affirming a categorical and declarative Judgment uttered by Him in whose Person he acts: HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM (For this is My Body), and not HOC EST CORPUS CHRISTI (This is Christ’s Body).[21]

Finally, the acclamation assigned to the people after the Consecration, “We proclaim your death, O Lord … until you come again,” introduces yet another ambiguity regarding the Real Presence in an eschatological[22] disguise. Without any continuity it proclaims the anticipation of the second coming of Christ at the end of time just at the moment when He is substantially present on the altar, as if His true coming were only at the end of time and not now upon the altar.

This is even more accentuated in the second optional formula of acclamation in the appendix: “Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.” The height of ambiguity is reached here between the different realities of immolation and consumption, and between the realities of the Real Presence and the second coming of Christ.[23]

V: THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE SACRIFICE

We will consider finally the Novus Ordo Mass from the point of view of the accomplishment of the Sacrifice. The four elements involved in this accomplishment are, in order: Christ, the Priest, the Church, and the Faithful.

1. THE ROLE OF THE FAITHFUL IN THE NEW RITE

The Novus Ordo Mass presents the role of the faithful as being autonomous, which is clearly false. It starts in the initial definition of Article 7: “The Mass is the sacred synaxis or gathering of God’s people.” This continues with the meaning which Article 28 gives to the priest’s salutation to the people: “The priest, with a greeting, expresses the PRESENCE of the Lord to the gathered community. The mystery of the assembled Church is manifested by this greeting and the people’s response.” The Real Presence of Christ? Yes, but only spiritual. The mystery of the Church? Yes, but only as an assembly manifesting and asking for this spiritual presence.

This is repeated continuously. The communal character of the Mass constantly crops up like an obsession (nos. 74-152). There is the distinction, unheard of until now, between a Mass with the people (cum populo) and a Mass without the people (sine populo) (nos. 77-231). There is the definition of the “universal prayer, or prayer of the faithful” (no. 45), where the emphasis is put once again on the “priestly role of the people” (populus sui sacerdotii munus exercens). By the omission of its subordination to that of the priest, this priesthood is presented as being exercised autonomously; and then the priest, consecrated as a mediator, becomes just the interpreter of all of the people’s intentions in the Te igitur and in the two Mementos.

In Eucharistic Prayer III (Vere Sanctus), it goes so far as to say to the Lord: “You do not cease to gather your people SO THAT (ut) from sunrise to sunset a pure oblation may be offered in your Name.” This “so that” (ut) suggests that the people, rather than the priest, are the essential element in the celebration; and since it is not mentioned, not even here, who is offering this sacrifice,[24] it presents the people themselves as being invested with an autonomous priestly power.

With these qualifications and according to this plan, it would not be surprising that soon the people would be allowed to join the priest in pronouncing the words of Consecration. In many places, in fact, this is already being done.

2. THE ROLE OF THE PRIEST IN THE NEW RITE

The role of the priest is minimized, altered, and falsified:

(1) In relation to the people. He is the “presider” and “brother,” but he is no longer the consecrated minister celebrating in persona Christi.

(2) In relation to the Church. He is one member of the Church among others, just somebody amidst the people. In the definition of the epiclesis[25] in Article 55, the invocations are attributed anonymously to the Church, and the role of the priest disappears.

(3) In the collective Confiteor, the priest is no longer the judge, witness and intercessor before God. It is therefore logical that he is no longer to give the absolution, which was in effect suppressed. The priest is assimilated with the “brothers”; the altar boy in fact calls him “brother” in the Confiteor of the “Mass without the people.”

(4) The distinction between the priest’s communion and that of the faithful has been suppressed. This distinction, however, is loaded with meaning. All throughout the Mass, the priest acts in persona Christi. The intimate union of the priest with the sacrificial victim in a way that is specific to the sacramental order expresses that the Priest and the Victim are the same; this is unique to the Sacrifice of Christ and, manifested sacramentally, it shows that the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass are substantially the same.

(5) There is not a word about the power of the priest as minister of the Sacrifice, nor about the act of Consecration which is his prerogative, nor about the realization of the Eucharistic Presence through his power. It no longer appears that a Catholic priest has any greater capacity than a Protestant minister.

(6) The use of a number of vestments is abolished or made optional; in some cases an alb and stole are enough (Article 298). These vestments are the signs of the conformation of the priest to Christ, and now they disappear. The priest is no longer presented as being clothed with all the virtues of Christ, and the priesthood will be only a sort of ecclesiastical rank, barely distinguishable from the masses by one or two stripes.[26] In short, the priest will be, according to the unintentionally humorous saying of a modern preacher,[27] “a man a little more human than the others.”

3. THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN THE NEW RITE

That is to say: the Church in relation to Christ.

In only one instance, at Article 4, is it said that the Mass is an “action of Christ and of the Church,” and it is in the case of the Mass “without the people.”

However, in the Mass “with the people,” it expresses no other purpose than “remembering Christ” and sanctifying those present. Article 60 says: “The priest … associates the people to himself . . . in offering the Sacrifice to God the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit.” It should have said: “he associates the people to Christ, who offers Himself to God the Father. . . .”

It is in this context that we find:

- The very grave omission of the Per Christum Dominum nostrum (Through Christ our Lord), the formula used by the Church of all times as the sign and foundation of the assurance of being heard (John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16: 23-24);

- The dubious and fanatical eschatologism which presents the communication of grace as the result of some future progress, when it is really a present and eternal reality;

- The concept of God’s people as being “on a journey,” such that the Church is no longer the Church militant fighting against the powers of darkness, but is rather on pilgrimage towards an exclusively temporal future that no longer appears linked to Eternity (including the present in relation to Eternity).

In Eucharistic Prayer IV, the prayer of the Roman Canon “for all orthodox believers who keep the Catholic Faith” (pro omnibus orthodoxis atque catholicae fidei cultoribus) is replaced with a prayer for “all who seek you with a sincere heart.”

Similarly, the Memento of the dead no longer mentions those who died “marked with the sign of Faith and who repose in the sleep of peace” (cum signo fidei et dormiunt in somno pacis), but simply “those who died in the peace of Christ,” and it joins to them the assembly of the deceased of whom “only you know the faith,” which is another blow to the unity of the Church considered in its visible manifestation.

In none of the three new Eucharistic Prayers does there appear the slightest reference to the state of suffering of the departed. There is no space for a special intention for them, which once again serves to weaken faith in the propitiatory and redemptive nature of the Sacrifice.[28]

Everywhere, various omissions debase and desacralize the mystery of the Church. Above all, her mystery as a sacred hierarchy is misunderstood. The Angels and Saints are reduced to anonymity in the second part of the collective Confiteor, and they disappear from the first part as witnesses and judges, in the person of St. Michael the Archangel.[29] The various angelic hierarchies disappear in an unprecedented way from the new Preface to Eucharistic Prayer II. In the Communicantes, the memory of the Saints, Popes, and Martyrs is suppressed, that is, the memory of those upon whom the Church of Rome is founded and who without a doubt handed on the apostolic tradition, and in so doing completed what would become, with St. Gregory, the Roman Mass. In the Libera nos, the mention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of the Apostles, and of all the Saints is suppressed; their intercession is no longer sought, not even in time of peril.

The unity of the Church is finally compromised in this: the audacity has gone so far as the intolerable omission in the whole Novus Ordo Mass, including the three new Eucharistic Prayers (with the sole exception of the Communicantes in the Roman Canon), of the names of the Apostles Peter and Paul, founders of the Church of Rome, as well as the names of the other Apostles, the foundation and symbol of the unity and universality of the Church.

The Novus Ordo Mass furthermore makes an assault on the dogma of the Communion of Saints with the suppression of all of the salutations, the final blessing, and the Ite Missa est in the Mass “without the people.”[30]

The double Confiteor at the beginning of the Mass shows how the priest, robed in the vestments which designate him as a minister of Christ, and bowing deeply, recognizes himself unworthy of such a high mission, of the tremendous mystery (tremendum mysterium) which he prepares to celebrate, and even of entering into the Holy of Holies (in Aufer a nobis); thus he commends himself (in the Oramus te, Domine) to the intercession and merits of the martyrs whose relics are enclosed in the altar. These two prayers and the double Confiteor have been suppressed!

The conditions for the celebration of the Sacrifice as the accomplishment of a sacred reality have been likewise profaned. As such, for the celebration outside of a sacred place it is allowed to replace the altar with a simple “table” with neither a consecrated stone nor relics (nos. 260, 265).

The desacralization reaches its highest point with the new and often grotesque methods of the offertory. There is an insistence in making reference to bread rather than to the unleavened host. Permission to handle the sacred vessels is given to the altar boys, not to mention to the laity with Communion under both species (no. 244d). An incredible atmosphere will be created in the church with the ceaseless alternation of the priest, deacon, subdeacon, cantor, commentator (the priest himself has also become a commentator, since he is continually encouraged to “explain” what he is about to do), male and female lectors, clerics and lay people who greet the faithful at the church door and accompany them to their place, take up the collection, carry up and sort out the offerings, etc. And amidst the current rage of a return to Scripture, here in Article 70, there is a formal opposition to the Old Testament and to St. Paul, with the presence of the “ad hoc woman,” the mulier idonea, who for the first time in the tradition of the Church will be deputed to carry out the reading of Sacred Scripture and perform other “ministries that are fulfilled by those other than the members of the presbyterate.” Finally, there is the concelebration mania, which will end up completely destroying the Eucharistic piety of the priest and blurring the central figure of Christ, the one Priest and Victim, dissolving it into the collective presence of the concelebrants.[31]

VI

We have limited ourselves above to a brief review of the Novus Ordo Mass and its most serious deviations from the theology of the Catholic Mass. The observations we have made above are only representative; a larger work would be required to provide a comprehensive assessment of the obstacles, the dangers and the spiritually and psychologically destructive elements contained in the new rite.

The new Canons, called Eucharistic Prayers, have already been criticized repeatedly and authoritatively. Without returning to the topic, we nevertheless point out that the second Eucharistic Prayer[32] has immediately scandalized the faithful by its brevity. It has been noted among other things that Eucharistic Prayer II can be used in tranquility of conscience by a priest who believes in neither transubstantiation nor the sacrificial character of the Mass; that Eucharistic Prayer can very well be used for the service of a Protestant minister.

The Novus Ordo Mass was presented in Rome as “abundant pastoral material” and as “a more pastoral than legal text,” to which the Episcopal Conferences could provide, as appropriate, modifications in conformity with the respective genius of different peoples. Moreover, the first section of the new Congregation for Divine Worship will be responsible for the “publication and constant revision of the liturgical books.”

This was echoed by the official newsletter of the Liturgical Institutes of Germany, Switzerland and Austria,[33] stating: “The Latin texts must now be translated into the languages of different peoples; the ‘Roman’ style should be adapted to the individuality of each local Church. That which was conceived in a timeless manner must be transposed into the changing context of concrete situations, into the constant flux of the universal Church and its innumerable assemblies.”

The Constitution Missale Romanum itself, opposing the express will of Vatican II, deals the final death blow to Latin as the universal language, saying, “One and the same [sic?] prayer of everyone will rise up in a great diversity of languages . . . .” The death of Latin is therefore taken for granted, and that of Gregorian chant inevitably results, that is, of the chant which even Vatican II recognized as “the chant proper to the Roman liturgy” and which it had ordered to remain in the “primary place” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 116). Among other things, the free choice of texts for the Introit and Gradual results in the elimination of Gregorian chant.

The new rite comes off as pluralistic and experimental, linked to a certain time and place. With the unity of worship broken forever, what will happen now to that unity of faith that went with it and which always is spoken of as the substance to be defended without compromise?

It is obvious that the Novus Ordo Mass in fact renounces actually being an expression of the doctrine that the Council of Trent defined as being of divine and Catholic faith. Yet the Catholic conscience remains forever bound to this doctrine. As a result, the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Mass puts every Catholic in the tragic need to choose.

VII

The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum explicitly speaks of a wealth of doctrine and devotion that the Novus Ordo Mass borrows from the Eastern Churches. This supposed appropriation will result in actually estranging the faithful of the Eastern rite, for the inspiration of the Eastern rite is not only foreign to the spirit of the Novus Ordo Mass, it is entirely opposed it.

What, in fact, were those borrowed elements reputedly inspired by ecumenism? In substance, the multiplicity of anaphoras[34] was adopted, but not their order, nor their beauty, along with the presence of the deacon, and Communion under both species.

But it seems that there was an agenda to eliminate everything in the Roman liturgy that was in fact closest to the Eastern liturgy[35]; in denial of the incomparable and immemorial Roman character of the liturgy, those things that were spiritually the most pure and valuable have been eliminated. Characteristically Roman elements have been scrapped in favor of elements which bring the Novus Ordo Mass closer in fact to certain Protestant services, even those that are quite distant from Catholicism. These elements have degraded the Roman liturgy and estranged the East even more, as was already seen with the reforms which immediately preceded the Novus Ordo Mass.

On the other hand, the Novus Ordo Mass will be welcomed by those groups nearest to apostasy, and by attacking the Church in her unity of doctrine, liturgy, morality and discipline, it will cause an unprecedented spiritual crisis.

VIII

St. Pius V conceived the edition of the Roman Missal as an instrument of Catholic unity, which the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum itself recalls. In accordance with the requirements of the Council of Trent, the Roman Missal of St. Pius V was intended to prevent the introduction into divine worship of any subtle errors, so that the Faith would not be threatened by the Protestant Reformation.[36]

The motivations of St. Pius V were so grave that no other situation has ever appeared to have given greater justification for using the ritual formula and almost prophetic warning that concludes the Bull of promulgation of the Roman Missal (Quo Primum, July 19, 1570):

If anyone dare lay a hand against this work, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

In officially presenting the Novus Ordo Mass in the Vatican press room, the audacious claim was made that the reasons given by the Council of Trent no longer exist! Not only do they exist, but we do not hesitate to affirm that they are now infinitely more serious. It is precisely to address the insidious deviations which from century to century have threatened the purity of the deposit of Faith[37] that the Church has developed around this deposit the defenses inspired by her dogmatic definitions and doctrinal decrees. These definitions and their decisions had an immediate impact in worship, which gradually became the most complete monument of the faith of the Church. Insisting on refashioning this worship in an anachronistic way, coldly, in vitro, remaking a liturgy which originally had the grace of a gushing spontaneity, means falling into that “senseless archaeologism” condemned by Pius XII.[38] It means, as we have painfully seen, stripping the liturgy of all of the beauties it has piously accumulated for centuries and of all of the theological defenses needed more than ever at a critical moment, perhaps the most critical moment in the history of the Church.[39]

Today it is no longer outside of the Church, but rather within the bosom of Catholicity that the existence of divisions and schisms is being officially witnessed.[40] The unity of the Church is no longer just threatened; it is already tragically compromised.[41] Errors against the Faith are not merely insinuated; they are actually imposed by the aberrations and abuses that are introduced into the liturgy.[42]

The liturgical Tradition which for four centuries was the sign and pledge of our unity of worship is now being abandoned and replaced by another liturgy which can only be a cause of division due to the countless excesses it implicitly authorizes, by the insinuations that it promotes, and even by its overt attacks on the purity of the Faith. Speaking in the most moderate terms, this is an incalculable error.

Corpus Christi

June 5, 1969

[1] The prayers of the Roman Canon are found in the treatise De Sacramentis (late fourth or early fifth century). Our Mass goes back, without essential changes, to the years when for the first time it took the form developed from the oldest common liturgy. It still has the fragrance of that primitive liturgy, from the days when Caesar ruled the world and hoped to extinguish the Christian faith; from the days when our fathers gathered before dawn to sing a hymn to the Christ they recognized as their God (cf. Pliny the Younger, Ep. 96). “In all of Christendom there is no rite as venerable as the Roman Mass” (A. Fortescue, The Mass, a Study of the Roman Liturgy, 1912). “The Roman Canon, as it is today, goes back to St. Gregory the Great. There is neither in the East nor in the West any Eucharistic prayer remaining in use that boasts of such antiquity. Not only in the judgment of the Orthodox, but also in that of the Anglicans and even those Protestants who have retained a sense of tradition, for the Roman Church to reject that Canon would mean forever renouncing the pretention of representing the true Church” (Fr. Louis Bouyer).

[2] Synaxis: Religious assembly. A Christian word referring to the community assembled for prayer, reading and the Eucharist, as opposed to the Jewish term “synagogue” from the same Greek root.

[3] In support of such a definition, the Novus Ordo Mass refers to two texts of Vatican II. But if we refer to these two texts, we find nothing to justify such a definition. The first of the two texts is from the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis (no. 5): “ . . . Priests are consecrated by God through the ministry of the Bishop, so that . . . in sacred celebrations they act as ministers of Him who exercises His permanent Priesthood for us in the liturgy . . . and this is true especially when in the celebration of Mass they offer sacramentally the Sacrifice of Christ. . . . ” The second text is drawn from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (no. 33): “In the liturgy God speaks to His people, and Christ continues to proclaim the Gospel. The people in turn respond to God with prayer and singing. And the prayers addressed to God by the priest who presides over the assembly in the Person of Christ (in Persona Christi) are said in the name of the entire holy people and of all present.” We do not really see how we can draw from these texts the definition of the Mass given by the Novus Ordo Mass.

[4] The Council of Trent affirms the Real Presence: “First, the Council teaches, and openly and absolutely confesses, that in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is present really and substantially under the sensible appearances of bread and wine after their consecration” (Denzinger, 1965 ed., no. 1636; Dumeige, 1969 ed., p. 405). In Session XXII of the Council of Trent, the doctrine of the Mass was defined in nine canons. Here are some key points: I. The Mass is a true, visible Sacrifice and not a symbolic representation: “Our Lord Jesus Christ wanted to leave to the Church a visible Sacrifice . . . where the bloody sacrifice about to be accomplished for a single time on the Cross would be made present . . . the salutary virtue of which would be applied to the redemption of the sins we commit every day” (Denz., no. 1740; Dum., p. 415.). II. Our Lord Jesus Christ, “a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 109:4), operates instrumentally by means of the priest who celebrates the Mass: “He offered to God His Father, His Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine and under those same sensible signs he distributed them to his Apostles whom he then established as priests of the New Testament; to them and their successors in the priesthood He gave the order to offer them with these words: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’, as the Church has always understood and taught.” (Denz. and Dum., loc. cit.). He who celebrates, offers, and sacrifices is the priest, consecrated for that function, not the assembly of God’s people: “If anyone says that by these words: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’, Christ did not institute the Apostles as priests, or did not command that they and the other priests offer His body and blood, let him be anathema” (Denz., no. 1752; Dum., p. 419). III. The Sacrifice of the Mass is a true PROPITIATORY sacrifice and not a mere commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross: “If anyone says that the sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or a simple commemoration of the sacrifice made on the Cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice, or that it is profitable only to those who receive Christ and that it should be offered neither for the living nor for the dead, nor for sins, penalties, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be anathema” (Denz., no. 1753; Dum., p. 149). Canon 6 can be recalled as well: “If anyone says that the Canon of the Mass contains errors and must therefore be repealed, let him be anathema” (Denz., no. 1756; Dum., loc. cit.); and Canon 8: “If anyone says that Masses in which only the priest receives communion sacramentally are illicit and for this reason should be repealed, let him be anathema” (Denz., no. 1758; Dum., loc. cit.).

[5] It is superfluous to recall that if one dogma that has already been defined is abandoned, all dogmas would collapse at the same time, including of course that of the infallibility of the supreme and solemn hierarchical Magisterium.

[6] If the intention were to recall the Unde et memores, then the Ascension could be added as well. But the Unde et memores does not mix realities of a different nature; it distinguishes with clarity and finesse: “. . . making memory not only of the blessed Passion, but also of the Resurrection from hell, and also of the glorious Ascension into Heaven.”

[7] Propitiatory: That which has the power to propitiate God by providing atonement for sins.

[8] Manducatio: Eating, consuming. This word is rarely used except in reference to a religious act: the act of eating the Paschal Lamb among the Jews, and Eucharistic communion.

[9] The same shift of emphasis appears in the three new Canons, called Eucharistic Prayers, by the surprising elimination of the Memento of the dead and of any mention of the suffering of the souls in Purgatory, to whom the propitiatory sacrifice is applied.

[10] Cf. Paul VI in the Encyclical Mysterium Fidei (no. 11): “It is not allowable to … exaggerate the element of sacramental sign as if the symbolism, which all certainly admit in the Eucharist, expresses fully and exhausts completely the mode of Christ’s presence in this sacrament. Nor is it allowable to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent stated about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, speaking rather only of what is called ‘transignification’ and ‘transfiguration.’”

[11] The introduction of new formulas or phrases that are materially located in the texts of the Fathers and the Magisterium, but which are reused in an absolute sense and without reference to the body of doctrine within which they have their meaning (e.g., “spiritualis alimonia,” “cibus spiritualis,” “potus spiritualis”) was denounced in Paul VI’s Encyclical Mysterium Fidei (nos. 23-24) where he states: “Once the integrity of the faith has been safeguarded, then it is time to guard the proper way of expressing it, lest our careless use of words give rise, God forbid, to false opinions regarding faith in the most sublime things.” He then quotes St. Augustine, “We have to speak in accordance with a fixed rule, so that a lack of restraint in speech on our part may not give rise to some irreverent opinion about the things represented by the words.” He continues, “And so the rule of language which the Church has established through the long labor of centuries, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and which she has confirmed with the authority of the Councils, and which has more than once been the watchword and banner of orthodox faith, is to be religiously preserved, and no one may presume to change it at his own pleasure or under the pretext of new knowledge. . . . In the same way, it cannot be tolerated that any individual should on his own authority take something away from the formulas which were used by the Council of Trent to propose the Eucharistic Mystery for our belief.”

[12] Oblations: the bread and wine brought to the altar to be consecrated. (The term oblate, on the other hand, originally designated a child offered by his parents to a monastery to become a monk there; since the nineteenth century, it also means the faithful living in the world who are affiliated to a monastery by an oblation, which is not equivalent to a vow.)

[13] Economy: In the religious sense it means the orderly and harmonious set of arrangements of Providence to achieve the Redemption and Salvation of men.

[14] Contradicting what Vatican II prescribed (cf. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 48).

[15] The primary function of the altar is recognized only once, at no. 259: “The altar on which the sacrifice of the Cross is made present under sacramental signs, etc.” This is not enough to eliminate equivocations caused by the constant use of the term table.

[16] Pius XII, Allocution to the Liturgical Congress, 18-23 September 1956: “To separate the tabernacle from the altar is to separate two things which must remain united due to their origin and nature.”

[17] The Novus Ordo Mass rarely uses the word host, which is traditionally used in the liturgical books, with the precise meaning of victim. This reflects the systematic intention to underscore only the notions of “supper” and “food.”

[18] In line with the typical process of surreptitiously substituting one thing for another, the Real Presence is equated with the presence in the Word (nos. 7, 54). But this presence is of a completely different nature, because it exists only in the act of its use, whereas the Real Presence exists in a permanent and objective way, independent of Its reception in Communion. Here we see the typically Protestant formula: “God speaks to His people . . . Christ is present among the faithful through His Word” (No. 33; cf. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, nos. 33 and 7). This does not make sense, strictly speaking, because the presence of God in the Word is not immediate; it is linked to an act of the human spirit in its temporal condition. This act may be renewed, but it does not create any objective permanence. The fatal consequence of such an error is that it insinuates that in fact the Real Presence depends on Its use in action and that this presence ceases when the action ceases, as is the case with the presence in the Word.

[19] Anamnesis: The name given to the liturgical prayer after the Consecration. Literally: “Remembering.”

[20] The sacramental action, as described in the General Instruction to the Novus Ordo Mass, seems to be characterized by the fact that Jesus gave His Body and Blood to the Apostles as food under the species of bread and wine. It is no longer characterized by the act of Consecration, and by the mystical separation of the Body and Blood resulting from this act in the sacramental order. However, it is this mystical separation which constitutes the essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. See Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, nos. 66-79, on “Eucharistic Worship” and the “Nature of the Sacrifice.”

[21] As they are set in the Novus Ordo Mass, the words of the Consecration may be valid according to the intention of the priest, but they can also be invalid; the words no longer have the same force, or more precisely, their force is no longer in virtue of their own meaning (the modus significandi) which they have in the Roman Canon of the Missal of St. Pius V. In the near future, will the Consecration be valid when done by priests who have not received the traditional training and who rely on the Novus Ordo Mass and its General Instruction for “doing what the Church does”? It is a matter of legitimate doubt.

[22] Eschatological: Pertaining to the last end of man and the return of Christ at the end of the world.

[23] Let no one say that these expressions belong to the same Scriptural context (I Cor. 11:24-28). The Church has always correctly rejected this type of juxtaposition and superposition, precisely to avoid confusion between different realities which are designated respectively by different expressions. Confusing the nature of things that are simply presented together in Scripture is a well-known Protestant technique of Scriptural criticism.

[24] The Lutherans and Calvinists claim that all Christians are priests and that consequently all offer the Last Supper. On the contrary, according to the Council of Trent, it must be maintained that: “All priests, and they alone, are, strictly speaking, the secondary ministers of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Christ is the principal minister. The faithful also participate in the offering, but not in the strict sense; they do so only indirectly through the mediation of the priest” (A. Tanquerey, Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae, Desclée 1930, vol. III; cf. Denz., no. 1752; Dum., p. 419).

[25] Epiclesis: The prayer of the Mass calling down the Holy Ghost upon the offerings.

[26] One incredible innovation that is disastrous for the psychology of the Christian people is the use of red vestments on Good Friday rather than black ones; red is the color of a commemoration of a martyr among many others, and not the color of mourning, which the entire Church feels for her Bridegroom.

[27] Fr. A. M. Roguet, O.P., to the Dominicans of Bethany at Plessis-Chenet.

[28] Already in some translations of the Roman Canon the words “a place of refreshment, light, and peace” (locus refrigerii, lucis et pacis) have been replaced with the simple qualification of a state (“happiness, light, and peace”). Any reference to the Church Suffering is now suppressed.

[29] In this fever of omissions, there is one positive addition: the sin of omission included in the Confiteor.

[30] In the press conference presenting the Novus Ordo Mass, Fr. Lecuyer, in a clearly rationalist profession of faith, went so far as to propose expressing all of the salutations in the singular in a Mass without the people, such as “Dominus tecum” and “Ora, frater,” so there will be nothing artificial in the Mass, nothing that does not correspond to the truth [sic!].

[31] In relation to this, we mention in passing that it is apparently allowed for priests to receive Communion under both species at a concelebration, even if they have already celebrated Mass on their own.

[32] This was even presented as the “Canon of Hippolytus”! But it retains merely a few traces of that text.

[33] Gottesdienst, No. 9, 14 May 1969.

[34] Anaphora (which means “offering”): The Eucharistic Prayer used in the Eastern Rite Liturgies, e.g., in the Greek Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Almost all of the Eastern rites have several anaphoras.

[35] The Byzantine Liturgy provides some examples: the long, insistent, and repeated penitential prayers; the solemn vesting rites of the celebrant and deacon; the preparation of the offerings (proskomedia), which is a full rite in itself; the constant reference in the prayers and even in the offertory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Saints and angelic hierarchies, which at the Gospel Entrance are again cited as invisibly concelebrating, and with which the choir is identified in the Cherubikon; the iconostasis which clearly separates the sanctuary from the rest of the church, the clergy from the people; the consecration out of sight, a symbol of the unknowable realities referred to in the entire liturgy; the orientation of the celebrant always turned to God and not to the people; the fact that Communion is always distributed by the celebrant and him alone; the continually repeated marks of profound adoration of the Sacred Species; the essentially contemplative attitude of the people. In addition, the fact that the Eastern liturgies, even in their less solemn forms, last for more than an hour, and the phrases that are used consistently in reference to them (e.g., “terrible and ineffable Liturgy,” “terrible, heavenly and invigorating mystery,” etc.) are enough to say everything. Finally, we note that, both in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and in that of St. Basil, the idea of “supper” or “banquet” is clearly subordinate to that of Sacrifice, as in the Roman Mass of St. Pius V.

[36] The Council of Trent, in Session XIII (Decree on the Holy Eucharist, Introduction) declares its intention: “To tear up by the root the cockle of detestable errors and schisms that the enemy . . . has sown in the doctrine of the faith regarding the use and worship of the Most Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament which our Savior left to His Church as a symbol of unity and charity in which He wished for all Christians to be united and joined together” (Denz., no. 1635; Dum., p. 405).

[37] Saint Paul, I Tim. 6:20: “Keep that which is committed to thy trust (depositum custodi), avoiding the profane novelties of words . . . .”

[38] Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, nos. 62-64: “Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer’s body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings. . . . This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the deposit of faith committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn.”

[39] Paul VI, Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, no. 47: “Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that the edifice of the Church, which has now become large and majestic for the glory of God as His magnificent temple, should be reduced to its early minimal proportions as if they alone were true and good.”

[40] Paul VI, ibid.: “A ferment that is virtually that of schism divides, breaks, and splits up the Church.”

[41] Paul VI, in the same Homily: “There are also among us those schisms (schismata) and divisions (scissurae) that St. Paul painfully denounces in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, the lesson assigned to this day.”

[42] It is common knowledge that Vatican II is now disowned by the very men who boasted of being its Fathers. While at the conclusion of the Council the Pope declared that nothing had been altered, they were at the same time determined to go “explode” its contents everywhere. Unfortunately the Holy See, with an inexplicable haste, allowed or even encouraged an ever-increasing unfaithfulness to the Council by means of the Consilium (Commission for Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy). That infidelity regards those things apparently considered formalities (Latin, Gregorian chant, suppression of the venerable rites, etc.) as well as those things that affect the substance of the faith and which are enshrined in the Novus Ordo Mass. The terrible consequences that we have tried to highlight in this study have had their repercussions in a psychologically dramatic way in the realms of ecclesiastical discipline and the docility due to the Magisterium.

Table of Contents

The Ottaviani Intervention

Introduction

Preface

Letter to Paul VI by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci

A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass

I

II: THE DEFINITION OF THE MASS

III: THE OBJECTIVES OF THE MASS

1. THE HIGHEST OBJECTIVE

2. THE PROXIMATE OBJECTIVE

3. THE ESSENTIAL OBJECTIVE

IV: THE ESSENCE OF THE SACRIFICE

1. THE MEANING OF THE SO-CALLED “EUCHARISTIC PRAYER”

2. THE OBLITERATION IN THE SACRIFICIAL ECONOMY OF THE REAL PRESENCE

3. THE ROLE ASSIGNED TO THE MAIN ALTAR

4. THE FORMULAS OF CONSECRATION

V: THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE SACRIFICE

1. THE ROLE OF THE FAITHFUL IN THE NEW RITE

2. THE ROLE OF THE PRIEST IN THE NEW RITE

3. THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN THE NEW RITE

VI

VII

VIII