{"id":1996,"date":"2019-04-05T01:29:13","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T05:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2019-04-05T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T05:29:13","slug":"a-half-century-of-novelty-revisiting-paul-vis-apologia-for-the-new-mass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/2019\/04\/a-half-century-of-novelty-revisiting-paul-vis-apologia-for-the-new-mass\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Apologia for the New Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This lecture was given in Wagga Wagga on March 28, in Melbourne on March 30, and in Hobart on April 3, during Dr Kwasniewski’s visit sponsored by the Latin Mass Society of Australia<\/a>. The full text is presented below, in a Rorate exclusive. UPDATE: The video of the lecture as given in Melbourne may be found here<\/a>.<\/i><\/div>\n
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A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Apologia for the New Mass<\/b>
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Peter A. Kwasniewski<\/div>\n
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April 3 of this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>by Pope Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1969 Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum,<\/i> the provisions of which were to go into effect on November 30, the first Sunday of Advent.<\/div>\n
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When we look back a half-century later at this monstrous masterpiece of liturgical reform\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand, truth be told, it is no longer only self-proclaimed traditionalists who lament a job badly done\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe often feel moved to ask the simple question: Why?<\/i> Why was it deemed necessary to make so many and such radical changes in the Mass? For an explanation, we must look to the pope who, more than any other figure, was responsible for pushing forward the liturgical reform, handing down not only a new rite of Mass, but also, in like manner, new rites for all of the sacraments and indeed new versions of almost everything to be said or done in church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da figurative \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sack of Rome\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that throws the work of Alaric and Charles V into the shade.<\/div>\n
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Where can we look to find the pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s explanation? There are, as one would expect, a plethora of addresses, letters, and other documents that allow us not just a glimpse into the mind of Montini, but a leisurely review; he was frank and outspoken about the liturgical reform, which was and had been his passion prior to and during his pontificate. Above all, however, we ought to look carefully at three general audiences in the 1960s: the first from March of 1965, concerning the epochal shift from Christian Latin to modern vernaculars; and two from November of 1969, on the even greater shift from the classic Roman Rite to the product of the Consilium. Before descending into the details of these general audiences, I will make a theological argument about how we, as believers, should understand the historical development of liturgy in the Catholic Church, as this, I am convinced, is the only way to see the magnitude of what Paul VI desired to do, attempted to do, and, in the judgment of most people, succeeded in doing.<\/div>\n
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Laws of Organic Liturgical Development<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
\nIn his 1947 encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei,<\/i> Pope Pius XII pointed out a theological error in the tendency of some members of the Liturgical Movement to reach back to suppositious liturgical rites of ancient times while excluding or denigrating later periods of Church history such as the Middle Ages or the Baroque. Speaking of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites and ceremonies indiscriminately,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says:<\/div>\n
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[T]he liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world (cf. Matt 28:20). They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.[1]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Pius XII is writing in 1947 about avant-garde liturgists who want to leap frog over the Baroque and medieval periods\u00e2\u20ac\u201din other words, over the Roman rite as codified after Trent\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto arrive at a pristine apostolic liturgy. In 1947 the Roman Rite was still very much intact, as vintage photos of Pius XII\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magnificent papal liturgies evince; the liturgy committee that was to give Bugnini his first post at the Vatican and eventually produce a new Holy Week was yet to come. So when Pius XII talks about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more recent liturgical rites,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he is talking about medieval and Baroque developments, culminating in the Tridentine codification, of which the 1570 Missale Romanum <\/i>is the flagship. The key points to take away from this paragraph are, first, that something\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being more ancient does not ipso facto <\/i>make it better; second, that the historical development of the liturgy is not an accident that God permits, but a plan that He positively wills, inspired by the Holy Spirit and used by the Head of the Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to sanctify the members of His Mystical Body.<\/div>\n
\nIndeed, this passage reads rather like a commentary on the famous Canon 13 of the Seventh Session of the Council of Trent:<\/div>\n
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If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church that are customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments can be looked down on, or that ministers can without sin omit them according to their own whim, or that any pastor of churches whatever can change them into other new ones, let him be anathema.[2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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The seventh canon of the twenty-second Session of Trent is also highly pertinent. This canon states:<\/div>\n
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If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses are incentives to impiety rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema.[3]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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When the Council pointedly says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153which the Catholic Church uses,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we are given to understand that all <\/i>of the liturgical ceremonies, vestments, and external signs received from tradition are offices of piety and not <\/i>incentives to impiety. Thus, the view, later popular with 20th century reformers, that aspects of the classical Roman Rite are to be considered corruptions of authentic liturgy and detrimental to the spiritual life of the faithful is anathematized ahead of time.<\/div>\n
\nIn the same spirit, the Roman Catechism <\/i>published in 1566, three years after the Council of Trent was concluded, says this about the Mass in particular:<\/div>\n
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The Sacrifice is celebrated with many solemn rites and ceremonies, none of which should be deemed useless or superfluous. On the contrary, all of them tend to display the majesty of this august Sacrifice, and to excite the faithful when beholding these saving mysteries, to contemplate the divine things which lie concealed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Christ promised that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will teach you all truth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[4]: cum autem venerit ille Spiritus veritatis, docebit vos omnem veritatem <\/i>(Jn 16:13). This includes the fullness of liturgy.[5] One would expect, if the Church is truly governed by the Spirit of God, that her liturgy would, in its large lines and accepted forms, mature and become more perfect over time. Would it not then follow that the rate of change will slow down and the Spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work will gradually shift from inspiring new prayers to preserving the prayers already inspired? A liturgical rite will grow in perfection until it reaches a certain maturity, and then will cease to develop in any but incidental or minor ways.<\/div>\n
\nOne could diagram this process as a chart with two lines: the descending line[6] represents the creation of liturgical forms, while the ascending line[7] represents the preservation of existing liturgical forms. As the former action tapers, the latter action dominates, until that verse from Ezekiel is fulfilled in the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sacred liturgy: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Ezek 16:14).[8]<\/p>\n

(The following diagram was distributed as a handout.)<\/i><\/p>\n

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Much more can and should be said on the subject of what we might call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the laws of organic liturgical development,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I am currently researching and writing on the subject. In the interests of time, however, I will turn to the three general audiences of Paul VI on the topic of the liturgical reform.[9]<\/p><\/div>\n

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Papal example: Paul VI offering the first-ever Italian Mass,\u00c2\u00a0versus populum<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\n<\/b><\/i> General Audience of March 17, 1965<\/b><\/i><\/div>\n

\nThe first text we will look at was delivered on March 17, 1965 [English here<\/a>; Italian at Vatican website<\/a>], ten days after Pope Paul VI celebrated the first-ever Italian-language Mass at the Church of All Saints (Ognissanti) in Rome. In spite of official rhetoric, there is little evidence that the people rejoiced; a plaque memorializing the event in Ognissanti was vandalized so many times that a new plaque finally had to be placed high on the wall, out of reach of disgruntled parishioners.[10]<\/div>\n
\nIt is hard to know what to be more astonished about: the sheer contempt for the common man with which the audience drips, or the sheer fantasyland into which the pope enters when describing the anticipated benefits of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new liturgy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that was unveiled at Ognissanti\u00e2\u20ac\u201dremember, this was not the Novus Ordo, which was four years away, but a heavily simplified Tridentine Mass conducted in Italian (except for the Roman Canon), with the celebrant facing the people, standing at a temporary altar placed outside of the sanctuary.[11]<\/div>\n
\nThe pope says there have been negative reactions and positive reactions. The negative reaction is one of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a certain confusion and annoyance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d:<\/div>\n
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Previously, they say, there was peace, each person could pray as he wished, the whole sequence of the rite was well known; now everything is new, startling, and changed; even the ringing of the bells at the Sanctus is done away with; and then those prayers which one doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where to find; Holy Communion received standing; Mass ending suddenly with the blessing; everybody answering, many people moving around, rites and readings which are recited aloud \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 In short, there is no longer any peace and we now know less than we did before; and so on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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This does not seem an altogether unreasonable reaction. As far as the pope is concerned, however, Catholics who react this way have a paltry understanding of what they are doing:<\/div>\n
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We shall not criticize these views because then we would have to show how they reveal a poor understanding of the meaning of religious ceremonial and allow us to glimpse not a true devotion and a true appreciation of the meaning and worth of the Mass, but rather a certain spiritual laziness which is not prepared to make some personal effort of understanding and participation directed to a better understanding and fulfillment of this, the most sacred of religious acts, in which we are invited, or rather obliged, to participate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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One wonders when a pope has ever said something more self-righteous, presumptuous, insensitive, and unjust? I suppose everyone, before the glorious revolution, was spiritually lazy, unprepared to make even \u00e2\u20ac\u0153some\u00e2\u20ac\u009d effort to understand, and altogether bereft of participation in the mysteries. The popularity of Liturgical Movement authors like Dom Prosper Gu\u00c3\u00a9ranger, Pius Parsch, and Ildefonso Schuster, whose commentaries on the Mass instructed and inspired precisely those laymen who were startled and disturbed by the changes of the 1960s\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis passed over in utter silence.[12]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Montini continues by explaining that reform always causes people to feel upset because deeply rooted religious practices are being tampered with, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsoon everyone will love it. And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll make sure that no one can settle back again into silent devotion or laziness. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The congregation will be alive and active!,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says: everyone must<\/i> participate. Now <\/i>one must \u00e2\u20ac\u0153listen and pray\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (apparently they were doing neither before). Activity is the order of the day, the name of the game! We will finally have a liturgy that is not mummery (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153performed merely according to its external form\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an immense wing flying towards the heights of divine mystery and joy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d An immense wing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Excuse me while I reach for the airsickness bag.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The positive reaction, on the other hand, is, according to Paul VI, that of a majority of Catholics, young and old, uneducated and scholarly, the earnestly devout and the urbanely cultured, insiders and outsiders, who greet the changes with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enthusiasm and praise.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d At last, they say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one can understand and follow the complicated and mysterious ceremonial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (the pope declines to explain how simplication and easy accessibility fit with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153complicated and mysterious,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d unless his meaning is that a ceremonial that was once complicated and mysterious will henceforth cease to be either). At last, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the priest speaks to the people\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (but wait: I thought the liturgy was addressed primarily to God<\/i>?). One old gentleman, the pope says, fighting back a tear, gushed to a priest that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153at last\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in this new way of celebrating Mass he fully participated in the sacrifice\u00e2\u20ac\u201dindeed, possibly for the first time in his life. Some say this excitement will quiet down and turn into habit. But Pope Paul expresses the hope that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new form of worship\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will continue to stir up \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious enthusiasm,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the gospel of love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d will be realized in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the souls of our time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (He does not seem aware of Msgr. Ronald Knox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s classic critique of religious enthusiasm; it is just this hankering for feelings of enthusiasm or excitement that has led to ever-repeated efforts to stir up or stimulate congregations ever since the sixties, with ever-diminishing returns.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This papal address is notable for the number of times it uses the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new, startling, changed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new order\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new scheme of things\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new liturgical books\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new form\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (twice); \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new liturgy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (twice); \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new habit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liturgical innovation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If we add them up, eleven times. Some Catholics today are critical of traditionalists who speak of the Novus Ordo, <\/i>but here we have a pope identifying the interim missal <\/i>of 1965 as a novel thing, when it was vastly less of a novelty than the missal of 1969. I think we owe it to Pope Paul to use his <\/i>terms when we talk about his <\/i>reforms. He did not try to hide the fact that there had been a sea change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Many notable Catholics of this period have left us records of their reaction to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of 1965 (which in retrospect turned out to be a half-way house). Evelyn Waugh and William F. Buckley left us choice words about it, but I shall quote what Dietrich von Hildebrand wrote in 1966:<\/div>\n
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The basic error of most of the innovators is to imagine that the new liturgy brings the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the Mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the Mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness.[13]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Beware: intellectual at work<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
General Audience of November 19, 1969<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Now we turn to a pair of general audiences given 4\u00c2\u00bd years later, in the month of November 1969. As mentioned at the start, the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>was officially to go into effect on the first Sunday of Advent, which fell on November 30th that year.<\/div>\n
\nThe Pope was really feeling the heat at this moment. He had promulgated the text of the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>seven months earlier, on April 3. The Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass,<\/i> more commonly known as The Ottaviani Intervention,<\/i> was completed by June 5, but not published until a few months later; somehow it did not come to Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s knowledge until September 29, according to historian Yves Chiron. The popular press picked up the story and made a great deal of it. Paul VI sent the Short Study <\/i>to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose prefect, Cardinal \u00c5\u00a0eper, reported to him on November 12 that, in his opinion, the Study <\/i>was essentially worthless. This was only one week prior to the general audience of November 19. We must bear in mind, then, that this and the following week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s address are Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to defend the entire project of the Novus Ordo <\/i>in the face of its critics and for posterity. It is his apologia pro Missa sua.<\/i>[14]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What is perhaps most striking about these addresses is the pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s penchant for gratuitous assertion and his stark authoritarian tone. He wants us to believe that nothing really central has changed, while at the same time listing, and doubling down on, one enormous change after another. For those who take seriously that a developed liturgical rite is a kind of body-soul composite in which one cannot readily separate what <\/i>it is from how <\/i>it is done, how it looks, sounds, smells, and feels, the case he makes for essential identity is far from convincing.<\/div>\n
\nOn November 19 [English text here<\/a>; only Italian at the Vatican site<\/a>], again the pope does not shy away from the language of novelty: he speaks of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a new rite of Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (four times) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a new spirit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new directions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new rules,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new and more expansive liturgical language,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153innovation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (twice). He closes with the guarded sentiment: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do not let us talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthe new Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Let us rather speak of the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnew epoch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In a colossal understatement, the pope says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Mass will be celebrated in a rather different manner from that in which we have been accustomed to celebrate it in the last four centuries, from the reign of St. Pius V, after the Council of Trent, down to the present.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He shows admirable candor in getting right to the point:<\/div>\n
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This change has something astonishing about it, something extraordinary. This is because the Mass is regarded as the traditional and untouchable expression of our religious worship and the authenticity of our faith. We ask ourselves, how could such a change be made? What effect will it have on those who attend Holy Mass?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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His answer is feeble. Just pay attention to the explanations you will get from the pulpit and in religious publications, and trust that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a clearer and deeper idea of the stupendous and mysterious notion of the Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is just around the corner, thanks to the new missal. Again, he shows candor in admitting that the faithful will have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spontaneous difficulties.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Paul VI claims that the new missal \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is due to the will expressed by the Ecumenical Council held not long ago.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This claim is questionable, to say the least\u00e2\u20ac\u201dparticularly in view of what the pope will say one week later, when he openly contradicts Sacrosanctum Concilium <\/i>on any number of points. But here, the new missal is said to be four things, each of which is surprising:<\/div>\n
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It is an act of obedience. It is an act of coherence of the Church with herself. It is a step forward for her authentic tradition. It is a demonstration of fidelity and vitality, to which we all must give prompt assent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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It is quite unclear how \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coherence of the Church with herself\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is to be achieved by breaking with much of what the Church had been doing in her most important actions for centuries. It is quite unclear how exactly a radically revised missal counts as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153step forward\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (whatever that means) for the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153authentic tradition\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (whatever that means). I do not think it would be unfair to call this doublespeak. According to Edward Herman, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit an agenda or program.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[15] Again, one is left speechless at the claim that the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a demonstration of fidelity and vitality, to which we all must give prompt assent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Fidelity<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow so, precisely? Vitality<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201djust because papal muscle can be flexed to push through the biggest raft of changes in the history of the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worship?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The speech continues in a tone almost feverish and certainly imperious, as if the pope were feeling the total inadequacy of his account:<\/div>\n
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It is not an arbitrary act. It is not a transitory or optional experiment. It is not some dilettante\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s improvisation. It is a law.<\/i> It has been thought out by [wait for it] authoritative experts <\/i>of sacred liturgy; it has been discussed and meditated upon for a long time [that is, for a few years of extremely hasty and busy committee work]. We shall do well <\/i>to accept it with joyful <\/i>interest and put it into practice punctually, unanimously, and carefully.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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These are not the words of a man who is especially at peace about what he has done, or confident in the power of the product to win over the customers. One suspects a psychiatrist could have a field day analyzing this language.<\/div>\n
\nPope Paul VI then says that the reform he has imposed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153puts an end to uncertainties, discussions, arbitrary abuses. It calls us back to that uniformity of rites and feeling proper to the Catholic Church\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Can irony have no limits? It was in large part the Vatican\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s practically yearly changes to the liturgy from the 1950s through the 1960s that stirred up this febrile atmosphere of uncertainty, discussion, and abuse; it was the insistence on liturgical reform that shattered the uniformity of rites and feeling that the Church had enjoyed in relative peace from the end of the Council of Trent to the 20th century. Moreover, one of the most characteristic features of the Novus Ordo is its lack of uniformity from one celebration to another, and its multiplication of Catholic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153identities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/div>\n
\nThe second part of the address goes into \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what exactly the changes are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Whether from ignorance or from duplicity, the pope states that the changes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153consist of many new directions for celebrating the rites,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not adverting to the fact that the principal change is in the substance of the texts themselves: for example, only 17% of the orations of the old Roman Missal survived intact in the new missal. He then has the temerity to say: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Keep this clearly in mind: Nothing has been changed of the substance of the traditional Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I wonder how many people in 1969 believed this; I wonder how many still believe it today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A passage in St. Irenaeus of Lyons, directed against the arbitrary interpretations of the Gnostics, seems to me to capture perfectly what was done in our times with the Roman Rite, as well as the subterfuge of saying: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is <\/i>the Roman Rite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or worse, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is now tradition<\/i>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d St. Irenaeus writes:<\/div>\n
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\n

Their manner of acting is just as if, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skillful artist out of precious jewels, one should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skillful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception of what a king\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.[16]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Returning to the general audience, we find Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u201das if detecting the misgivings his words to this point might generate in a listener\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgoing on the defensive:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Perhaps some may allow themselves to be carried away by the impression made by some particular ceremony or additional rubric [this is what he says, but in fact the transition from old to new is mostly a matter of lost rubrics, not additional ones], and thus think that they conceal some alteration or diminution of truths which were acquired by the Catholic faith for ever, and are sanctioned by it. They might come to believe that the equation between the law of prayer, lex orandi,<\/i> and the law of faith, lex credendi,<\/i> is compromised as a result.
\nIt is not so. Absolutely not. Above all, because the rite and the relative rubric are not in themselves a dogmatic definition. Their theological qualification may vary in different degrees according to the liturgical context to which they refer. They are gestures and terms relating to a religious action\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexperienced and living\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof an indescribable mystery of divine presence, not always expressed in a universal way. Only theological criticism can analyze this action and express it in logically satisfying doctrinal formulas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In a spectacular instance of neoscholastic reductionism, we are told that only dogmatic definitions pertain to the essence of the Catholic Faith, since rites and rubrics have to do with experiences and actions that vary according to place and time; the only expression of truth is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153logically satisfying doctrinal formula.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In these words Paul VI has obliterated the lex orandi <\/i>as a reality unto itself and has denied liturgy as theologia prima, <\/i>a mode of revelation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He continues: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Mass of the new rite is and remains the same Mass we have always had. If anything, its sameness has been brought out more clearly in some respects.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As Shakespeare says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The lady doth protest too much, methinks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To belabor the point that the Mass is the same establishes that it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t; the obvious need not be said. In order to agree with the sameness hypothesis, one would first have to adopt the perspective that the Roman Rite is nothing other than a generic outline\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan introduction, some readings, an anaphora with valid words of consecration, communion, conclusion.[17]<\/div>\n
\nAs if to offer proof of his claim, the pope rather pathetically turns to the oneness of the Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supper, the Sacrifice on the Cross, and the representation of both in the Mass, which he says all remains true for the Novus Ordo. Apart from the somewhat odd claim that the Mass is a representation of both the Cross and the Last Supper\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich is not what the 22nd Session of the Council of Trent teaches\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthis, it must be said, is placing the bar of liturgical continuity pretty low. Far from supporting the claim that the Novus Ordo is still the same Roman <\/i>rite, it demonstrates only that the Novus Ordo <\/i>is a valid liturgical rite, like any other liturgy, Eastern or Western, offered by a validly ordained priest using the correct matter and form. By this logic, one could argue that the Novus Ordo <\/i>is the same as the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.<\/div>\n
\nStill clutching at straws, Paul VI says that the new rite brings out more clearly the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist,[18] but fails to explain how this is so; and, as can be shown both theoretically and practically, the opposite proves to be true. He makes one last plug for the joy of active participation, then, as if running out of steam, declares: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You will also see other marvelous features of our <\/i>Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Why exactly does this plural suddenly appear? Is it the papal \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: our modern papal rite? Is it an oblique reference to the Consilium: our committee Mass that we now present to a Catholic world panting in expectation? Or is this the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the collectivity that would subsequently find in the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>the incentive, and indeed the invitation, to celebrate itself?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Then, another desperate attempt to ram home the sameness thesis: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But do not think that these things are aimed at altering its genuine and traditional essence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We are left once more with the stubborn question that will not go away: What is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the genuine and traditional essence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of a liturgy? Is it whatever the pope decides it is, however minimal that may be, or can we trust the broad lines of its historical development and its universal reception in the Church, as the Council of Trent so obviously did? In short, it is hard to imagine two more opposed visions of liturgy than Trent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Montini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
At the end he invokes a favorite word, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pastoral,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as justification, and expresses his desire that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the faithful will participate in the liturgical mystery with more understanding, in a more practical, a more enjoyable, and a more sanctifying way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll admit this is a subjective call on my part, but to my ear the language here smacks of urban planning and social engineering. How curious, then, that he refers to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Word of God which lives and echoes down the centuries\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat very Word whose ongoing incarnation in the organic development of the liturgy is being repudiated\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand then opines that the faithful will better \u00e2\u20ac\u0153share in the mystical reality of Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sacramental and propitiatory sacrifice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d even though the Novus Ordo has purged the liturgy of its palpable mysticism and its unmistakable accentuation of the propitiatory sacrifice of Calvary.<\/div>\n
\nThis address is classic Montini: cold logic, stiff manner, overbearing tone, occasional Maritainian poetic flourishes, and, above all, a baffling obliviousness to the sheer magnitude of what he is doing, as if the dropping of liturgical nuclear bombs were like playing a game of theological chess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ready to throw open the windows to the world!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n

General Audience of November 26, 1969<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One week later, the pope continues his apologia <\/i>[English text here<\/a>; Italian here<\/a>]. Once again, notice how relentlessly Paul VI underlines the newness of what he is imposing on the Church. In the opening sentence he speaks of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new rite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is mentioned seven times; the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153newness,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153renewal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d seven more times; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153innovation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d twice; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153novelty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d twice. That makes a total of 18 times.<\/div>\n
\nIn classic Montini fashion, his second paragraph lingers regretfully over what is to be lost:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

A new rite of the Mass: a change in a venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled. It seemed to bring the prayer of our forefathers and our saints to our lips and to give us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past, which we kept alive to pass it on to the generations ahead. It is at such a moment as this that we get a better understanding of the value of historical tradition and the communion of the saints.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
As incredible as it may seem, the pope appears to be saying that when we give up our hereditary religious patrimony, we feel most keenly the value of that tradition and of the communion of saints with whom we once prayed in common! This seems to me a sadistic maneuver, like telling a child: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You will appreciate your mother more if we take her away from you and you never see her again.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He continues, resuming themes from his March 1965 address:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

This change will affect the ceremonies of the Mass. We shall become aware, perhaps with some feeling of annoyance, that the ceremonies at the altar are no longer being carried out with the same words and gestures to which we were accustomed\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperhaps so much accustomed that we no longer took any notice of them. This change also touches the faithful. It is intended to interest each one of those present, to draw them out of their customary personal devotions or their usual torpor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
If I am not mistaken, Paul VI is arguing that ritual stability causes people to stop paying attention to what is going on and to fold in on themselves in subjectivism or laziness. If this were true, it would explain the obsession of modern liturgists with constantly changing things up: as I once remarked, paraphrasing Heraclitus, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you can never step in the same Novus Ordo twice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In the experience of many, on the contrary, stability in ritual makes possible a deep intimacy with the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prayer, and thereby heads off unhealthy private or collective <\/i>subjectivism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In any case, the pope seems to be under no illusions about the shake-up when he writes in paragraphs 4 and 5:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

We must prepare for this many-sided inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We shall notice that pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this respect. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 This novelty is no small thing. We should not let ourselves be surprised by the nature, or even the nuisance, of its exterior forms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This hardly requires comment, except to say that Paul VI would never have succeeded as a salesman. It is no wonder so many Catholics stopped going to Mass and a further wave of priests and religious suffered the crisis of spiritual disorientation, when their supreme Shepherd thought it was a good idea to cause especially pious persons and priests a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153many-sided inconvenience,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153upset,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153disturbance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153annoyance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuisance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as they struggled to figure out what in Hades was going on with the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153exterior forms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot to say internal spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s liturgy!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In the face of this upcoming challenge, what does Paul VI recommend? Like an eggheaded intellectual out of touch with ordinary Christians, he suggests that we need to prepare ourselves for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this special and historical occasion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you know, doubling down on our study of books and articles that explain the motives for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this grave change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Recognizing again the inherent weakness of his position, he invokes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153obedience to the Council\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe knows the lesson of totalitarian propaganda that the only thing needed to establish a falsehood as truth is to repeat the same lies calmly, boldly, and frequently\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand adds to it, for good measure, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153obedience to your bishops.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He is confident that all the bishops will be lining up in good ultramontanist (or should we say ultra-Montini-ist)[19] fashion.\u00c2\u00a0 In a moment of almost Montanist afflatus<\/i>, he concludes paragraph 6:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

It is Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will, it is the breath of the Holy Spirit which calls the Church to make this change. A prophetic moment is occurring in the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. This moment is shaking the Church, arousing it, obliging it to renew the mysterious art of its prayer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In paragraphs 7 through 14\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe largest thematic section of the discourse\u00e2\u20ac\u201dPaul VI offers a defense of the practical abolition of Latin. He still seems to be smarting under the lash of Tito Casini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1965 book The Torn Tunic,<\/i> in which that popular Italian author attacked the introduction of the vernacular into the Mass.<\/div>\n
\nThe pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s point of departure in this section is the claim that because \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the faithful are also invested with the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcroyal priesthood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 they are qualified to have supernatural conversation with God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (\u00c2\u00a76). From this truth\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich no one had ever denied, in theory or in practice\u00e2\u20ac\u201dPaul VI deduces the necessity of replacing Latin with the common spoken language; for otherwise, the people are not able to have a supernatural conversation with God (?). The pope starts up his familiar hand-wringing routine, in which he will first tell us how great a loss will be incurred by the new rite:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power, and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s values? (\u00c2\u00a7\u00c2\u00a78\u00e2\u20ac\u201c9)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
It is at this point that Paul VI shows his cards, advocating a kind of epistemological nudism or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153free and simple\u00e2\u20ac\u009d philosophy:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more\u00e2\u20ac\u201dparticularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech. (\u00c2\u00a7\u00c2\u00a710\u00e2\u20ac\u201c11)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
As our earlier quotation from Dietrich von Hildebrand pointed out, we see here a humanistic, horizontal, and anthropocentric understanding of liturgy that is opposed, paradoxically, to liturgy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very effectiveness as a means of spiritual transformation, drawing the soul up to the infinite God and into communion with the Mystical Body of Christ, past, present, and eternal. The Latin language is effective precisely because of its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153beauty, power, and expressive sacrality,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sacred utterance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153priceless worth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the loftiness of its associations, and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that clothes it in music, Gregorian chant.<\/div>\n
\nParticipation in the sense of the immediate comprehension of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153plain language, easily understood, in everyday speech,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the least and lowest sense in which the faithful participate in the awesome mysteries of Christ. Sociologists have pointed out that dense, impenetrable, to some extent off-limits religious rituals are a powerful motivator for belief and devotion. Fr. Aidan Nichols observes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The notion that the more intelligible the sign, the more effectively it will enter the lives of the faithful is implausible to the sociological imagination. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A certain opacity is essential to symbolic action.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[20] Psychologists note that archetypal symbolism conveyed in gestures, clothing, and other physical phenomena, not to say the superrational language of music, are at least as communicative as words, if not more so. The power of the liturgy to affect the soul depends to a very great extent on such non-verbal elements and the subtle factor that may be called, for lack of a better term, atmosphere or ambiance.<\/p>\n

Yes, the faithful should have some grasp of the content of the Mass (and, of course, of more than just the Mass); about this, Dom Gu\u00c3\u00a9ranger and the pars sanior <\/i>of the Liturgical Movement were right.[21] But what draws men to liturgical worship is the prospect of an encounter with the mysterious and the ineffable, the strangely beautiful that opens our minds to the transcendent and offers a glimpse of heaven. In this way it was exactly anti<\/i>-apostolic to invert the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s priorities by placing a superficial notion of popular engagement above the more profound immersion in prayer that the ancient liturgy, properly celebrated, had always offered to the faithful, and still does.<\/div>\n

\nIn one of the most hauntingly ironic statements in papal history, Paul VI noted with some melancholy in his 1975 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi<\/i>: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Modern man is sated by talk; he is obviously tired of listening, and what is worse, impervious to words.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[22] This observation was made only five years after he had imposed on the Church a liturgy outstanding for its non-stop verbosity, huge doses of Scripture, lack of silence, and paucity of non-verbal ritual.<\/div>\n
\nBack in the 1969 address, Pope Paul, however, proceeds to dig himself into a hole:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

If the divine Latin language kept us apart from the children, from youth, from the world of labor and of affairs, if it were a dark screen, not a clear window, would it be right for us fishers of souls to maintain it as the exclusive language of prayer and religious intercourse?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe most dramatic decline in Mass attendance in the decade after the Council (that is, from the first introduction of the vernacular and versus populum <\/i>to the imposition of the Novus Ordo<\/i>) was found precisely among the laborers, as English sociologist Anthony Archer demonstrated.[23] Furthermore, it is by no means clear that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153men of affairs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ever favored the liturgical reform. I have already mentioned Casini, von Hildebrand, Waugh, and Buckley, but the most embarrassing sign of the lack of support among educated people came in 1971, with a petition urging the preservation of the traditional Latin Mass, signed by 56 of the most eminent cultural figures of Great Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153many of the foremost writers, critics, academics, and musicians of the day, as well as politicians from Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s then three main parties, and two Anglican bishops\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[24]\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich John Cardinal Heenan presented to Pope Paul VI, an intervention that led to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153English Indult\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (sometimes called the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Agatha Christie Indult\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) for the continued use of the old Mass, which was, in retrospect, the first step in a long process of backtracking on the overblown claims that had been made for the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153new epoch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to be ushered in by the liturgical reform.[25] Lastly, Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mention of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153children and youth\u00e2\u20ac\u009d may remind us of what is perhaps the sharpest irony of all: while the average number of children born to mainstream Catholics and the average retention rate of young adults continues to be alarmingly low, the numbers of large families and the overall youthfulness of the traditional Mass movement tell a very different story about what attracts people to Christ and what pushes them away.<\/div>\n
\nIn paragraphs 13 and 14, the pope throws a sop to Latin-lovers by reminding them that the new rite of Mass allows for <\/i>the people to sing together in Latin the Ordinary of the Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u201dan allowance that was almost never to be actualized in practice\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand that Latin will still remain the official language of Vatican documents, cold comfort if ever there was any. Without any indication of sarcasm, he says: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Latin will remain \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 as the key to the patrimony of our religious, historical, and human culture. If possible, it will reflourish in splendor.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yet if Latin is really the key to our Catholic patrimony, why are we making the one move most calculated to destroy its living presence in the Church? How will this help Latin \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reflourish in splendor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/div>\n
\nIn paragraph 15, Paul VI takes up his theme from the previous week that the Mass hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really changed, because \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the fundamental outline of the Mass is still the traditional one, not only theologically but also spiritually.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fundamental outline\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one means that some kind of penitential thing comes first, some kind of Eucharistic prayer comes around the middle, and some kind of gesture indicating the end of the service comes last, one can warmly agree with the pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assessment. Here we would not have the time to go through a lengthy list of examples of ways in which the structure, theology, and spirituality of the new missal clearly differ or depart from those of the old missal.[26] But it takes little more than attendance at the usus antiquior <\/i>to begin to see for oneself that the application of the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153traditional\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the reformed liturgical rites of Paul VI is precisely the sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153abuse of language, abuse of power\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about which the philosopher Josef Pieper, who lived under the National Socialist regime in Germany, wrote so eloquently.<\/div>\n
\nThen Paul VI has either the naivete or the shamelessness to assert:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Indeed, if the rite is carried out as it ought to be, the spiritual aspect will be found to have greater richness. The greater simplicity of the ceremonies, the variety and abundance of scriptural texts, the joint acts of the ministers, the silences which will mark various deeper moments in the rite, will all help to bring this out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
As long as everyone \u00e2\u20ac\u0153participates profoundly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, the Mass will become \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more than ever a school of spiritual depth and a peaceful but demanding school of Christian sociology. The soul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relationship with Christ and with the brethren thus attains new and vital intensity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In lines like this, we see Paul VI abandoning himself to full-scale fantasyland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The last three paragraphs, 17 through 19, form a bizarre coda that conveys to us, even today at a distance, something of the feeling of slapdash haste and scarcely-controlled chaos that surrounded the entire project of liturgical reform:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

But there is still a practical difficulty, which the excellence of the sacred renders not a little important. [What an expression!] How can we celebrate this new rite when we have not yet got a complete missal, and there are still so many uncertainties about what to do?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Good question, Holy Father. It was a question that had rarely left the lips of clergy and laity for a good 15 years by this point, as rubrics, texts, music, language, nearly everything continued to evolve on an almost annual basis. What we see in this madness for sacramental reform, starting regrettably under Pius XII, is the very negation of the correct Catholic attitude towards tradition, which is that of a gardener, not that of an industrialist or a real estate developer who knocks down the old mansion to make way for modern flats. If I might adapt some recent words of Fr. John Hunwicke: the pope needs<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

to remember the aper\u00c3\u00a7u of Blessed John Henry Newman, that the ministry of the Roman Church within the oikoumene <\/i>is to be a barrier, a remora, <\/i>against the intrusion of erroneous novelty. It is: to hand on the Great Tradition unadulterated. In an age when the adjective \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnegative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 has unpopular vibes, we need a reappropriation at the very highest level within the Church of the central, fundamental importance of a negative and preservative papacy. Tradidi quod et accepi <\/i>implies Quod non accepi non tradam.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Having posed the question, Paul VI answers it with rather more technical detail than one would expect in a general audience. The takeaway is that Latin liturgy is definitely on its way out\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand that<\/i>, by the pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s express will. By November 28, 1971, there are to be no more Latin liturgies from the old missal or even from the new one. And if a priest expects to find himself in various places, offering Mass alone and with a congregation, he had better invest in a stout wagon for carrying all the liturgical books he will need. The old days when an altar missal sufficed are hereby excluded in the name of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153greater simplicity of rites.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[27]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The address closes with a final subtle irony\u00e2\u20ac\u201da quotation from one of Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favorite authors, the Swiss priest and theologian Maurice Zundel (1897\u00e2\u20ac\u201c1975), from the preface to the second edition of Le Po\u00c3\u00a8me de la Sainte Liturgie <\/i>of 1934, which was published in English in 1939 under the title The Splendor of the Liturgy<\/i>:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The Mass is a Mystery to be lived in a death of Love. Its divine reality surpasses all words. . . It is the Action par excellence, the very act of our Redemption, in the Memorial which makes it present.[28]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I do not know what Zundel, who died in 1975, thought of the Novus Ordo Missae<\/i>, but I can say without a doubt: Anyone who reads this book, a profound work of mystical theology, which, from start to finish, is steeped in the prayers and ceremonies of the classic Roman Rite, enters into a world of luminous wonder and fiery devotion\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe epitome of a Church securely and gratefully rooted in her tradition. This world was doomed by Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interim missal of 1965 and banished by the perfidious Missale Romanum <\/i>of 1969. To a poor layman or priest standing in the audience on November 19 or November 26 of that fateful year, the glorious and intimate world described in Zundel[29] seemed on the verge of being lost for ever.<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Say goodbye!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
Conclusion<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
\nRevisiting these audiences five decades later is important for many reasons. Today I should like to mention just two of them.<\/p>\n

The main reason is that, considering the magnitude of the reform, Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defense of it is exceedingly flimsy. Some people saw that already back in 1965 and 1969, but today it is overwhelmingly clear, with the benefit of a hindsight that shows how narrow and dated are his assumptions, and how his every prediction has failed. Montini\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defense of the Novus Ordo <\/i>relies on equivocation, deceitfulness about the extent of the changes, and a brute exercise of top-down authority. It is based on a poor theology of liturgy, sacraments, and prayer; a poor sociology of ritual; a poor psychology of habit; and a poor philosophical analysis of modernity.<\/p>\n

A second reason has to do with more recent attempts to clean up the Montinian mess. Proponents of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Reform of the Reform,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d no doubt in good faith, cling to a narrative in which the Novus Ordo Missae <\/i>came hot off the Vatican press clothed in Latin as with a garment, ready to be celebrated in splendor and solemnity to the noble strains of Gregorian chant, in perfect fulfillment of the conciliar constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand then the Mass got \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hijacked\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by European and American progressives, who flatly contradicted the good intentions of Paul VI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A\u00c2\u00a0 basic problem with this narrative is that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s false. The three general audiences indicate that Paul VI never thought that the Novus Ordo would be celebrated widely in Latin; he never expected Gregorian chant to survive in the parishes; he never wanted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153our Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to look or sound like the inherited Roman liturgy. He calmly noted that Latin and Gregorian chant would disappear; the old way of celebrating Mass would perish from the face of the Earth. To this extent, then, he <\/i>sought rupture, not the continuity for which his successor Benedict XVI has become famous.[30] Certainly Paul VI could have heartily endorsed the words of influential liturgist and Consilium member Joseph Gelineau, S.J.:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.[31]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
It is evident that Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s operative principle was accommodationism: the liturgy must be accommodated to the mentality and purported needs of Modern Man.[32] To this hungry Moloch of modernization, every other consideration had to yield; indeed, the first sacrificial offering to be placed in its mouth was the Council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It requires no towering intelligence to see that some of its clearest and most important provisions were not only ignored but negated. Paul VI acted against the provisions signed by 2,147 bishops and major superiors in an exercise of hyperpapalism that has no other historical equivalent and probably never will. In this way he exhibited an extreme megalomania that could be summed up in the phrase: L\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c3\u00a9glise, c\u00e2\u20ac\u2122est moi.<\/div>\n
\nThese three audiences illustrate a more general trend. We can see an exact parallel to them in the manner in which the Vatican after the Council discouraged culturally Catholic nations from preserving any special constitutional recognition of or agreement with the Church, and in the disastrous policy towards the Communist countries known as Ostpolitik<\/i>, which has resurfaced in Pope Francis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sell-out to the Chinese government. We see it in the encouragement of ugly modern art, with the Paul VI audience hall, opened in 1971, as its preeminent monument. We see it in the discouragement of clerical attire and large families. In other words, we are looking at a comprehensive program of secularization, of conformity to the liberal Western world forged in the anticlerical Enlightenment and repackaged after World War II as optimistic humanism. This was the defining ethos <\/i>of the Vatican II period as interpreted and advanced by and under Pope Paul VI. And this is and was contrary to the fundamental demand of Christianity according to St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do not be conformed to this world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat is, the world as fallen angels and sinful men have made it, in their rebellion against God\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Rom 12:2).<\/div>\n
\nThe great American Catholic writer of the 19th century, Orestes Brownson, wrote in July 1846:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The Church is not here to follow the spirit of the age, but to control and direct it, often to struggle against it. They do her the greatest disservice who seek to disown her glorious past, and to modify her as far as possible, so as to adapt her to prevailing methods of thought and feeling. It is her zealous but mistaken friends, who, guided by a short-sighted policy, and taking counsel of the world around them, seek, as they express it, to liberalize <\/i>her, to bring her more into harmony with the spirit of the age, from whom we, as good Catholics, should always pray, Libera nos, Domine<\/i>![33]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Martin Mosebach speaks of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the defective liturgical development that was encouraged by a mentality antagonistic to spiritual realities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[34] This, in fact, is what we see in Paul VI: a mentality so preoccupied with modernity, with evangelization, and with accessibility that it ends up becoming antagonistic to spiritual realities\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe set-apartness of the sacred; the primacy of God and the things of God; the otherworldly itinerary of Christ in His Passion, death, resurrection, and ascension; and the conquest of this <\/i>world for Christ the King, seizing it from Satan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empire and sanctifying it with her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mystic benedictions . . . derived from apostolic discipline and tradition.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[35]<\/div>\n
\nPermit me to conclude with a quotation from Johann Adam M\u00c3\u00b6hler:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

If one cannot trust tradition, then Christians would rightly despair of ever learning what Christianity really is; they would rightly despair that there is a Holy Spirit which fills the Church, that there exists a common spirit and sure knowledge of Christianity. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 This is the state in which those who reject tradition find themselves, and for them there can be no such thing as an objective Christianity.[36]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\nThank you for your kind attention.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
NOTES<\/b><\/div>\n
\n[1] Mediator Dei<\/a><\/i>, n. 61.<\/p>\n

[2] DZ 856: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Canon 13. Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbatos Ecclesiae catholicae ritus in solemni sacramentorum administratione adhiberi consuetos aut contemni, aut sine peccato a ministris pro libito omitti, aut in novos alios per quemcumque ecclesiarum pastorem mutari posse, A.S.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Another translation of this dense text renders it thus: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at their pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[3] \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Si quis dixerit, ceremonias, vestes et externa signa, quibus in missarum celebratione Ecclesia Catholica utitur, irritabula impietatis esse magis quam officia pietatis: anathema sit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d On the surface, this canon would seem to require saying that the Novus Ordo, in its integrity, must be an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153office of piety\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and not an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153incentive to impiety.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But it does not follow that the Novus Ordo fosters piety as much as the traditional rite, or that it avoids occasions of impiety as well as the traditional rite does. This canon also cannot be taken in isolation from other conditions that must be fulfilled before we can identify a given rite as actually Catholic, as opposed to being a tolerated intruder.<\/p>\n

[4] St. Thomas Aquinas (ST II-II, q. 1, a. 9, sed contra) cites this verse as evidence for the indefectibility of the Church: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The universal Church cannot err, since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of truth: for such was Our Lord\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s promise to His disciples (Jn 16:13): \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWhen He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[5] Susanne Spencer writes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The beauty of tradition is that it does not cast out the years between the early Church and now, but trusts that the Holy Spirit has guided the Church as we have grown in understanding of doctrine and developed our liturgical rites. Soon-to-be-canonized Blessed John Henry Newman describes the development of tradition in this way: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcA true development, then, may be described as one which is conservative of the course of antecedent developments being really those antecedents and something besides them: it is an addition which illustrates, not obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it proceeds.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Beauty of the Extraordinary Form Comes from Tradition<\/a>,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d citing Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,<\/i> Pt. II, Ch. V.6.<\/p>\n

[6] Like the descent of the dove, or the tongues of fire on Pentecost, announcing that a new dispensation is at hand. However, there will never be another dispensation: that of Christ is definitive. Hence, one can never expect a time, after the age of the Apostles, in which new <\/i>Christian rites or sacraments will come into existence.<\/p>\n

[7] This could remind us of the Ascension and the Assumption, exemplars of our final destiny in the unchanging bliss of heaven. As liturgy unfolds over time, it becomes more evidently the image of the eschatological banquet.<\/p>\n

[8] This entire chapter of Ezekiel, especially verses 8 to 26, can be taken as a description of a three-stage historical drama: first, the calling of Israel and the old covenant; second, the coming of Christ and the new covenant, which inaugurated a period of maturation and royal splendor; third, the apostasy of the 20th century when churchmen went whoring after secular values, created \u00e2\u20ac\u0153colorful shrines\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the gods of the world,\u00c2\u00a0 and made a religion out of humanism, burning incense to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153images of men.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To these values, gods, and images, churchmen sacrificed the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sons and daughters, in the outward exodus of the baptized who left the Church and the internal exodus of the faithful who have ceased to believe or even to know the Catholic Faith.<\/p>\n

[9] I would like to point out that all canonists and theologians are in agreement that General Audiences, like papal homilies or sermons, occupy a lowly place among the instruments by which a pope can choose to exercise his magisterium. They are often a mixture of statements that say something about matters of faith or morals and other statements that mere express the pope\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s personal opinion. While they deserve our respectful attention, they usually do not demand much from us in the way of assent.<\/p>\n

[10] See Gregory DiPippo, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Liturgist Manifesto<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d For more on the Ognissant event, see Dom Alcuin Reid, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153March 7th, 1965\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAn extraordinary way of celebrating the Holy Mass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; Peter Kwasniewski, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBackwards vs. Forwards\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u201dWhat Does It Mean?<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just Say No to \u00e2\u20ac\u212265!<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; and the article mentioned in the next note.<\/p>\n

[11] See the description at Rorate Caeli in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The 50th Anniversary of Paul VI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s First Italian Mass: Some Hard Truths About the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc1965 Missal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and the Liturgical Reform<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[12] Pope Benedict XVI, whose intelligence, fairness, courtesy, and realism greatly exceeded those of Paul VI, noted precisely this fact in his Letter to Bishops Con Grande Fiducia<\/a><\/i>, which accompanied the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum<\/i>: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Afterwards, however [i.e., in the period after the introduction of the new missal], it soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this [older] usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood. This was especially the case in countries where the Liturgical Movement had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier form of the liturgical celebration.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[13]\u00c2\u00a0Triumph <\/i>magazine, October 1966; cited in Michael Davies, Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II<\/i> (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, 2003), 40\u00e2\u20ac\u201c41.<\/p>\n

[14] It is also worth noting that in response to the Short Study <\/i>and other critiques, the pope pushed through a number of significant modifications to the Institutio Generalis <\/i>that prefaced the missal.<\/p>\n

[15] Quoted here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0A similar Montinian phrase shows up in an Address to a Consistory, May 24, 1976: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For our part, in the name of tradition [!], we beseech all our children and all Catholic communities to celebrate the rites of the restored liturgy with dignity and fervent devotion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[16] Against Heresies<\/i>, Book I, ch. 8.<\/p>\n

[17] Such a remote or abstract sameness would not, in all probability, satisfy the simple and childlike or <\/i>the sophisticated and cultured that the Mass was the same\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe two demographics most heavily alienated from the Church during this period.<\/p>\n

[18] Incidentally admitting that the age-old nomenclature of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Mass of Catechumens\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Mass of the Faithful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d matching up to ancient practice and followed by hundreds of commentators over the centuries, has therewith been jettisoned.<\/p>\n

[19] This was prior to the heroic stance taken up by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which was to bring out the worst of the tyrant in Paul VI. But that is a story for another time.<\/p>\n

[20] Aidan Nichols, Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical View of Its Contemporary Form<\/i> (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 61.<\/p>\n

[21] It is distressing to see some of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s would-be advocates of tradition exalting a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153devotionalism of ignorance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a strict bifurcation between lay spirituality and the rites of the sanctuary. On this topic, see my articles \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is Passivity Mistaken for Piety? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Participation<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Two Different Treasure Chests<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrying Forward the Noble Work of the Liturgical Movement<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Living the Vita Liturgica<\/i>: Conditions, Obstacles, Prospects<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[22] Evangelii Nuntiandi<\/a>,<\/i> n. 42.<\/p>\n

[23] In his book The Two Catholic Churches: A Study in Oppression <\/i>(SCM Press, 1986); see this article<\/a> by Joseph Shaw.<\/p>\n

[24] See this position paper<\/a>, which is included in the forthcoming book from Angelico Press, The Case for Liturgical Restoration.<\/i><\/p>\n

[25] The crucial milestones in this process are well known: the English Indult of 1971, Quattuor Abhinc Annos<\/a> <\/i>of 1984 (cleverly named to sound like a response to and replacement of Tres Abhinc Annos<\/a> <\/i>of 1967), Ecclesia Dei Adflicta<\/a> <\/i>of 1988, Summorum Pontificum<\/a> <\/i>of 2007, and Universae Ecclesiae<\/a> <\/i>of 2011.<\/p>\n

[26] It is clear to those who compare them, although one is permitted to wonder how well acquainted Paul VI was with every liturgical book published at his behest. According to Archbishop Bugnini, on the one hand Paul VI read each draft of the Ordo Missae <\/i>with painstaking care, underlining in multiple colors and annotating the margins in small print, while on the other hand he returned the text of the new lectionary with a note saying he had not been able to study it in detail but assumed that the experts had done their work properly.<\/p>\n

[27] To use the language of the Synod of Pistoia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand of Paul VI.<\/p>\n

[28] The wording of the opening phrases as quoted by the pope is somewhat different from that which is found in the English edition published by Sheed & Ward: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Mass is a mystery, which must be made our living experience. And that experience is no less than a death for love.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

[29] Or, for that matter, in Prosper Gu\u00c3\u00a9ranger, Nicholas Gihr, Pius Parsch, Fernand Cabrol, Ildefonso Schuster, or any of the large number of liturgical commentators in the 19th and 20th centuries who labored tirelessly to advance understanding and reanimate participation in the liturgy of the Church in its traditional (i.e., handed down) form<\/i>, not as it might be reinvented by engineers in laboratories.<\/p>\n

[30] The only exception was in Paul VI’s attitude towards monks and nuns, who, in his Apostolic Letter Sacrificium Laudis<\/a><\/i>, he encouraged to retain their chanted Latin Divine Office. However, he never enforced this, in keeping with his typically weak and ambivalent mode of governance, and watched from the balcony as all of the great religious orders collapsed, taking their choral office and sung Mass into the tomb with them.<\/p>\n

[31] From Demain la liturgie <\/i>(Paris, 1976), 9\u00e2\u20ac\u201c10.<\/p>\n

[32] On the motives of the reform and its revolutionary nature, the comprehensive work by Michael Davies remains indispensable, even if it must be supplemented by more recent publications: Pope Paul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s New Mass <\/i>(Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2009). See Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini, Reformer of the Liturgy, <\/i>trans. John Pepino (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2018).<\/p>\n

[33] \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Newman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Development of Christian Doctrine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d accessed here<\/a> on March 20, 2019.<\/p>\n

[34] Martin Mosebach, Subversive Catholicism: Papacy, Liturgy, Church<\/i> (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, forthcoming), 95.<\/p>\n

[35] Council of Trent, Session 22, ch. 5.<\/p>\n

[36] Quoted in Antoine Arjakovsky, What is Orthodoxy? A Genealogy of Christian Understanding<\/i> (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2018), 267\u00e2\u20ac\u201c68.<\/p>\n

The video of the lecture as given in Melbourne:<\/p>\n