(As regards comments, see the first part of this)
If you go to a Novus Ordo Mass, the spine of the Altar Book will make a claim that it is the "Roman Missal". But is it? Does it ... I quote a British Television commercial ... do what it says on the tin? I do not think that anybody who has carefully thought these things through could answer Yes. Fr Joseph Gelineau, described by Bugnini himself as "one of the great masters of the international liturgical world", a liturgical radical who wholeheartedly applauded what happened after Vatican II, did not make that claim. He wrote "We must say it plainly: the Roman rite as we knew it exists no more. It has gone." He did not share the ignorant view sometimes put forward, that the post-Conciliar 'reform' was analogous to the edition of the Roman Missal published by the orders of S Pius V ... ("If it was alright," people say to us, "for Pius V to bring out his own Missal, why couldn't B Paul VI do the same?") You will all have heard and read that sort of thing; but you won't have heard it from Gelineau. Gelineau was not 'one of us', but he was neither ignorant or stupid. He wrote "We must not weep over ruins or dream of a historical reconstruction .... we must open new ways to the sources of life, or we shall be condemned as Jesus condemned the Pharisees. But it would not be right to identify this liturgical renewal with the reform of rites decided on by Vatican II. This reform goes back much further, and forward beyond the conciliar prescriptions".
Klaus Gamber viewed the 1965 form of the Roman Rite as effectively the last form of that Rite. Archbishop Lefebvre used 1965 until, in the mid 1970s, he decided to revert to 1962 (during the 1960s he had allowed his Holy Ghost Fathers only two 'vernacular Masses' a week).
At the opposite end of the academic spectrum from Gelineau, Fr Aidan Nichols points out that "the Rite of Paul VI contains more features of Oriental provenance than the Roman Rite has ever known historically, and notably in the new anaphoras, for these are central to the definition of any eucharistic style". (He goes on to suggest how the Novus Ordo could be used, and that it could be renamed as the ritus communis). A very distinguished Anglican liturgical scholar, Dr G G Willis, wrote that "Rome has invented in its recent rites a hybrid form ... The Roman rite has hitherto kept out the epiclesis, as being inconsistent with its theory of consecration, and the introduction of Oriental elements (seen also in the acclamations of the people, which the new Roman revisions have introduced) would be better eschewed". Another mighty Anglican scholar, the late Fr Michael Moreton, was very firm and resolute about the need for the exclusive use of the Roman Canon. So should we Latins all be. The chaps that know, know.
The Novus Ordo rite as commonly presented is not the Roman rite.** I would grant it to be arguable that if one used only its First Eucharistic Prayer, the Roman Canon, what one celebrated might still ... just about ... yes, I know there were outrageous tamperings with the Verba Domini ... be fairly called the Roman rite, without infringing the Trade Descriptions Act too badly. But not a Mass celebrated using one of the new, Orientalised, epicletified, Eucharistic Prayers. And the pseudo-Hippolytan ultra-short Prayer is the one in almost universal and invariable use throughout the 'mainstream Church' ... despite the hopes expressed in the GIRM that the Roman Canon be used on Sundays and Festivals. Accordingly, the Roman rite proprie dictus, it has to be admitted, has now almost entirely died out in most of the Latin Church, except in such places as Oratories and Ordinariates and the FSSP and Christ the King parishes. And, of course, the SSPX.
It seems to me a cause worth taking seriously, to restore the Roman Rite to use by using exclusively the Roman Canon. The GIRM itself has pointed to this by saying, in each edition it has been through, that "This Prayer may be always used" (Editio tertia para 365 semper adhiberi potest); a comment it makes about none of the other anaphoras.
Such a reform could be introduced gradually in three stages:
(1) Weaning a congregation off Prayer 2 by using Prayer 3 and taking it slowly;
(2) Using Prayer 1 shortened by leaving out all the sections within brackets;
(3) Using Prayer 1 in its full integrity.
One might add:
(4) Using the Extraordinary Form with the Readings in the vernacular, as permitted by Summorum Pontificum.
Furthermore, the Ordinary Form may be celebrated versus apsidem, and the Extraordinary Form may be celebrated versus populum. We have the same dilemma that faced old-style Anglo-Catholic clergy: to make all ones reforms at once; or to try to keep everyone on side by making them gradually!
**BUT IT IS A VALID MASS. Anybody who even hints otherwise is not teaching you the Catholic Faith, and may even be running the risk of leading you into sacrilege. I have to explain all this stuff quite frequently: I have lodged three of my earlier posts at 4 September 2014. The Novus Ordo may not be the "Roman Rite", but it IS still a VALID CATHOLIC MASS. In the Novus Ordo the Body and Blood of Christ ARE truly made present and ARE truly offered. That is as CERTAIN as anything in this life.
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Fr. I found a Missal on a bookshelf in the choir room at my seminary dated 1964 in the front with the various vernacular parts printed. Was there another edition between '62 and '65 or is this the 'mythical' 1965 Missal?
Since the Roman Canon was universally suppressed without explanation, I suppose this was done because Bugnini and Gelineau and all of the thousands complicit in suppressing it disbelieved in the theology of The Roman Canon.
One might also add, our Divine Worship: The Missal is a solid step in the right direction, *mandating* (not merely recommending) the wonderfully mellifluous Coverdale translation of the Roman Canon on all Sundays, Feasts and Solemnities, and relegating the "Alternative Eucharistic Prayer," the faux-Cranmerized version of the Divine Liturgy of Dom Botte and Fr Bouyer (i.e. the Dewfall on the Trastevere; EP2), to ferias and memorials. In the two Ordinariate parishes of which I have been a member, however, I've never once heard Divine Worship: The Dewfall in the last three years, Deo gratias.
That sounds like the 1962 Missal with parts in the vernacular. I have one with the imprimatur of Cardinal Spellman. The 1965 alterations came later.
When Christ said to “do this” he obviously meant take, thank, bless, break, and eat. The Roman rite emphasis is on the second: enumeration of covenantal benefits, offering of gifts as tokens of gratitude, and the acceptance of the gifts by God. The epiclesis is how the East blesses the gifts, this is clear in that it adds “hallowed” after “blessed” in the recollection of what Christ did. For them the Qui pridie is part of the thanksgiving. The “yours of your own we offer unto thee” finished the thanksgiving. Then follows the blessing-hollowing.
I have to agree that it is not the Roman rite, considering that it is generally missing the essential features of the Roman rite (Primarily the Canon). However, although I do not dispute that it is valid, I am not sure that it is Catholic. My most formidable reason for this would be that Canon XIII of Session VII of the Council of Trent condemns the idea that any pastor of the Church can change the received and approved rites of the Church into new rites. As we have concluded that the new rite is not the Roman rite, if my interpretation of the Canon is correct, its promulgation by Paul VI was an illicit and ultra vires action, the Supreme Pontiff obviously being a pastor of the Church. My Latin is not particularly good by any stretch, but here is the canon in the language in which it was composed for any Latinists to examine:
"Canon XIII.—Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbates Ecclesiæ Catholicæ 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: anathema sit."
It should be noted that the use of disciplinary canons ceased at Trent and decrees were used instead, so this canon is definitely doctrinal. As a tangent, it should also be noted that many opinions of reformers such as Bugnini concerning the Mass are found anathematised in the canons of Trent.
"(1) Weaning a congregation off Prayer 2 by using Prayer 3 and taking it slowly;
(2) Using Prayer 1 shortened by leaving out all the sections within brackets;
(3) Using Prayer 1 in its full integrity.
One might add:
(4) Using the Extraordinary Form with the Readings in the vernacular, as permitted by Summorum Pontificum.
Furthermore, the Ordinary Form may be celebrated versus apsidem (5)?"
Reverend Father, in America, the local parish priest might be able to get away with #1, #2, and #3. But, our bishops, for the most part have severely hampered a priest's right to offer the Mass of St. John XXIII. And #5? That will never happen over on these shores unless the priest happens to be in one of the two or three dioceses with a bishop who encourages the Vetus Ordo. I wish it were not so.
Hi Fr. I read your blog pretty much every day. I was born in 1969 so had to endure the Novus Disordo. I try to go to a 1962 TLM, an Eastern Rite or the Ordinariate. I have a 1964 Interim Rite Missal. If only they had stopped there!! My copy contains a decree from the Congregation for Rites for every revision of the Roman Missal starting with Quo Primum up to 1964. The Novus Disordo Missal of 1970 contains no such “good root of title”. At least that was honest. Orak
PS. I meant to add that whatever the deficiencies of the new Rites of Mass and Ordination, the new Roman Mass does confect the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ as is evident by the many post 1970 Eucharistic Miracles. Orak
Thank you, Father, for this excellent series of explanations and reflections.
Laszlo Dobszay of Hungary also assessed that the NO was not a Roman Rite, but a new Rite, as even Gelineau SJ bragged. The only attachment of the Rite to the RC Church, per Dobszay, was juridical (technically legal).
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