Francis The Liturgist

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is carrying out with laser-like precision a crusade, if I am permitted to use this word in the era of the bad, closed-in-on itself "no church" as opposed to the welcoming "yes church," to institutionalize the "true intentions" of the liturgical revolution overseen by the Freemason Annibale Bugnini at the behest of the Communist-sympathizing homophile named Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick.

Although these "true intentions" have been reviewed numerous time on this site, it is useful for present purposes to examine these intentions as can be found in the very words of the liturgical revolutionaries themselves.

Before repeating several quotations that will be familiar to longtime readers of this site, it is very instructive to offer the quotation below, found in the January 21, 1965, issue of The Catholic Courier, the newspaper of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, in order to see that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has been unfailingly faithful to every jot and tittle of the sentiments expressed by Montini/Paul VI in his General Audience address of Wednesday, January 13, 1965:

We must all modify the mental habits we have formed concerning the sacred ceremony and religious practices, especially if we have believed that ceremony to be a performance of outward rites and that in practice no more was required than a passive and distracted attendance.

One must make oneself aware that a new spiritual pedagogy has been born of the Council. That is what is novel about it, and we must not hesitate to make ourselves, first of all, disciples and then upholders of the school of prayer that has begun.

We may not relish this, but we must be docile and trust. The religious and spiritual plan unfolded before us by the new liturgical constitution is a stupendous one for depth and authenticity of doctrine, for rationality of Christian logic, for purity and riches of culture and art. It corresponds to the interior being and needs of modern man. . . . [the liturgical reform] affects habits that are dear to us, habits respectable enough maybe. . . . [and it might also be true that the reform] requires of us some effort.

It is well that this should be so, as one of the goals of the reform was the sharing of the faithful in the rites the priest directs and personifies. And it is good that it is actually the authority of the Church that wills, promotes and kindles the desire for this new manner of praying, thus giving greater increase to her spiritual mission.

It was and is, the Church's first care to safeguard the orthodoxy of prayer. Her subsequent care is to make the expression of worship stable and uniform, a great work from which the spiritual life of the Church has derived immense benefits. Now this care of hers is still further extended, modifying aspects of ancient rituals which are inadequate today.

The Church is aiming with courage and thoughtfulness to deepen th essential significance of community needs and the supernatural value of ecclesiastical worship. Above all, she is making more evident the part played by the word of God, whether of Sacred Scripture or that taught through the Church in the catechism and the homily, thus giving to the celebration its pure and, at the same time, its heart and center. (Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, as quoted in "Be 'Docile' To Liturgy Changes, Pope Says," The Catholic Courier, January 21, 1965, p. 1. Be 'Docile' to Liturgy. See the appendix below for a rough translation from the Italian language original of the general audience remarks, which were divided into parts, the latter part of which reflects the Religious News Service wire report that was published in The Catholic Courier of the Diocese of Rochester. The then universal public face of apostasy Paul VI addressed the theme of false ecumenism on January 20, 1965, just in case you'd like to know what this egregious little man did for an encore seven days later.)

 

Well, ladies and gentleman, to quote a former colleague of mine, "There you have it."

Giovanni Montini/Paul VI provided a perfect description of the spirit of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's liturgical revolution that touched almost every theme that has been repeated by its apologists for the past forty-eight years now. Some of us have heard these themes over and over again, whether from the lecterns at which priests or presbyters gave their "homilies" or, in the case of those who us who spent time in seminary, in formal classroom settings.

Every revolutionary prescription imaginable is to be found in this gold mine of propaganda that has been preserved in the archives of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, which itself is a bastion of apostasy and of the lavender collective.

First, Paul The Sick noted that it was necessary to "modify mental habits," meaning that Catholics had to be "open" to accept a revolutionary program of liturgical change.

Second, Paul The Sick disparaged the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as something that required no more than a "passive and distracted" attendance on the part of the lay faithful. Paul The Sick had to do this as the very ordinary and collects of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition were reproaches to his own immersion in the "mentality" of the mythical entity known as "modern man" and because they contained references to a God Who judges and the necessity of reforming one's life that made his own conscience quite uncomfortable as a result of his proclivities (see "Blessed" Paul The Sick and In Death As In Life: The Antithesis Of Christ The King).

Third, Paul The Sick demanded complete adherence to the revolutionary liturgical agenda that had begun to unfold and which, quite indeed, had made its "transitional" appearance on Sunday, November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent, as his Ordo Missae of 1965 went into effect, replacing the 1961/1962 Missal of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII that had been in effect for all of three years at that point and, once "revived" to satisfy the poor Catholics "who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition" (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei adflicta, July 2, 1988, has become a means to incorporate various aspects of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service into its staging.

Fourth, Paul The Sick, having emphasized that the liturgical revolution had to be adapted to the "needs" of "modern man, further disparaged the Immemorial Mass of Tradition by claiming that its ceremonies and rites were "respectable enough maybe," thus helping to inaugurate a global campaign in the counterfeit church of conciliarism to create a false memory of the past as "bad," something that is being continued to this present day by the current universal public face of apostasy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis (see Francis Takes Us To Ding Dong School Of Apostasy).

Fifth, Paul The Sick appealed to the "people" and the role envisioned for them in the new liturgical rites that conform to their needs and emphasized "community needs," paving the way for the "inculturation of the Gospel" that one of Annibale Bugnini's acolytes, "Monsignor" Piero Marini, who served as liturgical master of ceremonies from 1987 to 2007, used to plan the "papal" extravaganza liturgical services, which were billed as "Masses," during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, as the means to provide "papal" precedents for us at the local diocesan level. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis has taken full advantage of this "inculturation of the Gospel" as envisioned by Montini and Bugnini and later prescribed in Paragraph 395 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal:

395. Finally, if the participation of the faithful and their spiritual welfare requires variations and more thoroughgoing adaptations in order that the sacred celebration respond to the culture and traditions of the different peoples, then Bishops' Conferences may propose such to the Apostolic See in accordance with article 40 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy for introduction with the latter's consent, especially in the case of peoples to whom the Gospel has been more recently proclaimed. The special norms given in the Instruction On the Roman Liturgy and Inculturation should be carefully observed.

Regarding procedures to be followed in this matter, the following should be followed:

In the first place, a detailed preliminary proposal should be set before the Apostolic See, so that, after the necessary faculty has been granted, the detailed working out of the individual points of adaptation may proceed.

Once these proposals have been duly approved by the Apostolic See, experiments should be carried out for specified periods and at specified places. If need be, once the period of experimentation is concluded, the Bishops' Conference shall decide upon pursuing the adaptations and shall propose a mature formulation of the matter to the Apostolic See for its decision. (Paragraph 395, General Instruction to the Roman Missal.)

 

"Cardinal" Bergoglio presided over all manner of liturgical travesties during his time as the conciliar "archbishop" of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from February 28, 1998, to March 13, 2013. He was doing so in perfect compliance with the sentiments expressed on January 13, 1965, by Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick.

Sixth, Paul The Sick's belief that his liturgical revolution would usher in a period of stability and doctrinal orthodoxy was the product of the sort of self-delusion that inspires both social and theological revolutionaries to march forward with their schemes that can do only one thing: produce instability as the means to accustom the faithful a steady regime of doctrinal deviations and a ceaseless wave of liturgical changes.

The progenitor of the Protestant Revolution, Martin Luther, decried the degeneration produced by his "reforms" but was powerless to stop it as he did not realize that those very "reforms" were the brainchild of the devils himself that of their very nature had to produce instability, novelty and ceaseless change to the point today where many "mainline" Protestants, particularly Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists, no longer believe in the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Similarly, even though Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick at times in the 1970s decried certain aspects of his vaunted "renewal" of the Church that, according to the translation of his January 13, 1965, general audience address, was supposed to produce what he called "the vision of the new spiritual springtime," he was powerless to stop what he had put into motion as it was a revolution against the very integrity of the Sacred Liturgy that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had taught the Apostles between the time of His Resurrection on Easter Sunday and that of his Ascension forty days thereafter.

Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II decried "unauthorized" liturgical practices by using almost the exact language in two documents, Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980, and Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 1983, while at the same time championing the "freedom" given in the "renewed liturgy" to give expression to certain needs:

Furthermore we should follow the directives issued by the various departments of the Holy See in this field: be it in liturgical matters, in the rules established by the liturgical books in what concerns the Eucharistic Mystery,(67) and in the Instructions devoted to this mystery, be it with regard to communication in sacris, in the norms of the Directorium de re oecumenica(68) and in the Instructio de peculiaribus casibus admittendi alios christianos ad communionem eucharisticam in Ecclesia catholica.(69) And although at this stage of renewal the possibility of a certain "creative" freedom has been permitted, nevertheless this freedom must strictly respect the requirements of substantial unity. We can follow the path of this pluralism (which arises in part from the introduction itself of the various languages into the liturgy) only as long as the essential characteristics of the celebration of the Eucharist are preserved, and the norms prescribed by the recent liturgical reform are respected.

Indispensable effort is required everywhere to ensure that within the pluralism of eucharistic worship envisioned by the Second Vatican Council the unity of which the Eucharist is the sign and cause is clearly manifested.

This task, over which in the nature of things the Apostolic See must keep careful watch, should be assumed not only by each episcopal conference but by every minister of the Eucharist, without exception. Each one should also remember that he is responsible for the common good of the whole Church. The priest as minister, as celebrant, as the one who presides over the eucharistic assembly of the faithful, should have a special sense of the common good of the Church, which he represents through his ministry, but to which he must also be subordinate, according to a correct discipline of faith. He cannot consider himself a "proprietor" who can make free use of the liturgical text and of the sacred rite as if it were his own property, in such a way as to stamp it with his own arbitrary personal style. At times this latter might seem more effective, and it may better correspond to subjective piety; nevertheless, objectively it is always a betrayal of that union which should find its proper expression in the sacrament of unity.

Every priest who offers the holy Sacrifice should recall that during this Sacrifice it is not only he with his community that is praying but the whole Church, which is thus expressing in this sacrament her spiritual unity, among other ways by the use of the approved liturgical text. To call this position "mere insistence on uniformity" would only show ignorance of the objective requirements of authentic unity, and would be a symptom of harmful individualism. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980.)

2. All of this makes clear the great responsibility which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration of the Eucharist. It is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of communion not only for the community directly taking part in the celebration, but also for the universal Church, which is a part of every Eucharist. It must be lamented that, especially in the years following the post-conciliar liturgical reform, as a result of a misguided sense of creativity and adaptation there have been a number of abuses which have been a source of suffering for many. A certain reaction against “formalism” has led some, especially in certain regions, to consider the “forms” chosen by the Church's great liturgical tradition and her Magisterium as non-binding and to introduce unauthorized innovations which are often completely inappropriate. 

I consider it my duty, therefore to appeal urgently that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the Eucharist be observed with great fidelity. These norms are a concrete expression of the authentically ecclesial nature of the Eucharist; this is their deepest meaning. Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated. The Apostle Paul had to address fiery words to the community of Corinth because of grave shortcomings in their celebration of the Eucharist resulting in divisions (schismata) and the emergence of factions (haireseis) (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34). Our time, too, calls for a renewed awareness and appreciation of liturgical norms as a reflection of, and a witness to, the one universal Church made present in every celebration of the Eucharist. Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church. Precisely to bring out more clearly this deeper meaning of liturgical norms, I have asked the competent offices of the Roman Curia to prepare a more specific document, including prescriptions of a juridical nature, on this very important subject. No one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003.)

Even though Wojtyla/John Paul II decried abuses at the same time he exalted liturgical "pluralism" within the text of Dominicae Cenae, he made it clear that there was no turning back from the "liturgical renewal" as envisioned by Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick in that January 13, 1965, general audience address:

 

May Christ Himself help us to follow the path of true renewal towards that fullness of life and of eucharistic worship whereby the Church is built up in that unity that she already possesses, and which she desires to bring to ever greater perfection for the glory of the living God and for the salvation of all humanity.

Permit me, venerable and dear brothers, to end these reflections of mine, which have been restricted to a detailed examination of only a few questions. In undertaking these reflections, I have had before my eyes all the work carried out by the Second Vatican Council, and have kept in mind Paul VI's Encyclical Mysterium Fidei, promulgated during that Council, and all the documents issued after the same Council for the purpose of implementing the post-conciliar liturgical renewal. A very close and organic bond exists between the renewal of the liturgy and the renewal of the whole life of the Church.

The Church not only acts but also expresses herself in the liturgy, lives by the liturgy and draws from the liturgy the strength for her life. For this reason liturgical renewal carried out correctly in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council is, in a certain sense, the measure and the condition for putting into effect the teaching of that Council which we wish to accept with profound faith, convinced as we are that by means of this Council the Holy Spirit "has spoken to the Church" the truths and given the indications for carrying out her mission among the people of today and tomorrow.

We shall continue in the future to take special care to promote and follow the renewal of the Church according to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, in the spirit of an ever living Tradition. In fact, to the substance of Tradition properly understood belongs also a correct re-reading of the "signs of the times," which require us to draw from the rich treasure of Revelation "things both new and old."Acting in this spirit, in accordance with this counsel of the Gospel, the Second Vatican Council carried out a providential effort to renew the face of the Church in the sacred liturgy, most often having recourse to what is "ancient," what comes from the heritage of the Fathers and is the expression of the faith and doctrine of a Church which has remained united for so many centuries. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980.)

Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was, quite contrary to my own delusional hopes in 1980, was propagandizing in behalf of the same kind of "ever-living tradition" as he claimed that the "substance of Tradition properly understood belongs also to a correct re-reading of the 'signs of the times,' which require us to draw the rich treasure of Revelation "things both new and old." It is this "spirit," John Paul II asserted, that must guide a proper implementation of the "liturgical renewal" that has given such great offense to God and has harmed so many souls. Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and his successor as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, were joined at the hip in believing in the Modernist concept of a "living tradition"/hermeneutic of continuity that must be read according to "the signs of the times" that has been anathematized by the Catholic Church.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who had written as "Cardinal" Ratzinger that there had indeed been a "rupture" between the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service (see Appendix B below) contended during his nearly eight years as "Pope" Benedict XVI that no such "rupture" had taken place and that "tradition" must be seen as "living," which is why he helped to engineer "changes" into the staging of the Missal of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII as reflected in its 2013 editio typica that gave concrete form to the recommendations he made in the explanatory letter he sent to the conciliar "bishops" to accompany Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007:

It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal.  The “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage.  The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal. (Letter to the "Bishops" that accompanies the Motu Proprio Summorum)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's belief in a "reform of the reform" that was designed to merge the "ordinary" and "extraordinary" forms of the "one Roman Rite" into one synthetic whole over the course of time (see Appendix C below), is now a thing of the past. Gone.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is using the "Petrine Ministry" to reintroduce the world to those wonderful, heady days of Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick as expressed in the latter's January 13, 1965, general audience address. The newest universal public face of apostasy is hard at work using his own bully pulpit as the alleged "Bishop of Rome," which is all he considers himself to be (and he is NOT even that in actual truth), to let it be know that his liturgical "style," such as it is, is to be followed worldwide without fear of any kind of "papal" disapproval:

One of the few "traditionalizing" elements introduced into the papal liturgy in the reign of Benedict XVI that had essentially survived until now in the current pontificate was the practice of requiring those receiving communion from the Pope to do so kneeling and on their tongue.

To be more precise: in his Masses for the public, Pope Francis had usually given communion to the deacons (who always received kneeling) while famously abstaining from giving communion to the laity. However, the papal deacons had always given communion in the Pope's place, and those receiving from them continued to be required to kneel and to receive on the tongue. To many who had been anxious about the changes implemented in the papal liturgies since March 2013, the survival of this practice in the Pope's Masses for the public was a great consolation.

Sunday's papal Mass at the parish of "Santi Elisabetta e Zaccaria," the Pope's first pastoral visit to a Roman parish outside of the Vatican itself, saw the Pope give first communion to several children (and at least one adult). The full video of the Mass can be found here, with the communion of the children taking place starting at 1:49:15.

He gave communion to the children (and the adult) while they stood, and he also did so without a paten (even though he would first intinct the host in the Precious Blood). It is quite clear from footage and photographs of the Mass that there was more than enough space for a kneeler to have been put in front of the Pope and, surely, procuring a kneeler and a paten would not have been impossible in a Roman parish for a papal Mass!

To those tempted to dismiss the significance of this action: consider that this took place in the Pope's first Mass in a parish of his diocese outside the Vatican, in a Mass that was broadcast live by Centro Televisivo Vaticano and which took place not on an ordinary weekday or a "green Sunday," but on one of the great feasts of the liturgical year. Furthermore, precisely because it took place in a parish of his own diocese, it cannot but send a clear signal about what he sees as appropriate for the liturgy in a typical parish.

(As an aside, the so-called "Benedictine altar arrangement" was also reduced in this Mass to two small candles and a small crucifix in the middle of the altar.)

When Pope Benedict XVI reigned, every little "restoration" of traditional elements to the papal liturgy was often trumpeted as yet another momentous step in the restoration of the liturgy for the whole Church. It strikes us as absurd and inconsistent that now that another Pope reigns, "papal example" in the liturgy is suddenly treated in some "conservative" quarters as "irrelevant" and as being of little or no concern, something best ignored and needing no comment. Unfortunately, the restoration of the sacred liturgy can never be built on wishful thinking, or on denial, or on coming up with strange and improbable excuses (sometimes in the name of charity!) to explain away the obvious. (RORATE CÆLI.)

Although this post on Rorate Caeli is very good as it takes to task those who looked for clues during the false "pontificate" of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to find signs of "restoration," it is premised upon the belief that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, which he is not (see for example, Mr. John Lane's Concerning A SSPX Dossier on Sedevacantism, Gregorius's The Chair is Still Empty and Why SSPX Priest Fr. Raphael Trytek became a Sedevacantist).

Jorge Mario Bergoglio's administration of what purported to be Holy Communion to a few adults and around thirty, at least by my haphazard count, children outside of the architectural monstrosity that is called Saint Elizabeth and Zachary Church, which fits, quite of course, the intentions of Paul The Sick very well, is a textbook case of conciliar orthopraxis.

The poor "First Communicants" and the adults stood as they received what purported to be Holy Communion, thereby signifying once again the essential equality of the putative communicants with the presiding presbyter and, of course, with Christ the King Himself. This is why communion rails have been taken out of many, although not all, formerly Catholic churches now held hostage by the conciliar revolutionaries and why such rails have not been installed in most of the newer church buildings that have been erected since the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service went into effect on Sunday, November 30, 1969, the First Sunday of Advent.

Bergoglio/Francis's sloppy administration of what purported to be Holy Communion by intinction without a paten demonstrates his disdain for formality, for anything that might signify the sort of care that must be shown to what one believes to be the Sacred Species. Did he even look to see if a particle of a host that had been dipped into the wine within the chalice or a drop of what he believed to have been Our Divine Redeemer's Most Precious Blood had fallen to the ground. Did the presbyter around him do so? Did "Monsignor" Guido Marini, the "papal" master of ceremonies, do so?

Of course not.

Indeed, it is reportedly the case that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis told the conciliar clergy of the Diocese of Apulia, Italy, that he was retaining the "traditionalist"-minded Guido Marino so that he, Bergoglio/Francis, could benefit from Marini's training while at the same time Marini himself could benefit from he, Bergoglio/Francis, says is his own "emancipated formation" that is in perfect harmony of those 1965 remarks of Paul The Sick:

 

"See? They say that my Master of papal ceremonies [Guido Marini] is of a Traditionalist mold; and many, after my election, have asked me to remove him from his position and replace him. I have answered no, precisely because I myself may treasure his traditional formation, and at the same time he might take advantage of my more emancipated formation." (RORATE CÆLI.)

Some "emancipation."

Francis the Liturgist is just one in a long, long line of conciliar revolutionaries who have "emancipated" themselves from the very bosom of Holy Mother Church. We are eyewitnesses to quite a remarkable series of events as a result.

Let it not be said that the conciliar revolutionaries did not tell us exactly what they had planned to do, and same on those of us who were too busy with "other things" or too blind to the truth at the time to have refused to understood what Paul The Sick signified on January 13, 1965, would occur or who, worse yet, tried to justify such rantings as his as well as the oft-quoted ones that follow below:

 

We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants." (Annibale Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)

Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph Gelineau, who worked with Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, Quoted and footnoted in the work of a Father John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)

Certainly we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local tradition: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense. (Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, 1965, Quoted and footnoted in Assault on the Roman Rite. This has also been noted on this site in the past, having been provided me by a reader who had access to the 1980 French book in which the quote is found.)

"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy.... [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI.)

If you will permit me yet a brief moment of your time, I want to rework some of the things that I have written in the past to provide a summary of some of the principal defects found in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service to demonstrate that the Novus Ordo is in se hideous in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity and can never be "reformed."

First, the Novus Ordo service is the synthetic product of an unprecedented exercise in liturgical manufacturing that was designed to enshrine false ecumenism. The Immemorial Mass of Tradition was not invented by a committee headed by the aforementioned Bugnini, that was advised by six liberal Protestant observers (who made their "observations" in coffee breaks so that those comments could be read into the record by Consilium's bishop-members). The Immemorial Mass of Tradition was taught in all of its essential elements by Our Lord to the Apostles before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday. 

Father Adrian Fortescue explained in the early part of the Twentieth Century that the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, which was not "written" by the Council of Trent as some conciliar apologists continued to assert falsely, is the oldest of the liturgical rites in the Roman Catholic Church:

Essentially, the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends upon the Leonine collection. We find prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the [Fourth] Century. So the Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest Liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world, and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as God. The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of some unresolved problems, in spite of later changes there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours. (Michael Davies, ed., The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue)

 

Second, as the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is indeed the unbloody re-presentation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross and is at the same time a foretaste of Heavenly glories, its rubrics are meant to reflect the immutability of God and not the passing currents of any individual age. A true and valid offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, although it takes place at a particular time in a particular place, is meant to reflect the timelessness of eternity and the unchanging nature of God as it reflects the differences between the hierarchical priesthood of the ordained priest and the common priesthood of the lay faithful by means of their baptism in various ways, including the separation of the sanctuary from the nave of a Catholic Church by an altar rail.

Third, abject lies were told by Bugnini and company about where the various constituent elements of the Novus Ordo originated. Far from being the "recapturing" of some allegedly simpler liturgy in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, a claim that was itself an exercise in the antiquarianism condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, the Novus Ordo service borrowed heavily from the now defunct Gallican Rite, from various Oriental Rites, from various strains of Protestantism, and even from the "table prayers" of Talmudic Judaism, which were inserted at the personal behest of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and replaced the traditional Offertory of the Mass that clearly denotes the sacrificial nature of Mass, something that is not reflected clearly in the Novus Ordo service. (Please see Appendix A for a further documentation of the misrepresentations made by Annibale Bugnini to the bishop members of the Consilium.)

Fourth, while ignoring all of the mistranslations of the Latin editio typica of the Novus Ordo service into vernacular languages, the editio typica itself contains a less full expression of the Catholic Faith than is found in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. References to the miracles of various saints have been changed, if not eliminated altogether. Various parts of the Ordinary of the Mass, including the Confiteor, have been watered down. All references to a God Who judges, to the possibility of the loss of one's immortal soul for all eternity, and to the need of doing penance for one's sins have been changed or eradicated (see Paragraph 15 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal and my analysis of same as found in G.I.R.M. Warfare that I have repeated on this site numerous times, including in Blind to Truth, Blind to the Horror of Personal Sin.

Fifth, the "Eucharistic Prayers" that have been added since 1969--and the changes made to the Roman Canon itself--do not make clear the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Others have provided solid evidence concerning the invalidity of these "Eucharistic Prayers." (See Invalidity of the Novus Ordo Missae, Matter and Form of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Article on the Eucharistic Form of Consecration.)

Sixth, the General Instruction to the Roman Missal requires the novelty of laity in the sanctuary during what purports to be a valid offering of Holy Mass. Young boys and adult males are permitted by the special permission of the Church to enter the sanctuary as altar servers in the Mass, serving as the extension of the hands of the priest, who is a male. No other personage, male or female, is permitted in the sanctuary. This is not so in the Novus Ordo service, where the priest sits at almost every Mass as a proliferation of laity "participates" in reading and singing. This blurs the distinction between the sacerdotal, hierarchical priesthood of the ordained priest and the common priesthood of the lay faithful. This is yet another fact about the Novus Ordo service that obliterates the sacrosanct nature of the sanctuary during Mass, thereby eliminating the sense of the timelessness of the unbloody re-presentation of the Son's one Sacrifice to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Seventh, the hands of the non-ordained are permitted to distribute what purports, albeit falsely, to be Holy Communion at a putative offering of Holy Mass. This has taught Catholics that they can touch what they believe to be the Sacred Species by with their own hands and that they can have arrogated unto themselves certain of the functions reserved solely to validly ordained priests.

Eighth, the distribution of what purports to be Holy Communion in the hand, which has been sanctioned officially since 1977 (after years of this sacrilege being permitted at the parish and diocesan levels without Roman approbation), has made sacrilege an accepted part of almost every staging of the Novus Ordo service in the world. The hands of the non-ordained must never touch, no less distribute, the Sacred Species. The number of allegedly consecrated Hosts dropped (or placed into pockets or purses or books, some of which have been used in purported black Masses) and the amount of what is said to be Most Precious Blood of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that has been spilled is known only to God, Who is deeply offended by the callous manner in which Catholics have been taught to receive what they believe is His Real Presence in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. (See Michael Davies on Communion in the hand and my own Missing the Real Culprit Once Again, which was written about three hundred seventy-nine days before the first article on this site was published that explore the possibility of the truth of the canonical doctrine of sedevacantism and that it may apply in our own days).

Ninth, the General Instruction to the Roman Missal's penchant for endless options in the offering of the Novus Ordo service make any discussion of a a fixed rite laughable and absurd. A liturgical rite must convey the permanence and immutability of God and the permanence and immutability of man's need for Him as He has revealed Himself solely through His true Church, the Catholic Church. A liturgical rite that admits of ceaseless changes and endless options, some undertaken in the name of the ideology of "inculturation" of the Gospel, produces instability in the souls of the faithful, leading them to believe that God and His truths are mutable. As discussed earlier, Paragraph 395 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal makes it almost impossible to distinguish "approved" liturgical experimentations from "unapproved" improvisations.

Tenth, the 1997 edition of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal's support for the "free-standing" altar and for Mass facing the people continues to undermine the Christocentricity of the Mass and the fact a priest's personality and celebratory "style" are utterly unimportant in the context of offering Holy Mass. A priest is an alter Christus who acts in persona Christi. Our focus is on a priest's actions as Christ, the Chief Priest and Victim of every Mass, not on his own personality. No liturgical rite of the Catholic Church featured this harmful Protestant novelty prior to the 1960s.

Eleventh, the calendar of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, completing the revolution that began in 1951, offends God by eliminating the feasts of a great number of saints, some of whose sacrifices in defense of the Faith have been disparaged as never having taken place! The number of Octaves, which served to extend the celebrations of important feasts, were reduced from fifteen to three in 1956, and from three to two in the Novus Ordo calendar. The nomenclature used to describe the Sundays of the year was changed after nearly two millennia of usage. The words of Pope Saint Pius V, which warned against any changes to the Missal he propagated in 1570, have been ignored with impunity, resulting in a loss of the sense of the sacred, a loss of belief in the Real Presence, and a loss of devotion to the great saints of the first centuries of the Church. (See Pre-Vatican II Liturgical Changes: Road to the New Mass, The Pius X and John XXIII Missals Compared, Liturgical Revolution.)

In short, as can be seen from this brief and far from exhaustive list of problems with the Novus Ordo service, this liturgical fabrication, which is itself an abuse against God and the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood, generates one abuse after another as the Faith is undermined at every turn. And this the "liturgy" to which Francis the Liturgist is committed with every fiber of his Modernist being.

It is very offensive for a man considered by almost everyone in the world to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter to do what the conciliar "popes," including Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, have done and continue do by using their "papal" office to destroy all notion of the sacred in the liturgy. This is particularly offensive as it is the very sacrality of Christ the King Who most be embodied in the person of the Vicar of Christ, especially as he offers the unbloody perpetuation or re-presentation of Our King's bloody sacrifice of Himself to His Co-Eternal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth that is the Holy Mass:

 

If the Church, in accordance with the teaching of St. Paul, is the Mystical Body of Christ, then she must have a head and a heart like any other body. Jesus is her Head and Heart. The Head works mainly in Rome, the Heart in the tabernacle. The Head reveals itself especially in the Holy Father, the Heart in the Eucharist. Both are vital necessities. If the head and the heart no longer work, the body dies. If Catholicism were no longer papal and Eucharistic, it would cease to exist.

Whoever says, “pope” and “tabernacle,” says Jesus Christ, because the papacy and the sacrament of the altar are the two great channels through which Jesus Christ rules the world. And whoever says the word Jesus Christ , the Word before Whom everything must bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth, has said everything. The name of Jesus is the answer to all problems, all secrets, all difficulties.

If we have the pope and the Eucharist, the Head and the Heart, why is the Body so ill?  Although we receive Holy Communion, why are we not better, purer, more willing to sacrifice, more patient, more humble? This question is very apt in a time of frequent Communions. What’s wrong?

What is Communion? What should it be? Communion is union. What is union? Union presupposes two who desire to be one. Where there is only one, there can be no talk of communion. Where there are two, but two who pass by one another without speaking, there can also be no talk of communion. Communion is two that equal one.

Who are the two? Jesus and you. That is Communion; Jesus and you. It must be said in that order, Jesus and you, not you and Jesus. In Communion everything depends upon who is first and who is second, who stands in the foreground and who is in the background, who is the star and who is the extra. In the communion of the lukewarm souls, the ego is in the foreground and Jesus in the background; in the Communions of the devoted souls, Jesus is in the foreground and the ego is in the background. Jesus reigns.

In other words, preparation and disposition are of vital importance for Communion. It is true that the sacrament is effective of itself, but only insofar as no hurdles are placed in its way. It is the same with light; light shines in the darkness, but if something is hung before the rays of light or if we close our eyes, the light’s effect is blocked.

It is also like nutrition. It is not just a matter of eating healthy and strengthening food. Our digestive system must also possess the capacity of digesting the food we eat. Otherwise eating is useless. Therefore, the effectiveness of the sacrament depends upon the ability of the recipient to take it in, i.e. according to the disposition. And here we have the reason why the results of Holy Communion are so lacking in some people. There have a lack of good disposition.

Why cannot Jesus develop His work in the soul? Perhaps because there is no room? The question of room plays just as fatal a role in Communion as it did in Bethlehem. The minds and hearts are often full of alien things, superfluous matters, miscellaneous, vain, worldly, dangerous, even sinful or evil thoughts. There are full of the world and of the self, whether in the category of “worldly” the problem is materialism, addiction to amusement or sensuality, and whether that of “self” applies to arrogance, vanity or self-righteousness. Such people apparently want Jesus to come to them, but not that He should reign in them.

The fact is that modern man lives from Sunday to Saturday, from the first to the last year of his life in a world which is alien to the tabernacle. And now, take this modern person, who breaths the air of a completely foreign atmosphere, and set his into the atmosphere of the supernatural that surrounds the altar. What happens? He’s there with his body. He communicates with his tongue. But that is no real union. It is not soul-to-soul, spirit-to-spirit, and heart-to-heart. Jesus comes, as it were, into the front yard of the soul. Figuratively speaking, one only says hello at the front door.

This person says a few pious words, which he call Communion prayers, but he doesn’t let Jesus into the most intimate shrine of his soul. He does not talk personally about his most intimate secrets. He has not led Jesus to the throne, but instead dealt with Him quickly like a beggar or an unwelcome guest. The he turn his back and goes to the window to chat with Mrs. World, as though he actually were not at home, and every couple of minutes he looks at his wristwatch to see whether the official 15-minute reception hour is soon over. That is how people often do it. That is how we often treat the King. We have no room and no time for Jesus. We communicate without communicating. That is why we don’t come back from the Communion rail as saints, but instead like the same people were before.

What ought Communion to be? The opposite of that which we just described. It should be Jesus at the center of the soul and the ego at His feet. In other words, Jesus as Lord of the House, and the “old man” outside the door. Fr. Ravignan once quoted someone; “You ask me what I did during my novitiate? I answer: We were two. I threw one of us out the window, and now I am alone.”  Communion should be an enthronement!

What is the precondition for such a Communion? First of all, strong faith. If one should not begin to pray at all without first evoking a living act of faith in the presence of god, with whom one wants to converse, then how much more does this apply to the first-quarter hours after the Holy Communion! I must be saturated with the thought that Jesus is there, Jesus, the Son of the Living God, Jesus, Son of Man, Jesus, my King. I must say that to myself again and again, because I am forgetful and superficial. Forgetful and superficial people need always to be reminded of the same thing.

Let us imagine that the Blessed Virgin Mary would honor us with a visit every day and talk with us for a quarter of an hour. A Communion is more that such a vision. It is more important that the visit of al the angels and saint. But I must be filled with this faith to my deepest depth. I must believe it: Jesus is there! Otherwise our whole communion devotion, our whole thanksgiving, remains cold and dry.

The thought of Jesus must work in us like sunrise, like the beginning of a new day. The physical world disappears and the one which now appears in the world of grace, the world of the Divine Heart, much more rich and beautiful than all that human eyes see and human ears hear.

How can I attempt to paint and describe this world of grace? I have not the colors, I have not the words. You cannot paint Jesus, you cannot describe Him. Jesus is too beautiful. A saintly soul has said: “If the world could behold Jesus, as I have seen Him, then all souls would be absorbed in such a sight, leave their businesses, the pleasures, their politics, and ravished by the sight of the King of Glory and Love, see nothing more than Him and worship Him alone.”

You do not see this Jesus. But once more I say: the important thing is not that you see Him, but rather that He is there and that you believe. Jesus is there, in me, in the midst of my heart, as King. Then you can pray. Then you can wonder. Then you can love. Then you can cry and mourn. And all that even without the prayer book! And 15 minutes will seem too short to you, the most beautiful minutes of your day and your week. When you come home, you will be purer, calmer, friendlier to your fellow men, more compassionate and more humble.

Let us not make the precious time after Holy Communion so complicated, so difficult , so unnatural. Let us think of only one thing: Jesus is there. Everything else comes of its own accord. And if afterward someone should ask you what you did then say: A great deal, but actually only one thing. For 15 minutes I have believed, hoped and loved! That is Communion! Jesus and you! Jesus in the center of you soul! Jesus as King. Come and see how sweet the Lord is. But come alone. Leave the world outside the doors. If you finally understand the right way to go to receive Holy Communion, you will also soon understand the right way to live. (Father Robert Mader, Cross and the Crown, edited and translated by Dr. Eileen Kunze, Sarto House, 1999, pp. 99-101.)

It is precisely the spiritual robber barons who have presented themselves as "popes" since October 28, 1958 are not members of the Catholic Church and have fomented doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral revolutions that Catholicism has ceased to exist in the souls of so many hundreds of millions of Catholics worldwide.

Anyone who thinks, therefore, that he is "consoling" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or is in a true communion with Him while he remains "neutral" about or supportive of any the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of the conciliar authorities is deceiving himself quite possibly to the point of his own eternal perdition, Such a person is in need of our prayers, to be sure. Sloganeering and sentimentality and wishful thinking do not secure one's salvation. Indeed, they are instruments of the devil to lead sloganeers and sentimentalists such as the conciliar revolutionaries into Hell as they take many others with them.

Conscious of making reparation for our own sins, which, although forgiven and thus no longer exist, are in need of our making satisfaction here in this passing, mortal vale of tears before we die, may our Rosaries each day help to lift the scales from the likes of confused Catholics thereby hastening their rejection of conciliarism and as they take refuge in the underground until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is made made manifest.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

Rough Translation of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's January 13, 1965, General Audience Address

Link to Italian Original: January 13, 1965 General Audience Address

The Religious Sense in our world

We have a special greeting to the large group of Ecclesiastical Assistants and Managers of Catholic Laity, to Rome to study the theme of the liturgical renewal, in order that the new rules on March 7 will come into force in the celebration of the sacred ceremonies and especially of Mass.

We have a new proof of this initiative and working closely accession, the mission of the Catholic Hierarchy, and also primarily where it exercises and promotes the worship of God. As this test, timely and enlightened, collaboration of our laity to the first and highest offices of the priestly ministry pleases us and honor the face of Catholic Action is easy to understand: nothing can be more comforting Shepherd surrounded by children who know attending to his action and prayerful celebration of the divine mysteries, which include, which operate with him, pray, offer hope and rejoice, who are with him, "one heart and one soul." Which best result of this can claim his work as a teacher and priest? certifies clearer than this can be given to the validity of his "care of souls"? What comfort most sincere and most invigorating of this can repay his labors, than that resulting from the presence not only from consonance, by its adherence to his priestly prayer of the faithful, entrusted to the responsibility of his ministry? Really rise to the lips of the priest, whose art apostolic, whose religious pedagogy is able to bind the hearts, voices, gestures, the hearts of his faithful to his mediation between God and man (is after the mediation of Christ), the words of St. Paul: ". . . O my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown! "(Phil. 4, 1). And are these words that erupt from our mind to the consideration of the fruits that MISUSE new, intelligent and methodical liturgical action prepares the holy Church, and the vision of the new spiritual springtime, the Ecumenical Council is stirring in all the Catholic communities in the world. We owe you a praise, good assistants and managers, we owe you a thank you, we owe you an encouragement!

And we must repeat that what brings joy to us, back to your honor. We tell you, dear Laity, especially: with Codest effort to give exact and vivid application to the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy you demonstrated before that intelligence of the times that Christ urged his first disciples (cf. Mt. 16, 4), and that the Church of today is waking and recognizing the Catholic adults who are calling for a spiritual revival times, drawn where there are genuine and inexhaustible sources of truth and grace, with which the gospel has made a gift to humanity, we want to just say the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, to which sources you please address the steps and watered thirst. You show to understand how the new religious pedagogy that this liturgical renewal wants to establish, engage, and almost in place of the central engine, in the great movement, writing in the constitutional principles of the Church of God, and made it easier and more urgent progress of human culture, which tends to make a member of any Christian living and active, not more unconscious, inert and passive, of the Mystical Body, elevating him to the personal participation of the higher, more beautiful, more active and more mysterious, that might come from man pilgrim on earth, feed into the process of its evolving destinies, intercede between the world and God, the action precisely the Sacred Liturgy. You so getting into the swing of the plan of salvation, the Church promotes today with renewed fervor and modern standards, not only do religious work, but also apostolic. The apostolate is your typical program. Well, the activities, which you dedicated to give fullness of understanding and participation in the liturgical action, results in regenerative activity of. our society, such as the one that pours into our hearts the spiritual energies, moral, sentimental, that only religion can give authentically practiced.

To you, therefore, repeat praise and encouragement, to give you heartily Our Blessing.

***

Dear Sons and Daughters!

You'll hear often in this period, the discourse on the Sacred Liturgy made from many different voices and different themes, but always derived from the Constitution of the recent Ecumenical Council and the subsequent Education, which begins the gradual application. It is a good thing: this new legislation about public and official worship of the Church is very important, and deserves to be widely disseminated and discussed, also because one of its main characteristics and purpose is the participation of the faithful in the rites that the Priest directs and personifies. And it is good that is felt that it is precisely the authority of the Church to want, to promote, to turn this new way of praying, thus giving rise to higher spiritual mission: it was the Church's primary care and protect the orthodoxy of prayer , and subsequent care was to make stable and uniform expressions of worship, great work, from which the spiritual life of the Church has taken immense benefits, and now his concern grows, change certain aspects of the discipline today inadequate ritual, and tends bravely, but pensatamente to deepen the essential meaning, the need for community and the supernatural value of ecclesiastical worship, putting on best evidence, first of all, the function that carries on the Word of God, and that of S. Scripture, both the teaching and exhortation of catechesis and the homily, and giving the sacramental celebration with her clear and mysterious centrality.

To understand this religious progress and to enjoy it paid off we will all change the habitual mindset formed about the sacred ceremony and religious practice, especially when we believe that the ceremony is a simple execution of external rites and that the practice does not require more than a passive and distracted assistance. One must realize that a new spiritual pedagogy was born with the Council, is its great news, and we should not hesitate to ask us first disciples and then supporters of school prayer, which is about to begin. It may be that the reforms touching care habits, and perhaps respectable it may be that the reforms require some effort at first you do not like, but we must be obedient and trust: the religious and spiritual plane, which we opened in front of the new Constitution liturgical, is gorgeous, for depth and authenticity of doctrine, by the rationality of Christian logic, for purity and richness of worship and artistic elements to the character and responsiveness to the needs of modern man. It is still the authority of the Church which teaches and so endorse the goodness of the reform, in an effort to comfort the souls pastoral faith and love for Christ and religious meaning in our world.

You, coming from the Pope, accept His exhortation, and once more you will experience fertility and happiness, that obedience brings with it; obedience, say, in the Church and to whom it is designed to educate believers to worship the Father "in spirit and truth" (I. 4, 23). Here's Our recommendation, here is our vote, that we both want to confirm with Our Apostolic Blessing.

Appendix B

Joseph Ratzinger: There Was Rupture Before There Had Been No Rupture

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Milestones.)

In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum," July 7, 2007.)

Appendix C

Joseph Ratzinger's Aspirations For The "Reform of the Reform"

From this point of view, then, the new prayer for the Jews in the liturgy in the ancient rite does not weaken, but postulates an enrichment of the meaning of the prayer in use in the modern rite. Exactly like in other cases, it is the modern rite that postulates an enriching evolution of the ancient rite. In a liturgy that is perennially alive, as the Catholic liturgy is, this is the meaning of the coexistence between the two rites, ancient and modern, as intended by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum."

This is a coexistence that is not destined to endure, but to fuse in the future "in a single Roman rite once again," taking the best from both of these. This is what then-cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2003 – revealing a deeply held conviction – in a letter to an erudite representative of Lefebvrist traditionalism, the German philologist Heinz-Lothar Barth. (Sandro Magister, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

"Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII -- used by a small minority -- nor that of Paul VI -- used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority -- will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church." ("Father" Federico Lombardi, Zenit, July 15, 2007.)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's easing of restrictions on use of the 1962 Roman Missal, known as the Tridentine rite, is just the first step in a "reform of the reform" in liturgy, the Vatican's top ecumenist said.

The pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said May 14.

In effect, the pope is launching a new liturgical reform movement, the cardinal said. Those who resist it, including "rigid" progressives, mistakenly view the Second Vatican Council as a rupture with the church's liturgical tradition, he said.

Cardinal Koch made the remarks at a Rome conference on "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict's 2007 apostolic letter that offered wider latitude for use of the Tridentine rite. The cardinal's text was published the same day by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Cardinal Koch said Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. The cardinal said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.

He said this explains why Pope Benedict has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with "Summorum Pontificum." The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.

Cardinal Koch said "Summorum Pontificum" is "only the beginning of this new liturgical movement."

"In fact, Pope Benedict knows well that, in the long term, we cannot stop at a coexistence between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, but that in the future the church naturally will once again need a common rite," he said.

"However, because a new liturgical reform cannot be decided theoretically, but requires a process of growth and purification, the pope for the moment is underlining above all that the two forms of the Roman rite can and should enrich each other," he said.

Cardinal Koch said those who oppose this new reform movement and see it as a step back from Vatican II lack a proper understanding of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes. As the pope has emphasized, Vatican II was not a break or rupture with tradition but part of an organic process of growth, he said.

On the final day of the conference, participants attended a Mass celebrated according to the Tridentine rite at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica. Cardinal Walter Brandmuller presided over the liturgy. It was the first time in several decades that the old rite was celebrated at the altar. (Benedict's 'reform of the reform' in liturgy to continue, cardinal says.)

Appendix D

Monsignor Klaus Gamber on Rupture in the Liturgy

Not only is the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969 a change of the liturgical rite, but that change also involved a rearrangement of the liturgical year, including changes in the assignment of feast days for the saints. To add or drop one or the other of these feast days, as had been done before, certainly does not constitute a change of the rite, per se. But the countless innovations introduced as part of liturgical reform have left hardly any of the traditional liturgical forms intact . . .

At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed. A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect, and that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet, through all the periods of the unrest that again and again shook the Church to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure home of faith and piety. . . .

Was all this really done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite, to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus to make the celebration of the "Tridentime Mass" impossible--because it no loner reflected the new spirit moving through the Church?

Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the prohibition of the traditional rite was announced at the same time as the introduction of the new liturgical texts; and that a dispensation to continue celebrating the Mass according to the traditional rite was granted only to older priests.

Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful.

Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.

At the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identical in essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.

Most priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with the reform of the Divine Office and of the liturgical chant introduced by Pope St. Pius X.

Following this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey. . . .

The real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 39, p. 99, pp. 100-102.)