Posted on 05/19/2004 7:01:30 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
What is "The Future of God"? That sounds like a rather plastic god of our own making, doesn't it?
I didn't say it did. I said the Pope has no moral freedom to commit immoral acts in carrying out his official duties of feeding and governing the Church. He could never teach the Church that it is an official doctrine that "black is white" because of the protection of the Holy Ghost.
There is no guarantee popes will not sin nor be free from commanding others to sin.
They can do that as persons, such as John XXII's private heresy. They could never do it as leader of the Church in official acts, such as promulgating a rite of the Mass.
This is wrong. First, because you speak of the "indefectibility and infallibility of the Church and the Pope." But the Church alone is indefectible.
All the better theologians, such as St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus de Liguori were quite certain that the best opinion was that the Pope could not and would not defect from the faith and become a heretic or schismatic, because of the promises of Christ.
Second, you are wrong to say "he will never command the Church to carry out a sin." There never was any such charism ascribed to the pope.
It seems you believe in a Pope who could make an official decision saying, for example "All Catholics are obligated to have pre-marital sexual intercourse in order to understand why the Church condemns this practice." I don't believe that is possible for him to do. Apparently, you think such a ruling is possible and congruent with the promises of Christ.
The Church has never promulgated a dress code beyond simple modesty in dress. We aren't a "rules and regulations" type of group, remember? Christ came in part to set us free from all that nonesense. There is no obligation to wear a tie on Sunday. Its nice and reverant if you have one, but you aren't a sinner if you don't.
Quote where I stated that or retract. If you can't be honest in a discussion you are not worth my time.
ultima, what does a "valid" Mass mean to you? To me it means that a true and proper sacrifice is offered to God. The idea that such a Sacrifice could not be efficacious seems nonsense to me.
CANON I.--If any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.CANON III.--If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
CANON IV.--If any one saith, that, by the sacrifice of the mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most holy sacrifice of Christ consummated on the cross; or, that it is thereby derogated from; let him be anathema.
Parts of the Anglican BCP are indistinguishable from the Sarum Rite, too. Does that mean that the Sarum Rite springs from Cranmer's book?
The new Mass, moreover, almost completely effaces the Catholic dogma of Propitiation.
No it doesn't.
2. The sacrificial nature of the Mass, solemnly asserted by the Council of Trent in accordance with the Church's universal tradition,1 was reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council, which offered these significant words about the Mass: "At the Last Supper our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood, by which he would perpetuate the Sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until he should come again, thus entrusting to the Church, his beloved Bride, the memorial of his death and resurrection."What the Council thus teaches is expressed constantly in the formulas of the Mass. This teaching, which is concisely expressed in the statement already contained in the ancient Sacramentary commonly known as the Leonine—"As often as the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is carried out"—is aptly and accurately developed in the Eucharistic Prayers. For in these prayers the priest, while he performs the commemoration, turns towards God, even in the name of the whole people, renders him thanks, and offers the living and holy Sacrifice:, namely, the Church's offering and the Victim by whose immolation God willed to be appeased;[Cf. Eucharistic Prayer III] and he prays that the Body and Blood of Christ may be a sacrifice acceptable to the Father and salvific for the whole world.[Cf. Eucharistic Prayer IV]
In this new Missal, then, the Church's rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her perennial rule of belief (lex credendi), by which namely we are taught that the Sacrifice of the Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and commanded the Apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of offering, and that consequently the Mass is at once a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, of propitiation and satisfaction. (General Instruction on the Roman Missal §2)
Unde et nos, Domine, redemtionis nostrae memoriale nunc celebrantes, mortem Christi eiusque descensum ad inferos recolimus, eius resurrectionem et ascensionem ad tuam dexteram profitemur, et, exspectantes ipsius adventum in gloria, offerimus tibi eius Corpus et Sanguinem, sacrificium tibi acceptabile et toti mundo salutare.
Respice, Domine, in Hostiam, quam Ecclesiae tuae ipse parasti, et concede benignus omnibus qui ex hoc uno pane participabunt et calice, ut, in unum corpus a Sancto Spiritu congregati, in Christo hostia viva perficiantur, ad laudem gloriae tuae. (EP IV)
Memores igitur, Domine, eiusdem Filii tui salutiferae passionis necnon mirabilis resurrectionis et ascensionis in caelum, sed et praestolantes alterum eius adventum, offerimus tibi, gratias referentes, hoc sacrificium vivum et sanctum.
Respice, quaesumus, in oblationem Ecclesiae tuae et, agnoscens Hostiam, cuius voluisti immolatione placari, concede, ut qui Corpore et Sanguine Filii tui reficimur, Spiritu eius Sancto repleti, unum corpus et unus spiritus inveniamur in Christo...
Haec Hostia nostrae reconciliationis proficiant, quaesumus, Domine, ad totius mundi pacem atque salutem. (EP III)
Unde et memores, Domine, nos servi tui, sed et plebs tua sancta, eiusdem Christi, Filii Tui, Domini nostri, tam beatae passionis, necnon et ab inferis resurrectionis, sed et in caelos gloriosae ascensionis: offerimus praeclarae maiestati tuae de tuis donis ac datis hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctam vitae aeternae et Calicem salutis perpetuae.
Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris: et accepta habere, siculti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti Abel, et sacrificium Patriarchae nostri Abrahae, et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam. (EP I)
and buys into the Protestant Paschal Meal theology and the notion of a "sacrifice of praise"
"The Mass A Sacrifice Of Praise, Thanksgiving And Propitiation" (1566 Roman Catechism, "The Holy Eucharist")
Meménto, Dómine, famulórum famularúmque tuárum N . . . et N . . . et ómnium circumstántium, quorum tibi fides cógnita est, et nota devótio, pro quibus tibi offérimus: vel qui tibi ófferunt hoc sacrifícium laudis, pro se, suísque ómnibus: pro redemtióne et incolumitátis suæ: tibíque reddunt vota sua ætérno Deo, vivo et vero. (Roman Canon)
The Novus Ordo now is based on the meal paradigm instead--exactly as Trent had warned against.
They should teach, then, in the first place, that the Eucharist was instituted by Christ for two purposes: one, that it might be the heavenly food of our souls, enabling us to support and preserve spiritual life ... (1566 Roman Catechism, "The Holy Eucharist")
| LCMS Service Book | Novus Ordo Missae |
| C. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord. I will take the cup of salvation and will call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the court's of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. P. The Lord be with you. It is truly good, right, and salutary... Almighty God the Father, through Your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ You have overcome death and opened the gate of everlasting life to us. Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of our Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by Your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. ...evermore praising You and saying: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might: Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna, Hosanna. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. P. Blessed are You, Lord of heaven and earth, for You have had mercy on those whom You created, and sent Your only-begotten Son into our flesh to bear our sin and be our Savior. With repentant joy we receive the salvation accomplished for us by the all-availing sacrifice of His body and His blood on the cross. C. Amen. P. Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said: "Take, eat; this is My † body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me." P. As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. C. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. C. O Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, in giving us Your body and blood to eat and to drink, You lead us to remember and confess Your holy cross and passion, Your blessed death, Your rest in the tomb, Your resurrection from the dead, Your ascension into heaven, and Your coming for the final judgment. So remember us in Your kingdom and teach us to pray: |
P. The Lord be with you. C. And also with you. P. Lift up your hearts. C. We lift them to the Lord. P. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. C. It is right to give him thanks and praise. P. Father in heaven, it is right that we should give you thanks and glory: you are the one God, living and true. Through all eternity you live in unapprachable light. A. Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. P. Father, we acknowledge your greatness: all your actions show your wisdom and love. You formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures. Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not abandon him to the power of death, but helped all men to seek and find you. Again and again you offered a convenant to man, and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation. Father, you so loved the world that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior. He was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, a man like us in all things but sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy. In fulfillment of your will he gave himself up to death; but by rising from the dead, he destroyed death and restored life. And that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as his first gift to those who believe, to complete his work on earth and bring us the fullness of grace. Father, may this Holy Spirit sanctify these offerings. Let them become for us the body + and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord as we celebrate the great mystery which he left us as an everlasting convenant. He always loved those who were his own in the world. When the time came for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, he showed the depth of his love. While they were at supper, he took bead, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take this, all of you, and eat it: In the same way, he took the cup, filled with wine. He gave you thanks, and giving the cup to his disciples, said: Take this all of you and drink from it: Let us proclaim the mystery of faith: A. Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world. Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand; and, looking forward to his coming in glory, we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church; and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this bread and wine into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise. [Literally: Look, O Lord, on this Victim, which you have given to your Church, and graciously concede to all who share from this one bread and chalice, so that, having been gathered into one body by the Holy Spirit, they are being perfected in Christ the living victim, to the praise of your name.] Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice, especially N. our Pope, N. our bishop, and bishops and clergy everywhere. Remember those who take part in this offering, those here present and all your people, and all who seek you with a sincere heart. Remember those who have died in the peace of Christ and all the dead whose faith is known to you alone. Father, in your mercy grant also to us, your children, to enter into our heavenly inheritance in the company of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and your apostles and saints. Then, in your kingdom, freed from the corruption of sin and death, we shall sing your glory with every creature through Christ our Lord, through whom you give us everything that is good. Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever. A. Amen. |
The LCMS service is quite clearly only a "sacrifice of thanksgiving" and a remembrance of Christ, whereas the Novus Ordo:
and, looking forward to his coming in glory, we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.
No good Lutheran would ever say a prayer like that. Ever.
You are all over the place. The Second Vatican Council was talking about the OLD MASS, not the new one--which hadn't been concocted until years after the close of the Council. In fact, an early version of the Bugnini concoction was laughed out of the hall by the Council fathers.
As for your quoting the General Instructions--these were REWRITTEN after the astonishingly Protestant original version shocked the Catholic community worldwide. The rewrite deliberately sought to emphasize what, in fact, had deliberately been ignored in the original--the sacrificial aspect of the Mass. But even here, you overlook the theological fact of the Mass itself, independent of the Catholic-sounding rewrite. The Paschal Meal theology is Protestant, not Catholic, and its understanding of the word "sacrifice" is not the same as Trent's.
I have said over and over--do not heed what is written, look at what is being DONE. The new regime sounds orthodox enough when pressed--but they do not behave in orthodox ways. Thus they talk a bit about Propitiation, even as they undermine this notion in the new missal. You will have to search hard to find mention of our sinfulness or mention of the just punishments for sin or mention of our need for intercession. It's there--but hardly noticeable, whereas it constitutes much of the essence of the Old Mass. The emphasis in the new Mass is on how lucky we all are to be saved. That's Protestant, not Catholic.
I said the two liturgies, the Lutheran and the Novus Ordo, were virtually identical IN SOME OF THEIR PARTS. I did not say they were absolutely identical.
Here is an excerpt from an informative article:
_______________________________________________________
The Novus Ordo Missae:
A Recapitulation of the arguments against the "New Mass"
by Carey J. Winters
[Taken from Real Catholicism, 6/7 Volume I]
Introduction: The Mass
The Canon of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church goes back to the time of the Apostles. By the year 600 or so it was firmly fixed — so much so that, when Pope St. Gregory the Great added a few words to the Hanc Igitur, the people of Rome were outraged. According to Canon Hesse, they threatened to kill the Pope — because he had dared to touch liturgy (The New Mass Mess audiotape).
In 1570 Pope St. Pius V codified the existing liturgy, in his Bull, Quo Primum. Purified of accretions, the Traditional Mass was established, in that Bull, as the Latin Rite Mass in perpetuity; it was not to be altered, nor was a new rite to be constructed. Pius did not promulgate a new Order of Mass; the Missale the Pope and the Tridentine Fathers endorsed was the one then in use in Rome — the one that formed, according to Michael Davies,1 "the basis for most of the Mass rites in use throughout Latin Christendom" (The Tridentine Mass, p.9). Faced with the Reformation's heresies, the Council of Trent had as its first priority the codification of Catholic Eucharistic teachings. Davies notes that "it seems reasonable to conclude that the Council Fathers intended the reformed Missal to be investigated with the same permanence as their doctrinal teaching, because the Missale would give liturgical expression to what they had defined by their dogmatic decrees" (The Tridentine Mass, p. 19).
Pius XII revised the rubrics for Holy Week. The next change to the canon of the Mass (that portion between the Sanctus and Communion) — came when John XXIII added the name of St. Joseph in 1962. At the time that those changes were made, they seemed relatively unimportant. They were, however, 'warm-up exercises' for the revolution to come.
In April of 1969, the Vatican published the New Order of the Mass — a Mass which represented a great departure from the one mandated by St. Pius V and the Council of Trent. "To tell the truth," said Joseph Gelineau, SJ, one of the experts involved in its formulation, "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." (Cited in The Tridentine Mass, p. 39). Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, whom Davies calls the 'chief architect of the liturgical revolution,' has made similar comments. He boasted that the New mass is "a major conquest of the Catholic Church," referring to it as "a new song" to which other verses will be added later.
The altered nature of the Mass was not lost on some orthodox Catholics. The New mass found among its earliest and sternest critics Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, whose Critical Study and letter to the Pope on the subject charged that the New Mass "teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith." Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani had served as head of the Holy Office under three Popes — and in that position was charged with protecting the purity of the Catholic faith. (In America, the Cardinals' letter and accompanying study are published together as The Ottaviani Intervention.)
The Cardinals' letter notes that "the Novus Ordo Missae... represents a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent, which by fixing definitively the 'canons' of the rite, erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which might attack the integrity of the Mystery."
The Novus Ordo, according to its formulators, was intended only as a provisional rite. Rumors are now circulating regarding yet another New Mass — the Ordo Simplex, reportedly due to make its appearance next year.
Many Catholics, though uncomfortable with the obvious reduction of reverence and belief in their Churches, are not yet clear on what was lost with the introduction of the current Novus Ordo. They rail against what they view as 'abuses' without recognizing the underlying theological treachery in the rite itself. What follows is a very brief capsulization of the major arguments that have been advanced against the New Mass.
Part I: The 'New Mass' Itself
The General Instruction
From the General Instruction:
Traditional Latin Mass (Council of Trent) The Mass is the true and special sacrifice of the New Law. In it Jesus Christ, by the ministry of the Priest offers His Body and Blood to God the Father under the appearances of bread and wine by a mystical immolation in an unbloody manner for a renewal and memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
Novus Ordo Missae (Pope Paul VI) The Lord's supper, or Mass, is the assembly, or gathering together, of the people of God with the priest presiding to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason the promise of Christ is particularly true of the local congregation of the Church: "Where two are three are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them."
The General Instruction for the New Mass makes clear a theological shift. Commenting on one particularly riveting portion (see above), Fr. Wathen points out that "the New Mass is a memorial meal. This instruction does not say that the priest offers a sacrifice. He merely presides over the assembly. Christ's presence is not physical but spiritual, as when any group of 'Christians' gather. The French writer, Edith Delamare, comments: 'Here the [Protestant] Lord's Supper and the [Catholic] Mass are merged into one ... In the present ecumenical context, it is as if neither Luther nor the Council of Trent ever happened.'" (Who Shall Ascend, p. 534).2
So much criticism was received regarding this particular passage that it was somewhat modified — it now reads "with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ..." Although the sop was sufficient to quiet conservative concern, the essential errors and ambiguities remain.
The priest is still a 'presider;' the Novus Ordo steadfastly refuses to speak of the priest as a 'celebrant.' Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy quotes Fr. Martin Patino, a member of the Concilium who assisted in the preparation of the Novus Ordo: "The [new] mass is not an act of the priest with whom the people unite themselves, as it used to be explained. The Eucharist is, rather, an act of the people, whom the ministers serve by making the Savior present sacramentally .... This former formulation, which corresponds o the classical theology of recent centuries, was rejected because it placed what was relative and ministerial (the hierarchy) above what was ontological and absolute (the people of God)" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 72)
The Mass is still referred to as the Lord's Supper. Cardinal Ottaviani's Critical Study noted that the Mass "is designated by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed as they are separately and in an absolute sense."
The studied ambiguity of the General Instruction is found throughout the New mass; its use allows a muddying of the theological waters without the formal denial of any Catholic beliefs. The Ottaviani Intervention charged that the purposes of the reformers were served through omissions, implicit denials (of the Real Presence) and the fragmenting of the Church's unity of belief through the introduction of countless options. (For a study of ambiguity and the role it played in the theological transformations of the Council, the reader is referred to In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, by Atila Sinke Guimaraes, published by MAETA.)
The Penitential Rite
The Traditional Roman Mass begins with what are called "the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar," in which the priest offers personal prayers of reparation to God. In the Novus Ordo, these prayers have been replaced by a Penitential Rite, which the priest and people recite together. As Cardinal Ottaviani charged, there is a blurring, in the New Mass, of the distinction between priest and laity — evident in this change (one also instituted by 16th Century Protestant reformers).
The Offertory
In the Traditional Roman Mass, the first part is the Offertory, which very clearly expresses the sacrificial, propitiatory character of the New Mass. The Novus Ordo effectively abolishes the Offertory; of the 12 Traditional Offertory prayers, only two were retained in the New Mass. The term 'Offertory' itself has vanished; there remains only something called "The Preparation of the Gifts," the instructions for which lay heavy emphasis on procession. The deleted prayers are the same ones removed by Luther and Cranmer. It was, as Davies points out, "the doctrine of the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation which outraged the Protestant Reformers" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 320). "The abomination called the offertory," remarked Luther, "and from this point on almost everything stinks of oblation."
Fr. Wathen notes that "practically all the prayers of the Offertory ... were deemed useless ... The given reason ... is that all these prayers are recent insertions into the Mass; none of them were in the Mass before, say, 1100 or 1200 A.D." (The Great Sacrilege, p. 71). Citing as an example the deleted Suscipe, Sancte Pater both Fr. Wathen and Dr. Coomaraswamy demonstrate the incompatibility between the Catholic theology expressed in that prayer and the new religion of 'Catholic' modernists. The prayer itself reads:
Receive, O Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, this spotless host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for mine own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present, as also for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail for my own and their salvation unto life everlasting.
"What a marvel of doctrinal exactitude!" exclaims Coomaraswamy. "Along with the actions of the priest, this prayer makes it clear that what is offered at the Mass is the 'spotless host' or victim. Second, the propitiatory (atoning) nature of the Mass is explicit — it is offered for our sins. Third, it reminds us that the Mass is offered 'for the living and the dead,' and fourth, that it is the priest who offers the Sacrifice as a mediator between man and God ... In the New Mass this prayer, needless to say, has been entirely deleted" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 34). In addition to the acknowledgment of unworthiness and the clear sacrificial language, Fr. Wathen notes that he prayer "was said silently by the celebrant ... If there are two things we cannot abide in the 'new age,' it is silent prayers during the communal prayer service, and the priest's acting as if he were about to do something in virtue of his own priesthood, which the laity cannot participate in" (The Great Sacrilege, p. 72).
The prayer that has replaced the Suscipe, Sancte Pater is a modified Jewish table grace:
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all Creation, Trough your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.
The offering of Cain has been substituted for that of Abel; the new prayer makes no reference to the propitiation for sin. Patrick Henry Omlor notes that "where Catholics humbly beseech God's acceptance the prayer of the Jew audaciously says 'Here — we made it, You take it.' without humility. No contrite heart. No respect for the Divine. Rudely imposed upon the Catholic ear and mind is a 'prayer' of unbelievers in Christ, rejecting the Sacrifice, Redemption and Salvation wrought by Christ, the God-Man" (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Knox Query, p. 18).
Davies notes that the new prayer is "fully compatible with the Teilhardian theory that human effort, the work of human hands, becomes in a certain way the matter of the Sacrament. Thus we have a rite that is not simply compatible with Protestantism but with the Cult of Man" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 322). Davies also finds that the prayer "would certainly fit in with the ethos of a Masonic hall" (p. 320). He sees in the "We offer" another example of the systematic blurring in the Novus Ordo, of the distinction between priest and laity; it is now possible to interpret it as a service concelebrated by the entire congregation.
The Ottaviani Intervention charges that the prayer in question "alters the nature of the sacrificial offering by turning it into a type of exchange of gifts between God and man. Man brings the bread, and God turns it into 'the spiritual drink.' ... The expressions 'bread of life' and 'spiritual drink,' of course, are utterly vague and could mean anything. Once again we come up against the same basic equivocation: According to the new definition of the Mass [in the General Instruction], Christ is only spiritually present among His own; here bread and wine are only spiritually — and not substantially — changed" (pp. 37-38).
The new "Invitation to Prayer" deserves mention. In the Traditional Mass, the Priest asks "Prayer, Brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable...." This has been changed to "our sacrifice" in the New Mass. While it may at first reading sound equivalent, it is not. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the priest who offers the sacrifice to God; the laity offers penance, prayers, personal sacrifices, true, but only the priest, acting in the person of Christ, offers the Body and Blood. Pius XII remarked in Mediator Dei that "in this most important subject, it is necessary in order to avoid giving rise to a dangerous error, that we define the exact meaning of the word 'offer.' The unbloody immolation, at the words of Consecration, when Christ is made present upon the Altar... is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful." For Protestants, of course, the presider is the one chosen to represent the people, rather than Christ. Pius XII's 'dangerous error' is codified in the Novus Ordo. Hearing the words of the New Mass 'Invitation to Prayer' often enough will probably make of the congregation de facto Lutherans.
Eucharistic Prayer I
Fr. Wathen points out that the word Canon means rule, or standard of measure. "It refers, therefore, to something fixed, unchangeable, and irreplaceable ... Eucharistic Prayer, Form Number One [subtitled The Roman Canon] is not the Roman Canon because it has been changed, or rather, mutilated both in the Latin and in the translation" (The Great Sacrilege, pg. 82). Furthermore, three additional Eucharistic Prayers are offered as alternatives to its use. Davies notes that the Consilium had originally planned to forbid the use of the Roman Canon, but it remained, in severely modified form, at the insistence of the Pope (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 329).
Dr. Coomaraswamy notes that Eucharistic Prayer I "is merely modeled on the traditional Canon, but contains several significant differences ...[W]ith the destruction of the traditional Offertory, with its prayers that state precisely what occurs during the Canon, and with the modern mistranslations, Eucharistic Prayer Number One is totally capable of being given an entirely Modernist and Protestant interpretation" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 37).
That Eucharistic Prayer, for example, asks that the offering "may become for us the Body and Blood..." Coomaraswamy notes that such a phrase is understandable in the Cranmerian/Protestant sense, which denies that the bread and wine are transubstantiated themselves. As Davies explains, "the addition of 'for us' does facilitate an interpretation in line with the theory of transignification, where the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is really only for the believer and not in the order of objective reality. Transignification is a doctrine fully in line with that of the Protestant Reformers" (The Roman Rite Destroyed, p. 37).
Davies maintains that, although the so-called 'Roman Canon' is not obligatory on a single day throughout the year, its inclusion "enabled the majority of orthodox priests to accept the New Mass without doing too much violence to their consciences" (The New Mass, p. 15). Most of the priests who would have been expected to protest were molified by the first Eucharistic Prayer — a pattern, once again, that Davies find parallel to the staged technique of Cranmer's liturgical revolution.
Eucharistic Prayer II
Davies states that Eucharistic Prayer II, "[designated] the Canon of Hippolytus, was written by a third-century anti-pope with views of dubious orthodoxy ... It never formed a part of the official liturgy of the Church, its original version has been lost, and the text we have has certainly been modified" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 347). Dr. Coomaraswamy points out that it "is said to have been taken from Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition ... However, to this already questionable document, the innovators have made significant changes" (The Problems with the New Mass, page. 39). Edward T. Snyder's web article, 'Distorting Hippolytus,' compares the Hippolytus document and the Eucharistic Prayer line by line. Snyder notes omissions, in Eucharistic Prayer II, of phrases that serve to describe Our Lord's diving role and to link Him with the Mass, or to point up the role of the priest (Lex orandi, lex credendi web page). Reformers suppressed a specific reference to Hell and the chains of Satan — and they added 'for us,' making, according to Coomaraswamy, their heretical intent more than clear. "All pretense of a Catholic interpretation is eliminated .... There is absolutely no preparation (build-up or development) in Eucharistic Prayer 2 for the 'Consecration' of the species ... Sneeze and you will miss it" (Problems, p. 40).
Davies notes that he word hostia, victim, appears nowhere in Eucharistic Prayer II. "The chief value of the Canon of Hippolytus from the ecumenical standpoint is that its sacrificial phraseology is minimal — it was composed at a stage in the third century when there was still a long way to go before matter which was implicit in the Mass was made explicit in its prayers. Bringing this prayer into the Mass in the twentieth century is precisely the type of liturgical archaelolgism condemned as pernicious by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei" (The New Mass, p. 21)
According to Davies, "the Liturgical Establishment makes no secret of the fact that the new Eucharistic Prayers are modeled on the Jewish berakah, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. This is a point which they repeat ad nauseam in their books, articles and lectures ... The fallacy here is that although Our Lord may have used the berakah format at the last Supper this no more makes the Eucharistic Prayer a berakah than it makes the Mass a Passover meal. The Last Supper was a propitiatory sacrifice he would offer on the Cross the next day" (Pope Paul's New Mass, pp. 333-334). Davies quotes Fr. J. D. Crichton, whom he describes as England's arch-liturgist; Fr. Crichton finds great merit in Eucharistic Prayer II, because of its clear berakah pattern.
Coomaraswamy maintains that the Novus Ordo's creators exhibit a clear preference for Eucharistic Prayer II. "The official documents from Rome instruct us that Eucharistic Prayer 2 can be used on any occasion. It is recommended for sundays 'unless for pastoral reasons another Eucharistic Prayer is chosen.' It is also particularly suitable "for weekday masses, or for the mass in particular circumstances'... It is recommended for 'masses with children, young people and small groups,' and above all for Catechism classes..." (Problems, p. 41).
Eucharistic Prayer III
Eucharistic Prayer III says to Our Lord that "from age to age You gather a people to Yourself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory and honor of Your name." Coomaraswammy notes that, according to this prayer, "it is the people, rather than the Priest, who are the indispensable element in the celebration:" (ibid). Davies states that "in not one of the new Eucharistic Prayers is it made clear that the Consecration is effected by the Priest alone, and that he is not acting as spokesman or president for a concelebrating congregation." (The Roman Rite Destroyed, p. 39). This, to Davies, is further evidence of the Protestantization of the Mass, since, for Protestants, the minister possesses no powers denied to a layman.
Eucharistic Prayer IV
This prayer, according to Dr. Coomaraswamy, was composed by Fr. Cipriano Vagaggiani. Coomaraswamy finds the Latin itself innocuous, but notes that the approved translation in American use was open to heretical interpretation. "In the Latin version... the words unus Deus ("One God") are to be found, and no explicit heresy is taught... The mistranslation of unus Deus by 'You alone are God' clearly departs from the traditional norm. In the absence of any other reference to this prayer to the Son or the Holy Ghost, the use of the word 'alone' appears to be an explicit denial of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity... It is for this reason that some have referred to this Eucharistic Prayer as the 'Arian Canon'" (Problems, p. 42)
The 'Institution Narrative'
Coomaraswamy points out that "in the Novus Ordo Missae, as in the Lutheran service, the words of Consecration — the very heart of the Traditional Rite — are now part of what is called the 'Institution Narrative,' an expression not found in the traditional Missals of the Church. In the Traditional Missal, the words of Consecration are capitalized and set apart from the remaining text, making clear the form (words) of the Sacrament. In the American Novus Ordo missalettes, they run together, undifferentiated, with the remainder of the text. The tacit implication is that the priest is merely telling a story, in the accepted protestant tradition, rather than acting in the person of Christ to confect a Catholic Sacrament.
The Church has always taught that, for the Sacrament to be valid, there must be 1) a properly ordained priest, 2) who intends to do at the altar what the Church intends, 3) using the proper matter (bread and wine), and 4) using the proper form (words). Coomaraswamy notes that "the form of hte Consecration in the Traditional Mass has been fixed since Apostolic times. It has been 'canonically' fixed since the so-called Armenian Decree of the Council of Florence (1438-1445)" (The Problems with the New mass, p. 47). That form, according to the Council of Trent, is:
FOR THIS IS MY BODY.
***
FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD
OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT
THE MYSTERY OF FAITH:
WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY
UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS.
* Changes in the Consecration: "pro multis"
Although the official Latin text of the Novus Ordo Missae retains the words "pro multis," "for many," in the words of Consecration, that is a version of the Mass which Americans will rarely if ever experience. When the Novus Ordo was translated into the vernacular, those words were rendered: "for all men"; then "for all." An identical 'error' occurs in a number of languages — Italian, French, German, Spanish, Croation — suggesting that there was a decision made within the Congregation for Divine Worship in this regard.
The innovation was defended in an unsigned article in Notitiae, the Congregation's official journal. Readers were told that, in Aramaic (presumed to be Our Lord's language), the expression "for many" means "for all." Such is not the case, however; Davies points out that both Aramaic and Hebrew have different words to express both concepts. Patrick Henry Omlor gives kol or kolla as the Aramaic word for 'all'; 'saggi'an is the Aramaic word for 'many.' "Three months later Notitiae published a signed article admitting this" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 623). There has, of course, been no correction made.
Omlor points out that it is "an unquestionable fact that throughout 19 centuries and right up to the very present (i.e., before the vernacular craze became epidemic) not a single rite of the Catholic Church, not the schismatic Easter Orthodox Churches, not a single heretical Church, even, ever used the words 'for all men' in this place. Eight Eastern Rites there are in communion with the Holy See, and, as the first part of this century at least, there were eleven different languages used by these eight rites. Now in all these rites and all these languages, and also, of course, in the Latin of the Roman Rite, the formula reads 'for many'" (Insights into Heresy, p. 15)
Omlor argues convincingly that the change in ICEL's form involves basic change in theological meaning. There is a blurring, he maintains, of the distinction between the sufficiency and the efficacy of Christ's death. "[T]here are some men who, through their perverse failure to cooperate with God's grace, thereby nullify for themselves the benefits of this Purchase.... Christ's death was sufficient for all, but it is effective... only for those who avail themselves of the necessary graces God gives hem for salvation" (The Ecumenist Heresy, p. 4). As the Council of Trent explained, "Though He died for all, yet not all receive the benefit of His death, but only those unto whom the merit of His Passion is communicated" (Session VI, Chapter 3). Omlor cites the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, St. Alphonsus, Pope Innocent III, Pope Benedict XIV and others, all of whom expounded upon the vital distinction between sufficiency and efficacy.
Joachim Jeremias, a German Protestant, was the first in modern times to suggest the change to "for all." According to Hugh Ross Williamson, Jeremias, "at the time a professor at the University of Gottingen... attacked the Divinity of Christ" (The Great Betrayal, cited by Omlor). Jeremias first advanced the theory that 'for many" meant "for all" in his 1966 book, The Words of Jesus.
According to Fr. Wathen, "the reason for mistranslating the words "pro multis" to mean "for all men" was to implant the Lutheran error (held by almost all Protestants) that through the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, all will be saved who have faith in that Sacrifice, regardless of their own moral goodness, regardless of their acceptance of other revealed truths, regardless of membership in the Chruch. But this idea is only an intermediary one, meant to suggest a still more heterodox idea, that eventually all men will be saved — taken to Heaven — even the damned" (Great Sacrilege, p. 86).
Three points need to be made regarding this change of wording.
1) The liturgical reformers have changed the words of Our Lord, and, with the new wording, altered His meaning. In Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24, Jesus Christ said "for many." With incredible arrogance, the reformers have evidently decided that He should have said, "for all."
2) The reformers lacked the authority to make the change. Leo XIII's Bull Apostolicae Curae says that "the Church is forbidden to change, or even to touch, the matter or form of any Sacrament." The Church has no power over the substance of Sacraments, according to Pope Pius XII, since those Sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ (Sacramentum Ordinis, 1947). He was echoing the words of Pope St. Pius X, who said "it is well known that to the Church there belongs no right whatsoever to innovate anything touching on the substance of the Sacraments" (Ex quo, nono, 1910)
3) De Defectibus established that, if anything in the established form was omitted, the Mass would be invalid. De Defectibus is a bull of Pope St. Pius V, covering defects in the Mass. Printed in the front of every Traditional Roman altar Missal, it explicitly states that "If anyone removes or changes anything in the Form of the Consecration of the Body and Blood, and by this change of words does not signify the same thing as these words do, he does not confect the Sacrament." For the Mass to be valid, the entire, intact form [as cited on page 4] must be recited.
"In our Sacraments," teaches the Catechism of the Council of Trent, "the form is so definite that any, even a casual deviation from it renders the Sacrament null" (Part II, Ch. 1, cited by Omlor).
*Changes in the Consecration: "The Mystery of Faith"
The Consecration of the Chalice has been butchered. Not only have the words "for many" been changed to "for all," but the phrase "the Mystery of Faith" has been excised from the form, and inserted later in the Mass.
Dr. Coomaraswamy's comments on this change bear quoting in toto: "[T]he phrase has been removed from the form and made into the introduction to the peoples 'Memorial Acclamation,' thus implying that the Mystery of Faith is the Death, Resurrection and Final Coming of Our Lord, rather than His 'Real Presence' on the altar. Nor are the other Memorial Acclamations any more specific, e.g., 'when we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim Your death, Lord Jesus, until You come in glory."
"Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the principal architect of the new Mass, informs us in his memoirs that he discussed this issue directly with Paul VI. The Concilium had wished to leave the text of the 'Memorial Acclamation' up to the various National Bishops' Committees on the liturgy, but Paul VI urged that 'a series of acclamations... be prepared for use after the consecration.' According to Archbishop Bugnini, Paul VI feared that 'if the initiative were left to the Bishops' Committees, inappropriate acclamations such as My Lord and my God would be introduced.' The Catholic Church traditionally has always encouraged the private and quiet use of the ejaculatory prayer My Lord and my God, by the people at the elevation of the Host during Mass and Benediction; Pope St. Pius X attached rich indulgences to this practice, as it both affirmed belief in the Real Presence and gave praise to God" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 57)
The words 'the Mystery of Faith' are not found in the Holy Scripture; St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that they were handed down to the Church by the Apostles who received them from Our Lord (Summa, III, Q. 78, A. 3-9). Certainly this is the position of Pope Innocent III, in Cum Carthae Circa — which, by virtue of its inclusion in Denzinger, Omlor views as part of the ordinary Magisterium. Omlor stresses, therefore, that those words are "derived from Tradition (Tradition with a capital 'T', which is one of the two sources of Divine Revelation)..." (No Mystery of Faith: No Mass, p. 12). To charges that 'the mystery of Faith' does not appear in the wine consecration form of the Eastern rites, Omlor responds with a quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia: "It is abundantly clear that this diversity [of rites] arose from the traditions handed down by the different Apostles." "Through God's Infinite Wisdom... and foreknowledge of all things, it has turned out," he notes, "that only in the Western Church has the doctrine of the Real Presence been assailed" (No Mystery of Faith: No Mass, p. 19). In other words, those words signifying Christ's Real Presence exist in the Latin Rite because God knew Latin Rite Catholics would need them.
The phrase 'The Mystery of Faith' was removed by Luther and Cranmer as well, since both understood that it referred to transubstantiation. Omlor quite clearly argues that, by removing 'the Mystery of Faith' from the form of the Sacrament, the Novus Ordo revisionists have done precisely what De Defectibus cautioned against, and no Mass is therefore celebrated.
The change was not without precedent. The phrase was omitted from the wine consecration form when Pope Pius XII's New Order of Holy Week was translated into the vernacular. The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a Monitum (warning), calling the omission 'nefarious.'
The 'Short Form' Controversy. Omlor explains that "Defenders of the 'short form' position hold that these first few words of the wine-Consecration form in the Latin Rite, 'This is the Chalice of My Blood,' suffice for the valid consecration of the precious Blood. They claim that the remaining words of the sacramental form, namely, 'of the new and eternal testament, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins, although being part of the wine-consecration form laid down in the Roman Missal, are nevertheless not necessary for the valid consecration of the wine and hence not necessary for the validity of the Mass.
"The defenders of the 'entire form' position deny the foregoing supposition. They hold that, except for the word 'for,' ALL the words of the sacramental form for the wine-consecration, exactly as laid down in the Roman Missal are absolutely necessary for bringing about the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and therefore are essential for the celebration of a valid Mass" (Why the Short Form Cannot Possibly Suffice, p. 1). Omlor proceeds to demonstrate that the 'short form' position is a minority one; "very many great theologians, including saints, popes and doctors of the Church, have held that the [short form is] insufficient for the validity of the Consecration.... These exponents include St. Thomas Aquinas; St. Antonius; Pope ST. Pius V; Pope Innocent III; the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent...." and many others. Cajetan (1469-1534), a Dominican cardinal, was, according to Omlor, the first 'Thomist' to oppose the mind of St. Thomas — and Pope Pius V had Cajetan's opinion on this matter deleted from the authorized Roman edition of the Cardinal's Commentaries.
The crux of Omlor's argument is that, according to Pope Leo XIII's Bull Apostolicae Curae (1896), "All know that the Sacraments of the New Law, as sensible and efficient signs of invisible grace, must both signify THE GRACE which they effect, and effect THE GRACE which they signify... The form consequently cannot be apt or sufficient for a Sacrament which omits what it must essentially signify." The short form fails to signify in the necessary, unambiguous manner the remission of the sins of Christ's Mystical Body.
It is indisputable that the mere existence of the two opposing opinions makes the validity of the wine consecration form of the New Mass doubtful. According to Fr. Heribert Jone, a well-known Catholic moral theologian, "Matter and form must be certainly valid. Hence, one may not follow a probable opinion and use either doubtful matter or form. Acting otherwise, one commits a sacrilege" (Handbook of Moral Theology, p. 308).
The Communion Rite
In the Traditional Mass, the priest says, while distributing Communion, "May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting, Amen." In the Novus Ordo, whoever distributes Communion merely says, "The Body of Christ" — without specifying whether the phrase applies to the host, or the recipient. (It's a change typical of the studied ambiguity throughout the Novus Ordo.)
Davies notes that "the American hierarchy is actually preparing the way for Catholic acceptance of the concept that the Sacrifice in the Mass is that of Christ being offered in virtue of His presence in the congregation who offer themselves. In the official [Sept. 1976] Newsletter of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, a ruling was laid down when distributing Holy Communion a priest must not say: 'Receive the Body of Christ' or 'This is the Body of Christ.' The reason given is that the congregation itself is the Body of Christ" (The Roman Rite Destroyed, p. 39). According to that Newsletter, "the use of the phrase The Body of Christ: Amen, in the communion rite asserts in a very forceful way the presence and role of the community... The change to the use of the phrase ... rather than the long formula which was previously said by the Priest has several repercussions in the liturgical renewal. First, it seeks to highlight the important concept, of the community as the Body of Christ; secondly it brings into focus the assent of the individual in the worshiping community...." The assent of the worshiping community, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the objective reality of transubstantiation, which can be effected in its absence; it is only in the heretical Lutheran transignification that the belief of the recipient impacts on the reality of the Sacrament.
The Revised Propers
The propers of the Mass are the variable Sunday and Feast day prayers. Fr. Anthony Cekada attempted a line-by-line comparison of the old and new Propers, in The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass (hereinafter, PPMM). He found he task arduous, since many of the old orations have been moved or altogether deleted, and the liturgical calendar itself has been drastically modified. Epiphanytide, Septuagesima and the Ember Days were deleted, the number of Saints remembered in the calendar was dramatically reduced, and feasts have been relocated or suppressed.
The Traditional Missal, according to Fr. Cekada, contains 182 orations. "About 760 of those were dropped entirely. Of the approximately 36% which remained, the revisers altered over half of them.... Thus, only some 17% of the orations from the old Missal made it untouched into the new Missal" (PPMM, p. 9). Fr. Cekada's conclusion is that "the contents of Paul VI's Missal represent a radical break with the Church's liturgical tradition."
*The Agenda of the Reformers
fr. Cekada quotes Fr. Carlo Braga, assistant to Fr. Bugnini (the latter, Secretary for the Concilium charged with liturgical reform). Fr. Braga's words should sound warning bells in the ears of those who can recall the textbook definition of heresy.
"Revising the pre-existing text becomes more delicate when faced with a need to update content or language, and when all this affects not only form, but also doctrinal reality. This [revision] is called for in light of the new view of human values... The Council clearly proposes this [new view] and it was kept in mind when the Temporal Cycle was revised... In other cases, Ecumenical requirements dictated appropriate revisions in language. Expressions calling positions or struggles of the past are no longer in harmony with the Church's new positions. An entirely new foundation of Eucharistic theology has superceded devotional points of view or a particular way of venerating and invoking the Saints. Retouching the text, moreover, was deemed necessary to bring to light new values and new perspectives." (Fr. Carlo Braga, 'Il Proprium de Sactis', Ephemerides Liturgicae 84, 1970, p. 419).
*Doctrines deleted or downplayed
Fr. Cekada found that the above-mentioned 'new values' required the downplaying or obliteration in the new Propers of a long list of Catholic 'doctrinal realities.'"These include hell, judgment, God's wrath, punishment for sin, the wickedness of sin as the greatest evil, detachment from the world, purgatory, the souls of the departed, Christ's kingship on earth, the Church Militant, the triumph of the Catholic Faith, the evils of heresy, schism and error, the conversion of non-Catholics, the merits of the Saints, and miracles...." (PPMM, p. 28). Some of the 'adjustments' were made by way of mistranslations. There are, according to Christopher Monckton, former editor of the (London) Universe, over 400 mistranslations in the English version of the New Mass — errors paralleled in other vernacular translations except the Polish. Both he and Davies maintain that the inaccurate renderings serve to dilute or remove allusions and references to those doctrines of the Mass that are specifically Catholic. Monckton finds that "The thoroughness and determination with which those teachings.... have been removed is demonstrated by many minor omissions which are often repeated" (quoted in Pope Paul's New Mass, pp. 617-618).
'Negative theology.' Concilium Study Group member Fr. Auge explained the need to rework the 'negative theology' of the Advent and Lenten Propers. "Some of these collects, in fact, spoke of, among other things, the punishments, anger or divine wrath for our sins, of a Christian assembly oppressed with guilt, continually afflicted due to its disorders, threatened with condemnation to eternal punishment, etc." (cited in PPMM, p. 11) Fr. Cekada explains that the Concilium simply rewrote or abolished "texts which contained ideas that contemporary man finds disturbing." The possibility of damnation has been excised from the old Collect for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, now used fro the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The prayer for support in human weakness now asks only an increase in charity. "The revisers," notes Fr. Cekada, "were forced to change the entire character of the Lenten prayers. The traditional Lenten orations relentlessly emphasized fasting and mortifications of the flesh... Emergency surgery was prescribed" (PPMM, pp. 15-16). Orations that once spoke of heroic mortifications of the flesh now speak of 'moderation' and 'restraint.' Orations mentioning our guilt, temporal or eternal punishment or spiritual combat were suppressed or altered.
Consideration was given to abolishing Ash Wednesday; in the end, two of the four orations were eliminated, and the other two 'doctored.' One, which formerly asked for the spirit of compunction for sin, now contains only what Fr. Cekada terms "incongruous talk about celebrating the paschal mystery." The other was stripped of the words "pardon," "humility," the "fragility of the human condition," and the concept of death as a penalty for our guilt. The Holy Thursday prayer that mentioned that Judas Iscariot was punished by God for his guilt has been removed.
Detachment from the world is no longer a concern; orations that spoke of putting aside earthly pleasures have been deleted.
Rites and Prayers for the Dead have undergone extreme reconstruction. "White vestments replaced black; Alleluia replaced Eternal Rest Grant unto Them, and the typical funeral, in America at least, was turned into something akin to a canonization ceremony ... Hell, for contemporary man, is not on his list of fundamental options" (PPMM, p. 20). The word 'soul' has been excised almost entirely from the new Missal. In the New Mass for All Souls' Day ti does not appear once. Revisers dropped 11 of the traditional prayers from the dead which used the word 'soul' and struck the word itself from 23 of the 25 orations they retained.
Ecumenism. "The notion of acknowledging the one, true God has been deleted from the Collect for St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Collect for the Propagation of the Faith,... now the Collect fro the Evangelization of Peoples, underwent similar revisions... The goal of the missionary's apostolate has been changed; in the old collect it was to bring nations to know the only true God and Jesus Christ — the phrase is a quote from Our Lord's discourse in John 17; in the new collect, it appears to be merely 'preaching the Gospel.' The means have been turned into an end" (PPMM, pp. 22-23). Mention of the Church Militant has been struck from the Feasts of Christ the King and St. Ignatius Loyola.
Allusions to the existence of heresy have been deleted; the Oration for Heretics and Schismatics has been abolished. The Church apparently no longer has enemies; mention of them has been struck from the ST. Pius V oration. We no longer pray for the conversion of the Jews or Pagans. We now ask that the Jews increase in faithfulness to their Covenant, and "come to the fullness of redemption." Gone is the mention of Jewish faithlessness and blindness.
Fr. Cekada notes that "the merits of the saints followed the soul into virtual oblivion" (PPMM, p. 25). Traditional prayers which invoked the "merits and intercession" of the saints now ask only for their prayers. The miracles of the saints fare no better; all have been suppressed, as Fr. Braga explained, to adapt to "the mentality of modern man." Those miracles were, after all, "characteristic of a certain hagiography of the past."
Fr. Cekada further noted in a 1986 speech that "the greatest outrage that the translators perpetrated was consistently leaving out the word 'grace' from their translations. It appears in the Latin original of the Orations 11 times, but not once in the official English version. Thus, the word which is fundamental to Catholic teaching on the Fall of man, the Redemption, sin, justification, and the entire sacramental system has utterly disappeared without a trace..." (Cited in The Problems with the New Mass, p. 80)
****
Fr. Cekada summarizes: "The virtual elimination of these 'doctrinal realities' from the new Missale is nothing less than an attack on the integrity of the Catholic faith. Liturgy of its nature expresses doctrine, and, as Pope Pius XII observed, the entire liturgy 'bears public witness to the faith of the Church.' This intimate connection between liturgy and doctrine is often summed up in the old adage, Lex orandi, led credendi — 'the law of prayer is the law of belief' ... During the course of the liturgical year, [these prayers] bore witness individually to countless truths, each of which was (and is) and integral part of the Church's law of belief. Shrouding a substantial portion of these truths in obscurity, ambiguity or silence is an invitation for men to deny them... If hell, the human soul or the wickedness of sin count for little in the new liturgy, they will in turn count for little for the man in the pew" (PPMM, p. 28-31)...
...Part 3: Legal Questions
What is the force of Quo Primum?
Fr. Wathen explains that "Quo Primum established the Traditional Rite in perpetuity with all the force which the Pope's office possessed" (Ascend, pp. 528-529). An act of the Council of Trent as well as a Sainted Pope, Quo Primum says that "by virtue of our Apostolic Authority we give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever this Missal may be followed absolutely, without any scruple or conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgement or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used." It was declared "unlawful henceforth and forever throughout the Christian world to sing or to read Masses according to any other formula other than that of this Missal, published by us," with the exception of an Indult granted to approved mass rites that had been in use for over 200 years at that time. Furthermore, Quo Primum specifically states that "no one whosoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command..."
"You can find canonists who will tell you that Pope Paul VI, having authority equal to that of Pope St. Pius V, could legally abrogate Quo Primum, and legally introduce a new missal," Fr. Wathen observes. Michael Davies has found several who say precisely this. Certainly in purely disciplinary measures, the principle is a true one. However, Fr. Wathen's argument is that Quo Primum "is a law that was imposed with the fullest pontifical authority, whose intention was to protect the Mass insofar as it might ever need protecting, from any mischief whatsoever... It should be taken as a self-evident fact that the Church, as a perfect society — one, that is, which possesses all the means necessary for the achievement of the ends of its existence — has all the power and authority she needs to protect the Mass of the Roman Rite, and that, in the legislation, Quo Primum, she attempted to raise such an incontestable bulwark" (Ascend, pp. 530-531).
Is Papal infallibility involved?
According to Fr. Wathen, "the prevalent opinion is that, by his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of April 3, 1969, His Holiness Pope Paul VI established the Novus Ordo Missae to replace the Traditional Latin Mass... Consequently, to refuse to offer this 'New Mass' is a serious violation of Church law. And to question it on doctrinal grounds is tantamount to questioning the doctrine of Papal Infallibility" (Great Sacrilege, pp. 16-17). There are those, he notes, "who say that the Holy Ghost would never permit the supreme authority of the Church to impose as a universally binding law something which is contrary or harmful to faith or morals... Any law, they imagine, that the Church passes which has to do with their moral obligations cannot be harmful to them, else the Church will have violated her infallibility" (Ascend, p. 514).
This argument, however, does not bear scrutiny. The First Vatican Council, which laid down the conditions for infallibility, states that, among other requirements, the Pope must speak as the Pope, exercising his office of teaching the whole Church. In addition to the Latin Rite, there are five other liturgical Rites within the universal Church — some 12 million souls who would not have been directly affected by the introduction of the Novus Ordo. Liturgical precepts might in fact be morally wrong, since "they are not universally binding, and are not protected by the Church's infallibility" (Ascend, p. 516). Furthermore, "the doctrine of Papal infallibility, by stating in what respect the Pope cannot err, admits, in effect, that in all other areas of his vast prerogatives the Pope is completely fallible... [T]here is no divine promise that the Pope will not be permitted to use his great authority in the most wicked and destructive ways" (Great Sacrilege, pp. 21-22)
It is a moot point. Fr. Wathen finds that "Christ and the True Church, through the decree of Pope Pius II, Execrabilis, have rendered all the acts of the Council, and all that are done by virtue of the Council, null and void" (Ascend, p. 516). According to Execrabilis, no future council, and no pope, may overturn the solemn definitions of the Sacred Magisterium. Any council called to contravene existing Magisterial teaching was anathematized in advance; those involved incur, in addition to ecclesiastical censure, "the indignation of almighty God, and of Saints Peter and Paul, His Apostles."
Was the Traditional Latin Mass Suppressed?
In 1986, Pope John Paul II called together nine Cardinals and formed a papal commission. The commission's purpose was to examine the legal status of the Traditional Latin Mass, and it was to answer two questions: 1) Did Pope Paul VI abrogate the Latin Rite? And 2) Does any priest need permission to offer Mass in the Traditional Rite?
The commission concluded unanimously that Pope Paul did not abrogate the traditional rite; he never gave the bishops the authority to forbid celebration according to the traditional rite of Mass.
To the second question, the commission responded 8 votes in the negative, and one in the positive. Priests cannot be obligated to celebrate the new rite of mass; bishops cannot forbid or place restrictions on the celebration of the traditional rite, whether in public or in private.
According to Fr. Paul Leonard, the commission recommended that the Pope issue a papal decree based on the commission's findings, but "Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican's Secretary of State, maneuvered the situation in such a manner so as to obstruct [issuance of a papal decree]." Cardinal Casaroli, a member of the commission in question, was also among those named as a secret society member when the Italian Register was published in 1976. He served as Prefect of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of Canon Law — which produced the new 1983 Code, deleting specific mention of Freemasonry as forbidden.
Fr. Raymond V. Dunn, SJ, notes that the commission and its findings might have remained in obscurity, were it not for Alphons Cardinal Stickler, also a commission member, who has made known the findings ("The State of the Liturgy in the Catholic Church Today," Catholic Family News, October 1997, p. 15). "We have no official prohibition," Cardinal Stickler said, "and I think that the Pope would never establish an official prohibition... because of the words of Pius V, who said this was a mass forever" (Latin Mass Magazine, May 5, 1995).
"The Holy See," continues Fr. Leonard, "does recognize the right of the priest to celebrate the Traditional Mass, and this is borne out by the fact that whenever priests are unjustly suspended for celebrating the Tridentine Mass, against the will of their bishops, the Roman courts always nullify the penalty whenever the cases are appealed.
"This is just one more proof that it is not the traditional priests who are disobedient when they celebrate the Tridentine mass, but it is the bishops who are entirely outside the law when they... forbid the traditional Mass. This fact also clearly demonstrates that penalties inflicted on priests for celebrating the Traditional Mass are null and void, as is clearly stated in the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum....." ("Traditional Mass Never Suppressed," The Remnant, 6/30/89)
So Pius XII was wrong when he changed the Mass, as this article later admits? Odd that Pius XII didn't think that certain legal terms used in "Quo Primum" - terms which had been used in many other bulls which were later suppressed - made the rite inviolable.
it seems reasonable to conclude that the Council Fathers intended the reformed Missal to be investigated with the same permanence as their doctrinal teaching, because the Missale would give liturgical expression to what they had defined by their dogmatic decrees
This is the same Council that wrote the following?
It furthermore declares, that this power has ever been in the Church, that, in the dispensation of the sacraments, their substance being untouched, it may ordain,--or change, what things soever it may judge most expedient, for the profit of those who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, according to the difference of circumstances, times, and places.
The General Instruction for the New Mass makes clear a theological shift. Commenting on one particularly riveting portion (see above), Fr. Wathen points out that "the New Mass is a memorial meal. This instruction does not say that the priest offers a sacrifice. He merely presides over the assembly. Christ's presence is not physical but spiritual, as when any group of 'Christians' gather. The French writer, Edith Delamare, comments: 'Here the [Protestant] Lord's Supper and the [Catholic] Mass are merged into one ... In the present ecumenical context, it is as if neither Luther nor the Council of Trent ever happened.'" (Who Shall Ascend, p. 534).2
This completely ignores the Preamble to the GIRM.
In this new Missal, then, the Church's rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her perennial rule of belief (lex credendi), by which namely we are taught that the Sacrifice of the Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and commanded the Apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of offering, and that consequently the Mass is at once a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, of propitiation and satisfaction.
The Mass is still referred to as the Lord's Supper. Cardinal Ottaviani's Critical Study noted that the Mass "is designated by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed as they are separately and in an absolute sense."
When you come therefore together into one place, it is not now to eat the Lord's supper. (1 Cor 11:20)
There's that heretic St. Paul, using "Lord's supper".
The studied ambiguity of the General Instruction is found throughout the New mass; its use allows a muddying of the theological waters without the formal denial of any Catholic beliefs.
The Preamble, added to safeguard the doctrinal exactitude of the Rite after Ottaviani's letter, allows no such thing.
The Traditional Roman Mass begins with what are called "the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar," in which the priest offers personal prayers of reparation to God. In the Novus Ordo, these prayers have been replaced by a Penitential Rite, which the priest and people recite together. As Cardinal Ottaviani charged, there is a blurring, in the New Mass, of the distinction between priest and laity — evident in this change (one also instituted by 16th Century Protestant reformers).
Pius XII allowed the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar to be dropped in the Holy Week reform. If it was okay for him, it should be okay for any Catholic. As for the claim that the Penitential Rite "replaced" them, this is nonsense. The Penitential Rite was in the 1962 Missal. Having the people confess their sins blurs the distinction? Nonsense! One might as well condemn Pius XI for encouraging the faithful to sing the chant.
In order that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let them be made once more to sing the Gregorian Chant, so far as it belongs to them to take part in it. It is most important that when the faithful assist at the sacred ceremonies, or when pious sodalities take part with the clergy in a procession, they should not be merely detached and silent spectators, but, filled with a deep sense of the beauty of the Liturgy, they should sing alternately with the clergy or the choir, as it is prescribed. If this is done, then it will no longer happen that the people either make no answer at all to the public prayers -- whether in the language of the Liturgy or in the vernacular -- or at best utter the responses in a low and subdued manner. (Encyclical Divini Cultus)
The term 'Offertory' itself has vanished
It has not. Here are some exerpts from the GIRM:
They should, however, sit while the readings before the Gospel and the responsorial Psalm are proclaimed and for the homily and while the Preparation of the Gifts at the Offertory is taking place; and, as circumstances allow, they may sit or kneel while the period of sacred silence after Communion is observed.The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory chant (cf. above, no. 37b), which continues at least until the gifts have been placed on the altar. The norms on the manner of singing are the same as for the Entrance chant (cf. above, no. 48). Singing may always accompany the rite at the offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts.
Others accompany another rite, such as the chants at the Entrance, at the Offertory, at the fraction (Agnus Dei), and at Communion.
Citing as an example the deleted Suscipe, Sancte Pater both Fr. Wathen and Dr. Coomaraswamy demonstrate the incompatibility between the Catholic theology expressed in that prayer and the new religion of 'Catholic' modernists. The prayer itself reads:
What a surprise! Prayers of the 1962 Missal are incompatible with Modernism! The only problem is - this is true about all the prayers - especially the Roman Canon.
was said silently by the celebrant ... If there are two things we cannot abide in the 'new age,' it is silent prayers during the communal prayer service, and the priest's acting as if he were about to do something in virtue of his own priesthood, which the laity cannot participate in
This is nonsense. The Novus Ordo still has silent prayers of the priest, like this one in the offertory:
In spiritu humilitatis et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te, Domine; et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, Domine Deus.
The offering of Cain has been substituted for that of Abel
et accepta habere, siculti accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti Abel
the new prayer makes no reference to the propitiation for sin
Neither does the Confiteor. On the other hand, propitiation is taught in other prayers, like this one from the Offertory:
et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, Domine Deus.
"where Catholics humbly beseech God's acceptance the prayer of the Jew audaciously says 'Here — we made it, You take it.' without humility. No contrite heart. No respect for the Divine. Rudely imposed upon the Catholic ear and mind is a 'prayer' of unbelievers in Christ, rejecting the Sacrifice, Redemption and Salvation wrought by Christ, the God-Man" (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Knox Query, p. 18).
This is simply ridiculous. The prayer specifically credits God with giving the bread through His goodness. Furthermore, if humility is what is needed:
In spiritu humilitatis et in animo contrito suscipiamur a te, Domine; et sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, Domine Deus.
He sees in the "We offer" another example of the systematic blurring in the Novus Ordo, of the distinction between priest and laity; it is now possible to interpret it as a service concelebrated by the entire congregation.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with "we offer". I present the Roman Canon:
uti accepta habeas et benedicas + haec dona haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata, in primis, quae tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta catholica
The expressions 'bread of life' and 'spiritual drink,' of course, are utterly vague and could mean anything.
And are clearly clarified later in the Rite.
Quam oblationem tu, Deus, in omnibus, quaesumus, benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere digneris: ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi.
According to the new definition of the Mass [in the General Instruction], Christ is only spiritually present among His own; here bread and wine are only spiritually — and not substantially — changed
Moreover, the wondrous mystery of the Lord's real presence under the eucharistic species, reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council and other documents of the Church's Magisterium in the same sense and with the same words that the Council of Trent had proposed as a matter of faith, is proclaimed in the celebration of Mass not only by means of the very words of consecration, by which Christ becomes present through transubstantiation, but also by that interior disposition and outward expression of supreme reverence and adoration in which the Eucharistic Liturgy is carried out. For the same reason the Christian people is drawn on Holy Thursday of the Lord's Supper, and on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, to venerate this wonderful Sacrament by a special form of adoration. (GIRM §3)
Christ is really present in the very liturgical assembly gathered in his name, in the person of the minister, in his word, and indeed substantially and continuously under the eucharistic species. (GIRM §27)
The new "Invitation to Prayer" deserves mention. In the Traditional Mass, the Priest asks "Prayer, Brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable...." This has been changed to "our sacrifice" in the New Mass.
No it hasn't.
Orate, fratres: ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium acceptabile fiat apud Deum Patrem omnipotem.P. Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram totius que Ecclesiae suae sanctae.
That Eucharistic Prayer, for example, asks that the offering "may become for us the Body and Blood..." Coomaraswamy notes that such a phrase is understandable in the Cranmerian/Protestant sense, which denies that the bread and wine are transubstantiated themselves.
Yes, and these same words were used in the Traditional Mass. If there is no transubstantiation - what exactly is this supposed to mean?
offerimus praeclarae maiestati tuae de tuis donis ac datis hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctam vitae aeternae et Calicem salutis perpetuae.
and they added 'for us,' making, according to Coomaraswamy, their heretical intent more than clear.
Yes. Clearly the Traditional Mass was written by heretics, since it uses that very same formula of "for us".
All pretense of a Catholic interpretation is eliminated
Ridiculous and overreaching.
Haec ergo dona, quaesumus, Spiritus tui rore sanctifica, ut nobis Corpus et + Sanguis fiant Domini nostri Iesu Christi.
Memores igitur mortis et resurrectionis eius, tibi, Domine, panem vitae et calicem salutis offerimus ...
Eucharistic Prayer III says to Our Lord that "from age to age You gather a people to Yourself, in order that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory and honor of Your name." Coomaraswammy notes that, according to this prayer, "it is the people, rather than the Priest, who are the indispensable element in the celebration:" (ibid).
No it doesn't. The "people" is the Church - the People of God. If there were no members of the Church, would the Sacrifice be offered from east to west? Of course not!
Davies states that "in not one of the new Eucharistic Prayers is it made clear that the Consecration is effected by the Priest alone, and that he is not acting as spokesman or president for a concelebrating congregation."
Neither is this "made clear" in the Roman Canon - irrelevant, as the GIRM states that the Priest acts in the person of Christ.
Coomaraswamy finds the Latin itself innocuous
So the prayer is fine and orthodox? Not much of a criticism.
notes that the approved translation in American use was open to heretical interpretation. "In the Latin version... the words unus Deus ("One God") are to be found, and no explicit heresy is taught... The mistranslation of unus Deus by 'You alone are God' clearly departs from the traditional norm. In the absence of any other reference to this prayer to the Son or the Holy Ghost, the use of the word 'alone' appears to be an explicit denial of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity... It is for this reason that some have referred to this Eucharistic Prayer as the 'Arian Canon'"
What's next? Attacking the Gloria as heretical? Or are we to believe that the Gloria teaches the Trinity while later in the rite the Canon denies it?
Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus Altissimus, Iesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu: in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.
In the American Novus Ordo missalettes, they run together, undifferentiated, with the remainder of the text. The tacit implication is that the priest is merely telling a story, in the accepted protestant tradition, rather than acting in the person of Christ to confect a Catholic Sacrament.
I just checked the Sacramentary - the Words of Consecration are set apart and placed in large font.
Omlor argues convincingly that the change in ICEL's form involves basic change in theological meaning. There is a blurring, he maintains, of the distinction between the sufficiency and the efficacy of Christ's death.
No there isn't.
It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.
Clearly it is talking of the sufficiency.
1) The liturgical reformers have changed the words of Our Lord, and, with the new wording, altered His meaning. In Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24, Jesus Christ said "for many." With incredible arrogance, the reformers have evidently decided that He should have said, "for all."
"The liturgical reforms have changed the words of Our Lord, corrupting them with Pauline language. In the evangelical accounts, Jesus never said 'the mystery of faith'. With incredible arrogance, some Pope has decided he should have said it."
Actually the Ottaviani Intervention is quite clear on this point. "The ancient formula of consecration was properly a sacramental not a narrative one."
The reformers lacked the authority to make the change. Leo XIII's Bull Apostolicae Curae says that "the Church is forbidden to change, or even to touch, the matter or form of any Sacrament."
I find no such statement in the Bull.
3) De Defectibus established that, if anything in the established form was omitted, the Mass would be invalid. De Defectibus is a bull of Pope St. Pius V, covering defects in the Mass. Printed in the front of every Traditional Roman altar Missal, it explicitly states that "If anyone removes or changes anything in the Form of the Consecration of the Body and Blood, and by this change of words does not signify the same thing as these words do, he does not confect the Sacrament." For the Mass to be valid, the entire, intact form [as cited on page 4] must be recited.
And De Defectibus was for the St. Pius V Missal, not Paul VI's Missal.
"In our Sacraments," teaches the Catechism of the Council of Trent, "the form is so definite that any, even a casual deviation from it renders the Sacrament null" (Part II, Ch. 1, cited by Omlor).
Here's another quote from the same Catechism:
Concerning this form no one can doubt, if he here also attend to what has been already said about the form used in the consecration of the bread. The form to be used (in the consecration) of this element, evidently consists of those words which signify that the substance of the wine is changed into the blood of our Lord. since, therefore, the words already cited clearly declare this, it is plain that no other words constitute the form.
The Consecration of the Chalice has been butchered. Not only have the words "for many" been changed to "for all," but the phrase "the Mystery of Faith" has been excised from the form, and inserted later in the Mass.
The Mozabaric Rite had a butchered consecration? The new words are directly from it.
According to Archbishop Bugnini, Paul VI feared that 'if the initiative were left to the Bishops' Committees, inappropriate acclamations such as My Lord and my God would be introduced.'
The acclamation "My Lord and My God" was approved for use in Scotland's translation of the Mass.
which, by virtue of its inclusion in Denzinger, Omlor views as part of the ordinary Magisterium.
Adding something to Denzinger makes it part of the ordinary Magisterium?
"Through God's Infinite Wisdom... and foreknowledge of all things, it has turned out," he notes, "that only in the Western Church has the doctrine of the Real Presence been assailed" (No Mystery of Faith: No Mass, p. 19). In other words, those words signifying Christ's Real Presence exist in the Latin Rite because God knew Latin Rite Catholics would need them.
This just goes to show Omlor's lack of historical knowledge. Hasn't he ever heard of Patriarch Cyril Lucar of Constantinople?
Omlor quite clearly argues that, by removing 'the Mystery of Faith' from the form of the Sacrament, the Novus Ordo revisionists have done precisely what De Defectibus cautioned against, and no Mass is therefore celebrated.
So the Mozabaric Rite was always invalid? This is nonsense - the form of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is universal. If "mysterium fidei" is not required in other rites, it isn't required in the Latin rite. Actually though, De Defectibus says:
If, on the other hand, he were to add or take away anything which did not change the meaning, the Sacrament would be valid, but he would be committing a grave sin.
The short form fails to signify in the necessary, unambiguous manner the remission of the sins of Christ's Mystical Body.
So the Mozabaric Rite is invalid? All the Eastern Rites are invalid?
It is indisputable that the mere existence of the two opposing opinions makes the validity of the wine consecration form of the New Mass doubtful. According to Fr. Heribert Jone, a well-known Catholic moral theologian, "Matter and form must be certainly valid. Hence, one may not follow a probable opinion and use either doubtful matter or form. Acting otherwise, one commits a sacrilege" (Handbook of Moral Theology, p. 308).
Great! How's this? "In my uninformed opinion, all sacraments except the ones celebrated according to Paul VI's reformed rite are INVALID. This is because the Pope is infallible and can change whatever he wishes." Does this mean no one is allowed to attend any Mass other than the Novus Ordo, now?
In the Novus Ordo, whoever distributes Communion merely says, "The Body of Christ" — without specifying whether the phrase applies to the host, or the recipient. (It's a change typical of the studied ambiguity throughout the Novus Ordo.)
This is no more ambiguous than the previous set of words - words which generally were mumbled for every three people.
The word 'soul' has been excised almost entirely from the new Missal. In the New Mass for All Souls' Day it does not appear once.
"et cum spiritu tuo" doesn't count?
in the new collect, it appears to be merely 'preaching the Gospel.' The means have been turned into an end
Quibbling.
Traditional prayers which invoked the "merits and intercession" of the saints now ask only for their prayers.
And the difference between the intercession of saints and their prayers is...
However, Fr. Wathen's argument is that Quo Primum "is a law that was imposed with the fullest pontifical authority, whose intention was to protect the Mass insofar as it might ever need protecting, from any mischief whatsoever... It should be taken as a self-evident fact that the Church, as a perfect society — one, that is, which possesses all the means necessary for the achievement of the ends of its existence — has all the power and authority she needs to protect the Mass of the Roman Rite, and that, in the legislation, Quo Primum, she attempted to raise such an incontestable bulwark" (Ascend, pp. 530-531).
So Pius XII was wrong when he changed parts of the Mass?
There are those, he notes, "who say that the Holy Ghost would never permit the supreme authority of the Church to impose as a universally binding law something which is contrary or harmful to faith or morals... Any law, they imagine, that the Church passes which has to do with their moral obligations cannot be harmful to them, else the Church will have violated her infallibility" (Ascend, p. 514).
Yes. "those" include the unanimous consensus of the approved authors, as Michael Davies has noted.
Furthermore, "the doctrine of Papal infallibility, by stating in what respect the Pope cannot err, admits, in effect, that in all other areas of his vast prerogatives the Pope is completely fallible... [T]here is no divine promise that the Pope will not be permitted to use his great authority in the most wicked and destructive ways" (Great Sacrilege, pp. 21-22)
This is simply wrong. The Vatican I definition deliberately left out certain areas of papal infallibility - as can be found in consulting Bishop Gasser's explanations of the schema. This was left out because the Church's infallibility in matters which are needed for the safeguarding and expounding of the deposit of faith was to be defined in the second dogmatic constitution on the Church.
It is a moot point. Fr. Wathen finds that "Christ and the True Church, through the decree of Pope Pius II, Execrabilis, have rendered all the acts of the Council, and all that are done by virtue of the Council, null and void" (Ascend, p. 516). According to Execrabilis, no future council, and no pope, may overturn the solemn definitions of the Sacred Magisterium. Any council called to contravene existing Magisterial teaching was anathematized in advance; those involved incur, in addition to ecclesiastical censure, "the indignation of almighty God, and of Saints Peter and Paul, His Apostles."
It says nothing of the sort.
An execrable, and in former ages unheard-of abuse, has sprung up in our time; namely, that some people, imbued with the spirit of rebellion, presume to appeal to a future council from the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom it was said in the person of blessed Peter: "Feed my sheep" and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." (Pius II, Execrabilis)
So the Offertory has not disappeared because the word is used in the General Instructions? That's a laugh. So are most of your arguments. The whole intent of the re-write was to disguise the purpose--which had been so blatantly obvious in the original text--to ignore Trent and foist a Protestantizing Mass on the faithful. Of course the Vatican uses the words "Offertory" and "Sacrifice" and insists the New Mass is but a reform of the old--but that is not what is going on. What it is is a radical new thing wholly foreign to the Catholic Church. Thus the so-called "Offertory" is a mere "Presentation of Gifts", of bread and wine--with no mention of Christ's victimhood as an offering to the Father--exactly as found in any Lutheran service. The sacrifice itself is not that of the Cross, but of "thanksgiving." And so it goes. Duplicity is the very essence of this new invention--the Novus Ordo was designed to deceive--and does so from start to finish.
The utter lack of support for this statement in the actual Bull is a cause for concern. Care to comment?
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the Bull does not provide supporting evidence for its conclusions--or that there is little support for the Bull itself by theologians--or neither?
The article you posted contains a quote - and it is not to be found anywhere in the Bull. Hence my confusion.
Huh? This article has some good information in it - but goodness, who proofed it?
I assume he is alluding to the argument by Omlor, not the Bull directly.
Obviously a typo.
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