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“We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another; this is a shortsighted and entirely ideological stance and, therefore, neither pastoral nor Christian,” Cardinal Robert Sarah said on Aug. 27. “It is harmful and destructive to the Church.”
Sarah, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Giornale last week about the importance of the traditional liturgy, which dates back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great and earlier, and which was celebrated worldwide until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
After the council, the old liturgy was abandoned, although some priests continued to celebrate it. The archbishop of Dakar, Senegal, Marcel Lefebvre, remained faithful to it and founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) under the claim of preserving the Traditional Latin Mass and in opposition to some reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The SSPX has twice been declared to be in schism, including in 2026, and its bishops excommunicated.
In the mid-1980s, the Holy See began to relax the de facto ban. In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 authorized all priests to celebrate the old liturgy; in his view, strictly speaking, it had never been abrogated. He differentiated between the Traditional Latin Mass as the “extraordinary form” and the new Mass as the “ordinary form.”
Pope Francis revoked his predecessorʼs decision in 2021 and severely restricted the classical Roman liturgy with his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.
“Among the effects of the liberalization of the extraordinary form was the positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form,” Sarah said. “These abuses are extremely serious acts, yet we must never equate the ordinary form itself with them. Many priests testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”
“I think Benedict XVI also demonstrated on that occasion a deeply humble and democratic attitude,” the cardinal continued, recalling the 2007 decision. “He wanted to ensure the widest possible dissemination, so that the people of God could decide for themselves, over the decades, which form of living out the faith best suited them. All of this, however, was nullified by Traditionis Custodes, while the pope emeritus was still alive.”
“That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful,” Sarah explained. “But Benedict XVI, a man as gentle as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer, so as to better identify with Christ’s pain for his Church and to purify it.”
Sarah said that “access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted by means of decrees. If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it, for in doing so we would be restricting the very preservation and spread of the faith.”
This story was first published by ACI Digital, the Portuguese-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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The Latin Mass should have been discontinued years ago when the New Mass came out. Benedict made a mistake in allowing greater access.
they have mass attendance why shut them down; saving souls is the work of the church
And the so called “Latin” Mass is the Tridentine Mass. This is the mass stipulated at the great Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, which was the Church response to the Protestant Reformation and the internal problems of the Church, including corruption and abuses. Vatican II went against the great Council of Trent.
Cite the criteria that made it a mistake.
Benedict’s mistake was resigning and putting us in Francis’ clutches.
Making America great again.
Continuing the theme of civility from Jonathan I see. Yes those of us who prefer the TLM must also blindly support a specific political group thus making your dismissal of us even easier for you.
Yeah, well, prefering specific political groups that oppose crushing the skulls of babies to those who prefer crushing the skulls of babies does represent actual civility even if this might offend the crushers of baby skulls.
Thank you for your Christian witness. I agree those of us who attend the TLM are sub-human and should be excommunicated for trying to be faithful and experience reverent Mass. I even converted to the Church so never went to the Mass before Vatican II so can’t explain why I prefer the peace and consistency to the NO Masses I have attended. Again though you are right to lump all of us who prefer the TLM into a group and suppress our expression of faith. Maybe a re-education camp would be helpful.
Sadly, good holy bishops and cardinals who hold the true faith are ageing and retiring. They are being replaced by those who hold to a faith that is not Catholic.
As a bishop you can worship a pagan idol and be rewarded with promotion. Hold to the true faith and face Rome’s anger.
Cardinal Sarah – the man who should have been Pope.
I would have loved to see Walter Kasper forced to kiss Cardinal Sarah’s ring after elevation to the Papacy-and maybe instead of being called “clever” by Francis, he’d have been called to work in some archive where he would not be seen.
When I think of ol’ Walt, I remember his birthday. March 5, 1933. Something was truly amiss those days, with Hitler taking a step towards totalitarian rule in Germany, and our totalitarian, Roosevelt beginning his conquest that day as well.
You think he’ll be surprised when he finds out he’ll be spending eternity with McCarrick?
When they were announcing the election of the new Pope and I heard the name Robert, for a brief moment my heart soared…
Mine too!
Thank you. To listen to Cardinal Sarah is to be inspired by his grasp of the gospel – there is no confusion after listening or reading his words. Frankly, I have tended to disregard the College of Cardinals because of who they have chosen lately. Give us a pope who is not fearful of the ways of the world but stands first and foremost on testifying of Christ. Give us a pope who knows and understands Gospel of Jesus Christ and how God has led the Church for the past two thousand years.
Now that’s what I call submission of will and intellect! Lumen gentium, 25.
I’m curious to know what it means that Cardinals Sarah recognizes, on the one hand, that Benedict XVI’s silence and humble acceptance of Francis’ decision was a mark of holiness and virtue, and yet on the other hand he chooses the complete opposite course of action: is not silent and is not humble (he sees what Francis and Leo are too blind to see?), and he gives witness to division. I know one pastor who said to his associate that we must never oppose one another in public, in front of the people. If you disagree with me on something, we talk about it one on one, to prevent scandal. Not sure why Cardinal Sarah lacks that wisdom.
You can’t call what you wrote there, wisdom.
Thomas James: Because in the final analysis, speaking the truth is more important than anything. Why? Because Christ said He is the Truth. And, besides, he’s a bishop and the prime ministry of bishops is to teach. That means speaking out truthfully to the Faithful. During the clergy sexual abuse scandal we learned that bishops purposely withheld the truth. In doing so, they were doing the work of Satan who is the Father of Lies.
Congratulations on selective indignity. If you criticize this man but let Cupich, Hollerich, Marx, McElroy and the rest of heretics slide for their divisiveness, you had really need a bias check.
Wisdom is vindicated in all her works.
#1, we want people to return to the pews – the majority do not meet the Sunday mass attendance requirement.
I live in a retirement community where a Mass is offered once a week in a casual and abbreviated style, and a woman from a local parish comes occasionally to distribute Communion after a chatty friendly exchange. Only six or seven people attend including People who are not Catholic (perhaps most are not). The Communion service is not even identified as Catholic and yet everyone goes.
I long for the beauty and even formality of the Mass I grew up with. Today everyone seems o have an agenda, from the Pope on down.
I’m glad to hear you have the Mass & a Catholic presence at your retirement community. That’s something other communities can lack.
If those who aren’t eligible to receive Communion do so, might you have a word with the local parish or the lady who brings Communion? Or do non Catholics just attend without receiving? Good for them at least if they attend.
As a loving convert to Catholicism, I would never have made the step to the Church had the Mass been offered only in Latin. That being said, I wholeheartedly believe it should be available to my sisters and brothers who prefer to worship God in the Traditional way, i.e., via the Latin Mass. It hurts no one and I cannot understand why it is being forbidden. Let us worship God in the language, be it English, French, or Latin, which brings us closest to Him.
What do you thnk of liturgical dance? How about clown Masses? How about balloons and banners at Mass? Do you like strumming hootenanny guitar Masses? Do you like Masses where the celebrant concocts his own Euchatistic Prayers? When I was in college, we selected our own readings for the Mass. We choose The Prophet by Gibran and selections from the Art of Loving by Erick Frome.
I’m happy that you came into the Church. I hope you attend reverent Novus Ordo Masse that convey the Sacred Mysteries..
The Church is not “declaring war” on people who want the TLM. The Church is insisting that the Roman Rite has only one form for current use, which is the form contained in the reformed, post-conciliar liturgical books.
The prior form, that of the TLM, is obsolete now, in other words. No less than an ecumenical council mandated that the prior liturgy be reformed, which concept entails supersession of the prior form.
To continue using the old, obsolete form is to reject the council and its authority. It is to cease to be Catholic and to become Protestants with Latin and incense.
Benedict’s decision to liberalize permission for the TLM was one of his few errors. He meant well, but he could not have predicted that his permission would be levereged into fomenting enclaves of opposition to Vatican II.
If anyone in the Church has declared war, it is the ardent TLM adherents who have declared war on Vatican II.
Sebastián: hate to disagree with you but there’s a full scale persecution of those who find worshipping with the Vetus Ordo their preference.
Would you like the various Byzantine Rites suppressed? They, too, are Catholics.
Amanda! Please re-post your earlier reply to the likes of this inanity.
“The Church is not “declaring war” on people who want the TLM. The Church is insisting that the Roman Rite has only one form for current use, which is the form contained in the reformed, post-conciliar liturgical books.”
The enforcement mechanism is of course war. When one side has all the weapons, they are the ones prosecuting the war.
Great, let’s continue to bleed souls in the name of imposed uniformity for a failed experiment. Show me one measurable dimension where the Church has improved in the last six decades. Maybe Vatican II isn’t the sole or even the most significant cause of the Church’s loss of influence, prestige or uniformity in the past six decades, but it certainly hasn’t delivered on the lofty promises that its participants provided.
You’re a Boomer, aren’t you?
Both forms of the liturgy are legitimate. I don’t understand the problem.
The problem is the former, unreformed liturgy expresses an inadequate, deficient ecclesiology because the assembly has no role in the celebration of the liturgy at all. All they do is watch the priest perform the rite. The assembly is so inessential in the unreformed rite that the rite doesn’t even presume the assembly is in attendance. The unreformed liturgy is a poor and inadequate ritual expression of the Church’s identity, faith, and mission as the body of Christ.
You don’t understand the problem, because it shouldn’t exist, it’s contrived.
The same people that demand the Latin Mass be extinguished under the guise of Vatican II, apparently never read this:
Unitatis Redintegratio:
“All in the Church must preserve unity in essentials. But let all, according to the gifts they have received enjoy a proper freedom, in their various forms of spiritual life and discipline, in their different liturgical rites, and even in their theological elaborations of revealed truth.”
UR 4
Just as the Eastern Liturgies shouldn’t be merely tolerated, but treasured, just as how the Liturgy of the Anglican Ordinariate is accepted in a “proper freedom”, so should the Traditional Mass
Benedict’s Motu Propio respected that. Francis’ retraction was an act of ecclesial imperialism, wrapped in an accusatory rant that the Latin Mass was “being used in an ideological way” (which is rather rich, considering he was once the subject of a book “The Political Pope”). Of course the real give away was his statement about a “reaction against the modern,” And there’s that presenting symptom of the political left again, neophilia or more accurately neomania. It was his Stephen the VI moment against Benedict as Formosus.
If Ecclesial history has any value, Francis will be remembered as pompous and petty tyrant, the great purveyor of poverty sanctimony and the name Bergoglio will be considered with Borgia and DeMedici. Francis’ sole value to the Church is to point out the dangerous nature of ambitious mess makers and Jesuits.
Right on Sebastian. I couldn’t have said it better if I tried very hard.
There is a large body of impressive scholarship demonstrating the superiority of the Latin mass in expressing the theology of the Catholic Church. A good place to start:
The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy
From the publisher’s description:
“Martin Mosebach has identified the central issue of the debate about liturgical reform, which is really a debate about the nature and mission of the Church. This issue is not an argument or factual claim, but an insidious cultural habit of mind which encourages the thought that the outward form of a thing is incidental to its inner meaning and value, and that when a form reflects its contents it must lack authenticity: it must be a fake. But this idea is incompatible with all symbolism, all ritual, and all but the most degraded art. Mosebach’s opposition to this habit of mind is indispensable, and his account of the power of the liturgy is luminous. The Heresy of Formlessness is one of the most important books on the liturgy to be published in the last half-century, and among those certainly the most accessible. I recommend it to everyone.”— JOSEPH SHAW, Chairman, Latin Mass Society of England & Wales
Sebastian, utilizing the older form is not in itself a rejection of Vatican II and papal authority, unless the priest saying it USES it as a tool to counter Rome’s legitimate authority, which we have seen in fringe groups such as schismatic sedevacantist John Mary Foster’s Mission of Divine Mercy, and the Lefebvrian’s SSPX. They claim to defend tradition, yet reject papal authority which goes AGAINST tradition.
The FSSP and the ICK use the older form with permission from the local archbishop and are in full communion with Rome (for now, unless they begin to sympathize with the schismatic SSPX and begin to embrace their erroneous views).
At the end of the day, the Mass, whether it’s in Latin or the vernacular, isn’t the problem, as the Byzantine Rite historically always used the local vernacular language for their liturgies. It’s accepting papal authority and Vatican II.
Please cite the paragraph of Vatican 2 that mandated the removal of the first complete psalm in the Mass: “I will go up to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.”
Then cite the paragraph that explains that the triple Kyrie, pointing to the Trinity, is outdated and should be removed.
Then cite the paragraph that says there should be no more Gregorian chant.
I have also been unable to locate any requirement, or even allowance for celebrating ad populum, in any Vatican 2 Council documents, so please provide that.
Next, share with us where it says altar rails should be removed and Holy Communion should be received in the hand.
I will also be needing the citation for the paragraph calling for the removal of the invocation of the Saints in the Confiteor.
Then share the one that says traditionally used Scripture readings should be removed from the Propers of the Mass, and that 70% of the Propers should be altered or removed.
Also, please provvide the direct citation for inventing new canons for the Mass.
I have read Sacrosanctum Concilium several times, and never found the place where the Council Fathers demanded the removal of the Last Gospel (John 1), so please provide that as well.
As it turns out, the overwhelming majority of the “reforms” were not called for by the Council Fathers, not envisioned by them, and were actually objected to by them once they found out. While valid and licit (when it is celebrated according to the rubrics, remaining faithful to the texts), it is hardly faithful to the documents of Vatican 2. Both Sacrosanctum Concilium and Orientalis Ecclesiarium call for preserving the traditions received.
The same Pope who approved Traditionis Custodes celebrated the Zaire Rite and called for an Amazonian Rite.
His predecessor established the Anglican Use, which develops from the Sarum Rite, not the Novus Ordo or the TLM.
The pre-Vatican-2 Mozarabic Rite, Rite of Braga, Pre-Monstratensian Rite, Dominican Rite, and Carthusian Rites are still in active use. Occasionally someone takes a stab at the Sarum Rite too.
This is publicly available on Wikipedia and other sources. Those who claim there has been only one Latin Rite for the Mass at any point in the last 1000 years (and further back) are either ignorant or are hoping that you are.
The people insisting on the idea that there should/can be one Liturgy are generally those who insist that that “one Liturgy” must be the Novus Ordo. What you write is true, but it weakens their case, not those that favor the Latin Mass since they aren’t promoting exclusivity, but validity.
To suggest that something that was in use and the normative form is invalid despite being instituted “in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used.” (Quo Primum, 1570)
Indeed, one should note that even in Quo Primum, there were exemption from exclusive use of that Mass for liturgies for venerability.
“This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the church by Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years, in which most cases We in no wise rescind their above-mentioned prerogative or custom. However, if this Missal, which we have seen fit to publish, be more agreeable to these latter, We grant them permission to celebrate Mass according to its rite, provided they have the consent of their bishop or prelate or of their whole Chapter, everything else to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The fact that it is the usual purveyors of the “hermeneutics of rupture” that seem most energetic in frustrating the Mass is the very thing that makes me suspicious of it.
If Quo Primum is subject to annulment or recission, than so is Traditionis custodes. The sooner, the better, but I’m not expecting the Pachamama Pope to do it.
The Church’s mission is to bring people closer to God. If the Latin
Mass is doing this, keep it. If it offers no spiritual nourishment,
demand will cease and it will die out on its own – better a natural
death than the suffocation practiced by some bishops.
There is no need for this long divisive controversy. Keep what’s
good, or let it go naturally.
Bingo. Well said, succinct and compelling.
Cardinal Sarah points out the obvious.
It is evil for the Church to be persecuting Catholics who love the Mass as it was celebrated for a thousand years.
That Bergoglio and other Church leaders initiated this persecution just shows how the evil one has gained power in Jesus’ long-suffering Church.
In the Gospels, Christ is seen and understood as speaking lovingly, with kindness, compassion and understanding even towards those who were seeking to take his life so as to bring his ministry to an end.
We only hear of an “angry Christ” when those who are themselves angry are the ones presenting the Gospel.
Christ was even loving towards those who were crucifying him as they were crucifying him
Why is the Church seeking to restrict a rite that has severed the Church since the same was codified and canonized?
If some are comfortable and want to celebrate the Mass in Latin, or any other human language and such adheres to the rite and the rubrics of the same, what is the problem?
We should all be working towards unity rather than divisiveness. We should be promoting Community and communion within the Mystical Body of Christ.
Yours in Christ.
“We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another;”
But, that is exactly what has been done.
“Before the Tridentine Mass was standardized in 1570 by Pope Pius V, the Western Church did not use a single, uniform mass, but rather a wide variety of pre-Tridentine local and regional variants of the Roman Rite along with distinct Western liturgical rites.” From Google
I can only imagine the complaints when multiple local rites that had developed organically and were dear to the faithful were suppressed by the Tridentine Mass.
They apparently got used to the “novus ordo” of their day but it took more than 60 years of declaring war on the multiple rites that had existed for 1000 years.
Making America great again!
Hey Diogenes! If we all replied to nonsense that way, I imagine some so conundrumized they’d scratch the hair right off their heads and retreat to faraway hills or holes.
Vatican II goes against the understanding of the liturgy that for centuries was held by the Church and that was formalized at the great Council of Trent and by Pope Saint Pius V in the sixteenth century.
This is the Tridentine Mass, the proper name of the “Latin Mass.” See this:
“In its standardization of the liturgy, he Council of Trent (1545–1563) affirmed the use of Latin for the Roman rite while condemning the use of the vernacular languages, which was introduced by the Protestant Reform.
—LATIN HAD ALREADY BEEN THE STANDARD LITURGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH FOR NEARLY A MILLENNIUM.
—THE COUNCIL of Trent DECISION TO CODIFY AND STANDARDIZE THE EXISTING LITURGY WAS FINALIZED BY POPE SAINT PIUS V IN 1570 THROUGH THE PAPAL BULL QUO PRIMUM, WHICH PROMULGATED THE ROMAN MISSAL.
This Missal, known as the Tridentine Mass, mandated uniformity in the celebration of the Eucharist across the Latin Church, preserving Latin as the official language. “
-SO VATICAN II NULLIFIED THIS (AMONG OTHERS) TEACHING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AND OF POPE SAINT PIUS V
Saint Pius V was the same pope who organized the war alliance called The Holy League to combat the advance of the Muslim Turks, and which defeated them at Lepanto, with the Christian warriors praying the rosary and asking for divine help before the battle to defeat the enemies in battle, as requested the Saint Pius V; the victory was celebrated for many years as the day of Our Lady of Victory; but the CC eventually changed it to Our Lady of the Rosary, as “victory:” was too strong a word for the increasingly wimpy CC.
–The proper name of the “Latin” mass is the Tridentine Mass.
I’m sure all those pre-Tridentine Mass goers were pretty upset about their preferred Masses being suppressed. They survived it and so will we.
Suzanne: why don’t you come right out and say, “They can all just go to hell.”
Susanne is the most intelligent poster here. Everybody should read her posts in gratitude.
And God will survive our spitting Him in the face for preferring irreverence to reverence. But He might even get more angry at those who treat reverence with condescension.
The only rites that were suppressed were those less than 300 years old. Nothing ancient. Most of those older Rites survive to this day, the Sarum Rite was crushed by Anglican persecutions, and others were gradually replaced, when a unanimous vote of priests in the diocese desired it.
Apply the same rules to the TLM, and it would be widely available.
I don’t remember hearing about anyone ever holding a gun to someone’s head and forcibly making them sit through a valid Mass prayed in Latin according to the Extraordinary Form.
Please correct me if my information is inaccurate.
My fallen away Catholic neighbor was telling me he went to a funeral mass for a friend about fifteen years ago. Another fallen Catholic lady who apparently hadn’t been in a Catholic church since her youth decades earlier, turned to him as they processed after towards the hearse and remarked, “That’s not the Catholic church.”
—LATIN HAD ALREADY BEEN THE STANDARD LITURGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE WESTERN CHURCH FOR NEARLY A MILLENNIUM. Trent and Saint Pius V STANDARDIZED Latin. They did not introduce it.
“In its standardization of the liturgy, he Council of Trent (1545–1563) affirmed the use of Latin for the Roman rite while condemning the use of the vernacular languages, which was introduced by the Protestant Reform.
Silverbacks remember only too well the 1970’s abuses floated under the label Novus Ordo.
Three comments and a link:
FIRST, the tension today is NOT really between TLM and Novus Ordo (two forms of the SAME Rite), but rather between TLM and the Bugnini abuse and all of the experimental departures (e.g., clown masses) from what was actually authorized (!) by the Second Vatican Council. Read “Sacrosanctum Concilium” (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.)https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
As with the later sexual abuse scandal, the bishops of the day failed to govern when they declined to monitor the situation and, as required, refer the Mass experiments to Rome.
SECOND, so, the stench of Bugnini still colors perceptions of the Novus Ordo even as it has been cleaned up over the years. About Bugnini see (below) part of a CWR comment by “Chris in Maryland” on August 25, 2025, 3:28 a.m. Other posts have documented Bugnini’s membership in the Freemasons. One anecdote recalls how he was asked on his deathbed whether he was a Freemason, to which he said “no.” One present asked another, why did he say “no,” and the answer was “because he was a Freemason.”
THIRD (CWR August 25, 2025): “As to Bugnini. We have, courtesy of Fr. Louis Bouyer, in his Memoirs, the benefit of a first person account of Bugnini (and what the late Laszlo Dobssy calls “The Bugnini Mass”). Fr. Bouyer, who served on the committee that Bugnini ran, to come up with a new mass, recounts in detail how Bugnini would lie to the face of committee members that Paul VI was demanding changes that were in fact desired by Bugnini, and then when Bugnini presented the changes to Paul VI, who expressed concern (etc), Bugnini would then lie to the face of Paul VI, and tell him that the committee were unanimous in urging the changes fabricated by Bugnini. Bouyer summed up Bugnini as a man ‘as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty’.”
LINK: As a university student during the critical years 1962-65 and later, it was my good fortune to come under the stabilizing influence of a Dominican priest (a convert) who suffering through all of it was totally devoted to the sacramental Real Presence—the Mass as more than a facsimile or, yes, a “memorial,” but as the very renewal and extension (!) of Christ’s singular (!) and total Self-donation at Calvary. The sacrifice and a communion, both (CCC 1374).
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/05/24/at-a-secular-university-does-god-talk-to-people/
After reading all the comments above, I cannot help but wonder how most of you rationalize your decision to remain in this church. Christ said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Clearly, from your comments, the gates of hell have prevailed against the church. It is a divided church, and the leadership is in the grip of the evil one. Why do you remain in this church? Clearly this is not the church that Christ established. The one he established is protected from the attacks of hell. It is obvious that the SSPX is the one true church.
I can’t help but wonder how much of this rage and discontent and division comes down to the simple misfortune of the timing of the liturgical reform at a moment that was an utter cultural nadir in all the arts at once. In art, in literature, in music, in architecture, that period was a cultural wasteland, producing nothing of profit, beauty, or inspiration in either the public or religious spheres. It is not that things have greatly improved since. Culture waxes and wanes on a long cycle. But I can’t help wondering whether, if the change had come fifty years earlier, or perhaps fifty years hence, if it would have produced something of far greater dignity and beauty, and therefore have found far greater acceptance across the spectrum.
It is about far more than the language:
“The movement to restore Tradition with the Tridentine Mass is not chiefly about the change in externals. There are Novus Ordo Masses said in Latin, in an ad orientem position, and with beautiful Gregorian chant, all offered in ornate parishes.
Even if these are a rare exception to the norm, they are still vastly different from the Tridentine Mass due to the very prayers at the heart of the Mass.
To understand why, an examination of the various prayers exorcised from the Tridentine Mass is in order.
The Various Prayers Exorcised from the Tridentine Mass in the 1960s:
• The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar: Removed is Psalm 42 and the various prayers said by the priest and the servers expressing their own unworthiness to enter the sanctuary and calling on God for mercy.
•
• The Confiteor: The Confiteor (i.e., “I Confess”) has been completely reworded and watered down. No longer do we call on St. Michael the Archangel, St. John the Baptist, or the holy Apostles Saints Peter and Paul as our witnesses.
• The Introit: The introit is entirely optional in the Novus Ordo and rarely ever said.
•
• The readings: The entire system of readings was radically deleted and replaced with a 3-year lectionary that often displaces the common of saints for readings from the temporal cyclE AND REMOVES KEY VERSES THAT MODERN CHURCHMEN HAVE FOUND CONTROVERSIAL.
•
• ONE KEY EXAMPLE is 1 Corinthians 11:27 where St. Paul admonishes against unworthy Communions. This verse was repeated three times in the one-year cycle of readings at the Tridentine Mass, including on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi – in addition to any Thursday Votive Masses in Honor of the Blessed Sacrament. In the Novus Ordo it is found not once. As a result, while there are still readings in the Novus Ordo, they are not the same as the Tridentine Mass for the vast majority of days.[3]
•
• THE OFFERTORY: THE OFFERTORY WAS COMPLETELY AND ENTIRELY DELETED AND REPLACED IN THE NOVUS ORDO BY TWO JEWISH MEAL BLESSINGS.
• The THEOLOGY OF THE OFFERTORY IN THE TRIDENTINE MASS IS ENTIRELY MISSING from the Novus Ordo in a radical departure from how the Mass has always been said.
•
• The Canon: The Roman Canon is the most sacred part of the Liturgy and has only been changed over time extremely gradually. Already in the very early Church the Canon was virtually set, and only small changes were made in the subsequent centuries, like the addition of Diesque nostros in tua pace disponas (“And mayst thou dispose our days in thy peace”) by Pope St. Gregory the Great, who reigned 590 – 604 AD. It has remained largely untouched since then.
The Novus Ordo permits several different Canons, which is a radical innovation.
According to The Ottaviani Intervention by Cardinal Ottaviani in his critique of Vatican II, concerning these other canons: “In the Eucharistic Prayers, moreover, the repeated petitions to God that He accept the Sacrifice have also been suppressed; thus, there is no longer any clear distinction between Divine and human sacrifice.”
Father Cassian Folsom, O.S.B also said: “This is a radical change in the Roman liturgy. Why aren’t more people aware of the enormity of this change? Perhaps since the canon used to be said silently, its contents and merits were known to priests, to be sure, but not to most of the laity. Hence when the Eucharistic Prayer began to be said aloud in the vernacular, with four to choose from — and the Roman canon chosen rarely, if ever — the average layman did not realize that 1600 years of tradition had suddenly vanished like a lost civilization, leaving few traces behind, and those of interest only to archaeologists and tourists.”
• The Communion: The prayers for Holy Communion have changed as well.
•
• It was Martin Luther who desired that the priest and the people’s Communion should be united rather than the priest receive and then the people receive after another set of prayers are offered. And sadly, his error confusing the sacerdotal office of the priest and that of the people assisting at the Sacrifice has been codified in the Novus Ordo. This change, along with the allowance of Communion in the hand and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, has led to widespread apostasy and blasphemy. Yet sadly, in the Novus Ordo the words of St. Paul against unworthy Communions are no longer repeated. And the people are as sheep without a shepherd to guide them.
• THE LAST GOSPEL: REMOVED FROM THE MISSAL, THE LAST GOSPEL IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE NOVUS ORDO. Taken usually from the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John, it is said at nearly every Tridentine Mass. In the Novus Ordo, the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel is recited only once in the entire year.
• The Leonine Prayers: Gone are the Leonine Prayers, which are needed more than ever for the Consecration of Russia.
For a detailed section-by-section comparison of the Novus Ordo and the Tridentine Mass, please click here.[4]
Consequently, the fight for the Tridentine Mass is about far more than just the sacred language of Latin.”
https://fatima.org/news-views/catholic-apologetics-160/