Is This Rome's New Tactic to Destroy Holy Mass?

[Stone]

Is This Rome's New Tactic to Destroy Holy Mass?

gloria.tv | July 30, 2024

On 25 July, it was announced that the Vatican had asked the Dominican Sisters of Pontcalec to modify the Roman Rite [Latin Mass] by introducing the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar, the Novus Ordo readings, and the prefaces invented by Paul VI.

According to Peter Kwasniewski (NewLiturgicalMovement.org, 29 July), the Vatican is conducting an experiment here that it would like to extend to all institutes of the Roman Rite.

This tactic would not consist in suppressing the Roman Rite, but in hybridising it with the Novus Ordo.

Thus, the diktat could be issued that the Roman Rite may be "retained", but the Novus Ordo calendar, lectionary and prefaces must always be used instead of those proper to the Roman Rite.

Kwasniewski fears that this is the next and more subtle strategy of the Vatican nomenclature, which has realised that it cannot achieve the direct and total abolition of the Roman Rite.

[Stone]

The above referenced New Liturgical Movement article [emphasis mine]:

July 29, 2024

The Next Possible Anti-TLM Strategy: A Novus Ordo/TLM Hodge-Podge
to Demonstrate “Acceptance of the Reform”
by Peter Kwasniewski

Convent de Sant Francesc, Santpedor, Spain (source)

In a press release dated July 25, 2024, the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit, a community that celebrated the traditional rite for decades but was then ordered by the Vatican to begin to adopt the Novus Ordo, announced that the Vatican had given them detailed stipulations as to how they should proceed in the future. As of December 1, 2024:

The Holy See asks us to follow the liturgical calendar currently in force in the Universal Church for the Roman rite [i.e., the Novus Ordo calendar]; it also asks that in our various houses, Mass be celebrated according to the Novus Ordo one week of the a month, with the exception of Sundays, while the Vetus Ordo remains in use for the other three weeks and every Sunday. It specifies that the Mass readings for each day will be those of the current Roman lectionary, and that all the prefaces of the Paul VI Missal will be used for Masses according to the Vetus Ordo. [1]

The Vatican here targets a vulnerable community of nuns, heavily reliant on the outside support of priests [2], in order to run an experiment that it would like, if possible, to extend to all TLM institutes, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer, the Fontgombault monasteries, and so forth: namely, not to suppress the old rite, but to hybridize it with the Novus Ordo. Thus, the diktat might be issued that the old Ordo Missae may be retained, but the Novus Ordo calendar, lectionary, and prefaces must be used at all times, instead of the ones proper to the classical Roman rite.

This idea is hardly a new one. In fact, Traditionis Custodes already seems to have envisaged it in the following passage: “In these celebrations the readings are proclaimed in the vernacular language, using translations of the Sacred Scripture approved for liturgical use by the respective Episcopal Conferences.” The obvious sense of these words is that the new lectionary was to be imposed on TLM communities. Yet the motu proprio was so badly written, so clumsily revised, and so hugely controversial from the first moment, that this provision was basically ignored by nearly everyone (and rightly so: see here, here, and here).

This deconstruction by hybridization, and the resulting fractures in unity it would bring about in the traditionalist movement, would be the next and more subtle strategy for officials who have realized they cannot achieve direct and total abolition of the old rite. If you can’t beat them, why not assimilate them in some fashion?

Another view of the same church, which on both the outside and inside was renovated with modernist elements (source).

Such moves would, of course, undermine the integrity of the rite and make it a hodge-podge. As Joseph Shaw is especially good at explaining (see this pamphlet and this book), the old rite and the new rite each has its own “design principles,” if one may use that expression. Each is consistent from start to finish at pursuing certain goals with certain means. In the old rite, the inflexibility of the rubrics, the separation of priest from people, the use of a hieratic language, the frequent periods of silent prayer, the exclusive use of the Roman Canon, the fixed, limited, and repeated texts, etc., form a phenomenological and theological unity. In the new rite, the compact order of celebration, the interaction with the people, the verbalization of nearly everything, the options, the looser movements, the ample portions of Scripture, the clerically controlled silences, the vernacular extroversion, and so forth, also form a phenomenological and theological unity.

I think that clergy and laity who are familiar with the two rites are well aware of the many profound differences between them. While the new rite presents itself as an assemblage of modules, which can be explained both by the manner of its genesis and by the intention of situational adaptability, the old rite is most definitely nothing of the sort, and it cannot be treated as if it were a lego-brick toy in which one can swap out some blue pieces for some yellow pieces.

Indeed, almost every proposal for “improving” the old rite either rests on questionable antiquarian premises or betrays a faulty understanding of how the old rite works. (See my article “The Liturgical Rollercoaster: A Recent Proposal for 14 ‘Improvements’ to the TLM.”)

Anyone who knows about the hundreds of obvious and subtle differences between the old and new calendars will see immediately that combining the old rite with the new calendar is a non-starter. For one thing, the hagiocentricity so characteristic of the old rite will be instantly compromised. For another, the symbolic and numerological patterns that fill the old calendar will be lost without a trace.

Of all the changes, the one that is most alarming is the forcing of the new lectionary into the old rite. This is a topic I have extensively researched and written about. For convenience, I will list here the main articles in which I have sought to articulate the profound rationale for the first-millenium lectionary and to point out the new lectionary’s numerous flaws:

• A Systematic Critique of the New Lectionary, On the Occasion of Its Fiftieth Anniversary
  
• Mythbusting: Why the TLM’s Lectionary Is Superior to the New Lectionary (this talk overlaps to an extent with the preceding)
  
• Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture—Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries
  
• A Tale of Two Lectionaries: Qualitative versus Quantitative Measures
  
• The Omission that Haunts the Church—1 Corinthians 11:27-29
  
• How Typical Lector Praxis Transmits a Pelagian and Protestant Message
  
• A Great Example of an Expurgated Reading in the New Lectionary
  
• Is Reading More Scripture at Mass Always Better?
  
• Floating in the Sea, Not Drinking from the Firehose
  
• The New Lectionary and the Catholic Wedding
  
• How the New Lectionary Treats (or Doesn’t) the Antichrist
  
• The Annunciation and the Subtle Use of Gospels in the Old Roman Rite
  
• In Defense of Preserving Readings in Latin
  
• Against Vernacular Readings in the Traditional Mass
  
• What’s Wrong with the New Lectionary (audio only)
  

Of related interest:

The Omission of ‘Difficult’ Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter

(I am currently at work on a book that will offer a comprehensive apologia for the old lectionary and critique of the new one; look for it in the coming year.)

The experiment in running the old and new rites together was already tried years ago by the monks of Norcia, who started as a “biritual” community that offered Mass in the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo, while singing the old monastic office. Over time, the incoherence of the alternating rites, the clashing of calendars, the lack of tight interaction between Mass and Office, and other inconveniences so pressed upon them that the monks unanimously chose a fully traditional way of life and worship, which instantly brought “pax liturgica”—the ability to rest in the rites of tradition, as countless monks, clerics, and laymen had done for centuries. And in this case, the lack of peace wasn’t a hybridized rite—God forbid—but a mere alternation between them.

I feel genuinely sorry for the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit, as they now embark on the bumpy, cratered, agitating road of incoherence that wiser monks and nuns have left behind: a forced and clumsy attempt to fit new in old, and old in new, will make the resulting neither-this-nor-that liturgical life more self-conscious and wearisome. And to think they are making this shift in 2024—decades after the problems of the new rite have been exhaustively experienced and canvassed! After so many souls, responsive to the same Holy Spirit who raised up for us these noble apostolic rites in their millennial plenitude, have successfully left behind the “banal on-the-spot product” for good! Thus we see the devastating results of placing obedience to renegade authorities higher than obedience to any other principle, including the universal and unanimous acceptance of liturgical tradition that has characterized Western religious life from its dawn until the rise of ultramontanism.

Nor is my concern limited to the current heads, more or less competent, of Roman dicasteries. For there are figures within the traditional movement who would gladly throw open the gates to the Trojan Horse of late Liturgical Movement innovations in order to maintain what they considered the core of their commitment. For example, in certain years on Pentecost Monday of the Chartres pilgrimage, the Epistle and Gospel have been read in French toward the congregation rather than being chanted in Latin while facing eastwards and northwards (a practice whose deep theological and symbolic meaning is explained in this lecture). Apparently many French and German priests who offer the TLM believe that the readings should be given in the vernacular only, and facing the people. This mentality is a consequence of a fundamental failure to understand the role of the Word of God in the Eucharistic liturgy, reflecting widespread errors—largely rationalist in origin—about the exclusively or primarily “instructional” nature of the first part of the Mass. [3]

Imagine a future pope—let us call him Pius XIII, perhaps hailing from Africa or Asia—who, with all the good intentions in the world, wishes to end the “liturgy wars” and therefore decides to produce a hybrid missal for the “Roman Rite” that combines what he, or a committee he appoints, decides are the best features of both. At this point it is almost a foregone conclusion that, among its components, such a hybrid rite would begin from the old Ordo Missae but adopt the new lectionary, precisely because it is considered such a great success, indeed a necessary step of progress in the Church’s relationship with the Bible.

I have no inside information about what is being planned, but it’s not difficult to connect the dots and to make projections. I say none of this to be a fearmonger or to promote anxiety. I simply wish to warn traditional clergy and faithful of the kind of maneuvers that our antagonists have in mind, so that we can make sure we ourselves understand well the rationale behind the traditional practices of the Roman Rite and, on that basis, be prepared to offer respectful but firm resistance to any attempts at diluting or destroying the integrity of that tradition. If or when the Dicastery for Divine Worship (or the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life) issues the command to adopt the new calendar, the new lectionary, and the new prefaces, we must be ready to say:

Non licet. Non possumus. It is not permitted. We cannot do it.

[1] Communiqué du 25 juillet 2024, translated from https://www.dominicaines-du-saint-esprit...llet-2024/.

[2] This is a trial run on a vulnerable group of nuns who seem to be in the grip of a false conception of obedience (see my work True Obedience in the Church for a full explanation). As for Donneaud’s critique of the French translation of my book, I think it is sufficient to point to John Lamont’s refutation of it here.

[3] It goes without saying that there is an instructional aspect, and that is why it has usually been the custom for the preacher to read the readings in the vernacular from the pulpit before his sermon. This is not a liturgical reading but a paraliturgical reading, for the benefit of those who do not know the Latin readings or have not followed them in a hand missal. Nor does it hurt to hear and read the readings twice, a point to which I will return later.

[Stone]

Mr. Taylor, editor of the The Recusant, wrote on this very topic in the context of the SSPX in April of 2023:

The SSPX Moves Closer to Accepting the New Mass

PART 4 - The SSPX and the “Hybrid Mass”


Ugly architecture aside, let us return to the question “Why?” Why does it have to be a freestanding altar which could be approached from the other side and one day used to say Mass facing the people? Doubtless the SSPX is not about to start offering the New Mass or even the Traditional Mass facing the people any time soon. But could they do so one day? Might there not be those within the hierarchy of the SSPX who have one eye on preparing for that day? Is that really so paranoid and far-fetched? Do we perhaps need a little more than some “coincidences” of architecture as evidence for such a suspicion?

Exhibit A is an excerpt from an interview given ten years ago by the then- District Superior of the USA, Fr. Arnaud Rostand:

“Angelus Press: Father, you also mentioned the maintenance of the 1962 Missal as one of the essential conditions of the Society's future. There are some reports that in the near future Rome may come out with an updated or hybrid version of the 1962 Missal. Would the Society ever consider adopting this?

Fr. Rostand: First of all, the reports of the hybrid Mass are uncertain and conflicting. It is difficult to base any position on theoretical or hypothetical things that may happen. Now, the General Chapter has made a clear statement of having the right to use the 1962 Missal and has always been in the mind of the Archbishop a prudential way of dealing with the disaster we find ourselves in today.”
(http://archives.sspx.org/District_Superiors_Ltrs/2013_ds_ltrs/fr_rostand_12-19
-2012_ap_interview/fr_rostand_12-19-2012_ap_interview-part_2.htm)

Supposedly “conflicting” reports aside, Benedict XVI had long been a big supporter and promoter of the idea of mixing and mashing the New Mass together with the Traditional Mass to create a “hybrid” missal (the French call it the “PiPaul Mass” - Pius V, Paul VI - as though there could ever be any comparison between those two Popes!) The question was clear and simple: “Would the SSPX ever consider adopting” the hybrid Novus-Traditional Missal?

Notice what Fr. Rostand pointedly didn’t say: he didn’t say “No!” He said that it’s still at the hypothetical stage and what’s important is that we have the right to use the 1962 missal. That means, in effect, yes. We would consider the hybrid Mass.

Might such a Mass conceivably be celebrated facing the people on a freestanding altar, the way the New Mass usual is usually  celebrated? Take a look at the horrors which took place in the years 1965-70, after the Council but before the New Mass came out, and one will see that such a thing is far from impossible. The traditional Mass, but translated into the vernacular, facing the people, in “dialogue Mass” form and shorn of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar and the Last Gospel. And yet, if such a thing were one day to make a come-back, there would be no shortage of people out there willing and ready to defend it as being perfectly
“Traditional,” the SSPX amongst them, one suspects.

Is this too great a stretch, are we exaggerating when we say that the SSPX would be more willing to accept a hybrid Novus/Traditional Mass? We have just quoted the response of one SSPX grandee to that very question. Here is another piece of evidence.


Exhibit B is the book Benoit XVI et les Traditionalistes (‘Benedict XVI and the Traditionalists’) by SSPX priest Fr Gregoire Celier, which appeared some sixteen or more years ago and has since been promoted by the SSPX within the French district and further afield.

A fair and thorough critique can be found in French here: http://benj.barrer.free.fr/Biblioth%
E9que/Crise/CritiquedePaulChauss%E9e-BENOITXVIetlesTRADIS.pdf

Suffice it to say that Fr. Celier favours the idea of a hybrid Novus-Traditional Mass, to the point of promoting it as the answer to all the Church’s woes. He names this concept the “PiPaul Mass” (“Pius-Paul”, after Pius V and Paul VI):

“He [i.e. Fr Celier] imagines that a hybrid rite could be born, which he calls the ‘PiPaul Mass,’ a mixture of the rite of ‘Pius’ and the rite of ‘Paul,’ of the Mass of St. Pius V and the Mass of Paul VI, which could be used by young priests to ‘take the new liturgy which they are celebrating in public and re-root it in Tradition’ (p.196), but also that it could be used ‘to improve through interbreeding’ the rite which they prefer, according to what Benedict XVI disturbingly calls ‘mutual enrichment.’

[Il imagine que pourrait naître un rite hybride qu’il appelle « messe pipaule », mélange du rite « Pie » et du rite « Paul », de la messe saint Pie V et de la messe Paul VI, qui pourrait être utilisé par les jeunes prêtres pour « réenraciner dans la tradition la liturgie nouvelle qu’ils célèbrent en public » (p. 196). Mais aussi pour “améliorer par métissage” le rite qu’ils préfèrent selon l’inquiétante option que Benoît XVI appelle « enrichissement réciproque ».]

We could quote more - there is more where that came from. The point is that the idea of a mish-mash hybrid Novus-Traditional Mass is not quite so anathema to the SSPX as some might think. Bear in mind also that this was back in 2007 or so, before the SSPX had ever put into writing its belief that the New Mass had been “legitimately promulgated by Pope Paul VI…” - in the infamous Doctrinal Declaration of April 2012.


Exhibit C - in 2014 a conciliar bishop claimed that Bishop Fellay had expressed to him his support for the idea of mixing together the New Mass and the Traditional Mass. In his article for the website newliturgicalmovement.org, after talking about the need for a “liturgical reform” to make the Traditional Mass more like the New Mass (so that modern people don’t feel too alienated at it), Bishop Peter J Elliot, who was at that point auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia, wrote:

“We know what that reform would look like. We already have it at our fingertips. It would be a Latin dialogue Mass, said or sung ad orientem, with the readings in the vernacular. Then questions arise about some other changes set out in Sacrosanctum Concilium. In the context of the wider Church another issue inevitably emerges: could the Extraordinary Form be said or sung in the vernacular?

Several years ago I was surprised to hear this proposed during dialogue over lunch with Bishop Fellay and Australian priests of the Society of St Pius X.”  (https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/20...sible.html)

Bishop Fellay and/or “his priests” proposed the Tridentine Mass but all in English (the vernacular), is that so? I can already hear the SSPX apologist trying to spin his way out of this one: Elliott never said that it was Bishop Fellay himself who proposed it! Very well, but if this wasn’t Bishop Fellay himself, merely one of “his priests”, then at the very least Bishop Fellay must not have intervened, meaning that he tacitly approved, or at any rate, allowed Bishop Elliott to think that he approved. Or perhaps Bishop Elliott is one of those diabolically inspired calumniators and rumour-mongers about whom the SSPX back in 2014 was  continually warning us? Perhaps Bishop Elliott made the whole thing up and there isn’t an ounce of truth to any of it? That doesn’t seem at all probable, why would he tell straight up lies like that, and why would the ‘New Liturgical Movement’ open themselves up to a lawsuit by publishing something which was totally untrue?

And in any case, that is not the only example of this sort of thing leaking out into the conciliar media. Here is another example.


Exhibit D - In January 2013, Cardinal Canizares told Catholic News Agency how Bishop Fellay had made remarks to him of a similar tenor:

“According to a Spanish cardinal, the superior general of the Society of St. Pius X once said that if the group's leader had seen the [New] Mass celebrated properly, he may not have broken off from the Church.

Cardinal Antonio Canizares, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, made this statement on Jan. 15 in response to questions from reporters after he delivered an address on Vatican II at the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See.

‘On one occasion,’ Cardinal Canizares recalled, ‘Bishop Bernard Fellay, who is the leader of the Society of St. Pius X, came to see me and said, “We just came from an abbey that is near Florence. If Archbishop (Marcel) Lefebvre had seen how they celebrated there, he would not have taken the step that he did.” The missal used at that celebration was the Paul VI Missal in its strictest form,’ the cardinal added.”
(https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/...have-split)

Ah. Well, maybe Cardinal Canizares is also lying, calumniating and inventing things which never really happened, just like Bishop Elliot? Maybe they’re both lying or twisting things? Does that sound the least bit probable? To be sure, Bishop Fellay tried to backpedal from this one, and issued a “clarification” (here) which leaves things looking as clear as mud. But taken together as a whole, isn’t the evidence pointing in one direction?

How about an interview with Bishop Fellay, published by the SSPX itself, where one can read Bishop Fellay’s own words touching on the question of “liturgical reform” and the so-called “hybrid Mass”?


Exhibit E is an interview with Bishop Fellay which appeared in late June 2015. Right at the end of the interview, the question of mixing together the Traditional and Novus Ordo liturgies comes up. See for yourself:

“Interviewer: What do you think of Cardinal Sarah’s suggestion of introducing the traditional offertory into the New Mass?

“Bishop Fellay: It is not a new idea; it has been around in Rome for ten years. I am glad it has been taken up again. Some criticize the idea, saying it is a way of mixing the profane with the sacred. On the contrary, in the perspective of bringing health back to the Church, I think it would be a great step forward. …”

Curiously enough, the link to this interview has since been removed, although it was there and its full text can still be found reproduced on various other websites. Who knows what’s going on there. Anyway, Cardinal Sarah must be one of those good guys in Rome about whom Bishop Fellay was always talking so enthusiastically, so optimistically. And notice, he’s “glad” at the idea of mixing the Traditional and Novus Ordo rites. It’s “a great step forward” and a means of “bringing health back to the Church.” Doubtless there will be some who will defend these words by claiming that Bishop Fellay was talking about what they do, not what we do. And doubtless that is the case. But it is also true that from approving something in principle is only a short step from doing it oneself.


Summary

Let us review the evidence so far. Fr. Paul Robinson is not only a priest of the SSPX, he has just been appointed in charge of the SSPX’s biggest printing house, Angelus Press, by his superiors. His words can therefore be taken to be representative of the SSPX as a whole. Quo Primum, we are told, does not bind any of the Popes who came after St. Pius V and was written for the benefit of the printers, parish priests and the like. Despite the text itself, Quo Primum does not “forever have the force of law,” and Paul VI was thus free to do whatever he wanted to the Mass. Traditionalist of an earlier generation, men such as the late Fr. Gregory Hesse, are to be buried  and forgotten, whilst men such as Pius Parsch are to be gently  rehabilitated with a wink and a nudge.

The SSPX has shown a worrying tendency in recent years towards favouring the so-called hybrid Mass where Mass would be celebrated with a mixture of Traditional and Novus Ordo liturgy, and at the same time the same SSPX seems now to be exhibiting a predilection for freestanding altars with steps going all the way around on both sides whenever they have the opportunity to build a sanctuary from scratch.

Put all the evidence together and what do we have? We may not witness a priest of the SSPX celebrate the so-called “hybrid” Mass, vernacular Mass or Mass facing the people for another decade or more. Or it might happen sooner than many think. Either way, in the opinion of this author it is a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ Watch out!




“Yn lle allol; trestyl trist” [In place of an altar, there is a miserable table!]

- St. Richard Gwynn

“We will have the Mass in Latin as it was before, and celebrated by the priest without any man or woman communicating with him. We will not receive this New Service which is like a Christmas game, but we will have our old service of Matins, Mass, Evensong and Procession in Latin as it was before. … We utterly refuse this new English.”

- From a letter containing a list of demands sent to the English government by the Catholic ‘rebels’ 

of the Western Rising of 1549, aka the “Prayer Book Rebellion”.

“The language proper to the Roman Church is Latin. Hence it is forbidden to sing anything whatever in the vernacular in solemn liturgical functions - much more to sing in the vernacular the variable or common parts of the Mass and Office.”

-Pope Saint Pius X, ‘Tra le Sollecitudini,’ 22nd November, 1903